On the view of thought and practice and the view of knowledge and practice

-- The personal life theme after 2000

Abstract: This article simply puts forward the view of thought and practice, and maintains that the view of thought and practice is the personal life theme after 2000. The content of the view of thought and practice includes: thought can be without practice; practice cannot be against thought; both thought and practice are independent and each can form system itself. The theoretical base of the view of thought and practice is the logical development of abstraction. Its main goal is to try to settle the research problem of the basic theory of 「Sustainable development of all human beings pushed forward by social individuals」.

Key words: 2000 D.C. The view of thought and practice the view of knowledge and practice social individuals thought without practice

Historical survey of the knowledge amount possessed by social individuals

It is especially necessary to consider the education problem of healthy teenagers after the year of 2000. After the humans enter 2000, how should we educate our next generation? There is a huge pile of the history, experience and scientific knowledge of thousands of years, which needs to be commanded fully; it is necessary to adjust to the fast development and renewal of knowledge and ideas in current information society; they are faced with the extremely serious real crises of the pollution of environment, the misbalance of ecology, nuclear weapons; there are still problems in individual feelings, morality, the view of value, and the taste of truth, goodness and beauty. The most important among them is that we must design and meet the future with a certain purpose. It is without doubt that we cannot say it from start or do it from start. History can』t become a burden and real crises can』t be an obstacle. We should find a shortcut to solve the urgent education problem.

Contemporary fully developed social adult individuals should notice following characters of current times:

1.The total amount of social material production is very rich and the average possession of life material of a social individual is basically fit to his need. In some developed countries and some big cities in China, there are a certain number of extremely 「fat children」. The phenomenon of 「Fat children」 means there is nutrition plus to some extent. Compared with the nutrition condition of a social individual from early human beings to the beginning of the Second World War, there is a basic difference.

2.Under the premise of the improvement of the average nutrition condition of social individual, human population reach great scale with amount never had reached before. Due to the large population of humans, it is necessary to industrialize social behavior of satisfying the need of social individual, such as clothing, food and traffic. In fact the industrialization on a super scale has caused extremely serious ecological crises in human reality, for example, the crisis of resources, the pollution of environment, the misbalance of ecology, the warming effect of the globe and the phenomenon of EI Nino. It is generally accepted that the case will be even worse as the world entering 2000』. It is obvious we can』t try to find out the solution until the problem of human population reaches its extremes.

The causes bringing about these serious real problems are very complex. The most important one among them is the great knowledge distance between the social individual and the human beings as whole.

In agricultural society the activities to satisfy the need of material life of the social individual is agricultural farming. It only needs very short period of time for a social member to command most knowledge (objective knowledge and experience). Speaking in generally, manual activities are in the leading position in the behavior of the social individual and the social individual possesses life material in the way of manual labor. On the other hand, the humanity knowledge is also 「influenced by the mode of manual labor」 on a large scale. Take China as an example; during the two thousand years after Qin Shihuang (the first emperor of Qin dynasty), the structural system of the humanity knowledge has been relatively stable. The breakthrough and development of the theory is rather limited. So the ratio of the knowledge possession of social individual to the whole knowledge in agricultural age is always controlled in a stable value.

After the society enters industrial and information society, the whole knowledge system of the society includes natural sciences, industrial technology, humanity, law, economics, computers and information technological knowledge, etc, the most surprising character about which is the speed of the renewal and the spreading of knowledge increases greatly. According to an analysis, since 1970s』 the knowledge creation in the short thirty years has surpassed the sum of all human knowledge before. Now the ratio of the knowledge possession of social individual to the whole knowledge of human beings is very small and rather unstable.

Knowledge is power. The historical characteristic of the knowledge possessing amount of social individual in turn influences the behavior mode of social individual in a certain historical period and directly determines the features of the whole society. The education after 2000 D.C. must pay attention to the ratio problem of the amount of knowledge, which can be learnt by education receivers to the whole knowledge of humans. This is the point put forward in this paper and from which this paper discusses the view of thought and practice.

The view of knowledge and practice: from Socrates to Kant』s Critique of Pure Reason

One of the differences between humans and animals is that human beings act after thinking.

