Since modern times, due to the comprehensive and profound influence of empirical science in human spiritual world and daily life, scientific rationality characterized by logical deduction and verifiability of experience has gradually risen to a new rational standard above all else. [1] The strong spread of scientific rationality in the humanities field not only contributed to the disintegration of the "sentient world view" and the dissolution of the ultimate value, [2] but also brought unprecedented impact to traditional metaphysics. Hume was the first to attack metaphysics. Hume denied the reliability of the concepts of "entity" and "God" in classical metaphysics by investigating the nature and category of knowledge and based on empirical and logical analysis. Hume's skepticism awakened Kant from the dream of dogmatism, which directly contributed to Kant's reflection and criticism of reason. Kant eloquently proved that traditional metaphysics, which aims at transcending the entity, can not be established as a science through a profound analysis of "how is it possible to make a comprehensive innate judgment". After Hume and Kant, Comte, the founder of positivism, believes that metaphysics replaces empirical research on the world with speculative fiction, which is the product of immature human spirit. In order to maintain the authority of empirical science, he clearly put forward the slogan of "rejecting metaphysics" and became the initiator of the "identity crisis" of western philosophy in the19th century. [3] Since then, metaphysics has encountered various forms of heckling: for example, Nietzsche declared that "God is dead"; [4] Analytical Philosophy With the help of logical analysis of language, Heidegger revealed the forgetting of "being", and they each criticized traditional metaphysics from different angles. In the late 20th century, with the emergence of "post-metaphysical era", [5] more and more people demanded to get out of the speculative fiction of traditional metaphysics, and metaphysics seems to be further regarded as a historical phenomenon that has ended or should end. Faced with this situation, it is necessary for us to ask: What is metaphysics? Is there only one form of metaphysics? What kind of metaphysics is rejected by scientific reason? In the post-metaphysical era, can metaphysics still make a difference in the face of various challenges from scientific rationality and life world?
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From "rejecting metaphysics" of positivism to "the debate between science and metaphysics" in China's ideological circle in the 20th century, and now to the so-called "post-metaphysical era", although metaphysics has repeatedly become the central topic of philosophy, it seems that the academic circles are far from reaching a consensus on this core philosophical category. Anti-metaphysics is one of the themes of philosophy in the past hundred years, but metaphysics has not died out because of it. In fact, Kant and Heidegger, two masters of anti-metaphysics, both constructed their own metaphysics in fact after destroying traditional metaphysics. This meaningful fact has long shown that metaphysics, as the core and soul of philosophy, cannot really die out, which also means that metaphysics is not only one form. The author thinks that if ontology is regarded as the main manifestation of metaphysics, there are roughly three forms of metaphysics in the development process: category ontology, universe ontology and meaning ontology. In the 1 century, Androni Coos of Rhodes compiled Aristotle's papers, lectures and notes on "existence", "ontology" and "entity" in different periods into a book, which was named "Ta meta ta phusika" after metaphysical works, which was later. Because these manuscripts mainly talk about "the first philosophy", the word "metaphysics", which originally belonged to compilation technology, has been inherited to refer to philosophy related to ontology. [6] Yan Fu, a famous translator in China, encountered the word metaphysics when translating A Study of Mill's Name during 1900- 1902. In view of the transcendental and speculative nature of this subject, he translated it into Chinese with reference to "the metaphysical refers to the Tao, and the metaphysical refers to the device" in the book of Changes. It means that metaphysics transcends all kinds of sciences that study specific things. Since then, the word metaphysics has been kept and used in Chinese.
