So, I hope everyone can make writing a top priority for our future studies. Don't treat writing as an additional job, don't think that our writing work is an extra task assigned to me by teachers, forcing me to write. I have to write, it's not like that.
If you don't know how to write, it can be said that you don't even know how to think. Because writing is the best way to test ideas, if you can't write them out, you basically don't know how to create logical ideas.
The above are some of our statements about course papers. In other words, I hope to remind everyone to pay more attention to writing papers through these explanations.
Let's go back to Kant. We have gone through several studies and readings, and we have gained an overview of Kant's philosophy. Especially, we have learned about Kant's philosophy, how he redefined the field of philosophy in his unique way, or in other words, redefined the field of rational activity, and expanded his philosophical discourse. Here, of course, we will raise many questions in the future, which are left for everyone to understand and think about.
I have a question, of course, about the starting point of Kant's philosophy.
What I just want to ask is, what are your feelings after we studied Kant, or what is the starting point of Kant's philosophy when you read Kant and teach Kant in our classroom? What is the purpose of Kantian philosophy?
Is it about the distinction between phenomena and the system of things, the distinction between intellect and reason, and the distinction between freedom and nature, including the distinction between theory and practice?
All these distinctions are actually very core and important in Kant's philosophy. Without these distinctions, it is difficult for us to understand Kant. It is an internal tension of its own development, that is to say, we do not know its driving force. It is based on these distinctions that his philosophy gradually unfolds.
However, there is a very important or core question that may not have been addressed, which is about the understanding of metaphysics. In fact, what is the core or most important philosophical starting point of Kantian philosophy?
To establish a metaphysical basis for his morality, that is, to seek a solid, indestructible, and even unquestionable foundation for human knowledge.
So, in this sense, the starting point of Kantian philosophy is to establish how knowledge can be built on a solid metaphysical foundation.
That is to say, how to truly establish human knowledge and oppose the dogmatism of traditional philosophy, which completely ignores human experiential activities and only considers all innate possibilities.
The result of such dogmatism is that our knowledge may be impacted by logic, as logic first questions all our understanding of the external world and whether it is valid, while also facing some questioning and challenges from experience.
On the other hand, when Kant's philosophy established the metaphysical foundation of its philosophy, or its knowledge system, it was also in response to the challenge of traditional skepticism, because skepticism is actually the greatest driving force for the development of Kant's philosophy.
If there is no answer to skepticism, if there is no attempt to solve the problem of skepticism, it can be said that Kantian philosophy does not need to re-establish its philosophical principles on the basis of Hume's philosophy. Therefore, the starting point of Kantian philosophy should be to provide a metaphysical foundation for his entire system of knowledge, or for human understanding.
The foundation of metaphysics, because it aims to establish the basis of such a knowledge building, requires a reorganization of traditional metaphysics first, which is why there is a process of rebuilding metaphysics. Reconstruction is actually to serve the composition of his entire philosophy.
So, in this sense, the ultimate or fundamental starting point of Kantian philosophy is to provide a metaphysical foundation for its own, and certainly for the knowledge of the entire human race.
What is his ultimate goal?
Its ultimate goal should be to provide a more solid metaphysical basis for the existence of humanity itself, which is the existence of humanity as a class.
Because this existence not only includes knowledge, that is, the content of cognitive activities, but also includes the content of human volitional activities, that is, the ability of desire and human emotional ability.
So, knowledge, emotion, and intention together constitute the core content of Kant's philosophy.
If we were to ask what constitutes Kantian philosophy, we can clearly tell everyone that Kantian philosophy is composed of these three parts. And in the composition of these three parts, if we talk about his philosophical natural or even logical deduction theory, it certainly starts from "knowledge", that is, from the discussion of knowledge itself.
But ultimately, what does it come down to?
It comes down to human 'emotions', which are the emotional abilities of humans. The emotional ability of humans determines their cognitive activities and, of course, their volitional activities. However, from the overall perspective of Kantian philosophy, "knowledge, emotion, and intention" cannot be neglected by any one of them, and together they constitute the entire content of Kantian philosophy.
So, although they have a logical order, their position in his philosophical system is not prioritized. In other words, we can understand Kant because we can grasp the fundamental idea that Kant's philosophy provides to the entire human race.
In this idea, Mr. Mou Zongsan grasped it very precisely. So, when interpreting Kant, Mou Zongsan grasped the method of "knowledge and emotion", which combines the three, and integrated it into our human reality and perception of the external world.
Because human perception of the external world actually includes three different aspects of informed consent. Our human activities, although we can logically distinguish between the three aspects of knowledge and intention, cannot be distinguished in real human activities. So, the distinction is entirely logical, not practical.
The distinction between these three is purely a logical requirement, not a practical one.
So, we need to pay special attention to this point. For Kant, although his ideas have undergone a historical and evolutionary process, he ultimately discovered that all our statements about human beings are based on knowledge, driven by intention, and aimed at emotion.
Based on knowledge, it is the activity of understanding, which serves as the starting point for our overall consideration of human cognitive abilities;
And taking intention as the driving force is based on the human demand for free will, that is, the demand for human desires, which constitutes the internal driving force of human activities;
And taking emotions as the ultimate goal is to examine the subjective and objective reflections of the external world that a comprehensive person, that is, a practical person, should possess.
So, this constitutes the core of Kant's philosophy, which is the unity of knowledge, intention, and consciousness.
Mr. Mou Zongsan's understanding of Kant's philosophy is basically based on Kant's "knowledge and emotion".
When we look back at Kant's philosophy today, we will find that Kant's philosophy provides us with not only a philosophy, but also a unique way of thinking about how humans face the world, or a way of thinking.
These ways of thinking directly influenced the development of philosophy after him.
So, for over 200 years, Kant's philosophy has had a far greater impact on the philosophy of future generations than we can imagine.
Why is it beyond our imagination?
It is human thinking that has been completely bound by Kantian philosophy, and we basically live under the shadow of Kantian philosophy.
Whether it is Marx or our philosophy today, they are basically under the Kantian way of thinking. This kind of thinking has been continuously strengthened by philosophers who came after Kant. There are several important representatives in German classical philosophy, namely Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
It can be said that these ideas have been deeply influenced by Kant. Without Kant, there would be no German classical philosophy, and without Kant, there would be no later Marx.
So, the importance of Kantian philosophy in the history of philosophy cannot be overemphasized today.
Of course, the emergence of this influence has also led to a direct consequence, which is a reflection on human rationality itself.
There are only two types of reflection on human rationality itself, one is reflection on human rational ability.
The so-called ability of human rationality can be manifested in two aspects, one is the theoretical aspect. We examine to what extent such ability can be obtained from a theoretical perspective.
The second aspect is at the practical level, which means we need to examine how such abilities are applied in practice. Therefore, this is an examination of the so-called ability of rationality.
Another aspect is the examination of the form of rationality. So, regarding the examination of rational forms, it involves how we view rationality, that is, how to give rationality a form of expression in the way we can know.
Therefore, in this sense, the rational form actually contains a contradiction in itself. Because when we discuss rational forms, we are simply using reason to grasp them. Therefore, grasping rational forms becomes a paradox of reason itself.
