How do we understand political philosophy? (Wang Li)

Wang Li, an associate researcher at the Institute of Political Science, China Academy of Social Sciences, has received more and more attention in recent years, with a substantial increase in specialized research and translation, and a substantial increase in the scale and number of academic conferences on political philosophy, especially favored by a group of young people. The academic echelon is obviously enriched, showing a thriving scene. This situation, on the one hand, depends on the in-depth study of western learning, and gradually changes from a follower who follows the trend to a conscious study with clear problem orientation. On the other hand, it also depends on the continuous development of economy and society, making it a general trend to build a rational platform to discuss public affairs based on political philosophy. How to grasp the pulse of history and explain, motivate and promote reality with the vision and knowledge of political philosophy has become a new topic. Therefore, political philosophy must have a very clear understanding of the situation and tasks. Internally, political philosophy urgently needs to carry out various forms of dialogue and exchanges. There are still many different views on what is political philosophy. Some people say that political philosophy is a philosophical analysis of political affairs, and uses philosophical methods, especially contemporary analytical philosophy, to analyze political issues. Some people say that political philosophy is the political defense of philosophy. There seems to be a natural disharmony between philosophy and politics, and philosophy should find a way to survive in how to avoid political persecution. Some people say that political philosophy is a constant search for some basic problems of heaven and human nature, because it is related to power and must be political, because it is related to fundamentals and must be philosophical, so it is a marriage of politics and philosophy. Some people say that political philosophy is an interdisciplinary research, which has the characteristics of both politics and philosophy and is interdisciplinary in nature. Wait a minute. These different viewpoints are supported by some different theoretical resources. Some of them are based on contemporary British and American political philosophy, such as liberalism, communitarianism and cultural pluralism. Some of them are supported by conservatives, such as Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and hannah arendt. Some of them are based on the Cambridge School and attach importance to Polk, Skinner, Duane and others. With the help of different theoretical resources, it is not controversial to show different positions, whether they are radical or conservative, free or authoritative, fair or efficient. Therefore, the more in-depth and extensive the study of political philosophy, the more rational arrogance of "talking to yourself" and the artificial barrier of "no common goal, no common goal" appear. In fact, it will be of great benefit to the overall development of political philosophy if different research methods and positions can look at the problem with a more open mind and a broader vision. Although their methods and positions are different, their concerns are similar. After all, they all work under the banner of political philosophy, and there must be * * * common concerns about some basic issues related to public values and universal order, so it is possible to find similarities. If political philosophy is a "political" philosophy, then whether the starting point is thinkers, special problems or specific concepts, it must be carried out around an order, because human beings must establish an order in order to live a certain form of group life. This order is a shelf structure, the surface is economic-social order, the middle is political-legal order, and the highest is spiritual order, that is, soul politics. This kind of order is a kind of historical experience, which is reflected in the * * * same sexual life of a ethnic group, as well as the standards and abilities to build and maintain the * * * same sexual life. This order consists of values, systems and subjects, among which there are core values that provide development direction and maintain harmony with life, institutional systems that fully embody core values, and subjects that can undertake values, operate systems and guard order. Political philosophy is a theoretical explanation and concrete demonstration of the values, systems and subjects that constitute the order, an explanation of the interrelation and internal logic of economic and social order, political and legal order and spiritual order, and an intellectual effort to explore the reality of order as an order and how to realize the rationality of a beautiful order. Taking order as the theme and the concrete development and performance of order as the channel, we can unify all kinds of research approaches of political philosophy, conduct full communication and consultation at an appropriate level, and political philosophy will certainly be promoted as a whole. Externally, political philosophy faces the problem of the relationship between theory and practice. This kind of questioning is aimed at all humanities and social sciences, especially political philosophy. As far as political philosophy is concerned, the question is whether political philosophy, as a highly practical discipline, can truly realize the unity of theory and practice in the process of theorizing doubts and doubts. This requires internalizing the external questioning about the relationship between theory and practice, because this is the proper meaning in the title of Politics-Philosophy, that is, to explore the possibility of ideal order and understand the inevitability of realistic order. In this sense, the focus of political