Kant is a tendency, but of course the tendency is very clear, to perfect oneself and promote the happiness of others. Two tendencies are clear, very clear, but what does it mean to improve oneself?
It's also very vague about what it means to promote the happiness of others. How can we gradually clarify, enrich, and support such clarity through our concrete efforts every day and every hour. Gaoming, he said how to do it specifically. He told us that there are tendencies and principles, and you don't have to go back and say that there are none. However, I'm sorry, how to do it specifically? Your actions determine a purpose, and that's how you actually determine your purpose through your actions.
Therefore, I think his statement reflects the unity of knowledge and reason. Indeed, Kant reached a new height and level towards the unity of knowledge and reason in his later period. Kant may later say, 'I don't need to dictate to you, but as every rational agent, you are certainly doing it yourselves.'. However, there are two directions, and I have repeatedly pointed them out to you. There is a direction to improve oneself and promote the happiness of others. How can there be no direction.
However, how to unfold and embody these directions depends on your character. People with high moral cultivation naturally do well, while those with low moral cultivation do slightly worse, which is related to their moral character. These are two things about their moral character.
One requirement is that the unity of knowledge and action is actually the unity of knowledge and reason. So, there is a misunderstanding about them, thinking that Mr. Kant seems too theoretical. No, he made it very clear that this is the core and not doing it is unethical. You only talk about it, but you forget about the action.
I have talked about the concept of virtue, and there are two things worth it. One is that virtue is a matter of free will. Suddenly, I decided to do it this way, which is a bit like Confucius said, 'I want to be kind and benevolent.' I suddenly felt like doing it this way.
So, Kant said that there is reasoning inside, but there is none. This is an act of will. Does Kant's moral philosophy have a concept of judgment?
There is no such thing as decisiveness. The concept of moral decisiveness was loudly and tirelessly proposed by philosophers in the 20th century, especially in the case of Sartre's self, what does freedom mean?
Freedom is self-determination, but Sartre is slightly lower than Kant. He thinks he transcends Kant. There is no rule about how you choose, but let me tell you, you are responsible for the consequences of any choice you make. However, you can choose how you choose, and freedom is reflected in the freedom of human self choice. However, his concept of self-discipline and self choice has endless consequences.
So, Kant did not have this, but he actually implied it here. If he were alive, he would be dissatisfied. I did not explicitly propose a decisive concept like Heidegger and Sartre, but here, I repeatedly emphasize free will and that virtue is a sudden act of free will. What does this mean?
So, inside, his meaning is there, but it hasn't been expanded, and his meaning is to see that it's a real moral issue. Because the concept of virtue is actually enlightening us that humans can have freedom of choice. So, relying solely on reasoning to solve problems inside requires a will above reasoning, which is what Confucius said, 'I desire benevolence to the utmost.'.
If you don't have such reasoning, you won't have such actions. Some people may even say, 'I understand the reasoning, but I can't do it.'. What is lacking is willpower, and Kant has two virtues. The first is to understand reason, and the second is to combine reason with action.
It determines whether a person has the determination first and whether they can do it second. What I'm talking about is that these are the two most important elements of Kant's core concept, which can be understood by ordinary people. Otherwise, it's just an empty sentence.
Next, we will talk about Kant's religious science and the most controversial aspect of Kant's philosophy towards religion.
Because on the one hand, many people believe that Kant includes Heine, who made it very clear that Kant's first critique was to chop off the big sword in God's head. This is a very exaggerated language used by a poet, and many people, including Napoleon, do believe that Kant, after he said it, was an atheistic philosophy. Moreover, among his contemporaries, many criticized him for grasping this point, saying that if he is an atheist, he doesn't want God.
However, on the other hand, we also know that Kant's life was a very devout person, and his family background was that of a devout godfather. How can we explain such a thing between the two?
Let's take a look at his religious philosophy. Kant was already very clear in his first critique that, firstly, we cannot have theoretical knowledge of God, it is not an object of our understanding, and we cannot even have knowledge of the existence of God.
This one was a spiritual atomic bomb at that time, because if you have studied medieval scholastic philosophy, you know that one of the main issues discussed is how to prove the existence and non existence of God. From the philosophy of the Church Fathers to the philosophy of experience, it is natural that God exists, but the problem is to prove how he exists and why God exists?
