Philosophy

Generalization and summary of scientific knowledge across natural sciences, social sciences and the sciences of thinking, a theoretical and systematic world outlook, a theoretical system that grasps the world in its totality. The word philosophy goes back to the Greek word φιλοσοφία / philosophía, which means “love of wisdom”. It was translated as “tetsugaku” (哲学) by the modern Japanese scholar Nishi Amane, and later spread to China.

Philosophy arose from long social practice. Chinese philosophy, Western philosophy and Indian philosophy are the three major traditional philosophies in the world. Formed in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the traditional Chinese philosophy has gone through important stages such as the pre-Qin Learning of the Masters (zixue), the Learning of the Classics (jingxue) during the Han Dynasty, the Learning of the Dark (xuanxue) during the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Buddhist Learning (foxue) during the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Learning of Principles (lixue) during the Song and Ming dynasties, giving rise to three major schools of philosophy: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, namely Confucian philosophy represented by the philosophy of Confucius and Mencius, Taoist philosophy with the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi as its chief hallmark, and the Sinicized Buddhist philosophy. The unique spiritual traditions of Chinese philosophy, such as the holistic conception of nature of “oneness of heaven and man”, the thinking path of the unity of truth and value, the practical spirit of the oneness of knowledge and action, the dialectical tradition of the mutual generation of yin and yang, the humanistic spirit of “putting people first”, and the idea of harmony that takes harmony and peace as the most valuable had a far-reaching influence on the Chinese civilization. Western philosophy originated from ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, the science for the investigation of the causes behind things and phenomena was called philosophy and had the nature of a confluence of ancient Western philosophical knowledge. Its representatives were Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. European medieval philosophy was scholastic philosophy combined with religion. The modern Western philosophy since the European Renaissance mainly included the continental rational philosophy, the British empirical philosophy, the French enlightenment philosophy and the classical German philosophy. The classical German philosopher Hegel established a dialectical philosophy system with objective idealism as its basic feature, which became the philosophical height of that period. The anthropological materialism of the German philosopher Feuerbach broke through the Hegelian idealist system. In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels achieved a revolutionary change in the development of philosophy and founded dialectical and historical materialism.

The basic question of philosophy is that concerning the relation of thinking and being. On the basis of his summary of the development of the history of philosophy, Engels pointed out: “The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.” Due to the different answers to the question of which is primary, thinking or being, matter or consciousness, two basic schools have been formed in philosophy: materialism and idealism. Whoever claims that matter is original, primary and that consciousness is secondary belongs to the materialist camp; whoever asserts that spirit, consciousness is original, primary and matter is secondary, belongs to the idealism camp. This is the sole criterion for dividing the basic schools of philosophy. The history of philosophical development is permeated by the contradictions between materialism and idealism, and between dialectics and metaphysics. This contradictory movement compels materialist philosophy and idealist philosophy to constantly develop their content and change their form.

The emergence of Marxist philosophy was a great transformation in the history of philosophy. Marxist philosophy was founded by Marx and Engels on the basis of participating in revolutionary practice, inheriting the achievements of human science and culture and critically assimilating the “rational kernel” of the Hegelian dialectics and the “fundamental kernel” of Feuerbachian materialism. By proclaiming the end of all old philosophy, it has developed human philosophical thought to a completely new stage and opened up a new path of development for philosophy. Based on the scientific conception of practice, it has achieved a revolution in philosophy in terms of object, content and method, and has answered the question concerning the relation between thinking and being, and between man and world; it has overcome the state of separation of materialism and dialectics in the old philosophy, and achieved the unity of the idea of materialism and the idea of dialectics; it carried through materialism in the theoretical sphere of the history of society, and became a consistent materialism. Since the birth of Marxist philosophy 170 years ago, it has continued to develop along with the development of social practice. The history of the development of philosophy, the history of scientific development, as well as the history of social development prove that Marxist philosophy is a scientific philosophical formation.

Philosophy is a world outlook as well as a methodology. The world outlook mainly solves the problem of “what is” the world, while the methodology mainly solves the problem of “what is to be done”. The guidance by philosophy to know the world and change the world means that philosophy becomes a methodology. Dialectical and historical materialism are the world outlook and methodology of Marxist philosophy. Philosophy is a system of knowledge as well as a social ideology, and belongs to the superstructure. It reflects the economic foundation of a certain society and serves the economic foundation. In class society, philosophy has class nature, philosophies of different nature and characteristics reflect the interests of different classes and their social and political demands, and serve the interests of a certain class. Marxist philosophy is a philosophy in which science and class nature are highly unified.