In Aristotle's view, metaphysics, namely "the first philosophy", is regarded as a science about being is being and all kinds of "attributes" of existence: "There is a science (the first philosophy or metaphysics-introduction) that specializes in" being "itself and those attributes that" being "has through its own nature. [8] In the context, we find that Aristotle's so-called "being" ("being" or "being") does not refer to some objective entity, but refers to the "being" that exists as a category in language, and accurately refers to the most basic concept that can be applied to all disciplines and objects. In Aristotle's view, although all beings are related to "you", "you" itself is not an entity, but the same attribute of all entities, that is, the imagination and speech of all beings must involve and apply to the most basic category of "you": "We can" own "something in many senses. All "you" are related to a central point. This central point is something, called' you', without any ambiguity. " [9] It is precisely because all concrete beings are associated with the purest category of "existence" that we can say something is "being", and even "non-existence" says it is "non-existence". [10] This shows that "being" or "being" here is mainly put forward at the level of language, and metaphysics taking this as the object mainly discusses not the concrete existence beyond words, or another existence different from concrete existence (such as "being as a whole" or "being as a general existence"), but what all objects must use to think, study, speak and refer to. Accordingly, the "attribute" of "existence" does not refer to the objective attribute as an entity, but refers to other basic categories of "existence", such as species, genus, whole, part, integrity and singleness. [1 1] From here, it is not difficult to understand why Aristotle's study of "entity" often depends on the discussion of grammatical sentences: whether a thing is an entity or an ontology depends on whether it can only be the subject of a judgment sentence, but not the predicate. It is for this reason that, in Aristotle's view, metaphysics is often difficult to separate from grammar, logic and category. This means that what metaphysics involves in Aristotle is mainly how we think and express "the world", not as the source of the objective "the world"-although Aristotle also discussed the theology of the first cause in the First Philosophy, these discussions can only be correctly understood from the perspective of language category.
Aristotle's metaphysics (the first philosophy) is usually called "ontology" in the history of western philosophy, [12] means "ontology". The word comes from the Greek words "logos" (theory) and "ont" (existence). "ont" is what Aristotle called "being", so the word "ontology" can usually be translated as "being" or "being". As a general theory of being, ontology has become the core and soul of metaphysics. Therefore, in western philosophy, ontology is often used to refer to the whole metaphysics. Although the word "ontology" appeared very late, most western scholars believe that the study of "existence" began as early as parmenides, and Aristotle's first philosophy can be regarded as a further development of ontology. No matter parmenides or Aristotle, their ontological research has gone beyond the limitations of perceptual things and rose to the abstract language level. Its content is mainly about the logical structure of human thinking, that is, the discussion of pure category and logical form. In this sense, ontology can be regarded as the study of pure principles of human reason. It is in view of this characteristic of ontology that Peter Strawson said in Analysis and Metaphysics: "The universal thought about the close relationship between logic and ontology or metaphysics is like inextricably linked, which runs through the whole history of philosophy from Aristotle to the present." [14] It is not difficult to see that this understanding of ontology and metaphysics is more in line with Aristotle's original intention of metaphysics.
However, the author thinks that from the overall development of ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics actually has two forms or ways, which we can call category ontology (also called logical ontology or transcendental ontology) and cosmology ontology (or root theory).
"Category ontology" focuses on the pure part of human reason, such as the logical nature of thinking and language, which is later called transcendental principle by Kant, and often manifests itself as a logical deduction system of a certain conceptual category. Category ontology seems to imply such logic: the world is the world in language and thinking, and thinking and existence have the same or similar structure in essence-the stipulation of thinking itself is always used to think and express existence in the final analysis. In other words, existence is defined by category and logic. Therefore, the stipulation of thinking can also be regarded as the stipulation of existence in a sense. Therefore, in category ontology, the exploration of thinking itself-pure category and innate principle replaces the questioning of real existence. The "noumenon" in this kind of noumenon is actually the noumenon in the world of language and thinking, which is obviously far from the original or fundamental body literally understood by China people.
