History, Country And Philosopher

Francis Fukuyama,a Japanese-American scholar,has been a hot academic star since the late 1980s and early 1990s.People drew attention to him for the controversiality of his assertion that history will end,and the end of history has come on our time.Liberal democracy will be the last political system and ideology of mankind.All the countries on the earth are moving towards democracy and freedom,and will achieve sooner or later,they will finally exist in the form of universal homogenous country.This assertion,whether in the date of its publication--the context of the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union,or in the context of its solid content,caused great shock and became one of the important events in political philosophy at the end of the last century.Because it's controversy,it appeals to us to see what it means,and only when we put the controversy aside,we find out what it actually means.This thesis is trying to put its controversial points aside,ignoring its practical political significance,and takes Francis Fukuyama's theory of the end of history as a breakthrough point to discuss the origin and development of this thought,its ideological form and its political philosophical significance.In The End of History and The Last Man,Francis Fukuyama attributes his theory to two main sources and combines them:The unscramble of Hegel of The Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojeve and Plato's theory of The soul.Kojeve's thoughts are expressed through The interpretation of The Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel,which has a great influence on The French ideological circle,especially on The post-modern thoughts.Kojeve construct a historical narrative with "Master-Slave Dialectic" and the "dialectics of desire" of "MasterSlave Dialectic",which is the self-awareness development in philosophy of Hegel.He thought the motive force for the movement and development of history is attributed to the "struggle for recognition",the different between animals and human is the different of the desire objects.Animal' s desire object is also natural objects,such as desire for food,desire for reproduction,etc..Addition to natural desire,what makes human unique is the special desires objects:The desires of others.That is to say,people want to be desirable,and only by becoming the object of another person's desire can their own value be established.To become an object of desire for another person is to gain recognition for that person.Therefore,in order to obtain recognition,the first person who have the "human nature" to make people become human,breach the security of life which is a major principle of nature and has a bloody struggle with another people who also want to get recognition.The one who dare to give his life achieve victory,become an owner and get the dominance.The other one who was tied to the natural nature of biological survival failed to become slaves,to be dominant.But at this time,neither the master nor the slave can get satisfaction.The master can only be satisfied because of recognition from another person with human nature,while the slave failed in the struggle for human nature,so the desire of the master can no longer be satisfied.In the early struggle,master and slave cannot get a complete human nature,the imperfect human nature allows the relation between the master and the slave to a dialectical one and form history.In the process of history,slaves generate free idea by overcome natural labor and reflection,form ideology of equality base on it,and ultimately walk to the end of history by achieve universal mutual recognition.Francis Fukuyama thought the liberal democracy has achieved universal recognition and is therefore the end of history.The struggle for recognition does not seem to have complete explanatory power for Francis Fukuyama,he added to the distinction between three different parts of the soul by Plato based on it,consider Kojeve emphasizes the human struggle is one of the thymos part.In addition to this,there is still sense and desire.Francis Fukuyama thought the desire is a physical satisfaction,which is a natural desire,corresponding to the economic part of modern life,while the sense is a scientific rational part.The structure of the Platonic theory of the soul in which reason controls desire with the help of thymos is altered by Francis Fukuyama.Thymos is one foot on the movement of human beings'history,reason and desire together form the other.In Francis Fukuyama's theory,thymos gives the history purpose,direction and power.while the accumulation of science ensures that history is a straight line with direction and no return.In addition,the tripartite method of the soul provides an answer to the question of how the development of capitalism(which is,the development of desire with the help of reason)can give rise to the democratic conception of equality.But,as this thesis attempts to prove,the real core of Francis Fukuyama is neither Kojeve,nor Plato,but Hobbes.In Francis Fukuyama's theory of the end of history,the bloody struggle of the natural state is hidden under the dialectics of master and slave." thymos" borrowed from Plato is more like "passion" by Hobbes.There is not only a sense of superiority(vanity and conceit),but also a sense of equality(the sense of the fear of a violent death).Francis Fukuyama's historical theory based on Hobbes but he hide it under a collage of Kojeve and