Philosophy of Love: Introduction

https://yilinhut.net/2008/02/17/1855.html（Song of Scientism）

This song grows more and more admirable the more I listen to it. Every line is so apt, so concise, and so vivid; and it portrays scientism so comprehensively that it says everything that needed to be said, without a single irrelevant word! The subtlety with which this song depicts scientism is something that ordinary scholars who oppose scientism can hardly hope to match.

The question is: how was this done? Why is it that the lyricist of a pop song, composing a popular love song, could depict “scientism” so precisely? Of course, I think “he did not mean to”; he was not deliberately setting out to write lyrics for scientism, nor did he want to produce an ironic critique. He merely wanted to depict a “good” kind of love. One could say that, in a certain sense, the view of love portrayed by this song is, like the “scientism” it sketches, itself something “popular” in this age.

This pop song simultaneously depicts a popular view of love and a popular view of science. What does that mean? Does it mean that because people love science too much, they fall into scientism? Some people do indeed think so, and thus they (including both scientism and anti-scientism advocates) conclude that scientism is loving science, and that opposing scientism means not loving science, and thus hating science.

As the saying goes, deep love, deep hate. The postmodern rebellion against and resistance to science seems precisely to carry such a psychological complex in which love turns into hatred.

And yet, if we look again, is the popular view of love expressed by this song itself a healthy one? Must true love really be shown in this way? What I want to say is that this view of love is itself vulgar and distorted, and unhealthy.

My philosophy has two core elements: one is the “philosophy of the starry sky,” which I have repeatedly emphasized and placed in a prominent position; the other is my philosophy of love, which I have not yet publicly and explicitly articulated. For me, “love” is by no means merely an important theme of philosophical reflection; it is a main thread permeating the entire system. In fact, people can already observe that in my discussions of philosophy, technology, religion, culture, and other issues, I often use love (romance, marriage, and so on) as an analogy. This analogy is not merely a matter of rhetoric, and the widespread use of love metaphors is by no means just a coincidence. In fact, just as Heidegger chose the mood of “anxiety” as the breakthrough point for his fundamental ontology, if I were to choose one mood as the point of departure for a series of philosophical reflections, I would choose “love.” “Anxiety” reveals “nothingness”; “love” does not have that power, but “love” can likewise reveal a certain kind of “I.” Schopenhauer took “will” as the ontology of the world; will is desire, which one could also say is precisely “love.” But for Schopenhauer, desire that can never be satisfied means infinite suffering, whereas for me eternal love means infinite hope.

In my view (as I have repeatedly suggested in my previous metaphors), many of the predicaments of modern people really stem from a distorted view of love. We should note that what is wrong is not love itself. To reject love because one detests rape is going too far. In fact, feminist currents have traced the ills of science to male chauvinism, and have portrayed science’s attitude toward nature as “rape” (the rape metaphor has even been used as a badge of self-assertion by some scientism advocates who preach the “conquest of nature”). This really does hit the mark. But the question is: what next? Some anti-scientists and feminists do not try to find a truly better and healthier view of love; instead, they seek to evade and reject love, or to champion another equally unhealthy view of love—for example, homosexuality. Lesbianism, in the work of a rather influential segment of feminists (the so-called lesbian feminism), is regarded as a core slogan for breaking genderism. I can sympathetically understand their theory, but I really cannot agree with such a slogan, which denies nature while also denying society.

In response to the distortion of love, one must neither evade and reject love altogether, nor replace it with a perverse form of love; rather, one should return to the pursuit of mature or healthy love.

Of course, love in the broad sense includes not only love between the sexes, but also love of family, love of friends, love of others, love of home, love of nature, love of wisdom, and so on. But love between the sexes is after all especially typical; it is the concentrated expression of the various forms of love.

Love is affirmation. It is the double affirmation of human nature and social nature; of “I” and “you,” of selfishness and selflessness; of reality and ideal; of emotion and reason, of body and spirit…

In view of the important place of the philosophy of love, this “Talking of Love—Speaking of Love” column has been specially created to place related views. Those who expect to see little old romance in this column are doomed to disappointment. Hehe. Bread will be there, milk will be there, and little old Gu will one day “come clean”; I’ll write about it later.

February 18, 2008

Latest Comments

• Baihong

  2008-03-14 11:24:49 Anonymous 157.82.13.170 http://www.wu-tianzhun.net 

  It seems that heroes see the same thing. As for the philosophy of love, I have already modeled myself on Kant’s three Critiques and written three detailed discussions. If you’re interested, feel free to visit my homepage and take a look:
  http://www.wu-tianzhun.net/essay/life-image.html
  I hope to exchange links with kindred spirits
  

• Gu

  2008-03-14 12:25:55 Anonymous 125.34.50.200 

  I took a look, and Brother Baihong is indeed quite interesting, but I didn’t really see much “seeing the same thing,” let alone Kant’s Critique (except for borrowing the title of the three Critiques).

• Baihong

  2008-03-14 12:37:07 Anonymous 157.82.13.170 http://www.wu-tianzhun.net 

  Heh, it really is waving a big banner as a tiger’s skin; after all, it’s not a serious academic paper, just something done on a whim, in my spare time. The reason I used the name of the three Critiques was actually only to answer three similar questions:
  1. What is love?
  2. How is love possible?
  3. What value judgments should we make about love, or what kind of expectations should we have of love?

• Gu

  2008-03-14 15:39:07 Anonymous 125.34.50.200

  Kant’s questions should be:
  1. How is knowledge possible?
  2. What should we do?
  3. What may we hope for?
  —Kant does not dwell on the question “What is XX?”; instead, he replaces it with the formulation “How is XX possible?” That is the Kantian way of asking questions. Brother Baihong’s three questions do not correspond to Kant’s.
  If it were up to me to develop a “philosophy of love,” I would, like Kant, stop short of the question “What is love?” If you want to know “what love is,” it is best to look at the people around you and at your own heart, and then you will know. If that is still not enough, you can look at various literary and dramatic works to deepen your understanding; there is no need to rely on philosophical critique.
  “Love” is, or at least can be: real, good, and beautiful—that is the premise of my philosophy of love. For this, I need only sketch it briefly; there is no need to expend effort on [critical argument.

• Gu

  2008-03-14 15:51:37 Anonymous 125.34.50.200 

  To imitate Brother Baihong’s formulation, I could come up with a critical philosophy of love—
  1. How is love possible? In particular, under the wash of postmodern thought, which is anti-metaphysical, how is philosophy, that is, “love of wisdom,” still possible? After the absolute standard of truth has been denied, how is “love of truth” still possible?
  2. Out of love, what should we do? Freedom or obedience? Giving or demanding?
  3. Where does love lead us? What does love mean? What can we expect to gain from love?
  These are not only questions concerning human life; they are also major questions concerning the fate of philosophy and science.

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.