The Two Faces of Janus:The Philosophy of History in Utopia
As a humanist of the British Renaissance,Thomas More published the famous Utopia in 1516.It is a new work,which not only inherits Plato's classical thoughts,but also proposes a new historical consciousness.By confusing the difference between fact and reality,Utopia unifies the two different studies of history and philosophy,constructs a kind of philosophy of history,and lays new ideas foundation for modern Western society.However,just as the discovery of the New World was accompanied by the decline of local civilization,the new historical consciousness inspired by Utopia still belongs to the historical planning of the European Continent.Utopia is still a metaphysics that transcends time and space,while the"new future"is always the future of Europe.