Different from category ontology, universe ontology focuses on the universe as a whole (encyclopedia), trying to find an original entity or substance that everything has to rely on and eventually return to, and trying to describe the characteristics of this entity or substance and its evolution process and principle. Universe ontology is actually a picture of the emergence, development and evolution of the universe provided by imagination or fiction on the basis of empirical simulation. Natural philosophers in ancient Greece attributed the origin of the world to elements such as water, fire, gas or atoms, and explained the emergence and development of Vientiane in the world with the movement and change of these elements. These theories are typical representatives in this respect, just like China's theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements. 〔 15〕
Comparatively speaking, unlike the universe ontology, which focuses on the original entity or matter and its evolution, category ontology focuses on the pure logical explanation and explanation of the world, which is actually the excavation of the internal structure of human spirit. Aristotle was an early representative of this. From the historical process of the development of ancient Greek philosophy, Aristotle completely turned the study of ontology from "universe ontology" to "category ontology", thus freeing metaphysics from the shackles of sensibility and moving from imagination and fiction to a certain sense of science. In fact, Aristotle's real interest lies not in the substantive description of the highest ontology, but in the discussion of pure reason. Being, as the core category of metaphysics, has been stripped of all perceptual concrete connotations and sublimated into a purely abstract logical category. Even the "four causes theory" is a purely logical explanation and explanation of the origin of all things in the universe at the level of language and thinking. It is for this reason that Aristotle brought the basic categories of existence, wholeness, parts, identity, difference, species and genus into the scope of metaphysical research. [16] This clearly shows Aristotle's ontological logic or categorization trend.
From the development of western philosophy, since the ancient Greek school of Miletus, the ontology of the universe has gradually evolved into the exploration of transcendental objects, such as the ontology behind the soul, the world, God and phenomena, trying to discover the first cause, the ultimate goal and the highest law of the world. However, with the rise of modern empirical science, this ontology gradually faded out of the mainstream of ontology after being criticized and rejected by Hume, Kant, positivism and analytical philosophy, and its research objects were divided and replaced by natural sciences, such as cosmology, biological evolution, astrophysics and biochemistry. In contrast, the category ontology, which focuses on the exploration of categories and transcendental principles, has made great progress in the history of western philosophy and formed a long and profound tradition: Descartes, a modern rationalist, tried to construct metaphysics as a science that is absolutely self-evident and qualified to be the fundamental basis or highest principle of all knowledge; Among modern philosophers, Peter Strawson's descriptive metaphysics tries to reveal our actual thinking structure through the analysis of language use, while Husserl's phenomenology tries to overcome the "basic crisis" of natural science through the description of "intentional structure" ... These efforts have followed and deepened the tradition of category ontology to varying degrees and tried to develop category ontology into a strict science.
What needs to be emphasized is that in this respect, Kant's conception and construction of scientific metaphysics is of typical significance. Kant distinguished two kinds of metaphysics: "general metaphysics" and "metaphysics as science". The former refers to the traditional metaphysics with the transcendental nature of soul, world and God as the object, while the latter refers to the metaphysics with the innate principle of pure reason as the object of inquiry. After Kant denied the former in the cognitive sense, he tried to construct the latter by criticizing pure reason. In fact, his three "criticisms" can be regarded as revealing and expounding the innate principles in the cognitive, moral and aesthetic fields of human spiritual world. These revelations and expositions have outlined a macroscopic outline for scientific metaphysics, and laid a foundation for the final establishment of this metaphysics in terms of objectives, directions and methods. It can be seen that although Kant has repeatedly stated that his criticism is only an introduction to scientific metaphysics, from the overall intention of Kant's critical philosophy, it is nothing more than modesty. In this sense, Kant's philosophy is actually mainly around metaphysics. His three "criticisms" are not so much the elimination of metaphysics as the transformation and reconstruction of metaphysics. Kant's scientific metaphysics, whose main content is the innate principles in the field of human spirit, can be regarded as the deepening and development of category ontology in a sense. 〔 17〕
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After the universe ontology is deconstructed by scientific reason and the category ontology is transformed into science, we can't help asking: Has metaphysics come to an end? However, it is not difficult for us to find that there is actually a question that needs to be answered first: Is there only the above two forms of metaphysics? The author thinks that besides category ontology and universe ontology, there is another form of metaphysics: meaning ontology.
