Chapter 7 A. The metaphysics of the first attitude of thought to objectivity

§26 Thought's first attitude towards objectivity is a naive one, which is unaware of the contradictions contained in thought itself and the opposition between thought itself and belief, but believes that the truth can be known only by reflection, and the object can be made Its true nature is presented to consciousness.With this belief, thought proceeds to directly grasp the object, recreates the content of sensation and intuition as the content of thought itself, and thus is satisfied with the fact that it has obtained the truth.All early philosophies, all sciences, and even all daily life and conscious activities can be said to live entirely by this belief.

§27 Thinking with this attitude, because it is unaware of its own opposition, can become, in its content, a true speculative philosophy, but it can also remain stuck in the limited rules of thought, that is, in the unresolved opposition. inside.Now in this Introduction we are interested only in observing the limits of this attitude of thought, and proceeding first to examine the recent philosophical systems which represent it.The clearest and nearest examples are metaphysics of the past, such as those before Kant.But this kind of metaphysics can only be said to be something past in the history of philosophy; as such, the apprehension of rational objects from a purely abstract intellectual point of view is still generally present.Therefore, a close examination of the appearance and main content of this ideological attitude is also of interest close to reality.

§28 The metaphysics before Kant believed that the stipulation of thinking is the basic stipulation of things, and based on this premise, insisted that thinking can know all existence, so whatever thinking thinks is itself known.Therefore, its standpoint seems to be higher than that of later critical philosophy.However, (1) they believe that abstract and isolated ideas and concepts are self-sufficient and can be used to express truth and be effective. Most of this kind of metaphysics thinks that knowledge of the Absolute can be obtained only by using some nouns and concepts (predicates). Is it appropriate.

[Explanation] is used to explain an absolute concept or predicate, such as being used in the proposition "God exists".Another example is the use of finite or infinite in the question "is the world finite or infinite", or simple or complex in the proposition "the soul is simple".Another example is whether a thing is single or a whole and so on.It is not examined whether these predicates have independent truths, nor whether the form of the proposition can express the correct form of the truth. Note: The premise of the old metaphysics is the same as the premise of the general naive belief, that is, thinking can grasp the things themselves, and thinking that the real nature of things is what thinking knows.The human mind and nature are unpredictable spirits, and it takes a close reflection to find that the things that appear in the present are not the things themselves. ——The old metaphysical point of view mentioned here is exactly the opposite of the result reached by Kant's critical philosophy.The result, we may say, is to teach people to live on chaff alone.

If we try to examine the methods of the old metaphysics carefully, we can see that this kind of metaphysics does not go beyond simple abstract rational thinking.It only knows how to directly adopt some abstract rules of thinking, thinking that only by using these abstract rules, it can be effectively used as a predicate to express the truth.It should be noted that when it comes to thinking, we must distinguish between limited, purely rational thinking and infinite rational thinking.All determinations of thought that are obtained directly and individually are finite determinations.But truth itself is infinite, and it cannot be expressed and brought into consciousness by finite categories.The term "infinite mind" may seem surprising to those who adhere to the more recent view that thinking is always limited.But it should be noted that the essence of thinking is in fact itself infinite.Formally speaking, the so-called finite thing means that thing has its end, its existence reaches a certain limit, that is, when it is connected with its counterpart and thus limited by the counterpart, its existence ends. termination.So the subsistence of the finite consists in its relation to its other, which is its negation, and shows itself to be the limit of that finite, but thought is itself in itself, and is itself related to itself. Connect, and take yourself as the object.When I have a thought as the object of my thinking, I am in myself.

Therefore, I, thinking, are infinite.For, when I think, I am in relation to an object, and the object is myself.Generally speaking, the object is my counterpart, my negator.But when thinking thinks itself, the object of thinking is no longer an object at the same time.In other words, the objective externality of this object has become a sublated, conceptual thing.So pure thought itself has no limits.Thinking is limited only when it stays within limited rules and regards these limited rules as the ultimate.On the contrary, infinite or speculative thinking, on the one hand, is also determined, but on the other hand, it sublates the defects of determination and limitation in the process of determination and limitation.So infinity is not conceived of as an abstract stretching out and infinite stretching out, as is commonly imagined, but in a simple manner as stated above.

