In this way, we must be inspired by some beautiful ideal, and we must also have selfless kindness. Because before the fruits we help sow are harvested, we may have already experienced the grave. We do what we should do, but we may not receive the fruits of the seeds we sow. We may have gone to another world before this world changed. However, Kant said that we are human and should have a selfless spirit. We should be able to take responsibility for our future. To be responsible for the future, we should have such magnanimity.
I think today's humanity is the worst generation in human history. We have never lived like this before. Everyone knows that we are consuming the resources of the earth and using up everything for our descendants. We are making the earth look like this and creating a hell for our descendants. But those who pretend to have nothing to do with me are the worst generation in the world's history. They have no trace of Kant's so-called selflessness. They destroyed the future and left it with a hell. I think this is the most despicable.
So, Kant speaks with great sorrow here. On the one hand, he is an optimist, but on the other hand, an optimist is an idealist, and such an idealist is not based on experience. But it is based on a priori, on his rationality, and on one of his philosophical foundations.
So, last time someone asked me, he said that you are completely hopeless because I have to tell him a lot of messy and bad things. I said I wanted to despair, so I wouldn't be so serious about talking to you about these things. The reason why I am so serious about talking to you about these things shows that I am not yet desperate. There is no greater sorrow than death in my heart. A person with a heart as lifeless as ashes will not tell anyone anything. They later said, 'You are an irredeemable idealist.'.
We cannot rely too much on people's selfless kindness. Kant must have understood that after reading so many books, we humans are composed of distorted materials as Kant said. We must have practical faith, and consciousness operates according to the laws of position. However, these laws should be consistent with our morality, and they slowly push us towards our ideal results.
Ideal means that we understand how history has progressed from ancient Greece to Rome to the rule of barbarians, who in this case refer to the Germanic people. Then, modern civilization replaced the rule of barbarians, and culture requires us to conclude that indeed, the constitutions of countries on our continent have a regular and progressive process, and perhaps one day they will provide the rule of law for other continents.
Here, Kant, like Hegel, believes that all modern systems of Westerners are models for us humans, and there is no problem with them. The ultimate victory of justice in Europe had a legislative effect on all humanity, considering the ideal of individual rights, the clear separation of the public and private spheres of the rule of law, and the establishment of free property private and representative states in modern Europe. The principles of these states were the promotion of science and reason for the entire population.
So, Kant and Hegel both have varying degrees of belief that there seems to be an invisible hand guiding human history. So, Kant's ultimate view on human history is that as specific individuals, humans cannot be good, but as a species of humans, they will be good, which does not necessarily mean they will be good.
So Kant's philosophy of history is not that simple either. And I think as long as we discount idealism, it's easy to dismiss it and talk nonsense. How do you know what you'll see in the end. However, if we agree with his internal theoretical ideas, we will also think the same way.
Kant called the German enlightenment philosophy in the last paragraph, or what, but now the western academic world does not talk about these ideas. Habits mean that Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are philosophy of ideas. In fact, there is his reason for the division. We Chinese count them together, because for us Chinese, they are all philosophy of ideas.
However, for Western scholars, the three of them need to address the issue of Kang's legacy, which is inherited from Kant, and not forget their fundamental problem nature.
Fichte, like Kant, was born into a commoner family. He was born into a family of contract workers, and due to his intelligence, he was sponsored by a nearby nobleman to attend school, which enabled him to receive a good general education. However, due to economic reasons, he only attended a short period of university and was forced to drop out, relying on being a private tutor to maintain his livelihood. Like other social philosophers in classical German philosophy, his university education was actually very short.
He was also an admirer of Kant at the beginning. In 1791, he visited Kant in K ö nigsberg and left a very good impression on him. At that time, in order to leave a good impression on Kant, he had to rush to write an essay titled 'An Evaluation of All Apocalypse'. Such a short article. Indeed, Kant greatly appreciated this article. Later, with Kant's assistance, this paper was anonymously published. However, because he wrote it in authentic Kantian language and did not sign it, everyone thought he was written by Kant.
