A Preliminary Study On Oeken's Philosophy Of Lif

The philosophy of life is a very important genre in the history of Western philosophy.Previous researchers have focused on Bergson,Simmel,and Dilthey,and not much attention has been paid to Rudolf Eucken.But Eucken is also important,and he is also one of the representatives of the philosophy of life.At present,academic research on Eucken at home and abroad is lacking,and the comprehensive discussion and analysis of Eucken’s philosophy of life in the academic community is still at the level of the early 20 th century.Therefore,the academic value of the rediscovery and exploration of Eucken’s philosophy is great.Active in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries,Eucken was very sensitive to the shift in the zeitgeist.He realized that under the triumphant curtain of material civilization,the spiritual needs of human beings were completely ignored.And the consequence of this neglect is the lack of meaning in life.At the end of the century,people lived in seemingly meaningless lives and felt anxious,miserable,wandering and uneasy.The extent of this deprivation is so severe that not only do people feel that their lives have lost their meaning,but the very pursuit of the value or meaning of life has become unusually difficult to carry out.Like some philosophers of his time,Eucken described and diagnosed the spiritual condition of the times from the idealistic standpoint of German philosophy.He believes that people’s blind pursuit of the enjoyment of material life and the satisfaction of external things is the crux of the problem,which will make people lose their attention and protection of their own hearts,thus making the inner vitality dry up.Based on this diagnosis,Eucken offers his own unique treatment plan: awakening the long-dormant inner mind through the philosophical and religious analysis of the inner spirit of mankind;calling for the resurrection of inner life through a continuous call from philosophy and religion;and digging inward a strong vitality of life through the insights given by the exemplary life of the great predecessors.This paper is based on the representative philosophical works of Eucken,and attempts to systematically sort out and analyze Eucken’s philosophy of life.This article will explore Eucken’s philosophy of life from the following three parts.First,in the context of the socio-economic and cultural development of Germany at that time,we will sort out Eucken’s description and diagnosis of the spiritual crisis of the times.In particular,Eucken’s view that the traditional solutions to the meaning of life have failed are reasonable in what sense.Second,based on specific research from Eucken’s representative philosophical writings,this article explores how Eucken established a whole set of views on his unique philosophy of life,the system of the "New Philosophy of Life".Based on the research and analysis of the philosophical concept of "life" and related contents by previous generations,Eucken expounded the needs of human beings for this new philosophical system of life.This demand is essentially the transformation and sublimation of life,and this goal of sublimation and transformation must be implemented as a concrete form of spiritual life,not a transcendent illusion and imagination.And the concrete form of human spiritual life will inevitably face various conflicts.Eucken tried to deal with and resolve those conflicts through his philosophy,and then used this as a basic link to construct a complete and systematic construction of his philosophy of life.Finally,Eucken presents his philosophy of life as a systematic response to the problems of modern philosophy as he understands them.This paper selects three core issues,namely ontological problems,knowledge problems,and worldview problems.Through the examination of modern philosophy in Eucken’s vision,especially the basic views on these three questions,as well as the achievements and remaining problems in these two problem areas,we can see how Eucken understands the philosophical problems that unfold as the history of philosophy,and how he positions himself in the history of philosophy,thus further sublimating his understanding of the overall system of Eucken’s philosophy of life.