Explanation of philosophical concepts: transcendental self

Kant summarized the views of European rationalism and British empiricism on the issue of self-awareness since Protagoras and Socrates in ancient Greece, especially after Descartes. discussion, clearly placing human issues at the forefront of philosophy, and conducting in-depth, systematic, and fruitful research on human issues from a variety of fields,

thus forming His unique theory of transcendental self-awareness created the philosophical tradition of German classical philosophy's study of human beings. Strictly speaking, in the history of Western philosophy, the discussion of the issue of self-awareness only truly became a doctrine or theory with Kant. Kant's theory of transcendental self-awareness is like a shining pearl

It not only reflects the essence of the sage's thought, but also enlightens future generations on the development of ideas.

It has epoch-making significance in the history of the development of Western philosophy.

First of all, it answers Hume’s question about the universal necessity of knowledge from a certain perspective. Starting from a thorough empiricist stance, Humo insisted that "everything beyond perception is unknowable" and used the "microscope of ideas" to verify whether knowledge has universal inevitability. He believes that experience can only expand knowledge but cannot guarantee its universal inevitability. Empirical induction has no logical necessity. Causal inference is questionable. Traditional natural science knowledge even Knowledge of mathematics and geometry is questionable. Hume's skepticism shook the foundation of traditional scientific knowledge and awakened Kant from the "dream of dogmatism". Kant's theory of transcendental self-awareness manifests itself as theoretical rationality in cognitive activities through

transcendental self-awareness, and transforms transcendental self-consciousness into perceptuality through experience

The cognitive ability of experience increases at three levels: intelligence and rationality. At the same time, pure intuitive forms, intellectual categories, and rational ideas are produced in three stages at the same time, and they are used to make transcendental and empirical opinions.

The synthesis of science and technology "legislates for nature", thus solving not only the problem of how to expand knowledge, but also the problem of why knowledge has universal inevitability. Therefore, Kant's theory of transcendental self-awareness answers Hume's question about knowledge from a certain perspective and solves the "Hume problem" that has long troubled the philosophical world, thereby laying the foundation for science. /p>

Established a solid philosophical foundation.

Secondly, Kant's theory of transcendental self-awareness shows the ultimate concern of his philosophical thought, pointing out for the first time

the eternal ideal of human pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. The transcendental self expressed in Kant's theory of transcendental self-awareness is a complete self that is organically unified with truth, goodness and beauty. Transcendental self-awareness plays different roles in different fields: in the cognitive field of human and nature, transcendental self-awareness sets up the unknowable thing-in-itself.

On the one hand, this thing-in-itself includes the material part, which stimulates the subject of experience and ultimately constitutes the material in knowledge

, becoming the ultimate explanation for the source of perceptual materials; on the other hand, On the other hand, the thing-in-itself also includes the spiritual part of transcendental self-consciousness itself, which produces the innate factors as forms in knowledge. The transcendental subject uses these innate formal elements to synthesize material factors to legislate nature, and for this legislated nature (Kant calls it the phenomenal world) , what human beings want to understand is exactly what they have put in before. Therefore, they can obtain "true" understanding, which is the pursuit of "truth". At the same time, transcendental self-awareness becomes

the ultimate explanation for the existence of the empirical subject. The combination of the two shows concern for the ultimate explanation and ultimate existence of the entire universe (including the subject of experience

man).

In the field of moral practice, transcendental self-awareness, in the form of the transcendental subject of good

good will, formulates a priori moral law to guide the empirical subject in accordance with the transcendental moral law

Continuously implement moral behaviors in order to achieve absolute good, that is, "the highest good", which realizes "goodness" and shows concern for the ultimate value of human beings. In the field of aesthetic activities, the transcendental self Consciousness uses the transcendental ability of reflective judgment to reflect on the relationship between man and nature. On the premise of thoroughly based on the transcendental moral law, moral human behavior

When freedom is consistent with the objective purpose of nature, the opposition between man and nature disappears completely. On the one hand, man transcends nature, and on the other hand, he transcends the form of experience itself, which reaches the highest level.