philosophy is to realize the unity of two processes, one is to demonstrate that "all realistic things are rational" and the other is to demonstrate that "all rational things will be realized". The former is the so-called rationalization process or rationality process, while the latter is the so-called realization process or possibility process. Rationalization takes the realistic order as the starting point and takes the road of sympathy and understanding. At this time, the political philosophy respected Spinoza's teaching, neither laughing nor crying nor cursing, but understanding. Understanding the rationality of realistic existence is the reason for understanding order as order. Some of these reasons are natural, some are blood, some are traditional, some are karma, some are irrational, some are faith, and so on. It is important to find the interrelation and internal logic of these reasons, as well as the general reasons, or formal reasons and purpose reasons that contain these reasons. This is not to demonstrate the legitimacy of injustice or the inevitability of evil, nor to confirm the false and ugly truth and the necessity of violence, but to examine the possibility and impossibility, inevitability and contingency of reality as an order with a broad mind, the perspective of nature as a whole and criticism beyond understanding, instead of denying, cursing and abandoning it at the beginning, which will lose reality and have no power, but the weakness contained in the empty and pale theory, which cannot be rationalized at all. Reality is based on the ideal order, and it is a prudent way to implement it. The political philosophy at this time praised Locke's caution. He knew the substantial changes Machiavelli had brought to modern politics, and also knew that the radicalism of Fellmer and Harrington would bring danger. Instead, he hid his thoughts under the wise Hooke's exposition and skillfully grafted various traditions together, laying the foundation for showing a new political power structure with a new ideology without affecting the continuation of the ancient British political tradition. Realization requires prudence, insight and deliberation, as well as the ability to act and practical wisdom to realize the ideal, while being extremely wary of adventure and recklessness, and beware of various forms of extremes and dogmas. Consciousness needs to find power that can be directly or indirectly appealed to. This power may exist in the logical relationship between economic-social order, political-legal order and spiritual order, or in the realistic relationship between core values, institutional system and subject. The key to the problem is to find real strength and act resolutely and decisively. The unity of reason and reality is the unity of theory and practice, that is, the unity of ideal and reality. Political philosophy, as a common topic, naturally constitutes a common topic of rationalization and realism, and it is inevitably embodied as a compound expression, that is, idealism based on reality and realism with ideals. Political philosophy is proved by this compound expression: everything in reality is rational and everything in reason can be realized. Therefore, through efforts to internalize external doubts, the unity of theory and practice in political philosophy is not only a theoretical work, but also a historical inquiry. This kind of history is an abstract history, a effective history in which rationalization and realism are unified, an order history that runs through core values, institutional systems and subjects, and a realistic history that contains and activates forces and finds various conditions and capabilities for rationalization and realism. Therefore, the inevitable result of solving theoretical and practical problems is that political philosophy must internalize history. Internal differences and external doubts reveal a tendency of current political philosophy: exposing and criticizing reality and asking questions; With the help of western learning, demand change. Political philosophy has learned various theories from the west, used these theories to judge reality, found many problems and put forward its own countermeasures. The differences of various schools and positions in the so-called political philosophy mainly focus on different understandings of the nature of these issues and different judgments on the priorities of various issues; The so-called practical questioning of political philosophy is basically questioning whether the various prescriptions provided in the name of political philosophy are the symptoms of China's reality. If we only focus on exposing and criticizing problems, it is not enough to understand the rationality and inevitability of the real order, and it is impossible to understand the true nature of these problems and their status in all affairs. If we only ask for change and ignore what can and cannot be changed, we will easily fall into the quagmire of change for the sake of change, or hang in suspense with unrealistic and unattainable goals, and even become the theoretical mobilization of radical revolution. "Problems and changes" will turn political philosophy into "dark kingdom", which will further aggravate estrangement, powerlessness and anxiety. In this case, political philosophy must get rid of the stereotype of "problem and change", face up to reality with a healthy mentality and rational spirit, recognize the situation clearly, clarify the task, and turn to "understanding and construction". If the solution to internal differences is to unify the attention to order and the way to respond to external questions is to internalize history, then linking these two arguments constitutes the real theme of political philosophy, that is, "order and history." The central task of political philosophy is to understand order and its history and build a better life. The so-called order is simply