After the formation of social forms of perfect self-organization and systematic structure function, the history can be divided into emperor period and democratic period. If we examine the possessing amount of knowledge of a certain emperor, we will discover his level of the possession of knowledge is not the highest among social individuals in the same time. But if we examine his possession level of material life objects as a social individual, without doubt he will be the champion in the society. In the emperor age, the material life possession is the direct result of the social behavior of a social individual. And the behavior in turn is driven by the knowledge of social individual. So-called the view of knowledge and practice means a social individual』s ability to adjust his knowledge to his behavior. Its quantity standard is to see how much an individual can gain through his knowledge and social behavior. In the emperor time the living value of a social individual is directly in proportion to his view of knowledge and practice.

The example that a mental weaker became an emperor through heritage could not obviously refute above generalized and abstract logic inference. Of course, from the angle of theory we should discuss the view of knowledge and practice in the philosophical meaning. Here knowledge means to know and practice to practice. Until now in the whole process of human history the view of knowledge and practice behave as the process of practicing, knowing, practicing again, knowing again. Knowledge and behavior are combined together closely. A successful individual』s secret is that he can know and practice as well. His socialized fruit of knowledge and practice, added together, surpasses that of others』.

Confucius in China, Socrates and Plato were thinkers in the same age. In the time of Confucius, the society was in the disorder of frequent wars. So did the ancient Greece. At that time, the life value of a social individual was determined largely by his barbaric view of practice and primitive ability of practice. A fighter of a strong body was a hero without doubt then. After the Master Confucius, in China, there was a long historical period in which a social individual pursued the view of knowledge and practice. No matter 「to study the phenomena of nature in order to acquire knowledge 」, 「wisdom obtained by studies」 or 「the view of a person」 at that time are all the theory forms of giving up barbaric view of practice and trying to unifying understanding and practice. At the same time in western world there was a trend of over-craze among those ancient Greek thinkers turning to the view of knowledge and practice, which behaved as a passionate pursuit to understanding, truth, being and 「idea」 in the enlightenment period of human wisdom. In ancient China, Chinese great thinkers were apt to coordinate knowledge with behavior, that is so-called 「unifying knowledge and behavior」, but this kind of coordination and unification is not rooted in understanding but in the social pragmatism or the use of dealing with the world. Ancient Greek philosophers could think in nude and pursued truth sincerely. But whether Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Chuan Tzu did not do in this way and they were more graceful. In the history some western philosophers and thinkers were willing to die for objective truth without any practical use or the meaning of the use of dealing with the world. But in China no one did like them.

Considered from the philosophical angle, it is inevitable that the view of knowledge and practice is direct proportion to the life value of social individual. After the time of Confucius, Socrates and Plato, human wisdom entered the period of enlightenment and the period of growing up. The characteristic of wisdom』s period of enlightenment and the period of growing up is that the ability to understand was low, and the thinking mind knew little about the nature and the environment about human beings. In that time understanding was promoted by practice; understanding had very close relationship to practice. Social individuals in that specific historical period knew little about outside world. Under the premise that understanding had to be propelled by practice, understanding and practice were inevitably bound together. When the binding is calculated with amount, it is social labor or fortune. So social individual』s fortune equals individual』s life value. It means the view of knowledge and practice equals life value.

In democratic time, the case of the view of knowledge and practice is the same as in imperial time. What is different is that in democratic time individual』s average amount of knowledge is much more than that in imperial time. Therefore the number of quantity of the view of knowledge and practice increases greatly and the fortune of social individual and the whole society expanded rapidly.

If some one can challenge the view of knowledge and practice, he is none other than Kant. In critique of pure reason, he put forward a basic law or formula that 「if your act principle can become a natural law through your will, Please act in that way.」 This law can be simply understood as that Kant』s practical reason means to 「act on understanding」. But according to Kant』s philosophical theory foundation, understanding belongs to the category of 「transcendent」 and to the group of 「a priori synthetic judgment」. 「Act on understanding」 means humans are puppets made and controlled by a super great master and their activities are not free. That is, man』s self-free will is not the final and highest cause and root of his action. In Kant』s the critique of pure reason, he pointed out the defect of the view of knowledge and practice exactly right. That is, the social individual』s life value is passive and not free!

The view of thought and practice------ as a foundation for a sustainable development of all humans pushed forward by social individual

Before the discussion of the view of thought and practice, let me to illustrate an important principle question.