At the same time, the goodness and the most complete freedom produce the true sense of beauty and pursue beauty. Therefore, Kant's transcendental self-awareness uses the universally beautiful self as a bridge. Connect the cognitive self with the practical self to form a complete and unified self-consciousness of truth, goodness and beauty. In the development history of Western philosophy before Kant, although

The thoughts of every philosopher have expressed the ultimate concern for man and nature in different ways, from different angles, and to varying degrees. However, it was only with Kant that for the first time It clearly points out what is,

and how to achieve the eternal ideal of human pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, and for the first time comprehensively demonstrates the ultimate concern of his thought

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Finally, Kant’s theory of transcendental self-awareness, as the core of his philosophy, exalts human rationality, highlights human subject agency, and elevates human subject status. International Haig. Professor Henry Hill, Chairman of the German Federation, once pointed out, "The core of Kant's philosophy is his demonstration of various forms of cognition based on the state and form of self-consciousness. "The key reason why Kant's philosophical thought system gives the world a refreshing feeling is that he set the "Copernican" revolutionary tone of "the object of his critical philosophy must be based on knowledge",

And this tone is expressed through his main theme of "how is innate comprehensive judgment

possible" which is based on transcendental self-awareness. It can be said that in Kant's philosophy, without transcendental self-consciousness, there is no a priori comprehensive judgment; without a priori comprehensive judgment, there is no brand-new theory of knowledge. At the same time, there is no prior knowledge. Kant's ethics and aesthetics, which are also full of "Copernican" revolutionary significance, would not exist without transcendental self-consciousness. Kant used transcendental self-consciousness as the solid foundation for his ideological system. In the process of constructing the edifice of the ideological system, the universal rationality of human beings is exalted in the form of transcendental self-awareness, which prominently embodies the cognitive and moral practice fields of human beings. , the subjective initiative in the aesthetic field, thereby elevating the subjective status of human beings in the universe relative to nature. In Kant's thought, humans are no longer controlled by nature.

People who are dominated by God and are passive everywhere, but transcend nature and themselves, get rid of all external constraints, obtain the final liberation, are completely free, and pursue truth, goodness and beauty. Because of this, Kant's philosophical thought with transcendental self-awareness as its core is considered to be the French version of German thought. Political revolution, it became the forerunner of ideological enlightenment in German society at that time

Although Kant's theory of transcendental self-consciousness has such great significance, it still has its history<. /p>

We need to correctly understand the limitations of it.

First, transcendental self-awareness cannot be equated with the subject.

Kant pointed out that transcendental self-consciousness is a simple formal subject and logical setting. He used transcendental self-consciousness to refer to human beings' universal rationality, and even to refer to the entire human being. And experiential self-awareness refers to the subject of experience, that is, the individual. In its entire ideological system, it is the transcendental self-consciousness that carries out cognitive activities, formulates transcendental moral laws, and implements reflective judgments. That is to say, in Kant's view, transcendental self-will is essentially equivalent to the subject. But we

we believe, and Kant has clearly pointed out that transcendental self-consciousness is essentially a pure thinking activity,

this thinking activity belongs to the subject. The relationship between transcendental self-awareness and the subject is the relationship between the subject's attributes or abilities and the subject, and it is the relationship between expression and being expressed. Although the various activities of transcendental self-awareness reflect the role and status of the subject to a great extent, strictly speaking, transcendental self-awareness is not equivalent to the subject. There is a difference between the two.

Second, Kant’s theory of transcendental self-awareness reverses the positions of subjectivity and objectivity in the process of cognition. Kant's thought, especially the theory of knowledge, is based on transcendental self-consciousness as the ultimate basis and highest condition. He believes that

the pure form of perceptual intuition, intellectual categories and rational ideas are all generated a priori from transcendental self-consciousness, and

logically exist before knowledge and experience. Transcendental self-awareness, through the function of transcendental synthesis and empirical synthesis, enables the nature he calls the phenomenal world to be established. Everything in nature is marked by human subjectivity,

This is quite similar to what Marx called "humanized nature". But in essence, the outside world exists objectively and is not subject to anyone's subjective will. Nature has its own inherent regularities. Only when humans correctly understand this objective condition can they implement scientific and reasonable active transformation and utilization, so as to

It is only then that human subjective imprint is put on the primitive nature. It is in this sense that Marx proposed the concept of "humanized nature". Kant tried to make "the object conform to knowledge" and make the objective conform to the subjective. Although it is a brand-new attempt to explore the subjective factors in the cognitive process, fundamentally speaking, this is a reversal of the subject.