the meaning texture formed by the construction and continuation of an ethnic group's identity, which can be manifested as polis, empire, city, kingdom, dynasty, nation-state and so on. The reason for order is that there are ruling and being ruled, protection and obedience, authority and freedom, unified will and personal preference; There is diplomacy, negotiation and war outside. The history of order can be the internal inheritance of the same order or the alternation of different orders. For us, it is mainly to study the history of two orders. One is the western order and its history, and the other is the Chinese order and its history. The so-called understanding is to put aside subjective attitude and understand the internal mechanism and free logic of order development as it is. The work of understanding mainly includes three points: reduction, reference and activation. Reduction is to put yourself in the position of thinking about the conditions and elements that constitute order; Reference is to put these conditions and elements in the similarities and differences between the historical chain and the Chinese and western order; Activation is the thinking of activating Chinese order with the experience and problems of thinking about western order. Political philosophy has a holistic view because it is committed to "order and history". It wants to explore the essence of human existence in society and history and the principle of universal order. By activating some traditional theoretical resources, it emphasizes that the discussion of order and history must integrate empirical, historical, philosophical and even religious studies, and that values, political systems, practical subjects and other levels can cut into the body of order, thoroughly understand the principle of meaningful world, and grasp the advantages and disadvantages of history to life. Political philosophy pays great attention to the order and history of order as a historical existence, especially the "invariability" and "change" of order and its history. Constant is constant, constant is constant, constant is continuous. Change is development, change, creation and fracture. Reflected in an order, it depends on which factors are constants and which factors are variables. For example, if there is order, there must be authority, then authority is a constant, and the formation of authority is variable, because of election, election or revolution. Order needs authority, which cannot be changed. What changes is the source of authority and the means to maintain it. Reflected in the history of order, it depends on what is continuous and what is broken. This is reflected in different views of constancy. For example, the view that "the sky remains the same, the road remains the same", the view that "Chinese style serves the west" is the same, and the view of Mao Zedong and Huang Yanpei about the "cave-cave pair" of democracy in Yan 'an period is also the same. The unchangeable viewpoint in the history of western political thought is embodied in the debate between Plato and Aristotle. Plato believes that ideal politics can be based on the transformation of human nature, so he did not hesitate to push forward the plan of "new people" and "new life" through three waves. Aristotle, on the other hand, thinks that "private" cannot be realized, and "public" does not have to be realized. Therefore, there are static and dynamic regimes, the diagnosis and treatment of regime diseases, and the mixture of the real regime and the ideal regime, which is the so-called * * * harmonious system and the golden mean. Whether human nature can be changed or not, and whether the best regime can be based on the change of human nature or committed to transforming human nature is the focus of debate between them. Plato has an ideal country and a philosopher king, while Aristotle has a theory of regime improvement based on understanding. Another example is the relationship between the constitution and the people in modern politics. The emergence of the people is tantamount to a revolution. How to bring people into the constitutional framework, street politics and ethnic conflicts into the track of system and rule of law, and transform abnormal politics into normal politics has become an important topic in modern politics. In a word, the concept of constant change required by order and history must firmly grasp the most important elements and conditions that constitute order and explore the comprehensive balance between ideal and reality, necessity and choice, nature and man-made, variability and invariance. In modern China, the political philosophy with the theme of "order and history" mainly has four specific tasks. First, turning the West into China is a matter of position. Political philosophy is still a kind of western learning on a large scale, which has continued the way of learning from the west for a hundred years, but the situation is very different. The present study is a study with clear self-confidence and full consciousness, a study that goes deep into western civilization in order to solve the China problem, and a process of constantly internalizing the West and constructing our own subjectivity. The main task of political philosophy is to understand the order and its history, especially the western order and its history. Only by truly grasping the logic, problems and power of the western order can we activate our understanding of our own order, which has become the natural premise of self-understanding. Otherwise, it is not enough to know our ancient times and our reality. In this process, the most important thing to be wary of is two tendencies, one is dogma and the other is extremes. Dogma and extremes are both problems when western theories are applied to reality, or they think that what they have learned is the real classic, or they think that reality should be framed by theory. Both of