The Disappearance Of A Progressive And Modern View Of History. And Their Causes

The investigation of deep structure of the idea of progress, and of the vanishing, based on the structure, of progressive concept is a philosophy foundation to comprehend the existence of so-called "post-modernity". And the foundation is also the premise to understand the propriety of Christianity in China.The deep structure of the idea of progress has two parts: the linear vector time view, which provides for history the forward direction different from cycle, and the sacred goalism as well as the rational essentialism having a hidden connection with it, which provide the value basis for history, and unify historical events on the "inevitable progress" road.The vector time view originates in the theory of Genesis, run through the entire Old Testament time, and eventually has a place in the belief of eschatology. The eschatology belief and Messiah hope unites closely. But the suffering distress of Christ enables time to be perfect. The belief of Judaism-Christianity has first provided for history a forward direction, next offered to history "an essence". This essence has manifested in "already arrive" and also in "will-certainly -do so".As the object of physics, time is inseparable from the movement concerning material and event. It is not only the movement process, but also a yardstick for the movement. The half-aloof relation between time and movement has its root in the Greek philosophy, namely, the transformation from monism to dualism. Thus, time is finally divided into two parts: the absolute time as a scale and the relative time as a movement.The core of the cyclical time view is to trust "essence". Anything deviated from the "essence" must be a retrogression. The end of all retrogress is certainly a new beginning, that is essential return. Therefore, the Greece cyclical time view with the retrogressive history view is intrinsic consistent. The lightness of Greece history view, on the one hand, attributes to the idea of the cycle that the history is not a necessity, on the other, to the contradiction between history and metaphysics.The historical progressive idea explicitly entered the people's knowledge realm after the Renaissance. In this period, the progressive concept had successfully stood out from regressive and cycle view, and also no longer relied on the belief support of the theology, but completely on the confidence of human's rational ability.It got rid of the rationality of theological authority, discarded the theological research on surmounting dimension, and also questioned the essence of Plato's Principle. Instead, it shifted the vision to the nature and its rule; and further expanded this kind of research into the social history domain in order to obtain the truth that history is inevitably progressive.However, the comprehension of the relationship between rationality and world draws a clear line for rationalism and empiricism. The former having been identified as "dogmatism", the philosophy has stepped onto the empiricism path basically. This kind of path has abandoned the ontology and the theory of value gradually, but defined the philosophy in the epistemology scope. The rationality reflects the understanding of the world and the accumulation of knowledge.During the age of enlightenment, rationality was widely used in the social domain. People were deeply convinced that the human history progress inevitably through continuously discovering the rule and the accumulation of knowledge. Meanwhile, it also accompanied the opposite of the universal concept. They opposed, through enlightenment standard, to uniform all kinds of human civilization, believing that civilization in different region, or time, all has its own value, and brings happiness to the people who live in it. Moreover, the attempt to seek the universal law for the history is bound to be failure, for history and philosophy are in a position of paradox, history enumerating each kind of observation, and philosophy causing them to obey a principle. Therefore, the exploration of history progress, based on rationality, came to a halt. As a result, the history became a pure continuousness without value involved. Then, the nihilism began to turn up.The key of the problem lies in that people use advanced-backward values to substitute for good -bad values, and that when people probe into the essence, the have forgotten the source, or jumbled together the two; thus leading to the ontology and the theory of value abandoned, and philosophy weakened to epistemology without powerful use.The ontological philosophy has restored the ontology and the theory of value in a new perspective, and inherited the non-rational methodology. The ontological philosophy has launched the widespread question for the empiricism and for human's survival represented by the rationality which is caused by the empiricism.In the field of the rationalism philosophy there also have the crisis. The rationality has been equated with the authority, the traditional epistemology has also been questioned, individual interest has substituted for the truth standard. This also has a connection with the transformation of the philosophy of language and with the establishment of contact ration. Language, as a reflective object between the subjects, enables the philosophy to have a real foundation.Under the atmosphere of the lose of the value approval, even of understanding approval in post modern time, it seems a difficult question that what is the most important to the individual, and that what has significance to the populace. But human must have the choice, depending on their interest or serious education, this the only right human being have. Under the background of ethics-vacant time, Christianity seeks its validity in China.The Christianity ethics is by nature a kind of position standard ethics, but the religious belief is individual freedom to choose his way of living. Religion is no longer the word for the past social system, but plays the role in the individual disposition. The traditional culture in China doesn't take the modern challenge in the original shape. The modern society by nature is post-theology political society, which is the premise under where all cultures blend. The impact that modernity has on China is not only the value counter between China and western country, but also the value alternation between ancient and modern.