The thinking of the old metaphysics is limited thinking, because it always moves within a certain limit established by limited thinking, and regards this limit as a fixed thing, and does not negate it.For example, as far as the question "Does God exist?", the old metaphysicians believed that the existence here is a purely positive, ultimate, and supremely beautiful thing.But we shall see later that existence is not a mere certainty, but a determination too low to express the Idea, nor God.As for the issue of whether the world is finite or infinite, they also think that the finite and infinite here are fixed opposites.But it is easy to see that when the finite and the infinite are opposed to each other, the infinity, which should be considered to represent the whole, only appears as a biased side, which is limited by the finite.

But the limited infinity is still nothing but a finite thing.Under the same circumstances, when we ask the question: "Is the soul simple or complex?" they still think that "simplicity" is a final determination sufficient to express truth.But it should be noted that simplicity, like existence, is an extremely poor, abstract, and one-sided stipulation. We will later see that it is not real in itself, and cannot grasp the truth.If the soul is regarded as merely simple, it will be said by this abstraction to be only one-sided and finite. It follows that the chief interest of the old metaphysics was to inquire whether the predicates just mentioned should be applied to their objects.But these predicates are limited intellectual concepts, which can only express a limitation, but cannot express the truth.

Special attention must be paid to this method: the characteristic of this method is to add names or predicates to the known objects, such as God.But this is only an external reflection on the object, because the determination or predicate used to designate the object is my own ready-made representation, which is only externally added to the object.On the contrary, if one wants to obtain true knowledge about an object, the object must define itself, and some predicates cannot be added to it from outside.If we try to express truth by means of predicates, our mind cannot help feeling that these proverbs cannot exhaust the meaning of objects.From this point of view, Eastern philosophers are quite right when they often call God many or endless.All limited quotes can never satisfy the soul.So the Eastern philosopher had to collect as many famous sayings as possible.Undoubtedly, finite things must be called by finite names, and this is where the understanding functions.Intellect itself is limited, and can only recognize the nature of limited things.For example, when I call a certain act theft, the word stealing is sufficient to describe the main content of that act, and such knowledge is sufficient for a judge.Similarly, finite things are related to each other by cause and effect, force and expression, and if they are expressed in terms of these determinations, they are considered to be known in their finiteness.However, the object of reason cannot be determined by these limited predicates. However, it is a defect of the old metaphysics to attempt to define the object of reason with limited predicates.

§29 Predicates like this are limited in their content. They are not suitable for expressing the rich concepts of God, nature, spirit, etc., and they are by no means sufficient to exhaust their meanings.Furthermore, because these predicates are predicates of a subject, they are related to each other, but they are different in their content, so they are all picked up from without, lacking in each other. Organic connection. [Explanation] For the first defect, Eastern philosophers use multiple terms to remedy it. For example, when they define God, they add many names to God.But at the same time, they also admit that the number of names should be infinite.

