What is enlightenment?
We all know that Kant is considered as a master of enlightenment. So what is enlightenment? Enlightenment can be said to be a topic repeatedly discussed by countless thinkers and critics. Some postmodernists, such as Foucault or Lyotard, simply think that the Enlightenment itself is the product of historical fiction and is not so enlightening. Of course, I'm not as extreme as them. I think enlightenment still exists. Because the Enlightenment spread to many countries, mainly German-speaking, French-speaking, Italian-speaking and English-speaking areas. So it is difficult to generalize its characteristics.
I personally summarized the basic ideas of the Enlightenment as the following topics: One * * * has five. The first topic is the topic of individual intellectual independence. Kant wrote a very important article "What is Enlightenment". In this article, he pointed out that enlightenment is to save mankind from some immature state caused by itself, which especially refers to the state of submission to authoritative opinions.
For example, in the typical Middle Ages before the Enlightenment, serfs did not feel the need to think about many issues independently. Because baron, duke and viscount will tell him what to do, and they will leave with their brains. All he has to do is obey the orders of these masters, wives and young ladies. But enlightenment means that this state is wrong. Don't be superstitious about authority, save yourself from superstition and submission to authoritative opinions. Or light up your ignorant mind with a bright lamp. Obviously, according to this view, every individual has potential intelligence and makes effective judgments with an independent attitude.
Of course, different enlighteners have different answers to the nature of rationality. European rationalists believe that the essence of rationality is rational reasoning, while British empiricists believe that the essence of rationality is empirical induction. There are some disputes between the two sides in this regard.
But we all know that everyone's life is limited and his intelligence is limited. You can't ask everyone to be as smart as Einstein, so how to solve the huge conflict between the finiteness of individual life and the infinity of knowledge? In the absence of historical authority itself, how can individuals increase their rational judgment through efficient learning?
This involves the second topic of the Enlightenment. This topic is to build a public knowledge base, which can first be embodied as a library. For example, Leibniz wrote a bibliography of 2,500 books as an introductory reading, and at that time, all parts of Europe began to compile bibliographies and catalogues to build an all-inclusive library. At the same time, in order to facilitate academic debate, scientific journals are becoming more and more popular.
The so-called Hundred Sciences School has made the greatest contribution to the construction of public knowledge base. The main representatives of this school are Diderot, Montesquieu and Voltaire. The encyclopedias we see today are all disciples and grandchildren of encyclopedias at that time. It can popularize knowledge with short and pithy terms, so that an individual can obtain the knowledge he needs through very convenient search. Take China as an example. I think the popularity of Baidu Encyclopedia has actually produced many amateur historians in China. Now you're going to check an ancient birthday. He's a satrap. You can get the answer by checking this mobile phone. It used to take a lot of effort to get this kind of information, which is the advantage of enlightenment.
The third topic of enlightenment is the independence of secular life, that is, secular life has its independent dignity. Everyone thinks it's strange. Of course, secular life has its independence and dignity. Why emphasize it? This is because the secular life in the Middle Ages was not independent. Religious life is pervasive in secular life, and we can always feel the influence of the Holy See in secular life.
However, the Enlightenment advocated the separation of church and state, that is to say, God belongs to God, the secular world belongs to the secular world, and the real government operation is not affected by religious forces. This view can be said to be an important dividing line between Renaissance thought and Enlightenment thought. Although the Renaissance thought and the Enlightenment thought are similar in many directions, what is the biggest difference? As far as the funding of many Renaissance movements to the Vatican is concerned, great artists like Michelangelo all serve the Vatican, and the content of his paintings is also related to religion. But in the eyes of the enlightener, secular life should be separated from religious life.
But then again, the existence of religious power in political power cannot be completely denied. Because the church could have played the role of a final arbiter in the disputes of secular forces, now that the power of the church has withdrawn, the risk of political life falling into disorder has greatly increased.
So how to avoid this disorder? The enlighteners found other normative resources as the bottom line of human social behavior, which is their fourth topic, namely the topic of universal humanitarianism. This topic also has a very far-reaching impact on our political philosophy today. In other words, the possibility of realizing everyone's free value is infinite. Therefore, on the value level, everyone is equal to others. A large number of institutional arrangements have been derived from this concept, but the equal rights mechanism has been artificially strengthened.
If these arrangements can work, it will lead the enlightener to raise the last important topic, namely historical progressivism. In other words, the development direction of human history is towards the continuous realization of universal humanitarianism.
Kant's Enlightenment Thought
These topics are all reflected in Kant. For example, the topic of individual intellectual independence was put forward by Kant himself. Kant himself put forward a very important slogan in what is enlightenment, which is called "Dare to know", and dare to see the world and the society clearly with his own brain. Don't listen to others' nonsense, use your own brain, which is called dare to know. Of course, this statement is very, very vulgar. If we want to put forward Kant's specific technical suggestions on this issue, it involves the transcendental argument that I will talk about later.