them are prone to radical revolutionary consequences, westernizing the reality of China instead of China's theory of westernization. How to overcome dogma, avoid extremes, stand firm, take Chinese order as the highest knowledge, and constantly promote the China of political philosophy will become the primary problem in theory and practice. Second, turning anxiety into worry is a matter of mentality. Anxiety is a typical feature of modernity and a representative of modernity: the talent of intellectuals. Intellectuals are better at anxiety than other classes and people, and they have more reason to be anxious, because it is said that intellectuals are famous for reflection, especially self-reflection. However, the result of reflection is not rational health, but emotional depression and fear. In short, it is the stubborn disease of "worry" because of constant "worry". In the view of political philosophy, anxiety points out the unreliability of modern intellectuals more seriously than any other situation. This is not to cancel the right of intellectuals to be anxious, but to question the reasons for their anxiety. Practitioners of political philosophy, whether from politics, philosophy or any angle, must always be alert to themselves, constantly struggle with anxiety, overcome the inferiority and weakness of intellectuals, and abandon them from serious political thinking and healthy rational activities. On the contrary, political philosophy should vigorously advocate the sense of hardship, which is a pure scholar-bureaucrat feeling. It advocates "worrying about the world first, and enjoying the world later" and advocates "devoting limited life to serving the people indefinitely". Political philosophy seeks meaning in order and history, puts individual mind in the grand world of meaning, and connects feelings of home and country with the whole world, not with their own interests or the gains and losses of a few people. Thirdly, it is a matter of method to turn experience into theory. Political philosophy faces three experiences: historical experience, practical experience and ideological experience. Historical experience embodies the concrete development of order as a historical existence. Order has symbols, representative mechanisms and key events, which are all forms of experience of order in history. Practical experience refers to the concrete practice in the environment where political philosophy is located. Ideological experience is the nature and theme of political philosophy. Faced with these three experiences, political philosophy has a theoretical work. For historical experience, focusing on order and history, political philosophy must extract and promote the principle of order from various manifestations of order, and then draw the principle of universal order by investigating various orders and their history. For practical experience, political philosophy should be rationalized or rationalized, and raised to the theoretical level to defend or criticize it. For ideological experience, political philosophy should achieve a universal and effective understanding by studying and promoting specific people and things. Therefore, constantly upgrading experience to theory is a consistent method of political philosophy, especially suitable for the relationship with reality, which is also the basis for internalizing the relationship between theory and practice. Its purpose is to reveal the concrete expression and realistic content of changing ideas in history, practice and thought through continuous improvement actions and summary and reflection on improvement, and to construct a public reason that can embody the spirit of the times and absorb various reflection theories. Fourthly, turning theory into virtue is a matter of self-cultivation. The practice of political philosophy is the realistic process of ideal politics, and the most direct and remarkable achievement of this process is to transform the knowledge of political philosophy into the virtue of political philosophy practitioners. If you want to convince people, you must convince yourself first. First convince yourself that the theory must be thorough and consistent. Political philosophy does not deceive itself with rational honesty, nor does it want to fool the public with noble lies. What political philosophy wants to change most is the people who are engaged in the research and teaching of political philosophy, that is, the speakers and teachers. Perhaps there is an insurmountable gap between understanding order and its history and exploring a better life, but practitioners of political philosophy are bound to realize the meaning of life in a leap. Perhaps all that comes from experience is rational illusion, but political philosophy can still keep rationality clear enough and the necessary path for practice. Perhaps, after all, it was defeated in the confrontation with anxiety and modernity, but political philosophy can still be declared noble because it touches the order in the depths of the soul. Political philosophy can't guarantee success, but it can promise dignity, especially the universal way to understand "the change of heaven and man, the change of ancient and modern times". For speakers and teachers, it may be the greatest comfort to be able to work out the way to change together? These four tasks have their own meanings and responsibilities, which roughly outline the tasks and functions of current political philosophy. In a word, political philosophy is a science of guarding and protecting people and Chinese order. Political philosophy is the study of anxiety, anxiety, home and country; Political philosophy is an advanced knowledge, which is based on reality; Political philosophy is a knowledge of cultivation, and the cultivated people are benevolent, courteous and wise. In short, political philosophy should explore what is Chinese order and how to be a qualified defender.