"Meaning" itself can have many meanings, such as cognition, evaluation (such as morality, aesthetics) and language analysis. On the cognitive level, meaning is manifested in grasping the reality; On the evaluation level, meaning is related to the setting of what should be; On the linguistic level, logical positivists interpret the meanings of words and propositions as corresponding "signified" (things, events or facts, etc.). ), and determine the corresponding meaning standard according to the category of the proposition. The "meaning" in the so-called "meaning ontology" is mainly about the meaning of existence, that is, the ultimate solution of life value. Different from the former two, the ontology of meaning originates from the confusion, reflection and questioning of the meaning of life. It focuses on human existence itself, focusing on the exploration and construction of the source of meaning and value. The soul ontology in China's traditional Confucianism and Heidegger's existential metaphysics in modern western philosophy are typical ontology of meaning. As far as the former is concerned, what individuals gain through dedication, intellectuality and knowledge of heaven is not knowledge about the world, but practical wisdom about how to exist. The mind carries not the existence in the natural sense, but the value and meaning of life. As far as the latter is concerned, the difference between this existence and other existence is that it is not a ready-made existence in any sense and has no predetermined essence, but a existence that can always make a difference to its own existence. "Here" not only constructs itself through its own worries, toil, comprehension, words, determination, plans and actions, but also constructs and opens the "world around" and "* * *" in the world. This shows that "this is" ontology is actually a kind of meaning ontology. It shows us that after "God retires", people as individuals must shoulder their own existence. Historically, the ontology of meaning is often intertwined with the ontology of the universe, which presents a rather complicated form: Confucianism regards the heart as the source of meaning and value, but at the same time understands the heart as the internalization of heaven; The Christian God is not only the source of the meaning of life, but also the creator of nature. Since the debate between science and metaphysics, the "metaphysics" understood by modern philosophers in China mostly involves not only the meaning of existence, but also the ontology of the universe. The metaphysics constructed by Xiong Shili and Feng Youlan has both meaning ontology and universe ontology. However, the above entanglement cannot fundamentally hinder our macro division of the three ontologies. From the point of view of the problem, although the universe ontology, category ontology and meaning ontology are all transcendental questions about the life of the universe, their respective questions are different: the universe ontology should answer "What is the world?" The answer of category ontology is "How do people think and speak about this world?" The answer of meaning ontology is "Why do people exist?" That is, trying to answer the question of the value and meaning of life from the ultimate level, so as to obtain the sustenance of the meaning of life and the settlement of life. If both universe ontology and category ontology have epistemological tendency in essence (the former tries to grasp the ultimate truth of the whole world, while the latter explores the deep structure of human spirit), then meaning ontology has distinct practical character and existence characteristics, and is essentially a kind of life knowledge with the inherent requirement of knowing and doing, which needs the philosopher's own personality to carry. It should be pointed out that for a long time, the academic circles in China generally believe that metaphysics includes cosmology and ontology in content. The former focuses on the discussion of the occurrence, development and evolution of the universe, while the latter focuses on finding the basis of existence. From the above description, we can easily see that this kind of understanding obviously lacks the original meaning of parmenides's and Aristotle's ontology: the discussion of the logical nature existing in language and thinking (the "yes" theory). In this paper, metaphysics is generally divided into category ontology, universe ontology and meaning ontology, which is intended to cover the multiple connotations of the word ontology in Chinese and western philosophy. This paper holds that the core of philosophy is metaphysics, and the core of metaphysics is ontology. In fact, as far as the main content of metaphysics is concerned, the sketch of the generation and evolution of the world is often based on the discussion of the origin of the world. In a sense, logic can naturally be regarded as ontology in the field of thinking, and the ultimate questioning of the meaning of existence can be regarded as the exploration of the ontology of meaning. In this regard, if it is not limited to the original meaning of the word "ontology" in western philosophy, but in Chinese, the three forms of metaphysics can actually be regarded as theories about "ontology" and "origin", then it may be summarized and solved by "ontology".