Plato.This thesis attempts to explore the following questions:1.The theory of the end of history,mainly lies in its source and form and the structural position in the western philosophical thought.In the first place is the relationship between the theory of the end of history and Christianity.It is complex and multifaceted.First,Christianity lays down the general form of the theory of the end of history.Second,Christianity is an indispensable link either Kojeve's or Francis Fukuyama's eschatology.In The dialectics of consciousness,Christianity is The advanced form of slave consciousness and the advanced link of The self-movement of consciousness.Francis Fukuyama also adopted this view in The End of History and The Last Man.Third,for Francis Fukuyama,Christianity directly contributes to the constituent parts of the ultimate political system at the level of historical facts:the rule of law and the individual principles.The concept of the end of history can be regarded as a secular form of the history of christian salvation.Kant was the first person to make a philosophical expression of this form.Based on human reason and free will,he examined its rules and deduced a "philosophical chiliastic beliefs".As Kant's successor,Hegel takes a more meticulous and obscure approach to deduct a grander scene of conscious self-completion.It is through the interpretation of Hegel that Kojeve confidently declares the inevitable end of history,and at the end stands a generally homogenous country.But the end of history that Kojeve gives is not the victory of one ideology,but the demise of all ideologies,there are only the tyranny of reason and the return of animalistic man.The negation of why human beings can be human being can only be placed on the negation of no reason.Such as Japanese flower arrangement,tea ceremony and Noh,which are only form but no content.In the second place,the possible ideological connections between Francis Fukuyama and other philosophers who were also deeply influenced by Kojeve,Lacan,Bataille,Foucault,etc.Kojeve is not the evangelist such as Francis Fukuyama,his huge impact is the fragmented pessimism of postmodernism.French philosophers who joined or were influenced by Kojeve and hegel's seminars became an important part of French thought of the post-war in later years.Lacan's structural psychoanalysis shows a main part of ego and inanity which as a symbolization.Foucault clearly depicts the tyranny of reason in a Kojeve's eschatology.With Kojeve as the center,we can understand that Kojeve's historical interpretation is a reappearance of what Derrida calls a "spectres",which is called "messianicite," it has been hovering over the history of ideas.Philosophers such as Kojeve,who give history its materiality and teach us that history's self-actualization will also complete man's self-actualization,provide us with a vast panoramic picture of the ideal city that Plato painted for us more than two thousand years ago.But its "tyranny of reason" has also revealed its other face.That is to say,when we understand Kojeve,what he means by reason must be understood in the way that Foucault does,and when we think about historical reason in the way that Kojeve does,let us not forget Lacan's symbol of the closure of the world.3.It is somewhat abrupt that Francis Fukuyama invokes Plato's theory of justice to ensure that "Dialectics of Desire" can bring us to the end of history.What does it mean for the political philosophy of Francis Fukuyama?Especially when we consider that neither Kojeve nor Plato are the philosophical sources that Francis Fukuyama is actually using.We can found in these three questions,Kojeve in it were in an intermediate position,on the one hand,he is Francis Fukuyama claims to the main source of its theory,on the other hand,he is influenced by the French philosophy and history of 20th century socialism greatly different its interest,at the same time,he also with Leo Strauss around Xenophon Hiero discussed,of which expressed the view of relationship between tyrant politics and philosopher,It also takes us to Plato's justice of polis,the "persuasion" and "education"of the audience or populace,and the realistic political action in Syracuses.So,are Kojeve's and Francis Fukuyama's end-of-history really the philosophy of history they seem to be?Kojeve's philosophy is like the symbolic world of images seen by Alain Badiou in Jean Genet's play le balcon,which makes us doubt the sincerity of his theory.Perhaps Kojeve's philosophy is the modern equivalent of "therapeutic lies".As in"Tyranny and Wisdom" this Tyranny leads us into this world because of the alliance between the tyrannical Lord and the philosopher.In fact,Kojeve believes that the tyrannical Lord is just a cog in the machine of history or reason.There are only two entities,history and the infinite sage.This situation is very similar to that of the Republic,where the culmination of the dialectic lies in the justice of the city and the philosopher as the interpreter of the justice of the city.Strauss considered Kojeve can understand his true philosophers,If we refer to Strauss's distinction between " exoteric "and " esoteric" in the writing art of classical philosophers,this paper tries to understand,is in the writing of Kojeve,Francis Fukuyama's political philosophy,whether there is also a hidden micro content about history,nation and philosopher,"end of history",it was a time in view of the audience "persuaded" and "education".