So, the existence of the world is just an externalized form of absolute spirit. There is no material existence in it, so there is no binary opposition in it. There is no binary opposition in it. He is a monist about the history of spiritual development.
But in this process of monism, you find that he has the shadow of dualism, he is not thorough, he is evasive and vague, talking about the relationship between thinking and existence. Because existence is a concept that we can all understand, but what does thinking mean here?
When we are able to see an object as detached from our cognitive activity and facing an object outside of our cognitive activity, we set ourselves an object, which means there is a binary existence.
So, when we grasp objects with absolute spirit, or when we see the existence of the world as an externalized form of absolute spirit, you will inevitably move towards the dualism of subject object opposition.
You inevitably have to deal with how to understand our absolute spirit, or thought activity, to grasp the concept of entities or objects, that is, how to reach consensus between these two?
Hegel proposed a way of grasping objects through the understanding of thought, and what he called objectivity itself refers to the things grasped by thought.
Therefore, if we consider the objectivity of understanding thought, according to Hegel's statement here, objectivity should refer to the fact that thought itself has active universality.
In other words, universality dictates objectivity. When an idea is universal, we are actually saying that the idea is objective. This objectivity is completely different from what we usually refer to as feelings or appearances. Because feelings and appearances are different depending on the subject, the appearances formed by each of us are different, but the thoughts formed are always the same.
For example, when we form an idea, it must refer to some idea that we can all understand together. He is not talking about Platonic opinions, the opinions given by Plato are the personal thoughts of each and every one of me. The idea given by Plato is the form that all of our things share, so it is also called a form.
It is a form shared by all things. Today, this is not the concept that Plato talked about. In the context given by Hegel today, this idea is a concept. Due to the fact that concepts themselves can constitute a universal knowledge for us, and can express the universality of ideas, such concepts must be objective.
So, in the final part of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, when he discusses the process from spirit to absolute spirit, he specifically talks about objective spirit, which is the spirit expressed through objective concepts. The objective spirit actually refers to the universality of concepts first and foremost.
The second characteristic is when we are able to understand the features of this idea. Thought itself is a process of reflection on things. I would like to emphasize here that in Hegelian philosophy, there are two concepts that are easily confused, but they are completely different from each other. One concept is called dialectics, and the other is called reflection.
Dialectics is a method of reflection, and reflection is a way for people to understand things. We can use this method to handle all our thinking activities, and we can use this method to solve the difficulties and problems we face.
However, reflecting on this approach is actually a way we use to deal with thoughts themselves. It is a way of thinking by treating thought as an object, and treating thought itself as an object is called reflection. It no longer regards the object as the object of reflection as the object of thought, but rather as the object of thought itself.
So, we often say that the general concept of philosophy provided by Hegelian philosophy is called reflection on thought, or the thought of thought.
So, we often say why most of our philosophers today, especially Chinese philosophers, have not completely shaken off the shadow of Hegelian philosophy, that is, our understanding of philosophy is basically based on reflective meaning. Rather than understanding philosophy in the sense of experience or purely practical reality.
Actually, this is not the case in philosophy from ancient Greece to modern times. German classical philosophy is not only the pinnacle of the development of Western philosophy, but at the same time, we can understand it as a special historical stage in the development process of Western philosophy.
The highest peak can be understood, why is it understood as a special historical stage?
It is precisely because of German classical philosophy that its concepts and methods of understanding philosophy are completely different from the entire Western philosophical tradition. Because the entire modern philosophy, from before classical German philosophy, has been based on the understanding of things as the starting point of philosophy. It was only through Hume that the object of philosophy was understood as ideas.
However, before that, the result of understanding things was almost always understood not as a concept, but as a way for things to exist. So, in the entire modern philosophy before Kant, why did they have such a situation where there was almost no professional philosopher.
But the absence of professional philosophers does not hinder the thinking of philosophers. Because modern universities were only established in the late 16th and 17th centuries, in other words, it was during that era that we were able to see professional researchers teaching and studying philosophy in universities. In the past, philosophers were basically people engaged in various experiential activities, and they were not just professional philosophers. Locke, Berkeley, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, you can randomly choose some philosophers, and none of them are specialized philosophers. What does specialization mean? He doesn't do anything else, only considers philosophical issues.
However, no philosopher is like this. In ancient times, it was even more so. Although we talk about Aristotle as an encyclopedic figure, he himself was a scientist. He was first and foremost a scientist, but after completing science, he felt that there was nothing else to do and considered things outside of science. He developed a metaphysics, but his main interest is not in metaphysics, but still in science today, which is the explanation of the mysteries of nature.
Today, we interpret it as a great philosopher who said that his philosophy is superior to science. This is our understanding of the relationship between science and philosophy today, interpreting it as a true philosophical science. This is our way of interpreting it today, but his main work at that time was still engaged in a questioning of nature and understanding of nature.
So, Bacon began by saying that we should read the great book of nature, where knowledge is power. This knowledge is about understanding the world, not about understanding ideas, but about studying the concepts themselves.
It was only from Kant that we were able to truly calm down. The path of science that we need to follow in the past has been blocked by illusions and fallacies. Therefore, a new path of science should be opened up, a new path of technology, which is to destroy all previous understandings of philosophy.
And rebuilding a new philosophical building is Kant's work, so it is called Copernicus' Revolution.
Copernicus' revolution was a shift in perspective, stating that we used to view the natural world as an object outside of our region, so humans revolve around it.
Kant said, 'No, from now on, all natural activities must revolve around the subject, because the earth revolves around the sun, and humans are the center of the universe. Therefore, everything must revolve around humans.'.
So, in this way, the entire philosophical way of thinking has been completely transformed.
The entire German classical philosophy initiated by Kant's philosophy is actually a special historical stage in the development of Western philosophy, which has brought philosophy after Hegel back to the modern philosophical tradition before it.
So, why is it called classic?
If you want to become a classic, it will no longer live in our world. It has already become a classic. If you want to tell Westerners that I am reading classic, it means that you are not talking to contemporary people at all. You are talking to ancient people.
In fact, in the 19th century, these things were very close to us, far closer than ancient Greece, at least many times closer than ancient Greece this year. However, why call these things in Germany classical instead of modern philosophy classical, and call modern philosophy Modern is contemporary, it is modern. And classical is the distant past, it's too far away from us, you can't even reach it. You can only see this thing, you can't touch it, you can't reach it.
So, you can only be offered by God to him, you cannot be a role model in our actual lives. It is impossible for anyone to do what he did, just like how we can learn from Lei Feng today. Lei Feng can do it because he lives in reality. However, if you learn from an ancient person, such as Kong Rong, you cannot see it, you do not know what it looks like.
Under this premise, if we understand Kang Hegelian philosophy, we will know that the reflection on philosophical reflection provided by Hegelian philosophy is precisely the feature that we use extensively in Chinese philosophy today.
This is the significance of Hegelian philosophy for contemporary times. That is to say, we realize how reflection becomes the nature of philosophy, which comes from Hegel.
