Views and characteristics of the ancient Western view of nature

The view of nature is people's general understanding of the natural world and the basis of people's understanding of the whole world. In ancient China, people regarded the natural world as a universally connected and constantly moving whole, thus forming a simple view of nature, such as "Yin and Yang Theory", "Five Elements Theory", "Yuan Qi Theory" and so on. The ancient view of nature is an organic view of nature, emphasizing the whole and connection, paying attention to the change and development of things, paying attention to explaining the relationship between things and phenomena, and focusing on dialectical unity.

Second, the ancient view of nature was highly speculative in nature and did not pay attention to experimental methods and logical reasoning. Third, it is an empirical and practical view of nature, which emphasizes the accumulation of intuitive experience and serves the reality of agricultural production.

In order to understand the ancient Greek natural philosophy, the originator of Western philosophy and science, we must first have a full understanding of Plato's "extra-perception". The "primordial" universe is based on the complex and diverse natural world. And what is behind these complex phenomena?

Through the above brief introduction to the development history of the ancient Greek view of nature, you should know a little bit about what this "isomorphism" is. Natural philosophy is based on "being" and is also "ontological". Plato's idea and super-perception exist relative to "being", and he dualized the world, or dualized, and divided the world into two parts: super-perceivable and non-perceivable, and this super-perceptual concept, simply put, is the so-called logic, the so-called structure.

Ontology itself is a system of conceptual categories constructed in a logical way. This is more difficult for traditional Chinese to understand, because Chinese traditional culture does not have metaphysical characteristics (or is very weak), and lacks dualistic philosophical concepts, traditional Chinese philosophy is mainly embodied in "Zhou Yi", is a more typical monistic philosophical view, although Lao Tzu said "one life two, two to three, three to all things", and in the later development from "Zhou Yi" to "Shushu", the traditional four pillars, six yao, or big six and Qimen Dunjia and so on in the beginning of the "complex" In the process of transformation, multiple "worlds" are also embodied, but the strange thing is that it has never been able to rise to a philosophical ability to combine with matter, which may be the reason why there is no concept of "natural philosophy" in traditional China.

For example, the unity of heaven and man. The ancient Chinese believed that "heaven and man are one", that is, human beings and nature are one. The ancient Chinese had an extraordinary admiration for nature and an infinite yearning for the harmony between humans and nature.

Lao Tzu said, "Heaven and earth are unkind."

Take all things as dogs.

In Western philosophical and theological thought, human beings are created by God to govern the natural world, and human beings are above other living beings. Plants and animals are believed to have been created by God as food for humans. God has given humans the right to dominate nature.

Value significance. In the history of world civilization, only the Chinese civilization has never been interrupted.

In the course of thousands of years of development, a unique cultural system has been formed, whether it is philosophy, aesthetics, art or people's way of life, which is also different from other civilizations, the most significant difference, the fundamental reason is the influence of traditional Chinese view of nature.

The traditional view of nature embodies Chinese culture.

The ideological characteristics of the harmony and unity between "man" and nature not only affect traditional Chinese culture.

The development and evolution also have profound reference significance for modern cultural design.

The above content refers to the Encyclopedia - Traditional View of Nature.

The above content refers to CNKI - Research on the Design Value and Significance of Traditional Chinese View of Nature.

The "mutual benefit between heaven and man" concept of nature refers to the normal relationship between heaven and man, and between man and nature, which is a stable and peaceful, harmonious and beautiful normal relationship, that is, the community relationship of the unity of heaven and man. It dialectically expounds the order of heaven and man, the relationship of tolerance, the principle of harmony, the law of moderation and the law of change. Emphasizing people's subjective initiative, calling for people's self-discipline and reflection, and awakening people's moral conscience.

"Heaven and man mutual" is a modern dialectical philosophical concept, which is an evolution and variation on the basis of the ancient simple philosophical thought of "the unity of heaven and man". In practice, it is of practical value and future significance to discuss what kind of ideal relationship between heaven and man should be, and how human beings should maintain a harmonious relationship with the natural world.

For example, the unity of heaven and man, the ancient Chinese believed that the unity of heaven and man and human beings and resources are one, the ancient Chinese had an extraordinary worship of nature, as well as the infinite yearning for the harmony between human beings and resources, Lao Tzu said that heaven and earth are not benevolent, and all things are dogs.

The traditional Chinese view of nature refers to a series of ideological concepts and theories about natural phenomena that were formed mainly in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and had a profound impact on the development of China's view of nature for thousands of years. The word "nature" in ancient China had the meaning of being natural and natural.

The naïve view of nature, which was formed in the ancient Greek period, is the various views of philosophers on nature at that time. To clean up all kinds of naïve views of nature, there are two main tendencies: materialism and idealism. The idealist philosophers of ancient Greece viewed nature mainly as some mysterious idea or number.

Due to the differences in geographical and cultural backgrounds, there is a major gap between the traditional Chinese view of nature and the simple view of nature in ancient Greece. Although China's traditional view of nature also has pragmatism in the service of people, it mainly emphasizes the ideological tradition of living in harmony with nature and the unity of nature and man.

The traditional Chinese view of nature is the unity of heaven and man, the humanized nature and man themselves are the same, while the ancient Greek view of nature is different, the ancient Greek view of nature from the beginning showed a metaphysical attitude that transcends perceptual things, while the traditional Chinese view of nature for the perceptual nature to experience life, Western philosophers try to transcend this perceptual experience, abstracting it into individual elements and rational speculative systems, Chinese philosophy mentions nature, such as the Book of Changes, Ancient Greek philosophies often refer to nature, such as pre-Socratic philosophy, which often abstracts the perceptual and heterogeneous natural world into an immutable primordial primordial, and atomists such as Democritus, and of course, philosophers like Aristotle have excluded experience from their sight and focused on exploring the eternal nature of metaphysics.

Ancient naïve view of nature: taking fire or water as the origin of the world, for example, Thales, one of the seven sages of ancient Greece, believed that the physiological changes of "group yin" aquatic animals in ancient China were synchronized with the lunar cycle

Overall intuitiveness, simplicity, speculation, speculation, dialectic.

The basic characteristic of the ancient view of nature is the overall intuition, which is that people regard the natural world as a whole and make direct observations from the overall and macroscopic aspects. Simplicity, simplicity is the use of simple principles to explain complex natural phenomena; Speculative, speculative is the use of the power of imagination and speculation to reason and generalize without obtaining sufficient scientific facts; Speculative, speculative is to use the reasoning, guessing and imagination of the human brain to explain the complex natural phenomena of the hypothetical nature; Dialectic, dialectic, is to find the driving force of the quarrel and its change and development from the two attributes or factors of the struggle of opposites.

The ancient view of nature belongs to ancient Chinese natural philosophy, which has rich dialectical characteristics, a deep atheistic tradition, a holistic consciousness of the connection between nature and society, and a continuous view of the ascension of qi ontology.