As for the necessity of establishing public knowledge base mentioned above, it is also reflected in Kant. You see, Kant's life is a life of extensive involvement in various disciplines. He can be said to be an encyclopedic philosopher.
In addition, when it comes to the independence of secular life, Kant's religious philosophy is actually about this thing. He wants to draw a line between nature and freedom, and also between religion itself. He believes that religion itself cannot interfere with the phenomenal world. The topic of universal humanitarianism is fully embodied in Kant's moral philosophy. The theme of historical progressivism is reflected in Kant's historical philosophy and political philosophy.
What we mainly want to talk about is how Kant expounded the topic of intellectual independence of enlightenment. As I said, this is mainly reflected in his admiration for the thinking method of transcendental argument. You may feel a little big when you hear the words transcendental argument. Don't be afraid. Transcendental argument is not mysterious. What does this mean? You can confirm that something exists first, and then ask why it exists. It must have its reasons and reasons, so you have to find the logical premise for this thing to exist.
Please note that in transcendental argument, we pay more attention to logical premise than empirical premise. In other words, you can think of the premise of making something happen by patting your head in the study, rather than the premise that you have to go out of the study to do practical research to find it. After you find out these premises and make sure that these premises are indeed the necessary conditions for all this to happen, you can conclude that the state of affairs corresponding to these precursors must exist.
Some people say, why is the method mentioned here related to individual intellectual independence? This means that everyone can stay at your home, look at your mobile phone, pat you on the head, and use very limited resources to reason about the cause of things without having to do very complicated empirical investigations. Please note that if a way of thinking requires too many resources, then the independence of individuals will be threatened. Why? Because the possessor of resources can use this channel to inhibit the provision of resources, individuals have no way to delve into this problem.
For example, if you want to study some palace secrets in a certain dynasty, all the questions must be read in the palace archives. But the government has locked all the court files, and only five people in the country can read them. Then if you want to pursue the truth by consulting files, things will not come out and your personal intellectual independence will be threatened. But what is Kant's alternative? Even if you can't see the file, you can roughly locate the cause of this matter through transcendental argument. This is enough to make you a little smarter than the average person.
Why is the causal category of natural science in the mind?
How does Kant himself use transcendental argument in his philosophy? This is a concrete case. Kant first affirmed that Kant never doubted the effectiveness of modern natural science, and I myself have made some small achievements in natural science. But how did modern natural science come into being? Of course, there will be many empirical studies, such as the study of spiritual atmosphere in the Renaissance, or the study of the relationship between modern natural science and ancient Greek and Roman culture. But this kind of research is time-consuming, and we are not interested in studying these things. What we need to study is the transcendental premise that makes modern natural science form.
Now let's put aside the problem of experience and think about the biggest problem. What are the characteristics of modern natural science? But it must establish laws, and all scientific laws are causal laws in its bones. The logical premise of establishing causality law is to have an abstract concept of causality. If there is a concept of causality, there must be a category of causality, so the premise of establishing natural science is to have a category of causality.
Speaking of this step, we might as well continue to ask, what is the causal category? We can only define a starting point for questioning the facts we see. What we see is that there are causal categories in our language: because Zhang San was struck by lightning and Zhang San was killed, this is called causal category; Because Qin Shihuang's body rotted, his body smelled bad, which is another example of using causal category. So we put forward such a question, where is the causal category? It is difficult for us to answer this question through empirical research, because we don't seem to have any tools at hand to explore the world and mind deeply. But we can know a priori that the category of cause and effect is either inside or outside the mind.
Now we assume that the category of cause and effect is outside the mind, that is, within the world. But this will lead to a question, how do you know that causality really exists objectively outside the mind? What you can observe is the continuity of different events, because through empirical observation, you can't be sure that causality is really outside your mind and in the world. From this we infer that the category of cause and effect can only be within the mind.
Since it is in the mind, it is made by the mind. Therefore, according to Kant's point of view, our knowledge is a combination of categories thrown by the mind and empirical materials.
Inferring sanxingdui characters from transcendental conditions and Qin Shihuang's wife
This reasoning sounds brain-burning, but what does it have to do with daily life? This relationship is what you should do when you meet a strange thing. First of all, don't doubt that this has happened. The cause of this incident is very strange, but it did happen. Stop doubting.
Second, you have to ask about the conditions under which all this happened. Some of them are empirical conditions that you have no conditions to explore for the time being. In order to save resources, you might as well focus on those transcendental conditions, then you look for those conditions that are most likely to be realized in the transcendental conditions, and finally focus on the objects related to such transcendental conditions.
