Utopia, Death And The End Of History

In this dissertation, the author holds that Ernst Bloch's utopian thought is the kernel of all his works. However, the importance of this thought hasn't been widely recognized. There are two reasons for this: one is people's misunderstanding of his theory, the other is modern people's refusal of any utopias. The former refers to the fact that people consider Bloch's utopian thought as irrational and dogmatic because of his interest in mysticism and his resolute support for the Soviet Union. The latter refers to the fact that modern people have lost the will for radical changes and have taken all kinds of utopias only as illusions. Based on this, the author points out that it is just this kind of human condition that is faced up to by Bloch. Bloch has considered this condition as the crisis of western culture and has pointed out that the essence of this crisis lay in the fading of the spirit of utopia. The fading of the spirit of utopia means the disappearing of the transcendental dimension of our being. At the same time, Bloch has also found the way out of this crisis, that is, waking the spirit of utopia, which means reconstructing the transcendental dimension of our being. The transcendence of our being is embodied in our hope for the utopian future, in which we have transcended death and the end of history. And because of our transcendence of death and the end of history, we then live in the tension between the false world and us. Thus, the dissertation centers on the question of death and that of the end of history to expound the content of Bloch's utopian thought and to display its relevance to us. The specific content of this dissertation develops in five chapters. In the first chapter, the author gives an introduction to Bloch's life from the perspective of the forming and developing of his utopian thought. Based on this, the author then pointed out six main resources for Bloch's utopian thought, which are respectively the German philosophy (Kant's philosophy, Hegel's philosophy and Kierkegaard's philosophy), the Russian thought (Dostoevsky's thought), Jewish messianism and Christian eschatology, Jewish mysticism and Christian mysticism, Utopian thought and Marxism. In the second chapter, the author argues that the question faced by Ernst Bloch is the crisis of western culture. In his utopian thought, he has not only got the insight of its essence, that is, the disappearing of the transcendental dimension of our being, but also has pointed out the way out of this crisis, that is waking the spirit of utopia. In the third chapter, the author then explained how has Bloch waken the spirit of utopia. The path followed by Bloch is the internal path, which includes a self-encounter and an expanse, which means letting the inward become outward. The fourth chapter and the fifth chapter then center respectively on the question of death and the question of the end of history to step further into Bloch's utopian thought.In the fourth chapter, the author first points out that Bloch has already seen the question of death pregnant in the crisis of western culture and that in his utopian thought, there was not the avoidance of the question of death, but the encounter of it. Further, the author illustrates that Bloch's way to solve the question of death is not only different from the traditional theory about the immortality of the soul, but also from that of Hegel's and Kierkegaard's. Bloch believes in the transmigration of souls. Because of the transmigration of souls in our hand, we have come across death and have stepped into eternality. Based on our transcendence of death in the transmigration of souls, Bloch explained the relation between Utopia and revolution. In the fifth chapter, the author fist explained the origin of the question of the end of history. It is the outcome of the disappearance of the transcendental dimension of our being and it results from the secularization of the Jewish- Christian tradition. Then the author explained further how have Bloch solved this question. On the one...