Study On The Metaphysical Methodology Of German Classical Philosophy

As a peak of development of modern Western philosophy,German classical philosophy is distinguished with a knowledge-and-truth-based metaphysical system constructed by many philosophers.The metaphysics not only became an ultimate foundation for all knowledge generation and existence including science,but also formed its own philosophical method.With the development of metaphysical form of German classical philosophy,its philosophical methodology also evolved with morphological transformation.The core and gist of the thesis is to reveal the logical process of the development of the philosophical methodologies.After the birth of Western philosophy in ancient Greece,“logos” and “nous” were internalized as the main spiritual characteristics of Western philosophy,and from which philosophical methodologies of rational noumenon were derived,such as Socrates’ “Midwifery method”,Plato’s “Theory of Recollection” and Aristotle’s “Theoria”.Eventually,formal logic organon was formed in the womb of ancient Greek philosophy.While medieval philosophy was relegated to a maidservant of theology,philosophical method became a theological method to serve religions and God.Along with the awakening of the Renaissance and the independence of mathematics and natural science,Bacon took the lead in replacing the old theological methods with scientific methods,which was known as “methodological revolution”.Subsequently,Descartes put forward rational deduction in Discourse on Method;Spinoza discussed issues on methodology in On the Improvement of the Understanding,and started trying to construct metaphysic of monism with geometric methods in The Ethics.It can be said that modern empiricism philosophy inherited the inductive method of natural science,and the mathematical deductive method was more trusted by rationalism philosophy.The reason was that these modern philosophers realized the isomorphism between the knowledge-based metaphysics and scientific knowledge in terms of method.Hume’s skepticism not only brought modern metaphysics to crisis of epistemology,but also allowed philosophers to realize that metaphysics cannot be constructed by scientific methods.Instead,a philosophical method was needed.Kant’s The Critique of Pure Reason made the construction of future metaphysics which went beyond science possible.Additionally,Kant put forward “architectural techniques” that belonged to the method of transcendental philosophy itself,which enabled the construction of metaphysical methodology in German classical philosophy.Kant’s “architectural techniques” methodology,which included all empirical phenomena in transcendental categories,not only possessed universal necessity like mathematics,but also could stand the test of skeptics.Meanwhile,Kant also completed constructing moral metaphysics with “architectural techniques” in the realm of practice;Fichte upgraded Kant’s “transcendent self” to “absolute self” with creative activity,thus completing the subjective deduction of self and non-self;Schelling was fully aware that Fichte’s subjective deduction could not get rid of the subjective limitation of “solipsism” and knowledge without objectivity was not real knowledge.Consequently,Schelling turned to epistemology and established the “absolute” of subjectivity and objectivity.He transformed Fichte’s subjective deduction into objective deduction with unification of subjectivity and objectivity by regarding natural world and self-consciousness as “absolute” objective and subjective forms of existence;Hegel absorbed Schelling’s objective deduction and transformed it into a dialectical philosophy system of “concept – nature-spirit”.The dialectic method kept consistent with the motion mode of thing itself by digging the “content” of thing itself.Thus,the dialectic method completely transcended the analytical method of natural science and the deductive method,becoming a rational metaphysical methodology that was both analytical and comprehensive.Therefore,while Hegel brought the western rationalism philosophy to the zenith,the unification of philosophical method and ontology was also completed,that is,dialectics was ontology as well as methodology.Throughout the development of philosophical methods,it can be found that philosophical methodology is closely related to the existence form of metaphysical ontology and the form of metaphysics is correlated to the form of methodology;the philosophical methodology is intrinsically consistent with epistemology and the recognition of metaphysics determines the production of methodology;the metaphysics in German classical philosophy is trying to transcend traditional formal formal logic and in the development process from Kant’s transcendental logic to Hegel’s dialectical logic,the isomorphism of methodology and logic are maintained.The rationalism and essentialism of the Western post-modern philosophical criticism which is represented by Hegel shows the development of philosophy is trending toward analytical philosophy and existentialism philosophy.However,the construction of philosophical methodology has never been interrupted.Methods of analytical philosophy and phenomenology still represent the modern orientation in creating philosophical method.Studying the methodology of German classical philosophy not only helps us better understand the methodology of Marxist philosophy,but also provide theoretical support for China’s construction of metaphysics in terms of methodology in the new era.