For example, the recent excavation of Sanxingdui can be said to be a major event in archaeology. We all know that the bronze cast tree unearthed from Sanxingdui site is a unique treasure. The copper smelting tree is divided into three layers, on which nine divine birds live. There is no doubt that the workmanship is very fine.
But the question is, how did people make such a complicated artifact at that time? You have to do very complicated gravity calculation, and you have to have a developed metallurgical industry. You have to have a high temperature of more than 1200 degrees to melt such copper, which requires very complicated knowledge inheritance and division of labor.
No matter how this thing is made, you must be sure that one or two people can't make it without complicated knowledge inheritance and division of labor. But collaboration obviously needs words, and inheritance needs words more. What about Sanxingdui's handwriting? Sanxingdui's writing has not been clearly excavated. Someone found the so-called words on the so-called jade cong and other artifacts. But it's not written, and the archaeological community is still controversial.
Personally, I think those words that support Sanxingdui civilization certainly exist. Otherwise, how can we explain the emergence of such complicated artifacts? But for some reason, these words may be recorded in some perishable materials, so we can't find them now. This is what transcendental reasoning can do. You don't have to believe what you dig, you can also believe what you see.
Another example, I think, more clearly illustrates the role of transcendental argument. From all the historical data, we can't find out who Qin Shihuang's wife is, that is, who Fu Su and Hu Hai's mother are. But with common sense, everyone should know that such a person exists. Because Qin Shihuang must have a queen, otherwise how could there be a prince?
As for why there is no such queen in history, there must be other explanations. But you can't think that Qin Shihuang didn't have a queen just because there is no record in the history books. This is also the role that transcendental argument can play in historical research. It can find so-called hidden variables that are not named in historical materials.
How to infer the intention of others from behavior
Some people say I'm not an archaeologist either. Is it useful to think about these questions? Useful. A very important purpose is to judge other people's intentions. These are very important skills in our social life. But before judging other people's intentions, you must first determine what you see, that is, other people's behavior, and then infer other people's intentions from other people's behavior.
Suppose you hear bad gossip about a friend at work, what do you observe? Many people are spreading these rumors to each other, and this is what you see. But does this mean that the phenomenon described by these rumors really exists? Of course not, because these rumors are probably rumors.
But does this mean that you can't make any transcendental speculation about the truth? I'm afraid not. Even if you are not sure whether the things described in the rumor have happened, the following conditions are prerequisites for the spread of rumors, and you can be sure that these preconditions are true with a high probability.
First, I am afraid that the relevant parties in the unit are not very popular or generally jealous, otherwise it is difficult for us to explain why everyone is willing to spread such words; Second, although the rumors are not necessarily true, these words may be consistent with the usual actions of the parties to a certain extent, otherwise it is difficult for you to understand why these rumors can spread so widely; Third, I am afraid that the relevant parties do not have super-social sanctions. If he has super social sanctions, he can accurately locate who is spreading these rumors and control them. The spread of these rumors shows that his social control is average.
Of the above three, I think the third one is probably the most informative. If a person looks like a malicious character, but there is no rumor in society that he is not, then there are only two possibilities. One possibility is that he is a nobody and no one is interested in making up rumors about him. The second possibility is that this person has been blessed by a bodhisattva. From this, you can quickly infer that this person is untouchable and quickly judge who is untouchable in our society. This is also a very important way to protect yourself when dealing with people.
Matters needing attention in using transcendental argument
Let me emphasize the significance of transcendental argument again, that is, you don't need field trips, and you can gain a deeper understanding of the world with your own rationality. This is a very simple way of thinking, and spreading this way of thinking is also the proper meaning of enlightenment. But there are some pits in the application of transcendental argument, so don't fall into some pits when using transcendental argument again.
First, you must make sure that something definitely exists. Don't say such silly things as pictures and the truth. If you can see this picture, you can only be sure that this picture exists. Don't gild the lily, say "Look, it represents the truth". Because Photoshop is a very common technology today.
Second, when using transcendental argument, we always have to determine what such a logical necessary condition is after something or something happens. However, some basic experience and knowledge are needed to locate the necessary conditions of logic.
For example, if you determine that the acceleration of something has changed, you can infer that its acceleration has changed because its force has changed. You must know something about Newtonian mechanics. How can you make such logical reasoning without the concept of Newtonian mechanics? Therefore, the application of transcendental argument is still based on the premise that users should have healthy common sense.
However, in philosophical literature, Kant's transcendental argument is often used to deal with skepticism. Skepticism is also a philosophical theory that is harmful to our common sense of health. It makes us disbelieve in the world we see, and it can prompt us to trigger a "Buddhist attitude". I have already explained this in the link of pirism. So what is Kant's positive attitude towards skepticism? We'll talk about it next time.