Gaofeng 026 What is the substance

However, this presentation itself does not mean that it is simple or plain, and its value disappears. On the contrary, it is through his simple and naive analysis of thought that we have discovered some elements that can have a significant impact on later thought.

So, we often say that the simplest description contains the deepest truth, but in the most complex world, it may be explained in just one sentence.

We need to learn some dialectics of life. In simple materialism, can our statements about the existence of the world, the existence of matter, and so on really become a well founded or powerful argument as they claim.

How did Voltaire interpret matter?

For example, matter is extensible, voluminous, solid, gravitational, separable, and movable.

There are many concepts proposed here, and in this sentence, both volume and solidity can be observed and judged through physical properties.

However, the existence of gravity and separability cannot be obtained through observation, but through experimentation. In fact, such experiments are not empirical processes, but guided by a certain theory. For example, if there is gravity, it must be obtained through experiments in Newtonian mechanics. Without Newtonian mechanics, who would know the concept of "gravity"?

If there were no Newtonian mechanics, how could we consider things as having gravity? Your statement implies that you must be discussing this matter within the scope of Newtonian mechanics. So, having gravity and separability is not a simple experiment or observation, it must be the result of an experiment guided by theory.

Just like when Sally wants to throw a heavy object from that tower, he needs to see if the weight of the object is the same at the same acceleration, and what is the ratio between the weight and acceleration of different objects. He argues this question through an experiment guided by theory.

And 'movable' is the most troublesome, because it is neither observed nor experimental, but purely logical. The statement about something being movable is not visible through observation. When something is in motion, you say it is movable. This cannot be called a proof of something being movable, because the motion of things itself does not come from the way we see things moving, but from the inherent requirements and properties of things.

Whether something is movable or not, and whether it is driven by external forces, can be directly observed or even experimentally accomplished. However, whether something has mobility or not, it has an inherent mobility, that is, it has the characteristic of being able to move. If something does not have mobility, no matter how you push it, it will not move.

So, in ancient Greece, there was a philosopher named Zeno who said 'the flying arrow doesn't move'. You ask why the flying arrow doesn't move, and Zeno's argument already tells us very clearly that no matter how you analyze or argue, the 'flying arrow' is stationary. Because if we divide a moving space, we will find that the flying arrow in every space is stationary. Therefore, the fact that the flying arrow doesn't move is a counterexample to motion.

When something is in motion, it cannot be said that we see it in motion, and this does not constitute a philosophical understanding of motion.

So, there is a special way of understanding motion in philosophy, which is that we must be able to provide logical proof to prove that something is indeed in motion.

In ancient Greece, there were two contradictory sayings about movement: Zeno's "flying arrows do not move" and Heraclitus' "No man ever steps in the same river twice".

Both of these are statements about motion, and of course, what Heraclitus said leans more towards the flow of the concept of time rather than just about the motion of matter itself, but they both involve the concept of motion. Zeno's concept is anti movement, while Heraclitus emphasizes movement, but both demonstrate that in ancient Greek philosophy, they already had two different understandings of 'movement'.

So, in philosophy, discussing the concept of 'motion' itself is not a result of observation and experience. Therefore, we have been telling everyone that the way philosophy discusses it is different from our common sense statement.

So, after studying philosophy, the history of Chinese philosophy, the history of Western philosophy, Marxist philosophy, and so much philosophy, I have to ask you, what is philosophy?

You may also say, which philosophical school are you asking me about? What we want to tell you is that no matter which philosophy it is, as long as it has a common philosophical way of thinking, the purpose of studying philosophy is not to learn what philosophers in the history of philosophy have told us, nor to say that after mastering a lot of knowledge about philosophy, you graduate with a certificate and go home, doing whatever you need to do; But it is necessary to master the unique thinking methods of philosophy, and such a thinking method can help us solve various problems in the future with a philosophical perspective and approach.

It is different from ordinary people, common sense, and even experts. So, this can also be clearly understood regarding the particularity of philosophical thinking.

Regarding motion, Voltaire's statement about matter states that extensibility can be empirical as well as theoretical, it can be observational as well as logical and philosophical.

The term 'extensibility' actually refers to Aristotle's statement that matter has extensibility, extensibility has extensions, and everything has boundaries. If you say I can find something that has no boundaries, then we don't know what that thing is.

So, understanding boundaries constitutes a qualitative way of characterizing something. We mention volume and solidity, which can be observed through observation, while gravity and separability can only be achieved through experiments and theoretical experiments, and mobility is a philosophical discourse.

So, in this short sentence, the concepts it presents are an understanding of matter at different levels, because we can completely negate another concept through one of them. So, they are incompatible with each other, which you would not have imagined before we made such an analysis. These are full of contradictions.

You say that this is very normal. Volume, solidity, gravity, separability, and mobility are what things should have. Do you think that common sense tells us this, and experience tells us the same? Is there any doubt or contradiction about this?

We can clearly tell you that there is contradiction and conflict in the middle, and this contradiction and conflict do not lie in the contradictions and conflicts between their concepts themselves, but in the conflicts between the principles they are based on, that is, volume and solidity are based on experience, gravity and separability are based on observation experiments, and mobility is based on philosophical arguments.

The conflict between these three precisely reflects the naive materialism of France, which demonstrates the immaturity of its philosophical level when arguing for the objectivity and uniqueness of things.

Perhaps someone will immediately come forward and say, does your statement mean that materialism is very naive? Is idealism really smart? Or is it true that naive materialism is wrong, and only materialism like Feuerbach's or Marx's dialectical materialism is completely correct?

It should be noted that the way philosophy is discussed is different from our daily way of speaking.

For example, in our daily way of speaking, if someone's viewpoint is wrong and someone's viewpoint is right, we can also say that you are wrong. You can correct your mistake, and then you should accept my correct viewpoint, tell people what the correct viewpoint is, and then make them accept it, and then widely promote the correct viewpoint. This is the way of speaking we use in our daily lives.

And the way philosophy speaks, we usually don't say whether a theory is right or wrong in a formal and strict sense. So, we never say that materialism is correct, idealism is wrong, or conversely, we just express it this way.

The acceptability of a theory depends on the reliability of its arguments.

What is reliability (Available)?

We need to know what the concept of reliability depends on. Reliability does not depend on experience, but on logical reasoning. And what is the basis for logical reasoning?

Logic itself is our different interpretations of this logical concept. For example, there are different interpretations of logical concepts, and the early Greek explanation of logic was Logos, which is what we call the "Dao" today.

Later, philosophers had a new way of interpreting logic, which became reason, and the explanation of reason became Understanding, which can be said to have different interpretations of Logos.

In Chinese philosophy, there are also different interpretations of Logos, compared to Chinese logic, which is based on a common sense, that is, an explanation based on common sense.

That is to say, it is based on a common understanding of human nature. Therefore, in traditional Chinese logic, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Hui Shi's so-called "name discrimination theory" was adopted, and later we accepted the Indian "name theory". This statement is actually based on a common sense understanding.