The Metaphysical Construction Of The Self

Truth and metaphysics are the central question in the western metaphysics philosophy. Search for the truth of metaphysic, or on the other word, makes the metaphysic attain the truth form is the basic task of the western traditional philosophy. As the pinnacle of the development of western traditional philosophy, German classical philosophy inherited the central question and the basic task. The self is the central topic in the development of western philosophy. There are many different theories about it in the history of philosophy. This paper tries to narrate one of the various methods of its development, which is the logical and ontological transformation. In the German classical philosophy, the task of makes the metaphysic attain the truth form exhibits itself as the process of logical and ontological transformation. The logical and ontological transformation process first appears in the modern philosophy, and eventually achieves the unification in German classical philosophy.This paper contains six parts. The first is an introduction, which mainly explain the question that why the development of German classical philosophy exhibits the unification of the process of logical and ontological transformation of the self. The process of the search for the truth of metaphysics in German classical philosophy begins at the epistemology and finally come to metaphysics. They base on the principal of freedom, and use the method of transcendental and speculative logic to reconstruct the self. Then achieve the unification of subject and object from the ontological transformation of self, and finally unify the logic structure of self and object in order to obtain the truth of metaphysic.The second part focuses on the self theory in Kant's philosophy. The self-theory in Kant's philosophy begins at finite self and bases on the apperception, and finally achieves the truth by the transcendental logical method. Kant expands the structure of self, and distinguishes the self as experimental self,transcendental self and practicable self. Kant's self is different from the self as the sprit noumenon in the modern epistemology. The transcendental self is describing as the transcendental subject who possesses the understanding ability, and it is the origin of transcendental category. The practicable self is describing as freedom reality, which possesses the practice ability. Transcendental self legislate the laws for nature by understanding ability. Practicable self legislate laws for liberty by the reason ability, and it is also the promulgator of absolute moral order. The characteristic of Kant's self-theory is the dissevering between transcendental self and practicable self. In his theory, transcendental self cannot understand the thing in itself and the practicable self cannot achieve truth. The self theory in Kant's philosophy contributes various resources for the further development of German classical philosophy.The third part of this paper mainly narrates the logical transformation for the finite self in Kant's philosophy by Fichte. Fichte takes the self as the highest principle, and uses the dialectic method to unify the self and nonego.The question on which Fichte focuses is that how we can make our knowledge as a system of science. The Science of Knowledge of Fichte throws the chain of"thing in itself"which was setup by Kant away by the active self. The system of knowledge which is based on the active self is built up by there judgments. There are〝I in myself〞﹑〝I in itself〞and〝I in my own self〞.The active self in Fichte's philosophy achieves the unification of transcendental self and practicable self which are dissevered in Kant's philosophy by the dialectic logic. He establishes the dialectic unification of self and nonego, and procures the all and the one of self by logic. But this unification only can be achieved in the self-reflection by self-awareness, and the subject and object can not achieve the internal and practical unification.The fourth part of this paper describes the ontological transformation of self in Schelling's philosophy. Schelling accepts the influence of the theory of entity in Spinoza's philosophy, and bases on the self as the absolute, achieves the finally unification of nature and spirit, by the advance of intuition activities, then gets the truth of metaphysic. Self finally finished its ontological transformation in his philosophy. The transcendental philosophy of Schelling begins at the theoretical activities of self-awareness, that is from nature to subject, then comes to the practicable activities, that is from subject to object, and finally achieves the absolute of nature and spirit and subject and object in the art activity. The result of this transformation is to make self to be an integer as whole which contain the self and nonego. Self in Schelling's philosophy is a coin that nature and sprite as its two sides, which repair the dissevering of self and nonego in Fichte's philosophy. However, this unification adopts the intuition method, which is blamed by Hegel, who treat this method as occultism﹑intuition of understanding and intuition of aesthetic.The fifth part of this paper mainly discusses the ultimately accomplish of the transformation of self in the philosophy of Hegel. Hegel begins his philosophy at the absolute and makes metaphysic as truth by the speculative logic and category method. Hegel thinks that there are abruptions of transcendental self and practicable self in the philosophy of Kant, and there are adamancy conflictions of self and nonego in the philosophy of Fichte. Both of them are the exhibition of halfway character of philosophy. At the same time, also the philosophy of Schelling achieves the truth of metaphysic by the enactment of absolute; we didn't exhibit the truth by the method of category and logic. Then the command of the age is to unify nature and spirit and subject and object which are still in the dissevering state by the method of category and logic. By inosculating the question in the philosophy of Kant and the logical method in the philosophy of Fichte and the objective in the philosophy of Schelling, Hegel bring forward the judgment"Being is thought"as philosophy principle, and finally finished the transformation of logical and ontological of self. In his philosophy, truth is the whole process of the development of the absolute, is the process in which entity achieves its self-awareness in its own development.The last part of this paper discusses the character of the ontological transformation of self. German classical philosophy tries to obtain the truth of metaphysic. From Kant to Hegel, the ontological transformation of self in German classical philosophy is a continual process of development. And this is also a process in the horizon of transcendental philosophy; self continually get rid of the subjectivity and turn to objectivity, and finally achieve the unification of subject and object by the method of the transformation of logical and ontological.