§30 (2) It is true that the objects of metaphysics are the whole, such as the soul, the world, and God, which themselves are all rational ideas and objects belonging to the scope of thinking of concrete universals. But the metaphysician takes these objects from representation as given and ready-made subjects, and applies the rules of the understanding to deal with them.Since these objects come from appearances, only appearances can be used as a standard to judge whether those predicates are appropriate and sufficient to express rational objects. §31 The representations of the soul, the world, and God seem at first to give the mind a firm foothold.But in fact it is not the case, not only do these appearances have special subjective characteristics, so they can have very different meanings, so they must first pass through thinking to obtain fixed regulations.From any proposition that requires a predicate (that is, a category of thinking in philosophy) to explain what is the subject or what is the original representation, the fact that the activity of thinking makes the meaning of the representation more definite can be seen. [Explanation] In such a proposition, such as "God is eternal", we start from the appearance of God, but we still don't know what God is, and we need to use a predicate to say what God is.In logic, therefore, whose content must be determined purely by the form of thought, it is not only superfluous, but also has a weakness, to use these categories as predicates for subjects such as God or the Absolute more broadly. It would be misleading to think that there are other criteria than the nature of the thought itself.More than that, the form of propositions, or rather, the form of judgments, is not suitable for expressing concrete and speculative truths (truths are concrete).For the form of judgment is always one-sided, and so far as it is only one-sided it is not true. Note: This kind of metaphysics is not free and objective thinking, because it does not let the object freely determine itself from itself, but assumes the object as ready-made. —Speaking of free thought, we must admit that Greek philosophy represented typical free thought, while scholasticism did not, because scholasticism, like this metaphysics, also accepts what is given ready-made, that is, the creed given by the church for its content.We modern people, through our whole cultural upbringing, have been edified by many ideas with rich and profound content, and it is extremely difficult to get out of the shadow of them.The ancient Greek philosophers, on the other hand, mostly felt that they were human beings, living completely in the vivid and concrete intuitive world of the senses, and had no other prerequisites other than heaven and earth, because some concepts in mythology had long been thrown aside by them. up.In this environment with real content, thought is free and can return to itself, pure and free, free from all material constraints.This pure and free thought is the free thought that soars in the open sea and sky, nothing above or below us binds us, and we are alone and alone in meditation. §32 (3) This kind of metaphysics becomes dogmatism, because by the nature of finite determinations, the thought of this metaphysics must be in two opposite assertions, as represented by propositions of the above kind, affirming that one must be true, and Another must be wrong. Note: The opposite of dogmatism is skepticism.The ancient skeptics generally called dogmatism any philosophy as long as it held a certain doctrine.In such a broad sense, the skeptic may also attach the badge of dogmatism to true speculative philosophy.As for dogmatism in a narrow sense, it only consists in adhering to one-sided intellectual regulations and rejecting its opposite.Dogmatism clings to a strict either-or approach.For example, if the world is not finite, it must be infinite. Only one of the two statements is true.As everyone knows, the truth of specific speculative thinking is just not like this, it just does not have such one-sided persistence, so it cannot be exhausted by one-sided regulations.The speculative truth contains the whole of these partial determinations united in themselves, whereas dogmatism maintains the separate determinations as fixed truths. This is often the case in philosophy, where one-sidedness is brought up side by side with totality, and one kind of assertion, a special and fixed thing, is insisted on in opposition to the whole. But in fact, one-sided primordial things are not fixed and self-existing things, but included in the whole as sublated things.The dogmatism of intellectual metaphysics mainly lies in insisting on isolated and one-sided ideological regulations. On the contrary, the idealism of speculative philosophy has a holistic principle, which shows that it is sufficient to govern the one-sidedness of abstract intellectual regulations.So idealism can say: the soul is neither only finite nor only infinite, but in essence the soul is both finite and infinite, and therefore neither finite nor infinite.In other words, such isolating rules are prejudices that should be discarded, and are not suitable for expressing the nature of the soul.Even in our ordinary consciousness, this kind of idealism has been manifested everywhere.For example, for perceptual things, we say that they change.The so-called changing means that they are "existent" and "non-existent" at the same time.But we seem to be a bit more stubborn about the intellectual rules. We always regard them as fixed, even absolutely fixed rules of thought.We think that an infinitely deep chasm separates them, so that those opposing provisions can never be reconciled.The