This is a problem that has troubled many people in modern Western philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries. From a common sense perspective, I certainly know that I am not the only one who can think and feel in this world. Other people have many hearts, but if you ask me to use the rational evidence required by enlightenment to prove it, no one can do it.
This raises a question, if we want to implement the principle of rationality to the end, we should say that our belief in others is just a belief, and the belief is actually without evidence. As Hume said, Hume actually knows that I do exist, but what he says about me is a string of feelings, because we can't feel our own identity. We feel like I'm speaking, the next second I'm silent, the next second I feel a little thirsty, and so on. Hume's question is the famous philosophical question of 'identity', it is the question of identity, it is my question, how do I know?
If we are honest, if we follow the principle of evidence, we can only say that I am just a series of feelings. Why, I don't have any evidence. If you tell me now to prove your existence, for example, if I have a toothache now and you don't feel it, then I prove my existence. I'm sorry, what you're telling me is not you. Your toothache is a feeling, not you. Can feeling be equal to you?
Of course, you are completely unequal. It was the rationalism of that time that gave rise to such a problem. We have found that we have no reason to completely trust our feelings, even if they are reliable, they are not sufficient in quantity and variety to give us the exact same object itself.
Our feelings are not enough, not that they are wrong, but that they are not enough, they cannot give us complete support about the object. In fact, this skepticism existed in ancient times, but it was revived to a greater extent by the French master writers Montaigne and Descartes in the 17th century, as well as the French philosophers Bell and Hume in the 18th century.
So, the epistemology of the 17th and 18th centuries in the West only confirmed that this dialectical approach of criticism to doubt is very difficult. Originally criticizing you all was unfounded. I pushed you down, but after he pushed others down himself, he found himself even more unreliable.
He himself cannot prove what he claims, the evidence he wants, but in the end, it is found that the evidence is insufficient, which makes him have to admit if he is honest. Not necessarily, unreliable, unknown. In fact, it will inevitably lead to such a result, which is very complicated. Kant later had to answer Hume's first question, that the world is reliable, and your idea is wrong. I have another way to prove it. I cannot use your method to prove it. Reason is reliable, but I have another method to prove it. Reason is unreliable.
Kant was about to solve the problem from the beginning. This is the problem left by enlightenment for him. I pursued reliability, but the result I ended up with was too ironic, unreliable, and foolish. I can't be certain of anything, not even myself. I'm just a string of feelings, and I can't even find them. Isn't that unreasonable?
So, when Kant criticized the crisis of Enlightenment and saved it, he wanted to establish the principles of rational criticism on a more reliable basis. I will take Kant as an example to illustrate that true human thought is full of contradictions. Enlightenment requires evidence, reliability, and our dialogue to explain that everything needs to have a truth and a certainty. In this situation, we need to criticize reason. If we want to systematically and thoroughly practice the reasons for our beliefs, we should study our sources, conditions, and boundaries of knowledge.
We actually think from modern epistemological philosophy. In modern philosophy, there are two Mount Taishan, an Englishman Hume and a French Descartes. Our knowledge is unreliable because of their most pressing and anxious problems.
They all use rational methods, because when something happens, we often rely on unreliable knowledge, which may be the illusion of facts blinded by knowledge, and the result is that we fall for it. It's an illusion, as our ancestors said there were ambiguities that could arise from the language itself.
Descartes is no exception. Whether our knowledge is reliable or not, we must find a reliable starting point. I think, therefore I am here. When I step back into the world, I can doubt anything. There is one thing we cannot doubt, and that is that I am doubting this. I cannot doubt because I am doubting this. If I want to doubt, there can be no doubt.
So, I will take this as a source of criticism for myself, and then use geometric reasoning methods to deduce step by step, rationally deducing it, which will be reliable. This is strange. Since the 17th century, Westerners have had an anxiety about finding something reliable, something certain, and something without problems. It's really like God makes jokes, as Kundera said, 'When humans think, God laughs.'.
Finally, in the 17th century, through Locke, Berkeley, Hume, in France, to Descartes, Mahler, Lance, and Contillac, and then to Leibniz and Kant in Germany, all experienced a nightmare of skepticism that lingered.
