Li Keqiang’s optimism about the irreversibility of reform and opening-up may have stemmed from Hegel’s dialectical philosophy, a core subject in the political curriculum of his generation. Hegel’s dialectics propose that history advances through conflict and resolution. Social conflicts, collapses, and destruction are temporary phenomena in the process of historical progress, giving rise to higher forms of society and ideology. In the long run, human civilization is thought to advance in a spiral of continuous progress.
However, this contradicts the historical examples I provided in my previous short essay. For instance, the Maya civilization was highly advanced in technology, astronomy, and architecture, yet it ultimately perished, leaving us with only ignorance and blanks about its past. People are unable to understand or reconstruct civilizations that have completely disappeared, which suggests that history does not necessarily progress in the spiral manner envisioned by Hegel.
Suppose an asteroid collides with Earth, reducing both the planet and human civilization to dust—dialectical philosophy would struggle to explain such a catastrophic annihilation. The concept of "spiral progress" becomes meaningless. If no life remains to continue cultural development, there is no basis for an upward spiral; history would not "spiral upward" but rather be entirely interrupted.
If the political curriculum of that era had not been so constrained, perhaps people would have discovered that Western thought was not limited to Hegel or Marx at the time. The Enlightenment era was marked by brilliant thinkers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Locke, and Montesquieu. It was their ideas, rather than those of Hegel or Marx, that illuminated the path for the rapid development of modern Western civilization.
David Hume, a philosopher who influenced an entire generation of Enlightenment thinkers in the West—including America’s Founding Fathers (Benjamin Franklin was his close friend)—divided knowledge (propositions) into two categories:
- Demonstrative Statements (A Priori) – These are self-evident truths known "before experience" (e.g., 2 + 2 = 4). Denying them leads to contradiction.
- Probable Statements (A Posteriori) – These are empirical statements that can be verified or refuted through experience (e.g., "There is a bright moon in the sky now." One can step outside to confirm it).
This distinction is known as Hume’s Fork.
Interestingly, Hume argued that any statement not belonging to these two categories is meaningless because we cannot test its truth or falsehood. Accepting Hume’s empiricism means abandoning vast fields of human inquiry (such as metaphysics or ethics) as meaningful knowledge. Claims like "God exists," "The soul is immortal," or "Lying is wrong" would lack validity in this framework. Conversely, rejecting Hume’s empiricism requires an alternative approach to justify the value and truth of non-demonstrative, non-empirical statements—an immensely difficult task, leading to a philosophical dilemma.
Hume's idea of "meaningless" propositions does not imply that such statements lack value but rather questions, from an epistemological perspective, whether reason or experience can verify their truth. This skeptical attitude pushed philosophers and scientists to seek more solid foundations for knowledge. For example, Hume's skepticism toward causality and inductive reasoning led scientists to focus on how theories can be validated. Karl Popper’s falsifiability theory was developed in response to Hume’s skepticism, providing a new standard for scientific judgment.
Hume argued that causality cannot be proven through either deductive or inductive reasoning. We can only observe one event following another, but we cannot directly observe "causality" itself. Therefore, our concept of cause-and-effect is merely a habitual association of events rather than something derived from reason or experience.
Immanuel Kant attempted to overcome Hume’s Fork by proposing the a priori concept of causality—arguing that causality is not derived from experience but is an innate cognitive structure that organizes our perception of the world. While Kant provided a richer framework for understanding human knowledge, his theory raised a new problem: how to justify these a priori concepts? Since a priori causality exists before experience, Kant could neither verify it through experience nor prove it through logical deduction, leaving his view without a firm foundation in logic or empirical evidence.
Now, let’s apply this framework to the claim that "Reform and opening-up are irreversible."
Consider Hume’s famous example: We observe the sun rising every morning and infer that it will rise again tomorrow. However, the statement "The sun will rise tomorrow" is not a demonstrative statement (since denying it does not create a logical contradiction). Nor is it a probable statement, as we cannot experience the future in the present.
Similarly, past reforms and opening-up do not guarantee future reforms and opening-up. Claiming their permanence does not entail a logical contradiction, meaning it is not a demonstrative truth. Nor can it be classified as a probable statement, since we cannot empirically verify future political trends in the present.
This is akin to assuming:
- The stock market will always rise.
- Turkeys believe they will always be fed at 9 a.m.
- Those who seize power should retain it indefinitely.
- A specific country is only suitable for authoritarian rule.
- The sun will rise tomorrow.
Li Keqiang’s generation believed that Marxism was the only correct philosophy. But they were unaware that their belief was simply an "experience" shaped by limitations—an illusion created when the most brilliant stars of human civilization were obscured by political systems and ideological controls.
Even in the West, where information flows freely, do people impose intellectual constraints on themselves? If exploration ceases, how much greater is their understanding compared to those whose access to information is restricted?
Today, many American voters face a difficult choice in the upcoming election: One candidate leans toward communism, while the other leans toward authoritarianism.
Will the United States—heir to the civilizations of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the British Empire, a nation that embodies the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization—continue to be a beacon of human progress?
