Studies On Trust

This dissertation tries to explore the issue of trust in the philosophical perspective. We have several problems to solve:what is trust,if there are some highly abstractive words that can envelope the connotation of trust? How trust is closely linked with our life and practice? What irreplaceable significance trust has for human society? Whether Trust itself has some kind of close contact with modern society? What’s the relationship between the modernization process and the "crisis of trust"? What can we do to rebuild social trust?The dissertation keeps a keen sense of the reality, with the process of modernity as a background of the research. Philosophical speculation, multi-discipline, multi-angle research, comparative analysis and integration of theory and practice are involved in the dissertation as methods. After a series of conceptual analysis, we get three abstractive connotation of trust:action, entrust and uncertainty. The three words share a high-level overview of the connotation of trust:"action" emphasizes practical nature of trust,"entrust" demonstrates the modern nature of trust issues, and "uncertainty" provides an important groundwork for the ontological discussion of trust.In the theme of "uncertainty" essence of human life and practice, we launched a philosophical discussion of the ontological status of trust in human life and practice. We account that trust deal with the "uncertainty "in human life and practice with its unique "suspension" or "leap". We claim that the "suspension"and "leap" not only contains a "mental process" mentioned by many scholars, also contains a key element-"practice". The dissertation does not explore the social function of trust in the perspective of functionalism,while we claim that trust plays fundamental role of benign operation of society.So,"trust" is the primary value of society,as Rawls claims justice as a primary value of society. In the historical sense,We distinguish natural attitude trust in pre-modern society and institutional trust in modern society. We clarify the the process from the pre-modern style of trust to modern style, and find that trust is increasingly common in the modernization process, increasingly become atmosphere we live in. However, institutional trust is facing serious problems:the disadvantages of instrumental rationality, institutional control defects as well as an abstract system trust risk, which appeared a worldwide crisis Of trust. It is the crisis of institutional trust or the reflective of institution in the process of modernization. The dissertation also explore the complexities of the crisis of trust in China. We find the uncompleted modernization process, For example, the phenomenon of coexistence of "GUAN XI" society and law society,and new crisis of institutional trust both involved in the trust crisis of China. We also raise the basic conditions and measures of rebuilding social trust in China,among which we emphasize the importance of "truth" in social life.