At first we should consider the question of the object of study and the theory method. In the discussion of social individual』s life view, this paper takes the principle of recognizing, thinking and behaving as objects of study. Thinking, recognizing and behaving are all abstract concepts, not relating to concrete man, matter and profession, etc. Then what will be the foundation from which we set out to study the view of knowledge and practice? We should also ascertain that a research as a trial study of individual』s life view is not related to the national difference, politics, economy and military, and to belief, culture and science. In this article my research does not make the difference between them.

The principle of studying the view of knowledge and practice is the physical need principle of social individual. Concretely, the standard of individual』s health and nutrition is the theory』s basic departing point. Say a certain individual object, if he has the premise of physical health and certain nutrition he can think and has the function to recognize and behave. The basic theory of studying individual thought and behavior only takes the physical need principle of social individual as the theoretical promise, then infer the general lawful conclusions of thinking, recognition and behavior through logic methods. The view of thought and practice has no casual relationship with many present humanity theories.

From the introduction of the former paper, we can see when the society stepped into the democratic time the life value of social individual equals his view of knowledge and practice. In democratic society, following the industrialization on the unprecedented super large scale, the general amount of social material production is very sufficient and the physical health of social individual has good assurance, and the tend of some kinds of nutrition surplus appears. The rise of health standard not only provides the individual social behavior with support but the most important, provides individual thinking ability with wider space. In imperial time, the poor read little and had little knowledge mainly because the limitation of his health standard. After the industrial revolution, knowledge increased, the efficiency of social behavior improved and social fortune multiplied. After the information revolution, humans』 knowledge of the 「big gold mine」 ------ humans』 brains has a breakthrough development. Computer comes into being. Knowledge enlarges greatly. Exaggeratedly speaking, knowledge explodes and leads to the surplus of material fortune with the destruction of the existence environment of the earth so that there is a life existence crisis of social individual.

Considered from theory, the knowledge explosion, the material surplus and the environment crisis brought about by information revolution are determined by the basic law of the theory of the view of knowledge and practice. The connection and combination of knowledge and practice are the key points of the view of knowledge and practice. The synchronous increase of knowledge and social industrialization is the direct and main cause making the social sustainable development threatened. So we can conclude the theory and law should be reconsidered if we admit that environment problem is the shortcoming of contemporary world.

Considered from philosophy, it is necessary and logical to replace the view of knowledge and practice with the view of thought and practice. In the enlightenment and growing period of human wisdom, human knowledge of outsider was very little. The process of recognizing was the one of practice. Recognition was driven by practice. At that time knowledge and thought were the entire one. The selective room for thought in the few simple recognition conclusions. For instance, before Copernicus, 「the sun moves round the earth.」 Which is the very conclusion made by social individual 「thinking」 and 「recognition」? There wan no other choices. For the purpose of making the result of 「thinking」 different from that of 「recognition」, some social individuals ever paid heavy price. Bruno was burnt to death! As history moves forward and in the contemporary time of knowledge explosion, 「thinking」 departs from 「recognition」 and 「thinking」 can make choice among many conclusions of 「recognition」, which has been accept by social individuals of knowledge. That requires that 「thinking」 can』t be combined with individual practical behavior. Only a few selections in the 「recognition」 are permitted to combine with practical behavior. The emphasis of the view of thought and practice is to separate individual 「thinking」, 「recognition」 from social behavior.

Especially at present, at the same time as humans』 industrialization on the unprecedented super large scale, the more striking ratio of the knowledge possession of social individual to the knowledge of all humans is very small, which is the character of the time. This article claims:

The social practice quality of individual == the knowledge possession of social individual / the knowledge of all humans

According to this, since the society enter the information time; the behavior quality of social individual has decreased so the practical meaning has declined.

Based on above abstract discussion, we can safely conclude that the content of the view of thought and practice should includes:

Thought is bigger than behavior; thought without practice, practice not against thought, thought and practice independent of each other become separate systems.

When thought is separated from social individual behavior, the problem pointed out by Kant in the critique of practical reason that 「the existence value of social individual was not free.」 Individual』s behavior is not necessary to be controlled by his recognition. Individual』s social practice is selectable, and individuals are those with existence value of freedom.

At the same time, since the rule played by 「thought without practice」, 「thought can be without practice」, 「thought can』t be with practice」 and 「thought does not need practice」, in the digital information time, the cost of thought and study is very low, the environment pollution problems can be solved as a result.

There must be limitation and insufficiency in the purely abstract discussion about the view of thought and practice. The main need is to complete the theoretical research of the education problem and education design, which needs much theoretical thinking.