struggle of reason consists in trying to overcome the distinctions that the intellect clings to. §33 The first part of metaphysics is ontology, the doctrine of abstract determinations of essences.There is also a lack of an underlying principle to the variety of these provisions and their limited utility.Therefore, these rules must be empirically and accidentally enumerated in random order, and their detailed content can only be explained on the basis of appearance, meaning or root, declaring that certain words have certain meanings, so they can be used to express certain meanings. kinds of content.Therefore, this branch of metaphysics can only seek the completeness of experience and the correctness of literal analysis that conforms to language habits, without taking into account the truth and inevitability of these rules for themselves. (Explanation) Regarding the question of whether existence, existence, or finitude, simplicity, complexity, etc., are themselves real concepts, those who believe that only one proposition can be true or false can only ask whether a concept is added to a subject. Those who ask the question really wrong must find it strange that there is a contradiction between the subject whose truth and untruth depend only on appearance, and the concept by which the subject is called.But the concept is concrete, and the concept itself, and even each stipulation, is essentially a unity of many different stipulations.If, therefore, truth has no other quality than the absence of contradiction, it must first be examined whether every concept contains, as far as it is concerned, such an inner contradiction. §34 The second part of metaphysics is rational psychology or psychology, which studies the metaphysical nature of the soul, that is, the study of the mind as a real object. [Explanation] This kind of research wants to seek the immortality of the soul within the scope governed by the laws of compoundness, timeliness, qualitative change, and quantitative increase and decrease. Note: This part of psychology is called rational in the sense that it is opposed to the empirical study of the phenomena of externalization of the soul.Rational psychology studies the metaphysical nature of the soul through the rules of abstract thought.The object of this science is to know the inner nature of the soul, the soul itself, as it is grasped by thought. —At present, the soul is seldom talked about in philosophy, but the spirit is mainly talked about.The spirit is different from the soul. The soul seems to be the intermediary between the body and the spirit, or the connection between the two.The spirit immersed in the whole body is the soul, and the soul is the principle that animates the body. The old metaphysics understood the soul as a thing (Ding).But "thing" is a very vague term.The so-called thing first refers to a presently existing thing, which is a thing that our senses can represent, so people also say that the soul is a thing that can be represented by the senses in this sense.So people will have the problem of where the soul resides.Since the soul has a place to live, of course it is in space, which can be represented by the senses.Likewise, considering the soul as a thing, it is therefore possible to ask whether the soul is simple or compound.This question is especially relevant for the immortality of the soul, which is supposed to be conditioned by the simplicity of the soul.But in fact, the definition of abstract simplicity is no more in keeping with the essence of the soul than is complexity. When it comes to the relationship between rational psychology and empirical psychology, the former is obviously more advanced than the latter, because the task of the former is to understand the spirit through thinking, and to prove the authenticity of the content of this thought, while empirical psychology uses perception As a starting point, I limit myself to enumerating and describing the present facts which perceptions furnish.But since we take the spirit as the object of thinking, we should not avoid the special phenomenon of the spirit too much.The spirit is active, in the same sense that the scholastics once said that God is absolute initiative.But since the spirit is active, it must manifest itself outwardly.Therefore, we cannot regard the spirit as a non-processed being (ens), like the old metaphysical method, which completely separates the processless interiority of the spirit from its exteriority.We must examine the spirit mainly in terms of its concrete reality and agency, so that we can realize that the outward manifestation of the spirit is determined by its inner power. §35 The third part of metaphysics is cosmology, which discusses the world, its contingency, necessity, eternity, limitations in time and space, the laws of the world's changing forms, and the origin of human freedom and evil. (Explanation) The absolute opposites considered in cosmology mainly include the following categories: Contingency and necessity; external necessity and internal necessity; active cause and final cause, or causality in general and purpose; essence or substance and appearance; form and matter; Freedom and necessity; happiness and pain; good and evil. Note: The object of cosmology research is not limited to nature, but also includes spirit, its external and intricate relationship.Generally speaking, cosmology regards the totality of all existence and all finite things as its object of study.But cosmology does not regard its object as a concrete whole, but only regards the object according to abstract rules.It therefore deals only with such questions as, for example, does chance or necessity govern the world?Is the