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Absolute Values, How Could That Be?

Posted on:2006-09-13Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:S M LiuFull Text:PDF
GTID:1115360155960667Subject:Ethics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Since mid-19th century, the exploration of the axiology has been highlighted in the field of philosophy, with the pursuit of absolute value idea as its main concern. Because in the eyes of the philosophers such as Meinong, Husserl etc., value idea will be relative if it is psychological, emotional, and historical; there will be a lack of guidance for the human life if value idea is relative; and if the philosophy doesn't offer lighthouse for the human life, it will be meaningless.It is the consensus of many axiology philosophers that there is a need to prove the existence of an absolute and objective value idea, but they differ over how to testify that. In the period of mid-19th century, what the philosophers were facing was the axiological epistemology, which consisted of three questions Hume had put forward, of which the essential one being how relative emotion makes the absolute value idea possible. The Naturalism, Emotionalism, Psychologism, and Intuitionism all didn't deal with the problem very well, either disbelieving in the existence of the absolute value idea and consequently turning to relativism, or sinking into the objectivism, which was divorced from human beings' value and meaning.Meinong and Husserl have showed extraordinary wisdom in solving this problem under the framework of epistemology. Taking the theory of intentionality as a basic line, they explored from different perspectives the problem of how relative emotion makes the absolute value idea possible. Using the theory of intentionality and psychology, Meinong in his early days thought that value only existed in the individual, and it was personal; In his late days, he employed object theory to investigate the absolute value idea and argued that impersonal value was possible. The theory of "presentation" and "content" were used to further prove that, as he viewed that absolute value idea was presented by emotional intentionality. Husserl, however, thought at the very beginning that the existence of absolute value idea was possible and that it was necessary to take it as his task of investigation. He therefore refuted the naturalism of axiology, including its objectivism and psychologism. He initiated the method of phenomenology, recovering the studying field of axiology back to "valuation and its correlated object". Value as the object of intentionality was absolute and impersonal. In his view, absolute value idea was constructed by emotional intentionality. He also developed a formal axiology to ensure the possibility of the absolute value idea.Nonetheless, have the absolute value idea, which Meinong and Husserl educed in this way, given the guidance to our life? If we followed Husserl's phenomenological method of "recur the things per se", the "things per se" would not be "consciousness" but "life". In the level of life-practice, how was the absolute value idea possible? Absolute value idea is regarded as the existent way of human beings and its possibility is demonstrated in the practical pursuit of social history.
Keywords/Search Tags:absolute value idea, emotion, intentionality, presentation object, phenomenology, construction, the existent way
PDF Full Text Request
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