The Principle Of Life In Hegel’s Philosophy

Life has a central place in Hegel’s philosophy,and it develops through the stages from primordial unity to finite life to infinite life.In this process it appears in two forms:the first is the form of the definition of the concept of life,which mainly involves preHegelian thought,and these definitions are born in the process of his thinking about how to overcome the subject-object division;the second is the form of the principle of life,which mainly appears in the process of the construction of Hegel’s philosophical system,where he combines life with negativity,embodying the dialectical kernel.Hegel points out that in order to reconstruct a scientific metaphysical system,it is necessary not only to construct the form of the system but also to enrich the vivid content of the system.This work of enrichment is undertaken by life so that the principle of life and the dialectic are integrated to produce the dialectic of life.In order to show this argument,this study starts from three aspects,mainly from the changes of background,preliminary thought,and later thought to reveal how life moves step by step from definition to philosophical principle,and in this process further elaborates Hegel’s efforts to solve the subject-object split,which is an in-depth study based on the previous academic work.In the first chapter,this study examines the real and theoretical background of the problem of the subject-object split from two dimensions: thought and reality,respectively,and we find that Hegel’s profound reflection on these two dimensions is the main reason that prompted him to find a solution to the contradiction of the subjectobject split.Not only did Enlightenment rationality fail to guide the French Revolution to establish a free and equal political system,but it ended in failure,and this failure deepened the division of society,while the directness or unity advocated in Romanticism did not provide a remedy to overcome the division.The criticism of rationalism and the transformation of teleology made Hegel gradually admit the reality of the contradiction and prompted him to think about how to incorporate the contradiction into himself.The Reformation sparked by the aforementioned movements prompted his interest in religion,and it brought him new inspiration as his understanding of religion deepened.In the second chapter,we take the perspective of the religion that was closest to the reality of life at the time and reveal that while religion had a broad impact in edifying the people and dispelling prejudice,the authority of religion deepened the divisions among people themselves.Although love can be the rational core of Christianity that can unite people,this unity is an abstract unity that still does not help to solve the problem of subject-object division,yet we find that life intertwined with religious thought provides another way of thinking to overcome the division,which directly opens the early path of Hegel’s theory of life principle.In the third chapter,by summarizing several definitions of life in Hegel’s early thought,this study reveals that life incorporates the negative self into the subject with both actuality and mutability,completes the transcendence of love from the perspective of thought as well as reality,and makes the thought of life further show in Hegel’s philosophy by exposing the connotation of life.This presentation is based on Hegel’s critique of life.In the fourth chapter,we find that Hegel’s thinking about life is not mature in his earlier thought,and he tries to avoid this drawback in his later thought and replaces it with the principle of life.Moreover,by exposing the dynamic development of life,we find that life contains both opposing and connected parties in itself,and that life can reach infinity by abandoning its finiteness or overcoming its divisions.Having realized this,we can also understand why Hegel combines the reflection on life with his negativity as a dialectical principle to build his metaphysical system.Moreover,in this chapter,we distinguish several understandings of Hegel’s life by contemporary philosophers,which help us to further understand Hegel’s principle of life.The fifth chapter is the summary of this research.Through discussion,we find that from the definition of life to the principle of life,this change has been based on solving the problem of division in reality.Based on the principles of wholeness,fluidity and historicity,Hegel initially constructed his own philosophical system by overcoming the realistic problem of splitting.In addition,by sublating the previous definition of the concept of life,he integrated life into his philosophical thoughts in the way of the principles adhered to in the construction of the philosophical system,returning from reality to thought.Let life get dialectic and fluidity here.From the presentation of the development and change of Hegel’s philosophical thought,we can see how his theoretical path gradually changed from subjective to objective,and completed the unity of subject and object of life principle.It can be said that Hegel,in making a systematic presentation of his philosophy,abandoned rational thinking in the sense of knowledge,abandoned the early idea of love,and made a Hegelian methodological and ontological presentation of his philosophical ideas with the implicit life principle.This study chooses Hegel’s principle of life as the object of study because it is in line with Hegel’s expression of his philosophical thought: in his philosophical thought,not only the reality but also abstraction should be concerned,so a comprehensive view of this principle of life which has both the concrete content of physical life and the abstract expression can express Hegel’s philosophical thought in a new perspective.