world eternal or was it created?The main interest of this cosmology is only to reveal the so-called universal laws of the universe, for example, that there are no leaps (Sprung) in nature.Leaps here refer to qualitative differences and qualitative changes that occur without mediation. On the contrary, gradual quantitative changes are obviously mediated. As to how the mind manifests itself in the world, cosmology deals mainly with the problems of human freedom and the origin of evil.Undoubtedly these are questions of great interest to all.But what is most important in order to give a satisfactory answer to these questions is that we must not insist on the abstract determination of the understanding as the last determination, which means that neither of the two opposing determinations should be regarded as if there is something different. It seems that it has its own persistence, or that any one party has its substance and truth in its isolated state.However, most of the metaphysicians before Kant adopted such a stubborn and isolated view, so they could not achieve their goal of grasping the phenomena of the world in the discussion of cosmology.See, for example, how they distinguish freedom from necessity, and apply these rules to discuss nature and spirit.They always think that natural phenomena are governed by inevitable laws, while spirit is free.This distinction is undoubtedly important, and is based on the innermost demands of the spirit itself.But to regard freedom and necessity as abstractly opposed to each other belongs only to the finite world, and is valid only in the finite world.This freedom without necessity, or a mere necessity without freedom, are abstract and unreal ideas.Freedom is essentially concrete, it always determines itself, and is therefore necessary at the same time.When it comes to inevitability, most people always think that it is only determined from the outside. For example, in limited mechanics, an object can only move when it is hit by another object, and the direction of motion is also determined by another object. determined by the impact.But this is only an external necessity, not a real inner necessity, for inner necessity is freedom. The same is true of the opposition of good and evil.This opposition between good and evil can be said to have become more and more profound in the modern world.If we think that evil is fixed in itself, and that evil is not good, this is indeed quite right, and there is actually a contradiction between the two.Even those who regard the opposition of good and evil as merely superficial or relative do not admit that good and evil are absolutely identical, as many have lately said that a thing is evil only because of our [ Subjective] views have their own reasons.But it is a mistake if we regard evil as something fixed and positive.Because evil is just a negation, it does not have a lasting existence, but it just wants to insist on its independent existence. In fact, evil is just the absolute illusion of negativity itself. §36 The fourth part of metaphysics is natural or rational theology, which deals with the concept of God or the possibility of his existence, the proofs of his existence, and his attributes. [Explanation] (a) The main purpose of exploring God from an intellectual point of view is to find out which predicates are suitable or not suitable for expressing God in our representation.Thus the opposition of reality and negativity appears here and becomes absolute.In this way, the concept of God, maintained by the understanding, turns out to be nothing but an empty abstraction of an indeterminate essence, a pure reality or positivity—a lifeless product of modern Enlightenment thought. . (b) Using limited knowledge to prove the existence of God will always put the cart before the horse: The purpose is to seek the objective basis of God's existence, and this objective basis is expressed as a thing conditioned by another thing.This kind of proof is based on the abstract identity of the understanding as the criterion, and it is trapped in the difficulty of transitioning from the finite to the infinite.The consequence of this is either the inability to free God from the inescapable finiteness of the world of existence, and thus to recognize God as the immediate substance of this finite world - which would flow into pantheism; Or consider God as an object that is always opposed to the subject, so that God is also finite—and this falls into dualism. (c) The attributes of God, which are supposed to be diverse, should also be definite, but this view is inevitably sunk in the abstraction of a pure reality or an indeterminate essence.But if the finite world is recognized as a real existence, and God is regarded as opposed to it, it will lead to the view that God has various relationships with the world.These different relations are considered to be the characteristics of God, on the one hand they must be relations to all finite situations, which are themselves finite characters. (For example: God has the characteristics of justice, benevolence, power, wisdom, etc.) On the other hand, they must be infinite at the same time.According to this point of view, this contradiction can only be vaguely resolved by increasing the magnitude of the properties, leading the properties of God to the indeterminate and vague sense of the supreme sense (Sensum eminentiosem). middle. Note: The part of rational theology in the old metaphysics is to determine the extent to which reason itself can know God.Undoubtedly, the knowledge of God through reason is the highest task of philosophy.Religion originally consisted of representations of God.These representations are collected