So, at this point, Kant sobered up and realized that their previous criticisms were not wrong, but rather that the criticisms of those before me were not strict, systematic, or rational enough. Kant had to come up with a way to say that it was not the principles that were wrong, but the operations that were wrong, and that I had to start over. This was Kant's initial starting point.
However, the development of Western thought over the past 200 years has been searching for something reliable, and in the end, it was actually searching for something unreliable. It is absolutely wrong to search for something reliable, and it can only be said that this is a rational thing.
I don't quite agree with saying that ancient people believed in gods because of their brains, whether it was culture or lack of evolution and progress. I think the ancients believed in myths and many metaphysical predictions of religion, not necessarily because they were naive, but rather because of their humility. The ancients knew that people were too confused in the face of the entire universe, and there were many things we didn't know. This is also because in modern times, people have become infinitely enlarged, while in ancient times, people were very small.
Not to mention anything else, when you look at Chinese landscape paintings, you need to look at someone with a magnifying glass. The same is true in ancient Western times. In the tragedy of ancient Greece, if you try all kinds of remedies, you cannot escape the control of fate over you. For example, Oedipus was a good person, intelligent, brave, just and upright. He knew that he had been destined by God for such a terrible fate and tried every means possible to avoid committing heinous crimes, but in the end, he could not escape.
These ancient Greeks, Chinese, and other Indians mostly proved that the ancients were humble. People nowadays think that there is nothing I cannot do. However, there is something that cannot be proven. He is a very rational person. If he were an ancient person, don't try to prove it. There are many things that cannot be proven. Now that people are no longer capable, he will think that no matter how difficult it is to prove, rationality can prove it. Starting from Descartes and Bacon, he has been trying to remove illusions and unreliable things. I want to be reliable and practical, so that I can rest assured that there is nothing that makes me doubt anymore.
But can it?
I can't. I want to speak a little longer. Later, Hegel passed away, and in the second half of the 19th century, Westerners discovered that problems were much more complex than they had imagined. Why were they so much more complex?
Actually, fundamentally speaking, those who were enlightened were too naive. The main home that humans dominate is not our rationality, but rather irrationality.
Many people say that mainlanders are very rational people, including myself. Years of old friends have said the same thing, but in fact, 70% of our daily behavior is thoughtless. For example, when you get home and say hello to your parents, or send a text message to them on the phone, it's not just a matter of rational thinking. If you don't, you might even go out to eat with friends, which is due to your enthusiasm. I'm going to eat here, or sometimes when I'm in a bad mood and arguing with others for no reason, not to mention that many of them are habitual behaviors.
Most of the time, people are largely governed by instinct. This theory originated from Nietzsche and Freud, let alone in the 20th century. Lacan and others inherited Nietzsche and Freud, and now it has become a consensus in the West. The theories of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche are widely recognized by Westerners as the three great prophets of modern thought, which is reasonable.
They say that Marx pointed out human behavior, the influence of society on him, his social status, his social relationships, his various positions in existence, and many influences on him. It is almost ridiculous to argue that humans are rational animals.
However, this does not mean that rationality can be excluded from our lives. That's what we'll talk about later. I'm just reminding us a little bit now. Although the edge of enlightenment was only gained by Westerners entering China, China is much more stubborn than Westerners. How many of us intellectuals would accept that humans are instinctive animals, and their main driving force is actually irrational rather than rational.
We still believe in institutional arrangements, top-level design, and the ability to build a beautiful home based on our own rationality. However, there are many problems and great responsibilities. You are the next generation. How is China? I still say it's in your hands. Can you go further than your own parents.
Because in fact, the political classes in our primary and secondary schools are all about this kind of thing, understanding the objective world, mastering objective laws, and being rational in doing things. We never thought that there were many other factors mixed in.
It's really strange that people think I'm looking for something reliable, but in the end, I can't find it. So, Kant's final idea is simple. Kant did not see how we know objects. What we know knows objects, in fact, is subject to our way of knowing and our cognitive behavior. How we know them is Kant's great contribution.
The people in the past were too naive and lacked the subjective factors we know, resulting in skepticism and anarchism.