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The objective position is putting the cart before the horse.

Thirdly, Kant’s transcendental self-awareness exaggerates the subjective initiative of human beings and does not really solve the basic philosophical problem of the opposition between matter and

consciousness. In Kant's natural world, the material factors, that is, the perceptual manifold, are presented in a certain way by the thing itself

This is a valuable material component in his epistemology. However, in the process of natural formation, he over exaggerated the subjective initiative of human beings reflected in transcendental self-awareness. Transcendental self-awareness

Produce innate knowledge forms to regulate the perceptual complexity, thereby legislating for the entire natural world. Kant's putting the cart before the horse on the subject

objective relationship made the nature he established to a large extent a subjective world of phenomena.

Contemporary German philosopher Steiger Mueller pointed out that Kant's "the so-called 'real world' - the only thing we are familiar with and can meaningfully talk about" , The empirically real world - in terms of its fundamental nature

, is the composition of our own (space-time) intuitive ability and understanding." In this regard,

In the "Critique of Pure Reason", Kant openly called his own epistemological thought "formal idealism" or "transcendental idealism" in order to distinguish it from Descartes' "empirical idealism". "ism" is also distinguished from Berkeley's "material idealism" or "mysterious fantasy idealism". Kant said: "Because my idealism does not involve the existence of things..., because I have never doubted it in my mind, but It is simply about the perceptual representation of things.”

We believe that Kant's defense is feeble, because the objective reality of natural laws is a barrier that humans always face. Human beings can only recognize and utilize it but cannot Absolutely changing, it is impossible for humans to legislate nature in substance. Kant exaggerated the subjective initiative of man, legislating for nature in cognitive activities and legislating for man himself in moral practice. He only focused on man himself and ignored the existence of objective nature. This makes his theory always revolve in a subjective circle, making the unification of subjectivity and objectivity he tries to solve only a failure on the real issue of the unification of matter and consciousness.

Just a side ball. Kant did not completely solve the basic problems of philosophy. The eternal ideal of mankind's pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty represented by his ideological system is tantamount to building a building on the beach and does not have a stable foundation.

Fourth, Kant’s transcendental self-awareness theory discusses people’s abstract cognitive ability, and the subject it represents is abstract people. In order to overcome the "dogmatism" of rationalists and the "skepticism" of empiricists, Kant proposed that before understanding the world, we must critically examine people's cognitive ability in advance to determine the scope it reaches. /p>

Girth and boundaries. However, he broke away from practical activities and separated from specific cognitive objects and cognitive processes to examine cognitive abilities. This is an abstract investigation and a one-sided investigation. In this regard, Hegel once criticized,

This is like "thinking that you have known before you have acquired knowledge, or not to get into the water before you have learned to swim

Swimming. "Kant's requirement to examine cognitive abilities before seeking knowledge is indeed good, but he did not realize that examining the form of thinking is already a process. Therefore, we must combine the activities of thinking forms and the criticism of thinking forms in the process of understanding. This is just as Lenin said, "In order to learn to swim, you must dive into the water." We believe that cognitive ability is reflected in specific cognitive activities, and specific cognitive activities

Activities occur in the process of human labor practice. From the perspective of generative epistemology, “cognition originates from the interaction between subject and object. This interaction occurs halfway between subject and object, and therefore includes both It contains the subject and the object." This interaction between subject and object is labor practice, and practice produces

knowledge. In the process of practice, human beings advance from perceptual understanding of objects to rational understanding, forming various concepts, such as time, space, etc. These concepts are gradually solidified in the human brain and become a unique cognitive structure of human beings.

Human beings use these cognitive structures to re-understand and then guide further practice. This is a process that continues to move forward, but Kant isolated one fragment and regarded it as the entire process of cognition. This is why he regarded pure space-time forms and intellectual categories as arising from transcendental self-awareness, but was unable

to explain how they were produced, leading to the suspicion of "innate idealism." Since Kant examines an abstract cognitive ability, the subject embodied by this abstract cognitive ability is an abstract person, not a person in practical activities. specific person in.