Hegel: The Insurmountable System

 　　In today's academic world, in a wave of theoretical upsurge, Hegel's name seems to be somewhat forgotten, but in fact, Hegel has always been everywhere. Foucault, a famous contemporary French thinker, asserted in 1970: "We have been struggling to get rid of Hegel's influence for a whole century." No matter whether we accept it or resist it, Hegel's influence is difficult to escape.

　　Hegel, the pinnacle of German classical speculative philosophy, is actually far more complex than people usually imagine. In the contemporary American critic Wellek's "History of Modern Literary Criticism", Hegel is classified as the "Romantic Age". In the preface to Hegel's "Early Theological Writings" co-translated by Knox and Kronner, Kronner pointed out: "Hegel was the greatest romanticist and an irrationalist, and therefore he was an irrationalist. , because he is the master of dialectics, and dialectics is rational - irrational things." In Kronner's eyes, Hegel is also the founder of existentialism. Hegel's system seems to be all-encompassing and ubiquitous, integrating everything rational and irrational, realistic and romantic.

　　Hegel was a thinker who established a huge theoretical system. The establishment of any system must include two aspects: the builder of the system and the system itself. If the system is comprehensive, systematic and all-encompassing, then the system builder must also be included in it, so the system builder must only be a part or one aspect of the system. Due to the limitations of the system builder, This system must also be flawed and incomplete; if the builder of the system is omnipotent, omnipotent, and all-encompassing, then the builder of the system itself is the system, so the construction of the system is meaningless . In this sense, Hegel's system is not without its problems. However, since the Hegelian system is complete and can be consistent to the end, it is obviously necessary to train us in the ability to construct the system structure, the ability of logical thinking, the ability of scientific expression and so on.

　　Hegel begins his "Biography of Jesus" by stating: "The pure reason that breaks all limits is God Himself. Therefore the plan of the world is generally made according to reason. The function of reason is to make man know the mission of his life. and unconditional purpose. It is true that reason is often obscured, but it is never completely extinguished, and even in the obscurity the faint gleam of reason remains." Hegel used reason to plan the world, instead of " Tao", in place of God.

　　In this way, the source of the world is no longer "Tao" or God, but the absolute spirit. Everything in the world is a product of the Absolute Spirit. The absolute spirit can also be called the absolute idea. "The truth of all things exists only in the Idea, for the Idea is the only real reality." "Hegel called God the Idea, meaning the underlying universe, the timeless timeless possibility of all evolution. Totality. Spirit or mind is the realization of the Idea." "Without the Idea, the finite world cannot exist, it is not independent: it has no real existence without God: whatever truth it has, depends on God. As in In the human mind, thoughts and feelings cannot exhaust the mind, natural phenomena appear and disappear, nor can they exhaust the divine spirit.” (Tilly, “History of Western Philosophy”, translated by Glee, Commercial Press, 1995 edition, pp. 510, 512 Page)

　　The contradictory movement of ideas is divided into three stages: the logical stage (i.e. logic, which is the study of existence, essence, and concepts), the natural stage (i.e. natural philosophy, which is about mechanical, physical, organic The study of this state, its research disciplines are mechanics, physics, organic science), spiritual stage (from organic plants and animals to human beings, which enters the spiritual stage). The spiritual stage includes subjective spirit, objective spirit and absolute spirit.

　　Subjective spirit is personal consciousness. Its related research includes anthropology, mental phenomenology, and psychology. In Hegel's view, the subjective spirit as individual consciousness is inherent and limited, so it must be transformed into an objective spirit. Objective spirit is social consciousness. Related research includes philosophy of law and philosophy of history. Although the objective spirit as social consciousness has overcome the immanence of the subjective spirit, it is still limited due to its external dependence. To overcome the limitation completely, it must enter the absolute spirit. The absolute spirit and the absolute idea are one and the same. Subjective spirit and objective spirit have a history of occurrence, development and transition, while absolute spirit leads to eternity. The absolute spirit completely overcomes the one-sidedness, realizes the unity of the subjective spirit and the objective spirit, and finally develops into the absolute spirit.

　　According to Hegel, the Absolute Idea knows itself through three forms: art, religion, and philosophy. The Absolute Idea knows itself in the form of intuition (Anschauung) in art, in the form of representation (vorstellung) in religion, and in the form of concept (Begriff) in philosophy. But art is only the perceptual and intuitive understanding of the absolute idea of ​​itself. Religion is the awe and admiration of the absolute idea. Only philosophy can recognize itself in the form that is most suitable for the absolute idea. Philosophy is the culmination of the development of the Absolute Idea.

　　"Thought" Thought "thought" is philosophy: Thought devoutly imagines its inner essence, it is religion; Thought intuitions its essence in freedom, that is, thought manifests through feeling, is art. In this way, the basic proposition of Hegel's philosophy of art is: "Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas." Hegel starts from the basic concept that beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas, and according to the change and development of the relationship between rational content and perceptual form, That is, the form of expression overrides the content of the idea, the form of expression matches the content of the idea, and the content of the idea overrides the form of expression, which distinguishes three different types of art: symbolic art, classical art and romantic art. In the process of the development of art types, the content of art will eventually overwhelm the form, leaving the latter, so that art will no longer be art, and the development of art types will inevitably lead to a more pure philosophy. In Hegel's words, "art denies itself and shows that consciousness needs to find a higher form than art to grasp the truth". "A thought necessarily arises from another thought, and a thought provokes a contradictory thought, which combines with this contradictory thought to form another thought. The dialectical movement is the logical self-expansion of thought." Perfect art finally denies itself and goes towards religion and philosophy.

　　Hegel's ubiquitous and all-encompassing system is also reflected in that famous quote we often quote: "Everything that exists is rational: everything that is rational exists." In short, "Being is Reasonable, reasonable is existence." According to investigation, this sentence first comes from Hegel's "Principles of Legal Philosophy" (preface, p. 11), the original German text is: Was Vern—unftig ist das jst wi rklich; und was wieklich ist , das ist ve rnunftig (English translation: What is rational is actual and what is rational). This sentence is later found in Hegel's "Little Logic". However, is everything that exists reasonable? Do we still see few unreasonable existences in the world? Does everything reasonable already exist? How many reasonable things and causes have we seen being strangled in the cradle! If there is, why is there still so many unreasonable evils and malpractices in our society today? If the existence is reasonable, there is no need to criticize and reflect on many horrific crimes and evil deeds. We may have misunderstood this sentence of Hegel, or translated it wrongly. However, the system that Hegel tried to contain must also contain the content of denying this system, and this point may be explained only by dialectics. not enough. In my opinion, Hegel's sentence seems to be expressed as: "Whatever exists is not necessarily reasonable; whatever is reasonable does not necessarily exist." Or "Whatever exists has its own reason; Possibly." But this is probably not what Hegel meant.

　　If any system is too strict and precise, it will suffocate people; and a system full of loopholes is simply not enough to be a system. Hegel is a master of constructing systems, but the challenges and doubts he faces today are more intense than ever, because today is an era of deconstructing systems. Deconstruction has become fashionable, while constructing systems is often considered unimaginable. Hegel constructed a grand system for us to deconstruct, but from now on, no one may be able to construct a system beyond the Hegelian system. In comparison, deconstruction is much easier than construction. Whether it is building a sand table or building blocks, it is always easy to tear down.