Not only that, Hegel also tells us that this "reflection" of thought on things will inevitably lead to a change in its form. Of course, this does not mean that the things grasped by thought are subjective. On the contrary, it means that only by using reflection to transform direct things can we enhance our understanding of the essence of things.
So, reflection activity is not a subjective activity. In other words, reflective activity is precisely a very objective activity, it is an activity of grasping things in their original form, an activity that can grasp the essence of things.
So, the product of reflection is not only objective, but also free as a manifestation of intellectual agency. Formally speaking, thoughts are my thoughts, and I am independent and free; In terms of content, thought grasps the essence of things, frees itself from all individual contingencies, and is unconditionally universal.
This places the concept of thought entirely within the general understanding of philosophy. So, in fact, emphasizing this idea is nothing more than a continuation of Hegel's statement. I mean, philosophy is object-oriented, therefore, philosophy is free. The aimlessness and freedom of philosophy are reflected in the aimlessness and freedom of thought.
So, I say that the history of philosophy is not equal to the history of thought, and we must not confuse the history of thought with the history of philosophy. Don't think I'm studying the history of thought, I'm studying philosophy. I said that's two different things. Studying the history of thought, your history of thought must be studying the thoughts of a certain historical period on a certain issue, which is called the history of thought.
And when we talk about the history of philosophy, it goes beyond the issues and content of the times it discusses, otherwise it cannot enter the scope of the history of philosophy. It can only be found in the history of thought, so the history of philosophy is different from the history of thought. Here, we point out the four characteristics of thought, that is, the idea of grasping the essence of things, which is not only our subjective thought, but also the essence of things. Therefore, it is also called objective thought.
So, why does thought become objective?
This fully demonstrates the universality and reflective nature of ideas. At the same time, thought itself can transcend all objects, and thought is also an idea formed through dialectical development. The objective significance of our concept of thought here.
Among contemporary philosophers, many have continued Hegel's objective thinking approach, no longer emphasizing that thought is a product of pure subjective consciousness or human thinking, but rather understood as a content of thought that we can grasp in a visible or expressive way.
Therefore, such thinking, or this so-called objective thinking, actually refers to a form of expression of thought.
From Plato's concept of form, that is, the idea of form, then back to contemporary Frege. When Frege emphasizes ideas, he emphasizes the form of ideas, that is, when we express an idea, we do not judge the content of the idea, but judge whether the form used to express the idea conforms to the content that we can understand together.
Under this premise, the ideas we can grasp must be in objective form, or objective thinking. Objective thinking actually refers to universality, or its purity (Objective), which is equal to its universality (general). Such universality actually means an objectivity. And this objectivity is expressed through formal means.
So why do philosophers today not talk about the content or the meaning of the content when discussing the concept of thought.
Of course, later philosophers such as Danvidson emphasized the objectivity of this idea and also talked about the content of thought. However, when discussing the content of thought, he was related to truth.
Truth is objective, so when the content of a thought is related to truth, it indicates that the content of the thought is objective and not subjective. Because he is related to truth.
So, some philosophers in the West after the 20th century have also been influenced to some extent by Hegelian philosophy. They have not completely rid themselves of Hegel, but they do not discuss problems like Hegel does. However, some of their ideological tendencies or ways of expressing ideas still have a strong tradition of Hegel.
This objective thinking, according to Hegel, lies in its ability to grasp the essence of things, and it becomes a common foundation for all thought and existence.
Based on the objectivity of the ideas we describe, we can understand the same concept of thought and existence in Hegelian philosophy. If thought itself is objective, it can indicate that there is the same possibility between thought and existence. Since thought is objective, it is no different from existence. It has objectivity with existence.
Therefore, Hegel's idea of the existence of identity in thought is based on the principle that the entity is the subject. So, to believe that thought is not only the entity of thought, but also the entity of existence, is the existence of objective thought.
How does Hegel discuss the relationship between the existence of this thinking?
Firstly, let's take a look at its regulations on thinking. What is thinking?
Hegel is here, although we cannot completely clarify that thinking is just thinking, but when we talk about thinking, in Hegel's sense, thinking is thinking. This thinking itself mainly refers to the content of thinking, and this content is thought. Hegel talked about the relationship between thinking and existence, and the concept of thinking here is mainly understood at the level of thought, rather than the concept of specific thinking activities. Thinking is also a thinking activity, and thought is thinking.
Parmenides was the first to raise the question of the unity of thought and existence. He said that thought and existence are the same because anything that can be thought about must exist, and anything that does not exist cannot be thought about.
Therefore, existence and thought are the same, that is to say, anything that exists can be thought about, and the reverse can also be said: anything that is thought about must exist.
You cannot say it can exist, but you cannot think. Kant said that some things exist, but can be thought about, but cannot be recognized. For example, things in themselves, but they can still be thought about. You can think about it, but you cannot understand it. You cannot talk about the object itself from the perspective of understanding.
So, this is the concept of thought discussed by Hegel, what is existence?
Existence does not refer to nature or things, but to the most universal and abstract commonality, which is the essence of things. If thought is objective and at the same time it is the essence of things themselves or objects, and existence is also the essence of things.
The conclusion is that thought and existence are the same, because thought itself grasps the object of things, grasps the essence of things, and existence here also talks about the essence of things.
The concept of existence does not refer to the concept of Being that we have been emphasizing all along. In Hegel, including in Engels' dialectics of nature, the proposition of the relationship between thought and existence is that the concept of existence can only be 'Being', not 'existence'. So, Being is opposite to Thinking because it both has gerund form.
In the Hegelian sense, both thinking and existence refer to the essence of things. So, in this sense, they are the same. To discuss the relationship between the two, we can approach it from two dimensions: ontological and epistemological.
Grasp the relationship between thinking and existence from two dimensions. From an ontological perspective, their identity is only due to the consistency of their own concepts, so ideas and concepts are the essence of things. So, if a thing is the same as itself, it is equivalent to being the same in its own concept. In other words, a thing only has reality if it conforms to the concepts contained within itself.
The reality of a thing is due to its inherent essence, which is the result of thinking. Because concepts are products and results of thinking. So, only when a thing conforms to this concept, it becomes a real or tangible thing, which is the so-called reasonable relationship with reality. Only when you meet such essential requirements, can it be transformed into a real existence.
Therefore, Hegel said that in terms of ontology and content, both thought and existence themselves expose and reveal the essential rules of things, so they are the same. So, he said that we usually think that our appearance is consistent with an object, which is called truth. This is our usual conformity theory. What is truth?
It means that our appearance corresponds to an object, but there can be various ways of expressing it, one can use Kantian or materialist terms. He has this statement, assuming in advance that there is an object, our object, and our appearance should correspond to this object. However, on the other hand, from a philosophical perspective, the abstract truth that can be summarized is actually the content of thought and its own conformity.
Because when a representation corresponds to an object, there is no barrier between the representation and the object, unlike Kant's statement that we can only think about the thing in itself, but not know it. In Hegel's sense, the thing in itself and the representation are completely identical. So, the thing in itself that you see is the thing itself, which is the so-called appearance presented to us by the thing in itself.