Later, Kant had to declare that the author's name was Fichte, not me. Thus, he became famous overnight. Three years later, he was invited to replace Lenny Walter who resigned from there and went to Gill University. Why do we need to mention it a little. Kant, both during his lifetime and after his death, always leaves behind endless debates about one of his ideas as a philosopher. There are also two schools of thought in the German philosophical community. One school holds a critical attitude towards Kant, while the other initially maintains an attitude towards Kant, aiming to uphold Kant's line.
Of course, their generation is not like us now. For example, if I were to support him, he would have no problem at all. Kant's philosophy is problematic. However, these issues can be resolved within his system, rather than being criticized by those who believe that his system is fundamentally flawed.
These are two different positions, two different positions. At that time, Leibniz was a famous figure. Because German education university professors often had to switch positions, there were other universities that might offer you better conditions or something, or for other reasons. I would go there and the position would be vacant.
Unlike us now, the number of professors is infinite to some extent. You just need to make appointments with others, and you can keep going. People come in, they are like carrots and pits, walking one by one. That happened to be Leibniz. After going to Hill University, Fichte applied to go to the University of Siena to replace Leibniz as the philosophy professor there. In fact, Siena was a cultural center in Germany at that time because the University of Siena was very intelligent and gathered a group of the most thoughtful young people in Germany.
These young people started a famous publication called the Siena Report. At that time, Fichte went because he didn't know how to do it, and because he was already famous, Siena reported and asked him to write a book review.
Leibniz has been a defender of Kant since his death. He disagrees with the Hushuls, as he is very fond of both Kant and Leibniz. He both believed that neither of them could solve the problem of skepticism. One of the main criticisms of him is that the essence is unknowable, and things themselves are unknowable.
For ordinary people, it is certainly unacceptable because for thousands of years, people have believed that if we cannot know, why do we still need human reason? This is absurd, and how can we explain many of our spiritual worlds?
So, it is unacceptable, of course, it is just a psychological reaction. In fact, theoretically, when we engage in academic work in the future, I also admit that our disagreement with a viewpoint may contain many ideas beyond rationality.
It's not that he has a grudge against the author, it's not that. This is also a famous saying by Fichte, 'You have a philosophy just as you are.' Personal temperament and character influence which philosophy he likes. People who are relatively indifferent will be very interested in Lao Zhuang. He thinks there was a problem in the past. We have a female here, who is a philosopher. At first, she asked me to be her mentor. Later, due to overall reasons, I could only take care of one student as a teacher, so I had no choice. But later, I realized that my choice was not his, and I didn't choose him because she didn't want to take German classes. She said that Confucius was the one she hated the most.
I don't know if it has anything to do with his personality. Later, I learned that she came from Shandong and he is a commoner from Shandong. I told him that I had helped him a lot during his postgraduate entrance examination because he didn't even know me. He wrote me a letter, and then I pointed him out. I told him what things you need to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination, and when you were finally admitted, I also told him what you should pay attention to during the oral examination. Because I saw that he seemed to be determined to learn at that time, but later I realized that she did have a problem - you want me to be someone like me.
Especially the life in Shanghai, I don't really like it, it's really good. He thinks that when he said that people in Shandong had lived in vain before, it was a kind of individual personality and a tendency of foreigners. He tended to like it this way, but later on, he suddenly turned against me. For something, he wanted to apply for a spot in the department to go to Taiwan, and his grades were excellent. He really wanted to say, 'Can you help me speak up and let me succeed?'. I thought at that time that those who study Chinese philosophy should take themselves lightly, especially now that you are still young when going to Taiwan, there are always opportunities. What is it?
Then, don't take things too seriously, just focus on reading well, and he will feel that I have hurt him. Speaking to you, but ultimately, because coming up with agnosticism is not just a matter of knowledge, but also a matter of credibility.