into creeds, the teachings that are taught to us from childhood as religion.As long as an individual believes in these teachings and feels them to be true, he has what it takes to be a Christian.But theology is the science that studies this religious belief.But if theology is only the external enumeration and collection of some religious teachings, then this kind of theology cannot be called science yet.Even the mere historical study of religious objects, which is so prevalent at the present time (such as the report of what this or that priest said), does not yet make theology scientific.In order to make theology a science, it is first necessary to grasp the thinking of religion, which is the task of philosophy.Therefore, true theology must be religious philosophy in essence at the same time, that is, in the Middle Ages, theology at that time was also religious philosophy. If we try to carefully examine the rational theology in the old metaphysics, we can see that this kind of theology is not a rational science that explores God, but only an intellectual science, and its thinking is only active in abstract thinking rules.What is going to be discussed here is the concept of God, but the appearance of God is used as the standard of knowledge about God.But thinking must be used freely within itself, but at the same time it must be noted that the results of free thinking should be consistent with Christian teachings, because Christian teachings are the revelation of reason.But rational theology cannot be said to have achieved this agreement.Because what rational theology is engaged in is to determine the appearance of God through thinking, so the concepts obtained about God are only abstract concepts of affirmation and reality, and exclude all negative concepts, so God is defined as The truest existence of all existence.But it is also easy for anyone to see that to say that this truest being of all has no negativity is exactly the opposite of what he ought to be, and what the understanding thinks he is.He is not only not the richest and fullest being, but because of this abstract view, he is the poorest and most empty thing.The human spirit rightly demands specific content.However, the emergence of this specific content must contain stipulation or negativity within itself.If the concept of God is only regarded as an abstract or the most real existence in all, then God will thus be only a vague other world to us, let alone any knowledge about God.For without determination there can be no knowledge.Pure light is pure darkness. The second problem of rational theology concerns the proof of God's existence.The main point of this question is that, from the point of view of the understanding, proof means that one determination depends on another.In an intellectual proof, there is a fixed premise from which another determination is deduced, so it must be shown that a certain determination depends on a certain premise.If the existence of God is proved in this way, it means that the existence of God depends on other provisions, and these provisions constitute the basis for the existence of God. Immediately it seems obvious that something is wrong, since God is supposed to be the absolute and unconditional ground of all things, and therefore can never depend on any other ground.For this reason, it has been said in modern times that the existence of God cannot be proved [by reason], but must be directly recognized.But reason, and even healthy common sense, understand proofs which are quite different from those which the understanding understands.It is true that rational proof still has to start with an "other" that is not God, but in the process of proof, reason does not allow this "other" to be a direct thing, something that exists, but points out that this The starting point is an intermediary thing and a presupposed thing, so it finally boils down to thinking that God is an existence that sublates the intermediary, contains the intermediary in itself, is truly direct, original, self-dependent and not dependent on others.For example, we say: "Try to contemplate nature outwardly, and nature will lead you to God, and you will see the absolute providence." "This does not mean that God is produced from nature, but that, It is only our progress by means of a finite thing to God, in which God seems to be, on the one hand, posterior to, and at the same time prior to, the finite, as its absolute ground. Hence the position of both It is just reversed. What at first seemed to be later is revealed to be a prior ground, and what at first seemed to be earlier is degraded to a later result by pointing out. The same is true of the process of rational proof. . Based on the previous discussion, if we try to survey the old metaphysical method again, we can see that its main feature is to grasp the objects of reason with abstract and limited intellectual determinations, and to regard abstract identity as supreme principle.But this infinity of the understanding, this pure essence, remains itself only finite, because it excludes the particularity, which then negates it, limits it, and opposes it.This metaphysics fails to achieve concrete identity, but only clings to abstract identity.But its benefit is the realization that only thought is the essence of what exists.This metaphysical material is taken from the philosophers of antiquity, especially the scholastics.In speculative philosophy, understanding is also an indispensable "stage" (Moment) or link, but this moment is a "stage" that cannot be stagnant.Plato was not such an [abstract dogmatic] metaphysician, much less Aristotle, although many people often think they were such a metaphysician.