哲學與時代文化背景

Philosophy and the Background of Times and Culture

黃振華(Huang Chen-hua)

《中國學人》 1期 (1970/03) Pp. 15-27+ap1

https://doi.org/10.30187/CS.197003_(1).0003

並列摘要

Philosophy, says Kant in the chapter ＂Transcendental Methodology＂ in his Critique of Pure Reason, differs from history of philosophy inasmuch as the former is a productive knowledge and the latter an imitative one. Kant dose not clarify what he means by productive knowledge, but we might infer from what he says that it is a knowledge that deals with the common spirit of human beings. And this common spirit, in the present writer's opinion, is the urge to realize the moral ideal. But the moral ideal is infinite, and the idea of realizing it therefore must also be infinite; in other words, however hard man pursues it, he can never fully attain it in his life. The moral ideas of different backgrounds of times and culture distinguish themselves from one another. This we may explain in the following stages: 1. When the primitive religious belief of a people declines, the people will demand, in place of the belief, a moral idea as the highest purpose of life. In China, this we can see in the succeeding periods of Spring and Autumn (春秋) and the Warring States (戰國) when Confucius arose and proffered the idea of ＂Jen＂ (仁). On this as a basis the ancient Chinese created the first period of Chinese culture. 2. When the accepted moral idea in its turn goes into decline, the people will demand a new one. This we can also see in China in the dynasties of Wei and Tsin (魏晋) when Buddhism took roots in the country with the idea of ＂Nirvana.＂On this idea as a basis the Chinese developed the second period of their culture. 3. When no adequate moral idea can be found, the culture of a people will degenerate rapidly. This can be seen, for example, in the culture of ancient Greece. Both Socrates and Plato tried to create a moral idea for their time but failed, and after the death of Aristotle Greek culture collapsed very rapidly. The moral idea is just the idea of culture. The Chinese have created in their history two. Let us hope that they create another idea and a third flowering period of culture.