"Tell me, Dad, what's the use of history?" This is the first sentence of Marc Bloch, a master of French Annales School, in his posthumous work "The Skills of Historians", which Bloch praised as hitting the nail on the head. History is like this, and philosophy is not luckier than history. Americans who value practical actions once satirized that philosophy cannot bake bread. Feng Youlan met an American philosophy professor at 1947. He said that at that time, a question asked by American philosophy professors, parents were most afraid of students, was: "What's the use of those things you teach your children?" The professors are at a loss about this problem. Today, when we teach philosophy to students or the general public, the question people often ask is still: Why should I study philosophy? What's the use of learning philosophy for yourself? What problems can learning philosophy help me solve? In fact, the core of these questions is to ask what is the value of philosophy, or more directly, what is the use of philosophy. If philosophy is worthless or useless, if it can't solve specific problems, why should we spend time and energy studying or studying it? Among the young students I contacted, one girl asked such a question: "Can philosophy help me cook?" Of course, it is a wonderful thing that girls care about cooking today, and it will be even better if you can learn philosophy to cook well.

To understand the value of philosophy, we must sort out philosophy itself. In my opinion, we can see the value of philosophy from four levels.

As a systematic thought and theory, philosophy is the essence of the spirit of the times. Therefore, people's theoretical thinking ability can be exercised and developed by learning this systematic thought and theory. This is why we ordinary people should learn a little philosophy. In this regard, Engels once pointed out: "If a nation wants to stand at the peak of science, it must have a moment of theoretical thinking." . And if you want to stand at the peak of thinking, there is no shortcut except learning the history of philosophy in the past.

As a cognitive method, philosophy is a "great cognitive tool" for human beings and a sharp ideological weapon for us to understand and transform the world. It provides us with ways to show, reflect, criticize and transcend reality. In this respect, demonstrating reality is only the general function of philosophy. However, in the past, we exaggerated this function too much, as if philosophy had only this function and no other function, thus making the theory as a scientific guidance lag behind practice for a long time and become a "hindsight" theory to explain the world, instead of "the problem is to change the world" advocated by Marx. The most important function of philosophy is to reflect on reality, criticize reality and transcend reality, thus promoting the progress of human civilization. Marx and Engels' criticism of capitalist society provides us with a good example.

As a way of life, philosophy is a moral force, which determines the direction and significance of our efforts and changes people's attitude towards life. Many problems we encounter in life involve philosophy. Marx said when he was a young college student: I can't move forward without philosophy. Philosophy exists in life, and there is philosophy everywhere in life. Like who am I? where i was from? where am I going? When I visited Harvard University in the United States in 2002, the philosophy department of Harvard University specially set up such a course called "People's Self-identity", which talked about these problems. As a way of life, philosophy plays the role of Cicero, an ancient Roman orator, politician and philosopher. "Philosophy is the teacher of life, the best friend and the enemy of evil. Without you, what is the value of life? "

As a realm, philosophy can enrich and improve people's spiritual realm, provide people with an ultimate concern and give people the root of life. In Feng Youlan's view, philosophy, especially metaphysics, can improve people's spiritual realm. Feng Youlan believes that there are four levels of human spiritual realm: natural realm, utilitarian realm, moral realm and cosmic realm. In his view, the spiritual realm is deconstructed from consciousness. The natural realm is senseless and ignorant; There is awareness and knowledge in the utilitarian realm, and this knowledge is right knowledge; There is awareness and knowledge in the moral realm, and this knowledge is still correct; There is awareness and knowledge in the realm of heaven and earth, not right knowledge, but ethereal concepts such as reason, qi, Tao and Daquan. These ethereal concepts can make people know, work and be happy. Therefore, "in philosophical reflection, people's spiritual realm is enriched and improved at the same time. Since reflection is' thinking', theoretical thinking is used there whether it is spoken or not. Theoretical thinking develops and exercises at the same time. " This shows that these two aspects are actually the same thing. "In an old saying of China, philosophy can give people a place to live. In other words, philosophy can give people a spiritual realm in which people can live with peace of mind. " The so-called "place to live", "this' land' is the spiritual realm of people." In a word, the "utility" of philosophy is not to increase people's knowledge and talents about practical things, but to make people change their attitude towards life, so that people's understanding of the world is reflected in a kind of personality, mind and meteorology, thus providing people with spiritual benefits. Philosophy is of great use. Therefore, in terms that are easy for everyone to accept, the function of philosophy is to help mankind find a spiritual home. This is even more important under the condition of market economy. Because the bad luck and predicament of modern people is "homelessness", it can really be said that "the road is long, and Xiu Yuan is far away, and home is homesick". Who doesn't cry? But the real philosophical thinking is to awaken you, me and him/her "sense of home" and let people who have lost their homes "have a home". And "home" in the philosophical sense refers to people's spiritual balance, harmony and tranquility. This kind of spiritual realm is what people often say, "The moon shines in its pine forest, the clear spring flows in the stone mountain stream", or, as Zhang Zai said, "Make a heart for heaven and earth, make a life for the people, link the past with the future, and make the world peaceful".

Speaking of the value and strength of philosophy, we can also see from the great discussion of 1978 that practice is the only criterion for testing truth. Imagine: without this discussion, we can't be liberated from the two "whatever" dogmas, and we can't usher in the spring of reform and opening up. It can be seen that the role of philosophy is not great, and philosophy is powerful. This is why we emphasize further emancipating the mind. In a word, philosophy makes people become people, not people. It is in this sense that philosophy has the effect of "uselessness".

In China, philosophy has undergone a transformation from popularity to neglect, from profoundness to notoriety. In a way, this change is normal, inevitable and a good thing. Although there are considerable historical and social reasons for China people to ignore or even despise philosophy, the current denial of philosophical value is not due to deep reflection on the absurd things in the past, nor to a clear and correct understanding of philosophy, but to prejudice and ignorance of philosophy and indifference and contempt for spiritual life. Philosophy once became a tool to whitewash and distort reality in China, but it is a bad philosophy and a pseudo-philosophy. True philosophy aims at pursuing wisdom and knowledge. Yes, philosophy used to be in the position of annotation policy and meeting China's needs, but the essence of philosophy is doubt, reflection and criticism. It questions the existing order and deconstructs everything that is frozen and dead. Philosophy and spirit have not accompanied China people for a long time, so some people regard philosophy as a trick to get quick success and instant benefit.

Finally, let's go back to the questions raised by my students. In my opinion, philosophy can or can't help the girl cook. This is dialectics, not sophistry. We say that philosophy can help this girl cook because it has the function of methodology and the function of cultivating people's theoretical thinking ability. As far as methodology is concerned, philosophy involves at least the following points: first, everything should proceed from reality, because "a clever woman can't cook without rice"; Secondly, the relationship between quality and degree is in the law of mutual change of quality. If you want to fry vegetables well, you must pay attention to the principle of "temperature" and pay attention to the principle of "moderation", and vegetables, oil, salt and various seasonings should be well matched. Third, the dialectical relationship between internal and external causes. Although everyone cooks according to the recipe, some people cook delicious food, while others cook terrible food. The key lies in personal internal cause-cooking. It is said that philosophy can't help us cook, because we have learned philosophy well. If we can't turn the philosophical world outlook into methodology and apply it to the specific matter of cooking, philosophy can't solve such specific problems. Philosophy can guide people to understand the essence of specific problems, analyze various contradictions with dialectics, grasp the mainstream and essence of problems and so on. In a word, philosophy is neither as omnipotent as people used to think, nor as incompetent as people now worry. Philosophy can only do its own thing, which is the return of philosophical spirit. This may be the charm of philosophy.