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Habermas, a contemporary German philosopher, believes that after Kant, human beings entered the post-metaphysical era. In the post-metaphysical era, philosophy must give up looking for wholeness, encyclopedia and transcendental ontology as the source of the meaning of "this world". According to Hargreaves, the life history of individuals and the lifestyle between subjects are isomorphic to form a life world (that is, the real world where we live and live). As a pre-reflective and background existence, the life world is the natural source of all problems and the premise of our thoughts and actions. The holistic, complete or transcendental ontology questioned by traditional metaphysics is essentially a transcendental illusion produced by objectification and materialization of the integrity of the life world, and it is a distortion of the integrity of the life world. In the post-metaphysical era, philosophy must fundamentally eliminate this transcendental illusion and give up its attempt to objectify the whole life world. However, in order to maintain the reflection and criticism of the life world and overcome the division between value fields (such as science, morality and art). ) and the tension between daily life and expert culture, philosophy needs to keep in touch with wholeness in a new way (however, this wholeness is the real wholeness that the life world is not objectified). [18] It is not difficult to see that Habermas's life world here has already had some ontological significance. In other words, Hartman turned the life world itself into a new ontology in a sense while rejecting the fictional transcendental ontology. There seems to be a premise behind Hargreaves' insistence on returning to the life world, that is, the life world is the only healthy and real world. But we have reason to ask: since the life world is a healthy world without "treatment", why should we constantly reflect and criticize it? Logically speaking, any reflection and criticism implies the confirmation of some kind of prior value, and it is this prior value that constitutes the starting point of reflection and criticism. In this sense, how can we reflect and criticize the world without the meaning ontology containing the value ideal? From a deeper perspective, in the post-metaphysical era of "spiritual retreat" and ontological disintegration, how to curb the increasingly superficial and flat trend of social life, how to avoid the sense of nothingness and absurdity brought by "rootlessness", how to prevent the materialization and degradation of life, how to restore the solemnity and sacredness of life, and how to maintain the awe of existence itself ... all these problems seem to depend on the reconstruction of meaning ontology.
Weber believes that the spread of scientific rationality makes the universal value system fall apart, and the unified world becomes a "fragment of civilization". Under the pressure of experience and logic, there is no longer any universal and inevitable value ontology. [19] However, after deconstructing the existing value ontology, science cannot and refuses to explain the meaning of life at the same time. This shows that in the post-metaphysical era, although science can make people "clear-headed" (Marx Weber's language), it cannot provide meaning for life. The inability of science to meaning and value seems to leave room for free activity and creation for meaning ontology.
In fact, looking at the three forms of metaphysics, we can easily find that what really makes scientific rationality unacceptable is the universe ontology based on speculative fiction, and the category ontology has been transformed into science in a sense. Although the ontology of meaning has been attacked by positivism, analytical philosophy, Nietzsche, existentialism and deconstruction, the result of this attack is only the existence mode of the ontology of meaning. After destroying the traditional metaphysics centered on "existence", Heidegger pushed "existence" to the throne of meaning ontology; The disenchantment of the world outlook leads to the dissolution of the ultimate ontology. However, in the face of all kinds of value relativism, people can't stand the suffering of nothingness and absurdity brought by the rootlessness of existence. It is in this context that "practice", "life world", infinite "absence" (the bottomless abyss of existence) and modified. These facts show that the exploration and construction of meaning ontology is actually a reflection and questioning of human existence, which shows the depth of existence from one side and profoundly embodies the essence of human beings. It enlightens us that in the post-metaphysical era, the ontology of meaning can still be used as the existential style of metaphysics. In this regard, metaphysics has no end and will not end.