The premise is that he definitely exists, but when it comes to speaking, it is not a theoretical issue at all. We don't know whether God exists or not. This statement is equivalent to saying that there is no need to argue the problem, and it cannot be said. Many people interpret it this way, completely denying God, but speaking in a more covert manner.
The existence or non existence of God is unknown to us. In fact, it is God who does not exist. What does' unknowable 'mean? For a believer, existence is existence, and what does' non existence' mean.
And he also made it clear that I am doing this to leave a territory for faith.
However, his moral philosophy at least excludes any direct dependence of morality on religion, as it is also a very important principle in Western culture, which believes that morality relies on religion to support it, including during the Enlightenment when discussing whether Christianity is still necessary. Many Enlightenment activists believed that God was still needed.
Voltaire once said, 'Without God, we must create a God.' Why?
Voltaire said, "You cannot imagine that all people are intellectuals and philosophers like us. Most people are fools and women. He must make us understand that there is a God who punishes evil and promotes good, and the last conscience. Otherwise, people will have no scruples when doing evil.
You must be saying now that good people have good rewards and bad people need to be punished in order for society to be peaceful. Later, when we talked about the old Christianity, we established a new religion called natural religion. The first principle of natural religion is to have a God who punishes evil and promotes good. Because natural religion was not invented by France, but by a priest in England, it eliminated all other aspects of Christianity and was classified into four principles. The first principle, such as God punishing evil and promoting good, was believed for thousands of years that without it, morality would be empty words.
Therefore, in a long history in the West, including in ancient Greece, although not Christianity but polytheism, morality and religion are mutually supportive. Today, because morality is in a mess, many people also say that because we Chinese people have no religious tradition, they are less religious in terms of national character and have no religion in terms of culture.
Now, the religion in Buddhism is incorrect. Why is that?
Because according to the definition of Western religions, Buddhism does not meet the four main criteria. Mr. Ouyang Jian made this very clear in Zhangping City. There are still some people, such as Liang Shuming and other thinkers with profound Buddhist cultivation in modern China, who are wrong. They say that China is good because Buddhism is not a religion. We now firmly believe that Buddhism is a religion, even Confucianism is called a religion, because we need to follow the West in everything. And now it seems that those who advocate that Confucianism is Confucianism are more than those who originally advocated that it is not, but in fact it is not. The problem is not insignificant, it is an important issue. Mr. Ouyang Jian's article, "Selected Works of Ouyang Jian".
Inside, you can take a look at the book "On Buddhism as Not a Religion or Philosophy". It seems like the name is a bit verbose, but it's not just Ouyang Jian who said it that way. There are too many people who are very familiar with Chinese Buddhism, and of course, they know it's not at all. None of the four fundamental principles are in line with Western religious concepts, and they are contradictory. What is religion?
For example, Li Sheng once said that the emperor is the leader of the church, because according to Western religions, Christian churches need to have church organizations. The emperor is the leader of the church, and any prime minister is the Pope. If you are interested, you can follow him. In a long-term and particularly Western culture, religion and morality are interdependent, and Kant's philosophy of morality and religion seems to have little to do with these two, because Kant believed that morality depends on us as intelligent and rational beings, a person who enjoys a priori freedom, and we will have morality.
There is no need for a God to intimidate you. Kant actually put it this way, and because you are afraid of being punished by God, this is not even considered moral in Kant's view. At least Kant believes so. In his view, the thing that humans have naturally linked morality and religion for a long time does not exist. Therefore, he also finds it difficult to understand why you still have religious philosophy?
He does have a religious philosophy, let's take a look at what kind of ideology he really is.
If people's moral life in the broadest sense relies on being a citizen first, their ability as a citizen, and being a virtuous individual, then if this is a broad sense, they do not rely on them as individuals in both public and private aspects, and do not depend on whether they respect religious doctrines. For Kant, an atheist can become a moral person and a self disciplined subject. What role does religion play in our lives?
Kant must answer the question. A large part of the usefulness of morality for religion is answered from a perspective, as Voltaire understood it in this way.
