However, as Heidegger said, possibilities are finite, and infinite possibilities have no meaning. Anything can happen. Yu Qian said that Westerners like to paint nude, while Chinese people like to paint landscapes. Why? Because mountains and waters are easy to express, unlike nudity, you can freely draw things like plants, insects, and fish. Sometimes you can't understand what Zheng Banqiao or Ba Da's paintings depict in stone, and you have to wait for a while to see what he's drawing?
Easy to express, but nude painting, according to him, you cannot express too much. I later thought about it, you forgot a basic thing, this painting is of a woman, because philosophers often make such mistakes. In order to prove their point of view, they will cut off many facts. Of course, it will be easy for others to find something and say, how do you understand Picasso's painting? Because in fact, Western artists nowadays also change quickly there.
Exaggeration is also very free. I won't say anything about him, but we invite the same people. So, one of Wu University is not in Wu University now. The old man said that calling Confucius bloody is kung fu, and the Chinese people will focus on it because Confucius doesn't talk about concept definition. Socrates started to talk about concept definition. He didn't know that Confucius has different answers to different students.
He didn't know that it was all the brilliance of Confucius, and of course, people have rules, but rules are not the way Western concepts define them. The concept only has a rough scope, which changes with the changes in our practical survival. Its content can be infinitely scalable, but the core is stable.
This is a very special aspect of our Chinese thinking. Unfortunately, Chinese philosophy has now been colonized by Western philosophy, and the most dynamic aspect of this kind of Chinese philosophy has been completely forgotten. We are now deliberately pursuing to give that definition, but in the end, it is completely wrong.
Because they don't think of things that way, they need to find a source point, and everything is based on that source point. I am myself.
In 'I am myself', it cannot be understood as a formal and logical expression of pure identity, where A equals A. This is a normative thing. Some people are puzzled, isn't it just talking nonsense? Isn't this A equal to A.
Fichte believed that this is more fundamental than the level of identity, where A equals A. Why?
Fichte's explanation is that here is a conditional sentence, you must turn me into A. If A is set, then A=A.
Ordinary British and American people would say that this is not sophistry, isn't it just saying that A equals A again?
This doesn't give me anything to play with. Now if A is set, A is set. Of course it's different. The key lies in the conditional sentence. Isn't it equal to what you understand as A, which means that the same is set, that is, A is set. If he can still be set up, there is a turning point here, and the turning point is crucial. Where did the so-called norms come from?
this is it. A=A or set it, there is no such norm in it, it is a fact expressed, not a norm expressed.
Hitt is not making sophistry here, but rather asking where the set norms come from?
Fichte continued, saying that we can consider such an identity material, such an identity statement, as a license for reasoning. If so, then so be it. This is a reasoning, and by saying this, I am expressing a permission for reasoning, which is to give the actor the right to take a special action from a normative perspective.
All that is used here is not epistemology, but the set of practical philosophy. He gives actors the right to perform a special action called action reasoning from a normative perspective here.
I gave you the right to reason, and if A sets it up, you can proceed with the next step of reasoning. The first principle is like this. Once the first principle is established, 'there was a way in the beginning', or in other words, there was a God first, and then, gradually, it can be deduced later.
In fact, the true metaphysics or ultimate principle must be like this. There is a first one first, and then the day after tomorrow it will be born. In fact, in Fichte's opinion, why not have it born?
The old metaphysics regarded him as a fact, that there was God first, and then, of course, everything else was deduced from God. While we Chinese people are not clear about the concept of facts and norms, when preaching, some people can only say now, some people regard the Tao as a fact, and some thinkers, you see his obvious Tao has normative meaning in it, but because our ancients were indeed inferior to the Westerners in this respect, he did not know how to clearly distinguish between facts and norms, which will lead to many vague misunderstandings and confusion, which is inevitable and unavoidable in Chinese thought.
And here at Fichte's place, Western thought is already very clear. There is a fundamental fact in the tradition that reasoning is not based on basic facts. Whether it is through so-called generation or creation, this path is no longer feasible. Kant has actually cut off this path. Now let me make it clear to you that truth is not guaranteed by anyone, but by us. In fact, it is an absolute norm set by ourselves, but where does the absolute norm come from?
So, it's not hair growth, but reasoning. We actually started with Rosa's approach. I studied geometry, I first set a principle, and then I started pushing from the inside. Fichte must have been inspired by this approach, and he is not alone, nor is he among modern thinkers. Fichte must have been very clear that this is a reasoning.
Reasoning is a source norm, and starting from the norm, you can deduce other norms below, including many of our normative provisions on facts. He painstakingly said that A equals A, not a simple statement of fact, but a license for reasoning. You will feel that he is talking in a roundabout way. Why do you say it this way?
He had no choice but to understand his painstaking efforts here, and he had to understand the whole idea behind it, which was the original way of thinking. Of course, he wouldn't believe in what God created on the first day, the second day, and the third day, creating humans. Then, humans gave birth to the natural world and everything in human society. This is a so-called primitive old metaphysical theory of survival. It is untenable on the issue of truth.
It is untenable in matters of truth and morality, as both involve a normative issue and where it comes from. The Neo Confucianism believes that the order of the universe is the moral order, and as long as it does not understand the difference between normative and factual, your speech will be laughed at.
There is also a Fichte who has strongly hinted to us that this normative status cannot be found in nature. From the perspective of physics, A equals A, which actually means sending some kind of sound wave into the air. What is the significance?
It's just a sound, a sound wave, and from a purely physical perspective, it doesn't make sense. Only from a normative perspective does this make sense. We can give an example like this: when we sign a check in our daily lives, it is a normative action, not a physical action, not a finger and finger joint and arm muscle drawing on paper with a pen. This is not a normative action, because when this check is signed, it indicates that your property has been paid, or in short, you must pay a sum of money, which is a normative thing; And it is not a physical fact that others can accept your check, we have a standard setting in it.
If this check is genuine, a legal check, not a blank check, the person I receive must be able to cash it, there is no doubt about it. And make an assertion, he will definitely come tomorrow. This is not a fact, nor is it a sound wave sent into the air. It is actually a normative behavior.
There is also a discount sale available. When we sell at a discount or during a big sale, we communicate. This is not an act of physics. Why?
Does this involve many regulations for the market economy? Discount. Firstly, there is a discount here, and for us, our judgment of cheap and expensive is based on the price system, which is a standard because it is set by people. The examples given above are all examples of normative activities.
Why should I give an example?
We actually have a lot of behaviors in our daily lives that cannot be understood or described in a purely physical or naturalistic way. Although we generally think that I carried two bags, I am planning to go today, just like when we sometimes see on TV during the annual big sale in the United States, many people sleep in their sleeping bags in the morning and rush in. It seems like a physical behavior, a naturalistic behavior, and a normative behavior. Don't be fooled by him sometimes stepping on people, this is a normative behavior.
Why did Fichte say that?
Then he believes that the entire human world, including the natural world that interacts with us, must first and foremost be a normative system, otherwise it has no meaning for us humans. Of course, the concept of meaning did not begin to exist until Husserl's time, but meaning is normative and clear.
The fundamental difference between modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy is that things become, and from then on, the world is not a world of things, but a world of meaning. This is a fundamental turning point for us to understand the modern and contemporary Western philosophy that began at the end of the 19th century. Without understanding, Western philosophy cannot comprehend it now
Such a normative status must have been established. It's not like many things that have a natural status like before. Normative positioning must be established, not something that exists in the world. However, when we discover it, such normativity cannot be treated with the word 'discovery'. It's not discovery, it's called setting. Fechter likes to call it construction.
