l In response to someone’s question about how to systematically grasp philosophy of technology: “The introduction to philosophy of technology is not difficult in one sense, because its field is so broad that in fact one can find a doorway into it from any side. Rather than, from the very beginning, pursuing a systematic and comprehensive grasp, it is better to try to identify a point of entry, find the clues, and then follow the vine to find the melon; in this way one can go deeper and deeper. You can begin with any issue you care about—whether it is a classic topic in the history of philosophy, or concern for problems around you, for society, culture, and the age. Identify one issue, think about it and dig into it, and you will discover that almost every issue can pull in questions about science and technology. Think a step further, seek out relevant materials to read, and you will be able to deepen layer by layer. Although philosophy of technology involves a great many issues, there must surely be an internal connectedness among them; rather than gulping down all these seemingly unrelated issues in one swallow, you should pursue them yourself step by step. Only then will the understanding of philosophy of technology that you obtain be more ‘systematic’; otherwise, you only see complexity and enormity, but never grasp the internal connections within it, and though comprehensive, it cannot be systematic.”
l Philosophy is love of wisdom—first love, then love of wisdom, but never wisdom itself, never the study of wisdom. The word “love” cannot be omitted. “Love” does not mean possession or an attempt at possession. For example, a person who loves birds does not necessarily want to lock birds in his own cage. Love means pursuit, but not conquest and occupation. Modern people’s view of love is flawed: they think that to love is to possess, to control; in fact, this is a grave mistake. To love wisdom is not to try to own wisdom; to love truth is not to try to possess truth; to love nature is not to seek to conquer and control her either.
l As the work of Neil Postman suggests, if we are to overcome the predicament of modernity and resist the loss of control of technology, the most crucial and effective thing we can do lies in the field of “education.” Scholars conveying ideas through university classrooms is one kind, but more important is education in primary and secondary schools—at any rate, education cannot submit to the domination of the market; we cannot say that we should teach whatever students need, but rather should teach what we believe is worth teaching. What to teach, and by what means to teach it—inevitably, there is bias in all of this; the key question is what kind of bias we should allow education to bear—we must permeate education with tradition, the humanities, and love.
l “Consciousness is always consciousness of something”—is this sentence an insight into “consciousness,” or a definition of “consciousness”? I mean, are we defining the activity of “objectification” as “consciousness”? Because, to say that “seeing is always seeing something” is probably problematic. We can imagine a dazed kind of “seeing,” simply put: absent-mindedness, a vacant stare, seeming to see and not see. In such a state, if some change suddenly appears before one’s eyes, the observer will immediately “wake up,” which means that he was indeed “looking at” something. But if there is no disturbance, then it remains seeming to see and not see; the gaze has no focal point, and the observer has no idea what he is looking at. Of course, states such as seeming to hear and not hear are similar: in a dazed state, hearing is still operating, and even in sleep this is so; otherwise an alarm clock would be useless. But the sleeping person is not hearing anything. So, is there such a thing as aimless “thinking,” a kind of seeming to think and not think? Perhaps there is. But it can be said that consciousness without direction is impossible—in fact, the difference between the dazed seeing or trance-like hearing mentioned above and “awake” intentional perceptual activity lies precisely in the intervention of “consciousness.” Dazedness and trance without direction can also be called “unconsciousness,” while seeing with an object can also be called “consciously seeing”; whether there is intentionality does not depend on whether the senses are functioning, but on whether consciousness intervenes. Then here, “consciousness” is in fact “objectification” itself, is “directionality” itself. … But “consciousness” does not have only one definition. If “the unconscious” is also consciousness, then is this kind of consciousness also intentional? Apparently not. Perhaps one of human beings’ special strengths is the ability to reflect on consciousness, that is, to be conscious of one’s own consciousness. But can all of one’s consciousness be made conscious? If not, then the unconscious is precisely that kind of consciousness that cannot be made conscious by oneself; so does it in fact have intentionality? Hard to say. What I want to say is that the reason the sentence “consciousness is always consciousness of something” holds may simply be that we have defined objectification as consciousness? In any case, all discourse ultimately is constrained by our language. … Is it because reflective consciousness (or rather, “cognition”?) is necessarily objectifying, and therefore human language must be objectifying; or is it because human language is always objectifying, and therefore reflective consciousness is always objectifying as well? And also… what exactly does “objectification” mean?
2007-12-14
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UNIC
2007-12-15 20:57:21 Anonymous 222.82.78.69 [Reply]
But it can be said that consciousness without direction is impossible—in fact, the difference between the dazed seeing or trance-like hearing mentioned above and “awake” intentional perceptual activity lies precisely in the intervention of “consciousness.” Dazedness and trance without direction can also be called “unconsciousness”……
I’m not sure whether the word “unconscious” was coined by Freud. But the unconscious Freud talked about has this characteristic—it can never be made conscious by us; what corresponds to this unconscious is the “id.” And what we can become conscious of is only the “superego,” or perhaps also the “ego” (I’ve forgotten whether the ego can be made conscious). The “ego” connects and mediates between the “id” and the “superego.”
Gu
2007-12-16 00:36:10 Anonymous 123.112.78.117 [Reply]
Quoting “the unconscious” is not meant to introduce Freud; the main point is to ask whether the sentence “consciousness is always consciousness of something” is constrained by a particular definition of “consciousness.” In the final analysis, it is constrained by the inevitable objectifying character of language. In other words, the so-called “consciousness always has intentionality” is in fact not a question of “consciousness,” but of “language”—language always has intentionality. To put it further, the “consciousness” discussed in Husserl, however, is “language”?
How to get rid of “objectification” should be a key issue in Heidegger’s philosophy; recently, pondering Heidegger’s “authenticity” has also involved this.
What exactly is objectification? And how does it occur?
UNIC
2007-12-16 01:26:59 Anonymous 222.82.78.69 [Reply]
To put it further, the “consciousness” discussed in Husserl, however, is “language”?
I was thinking of what we said last time: “How do you think?” When we are thinking, aren’t we also always saying something in our minds? Looking at it this way, our outermost consciousness must surely have intentionality.
But I still believe that the unconscious of the id has no linguistic character, because its growth precedes the growth of language. That is to say, when a person does not yet have the concept of language, he must still have an unconscious.
You say “objectification”—why do I always think of “vectoriality”?
Gu
2007-12-16 21:43:25 Anonymous 125.34.44.114 [Reply]
After thinking it over and over, I suppose saying that objectification originates from “language” is probably wrong. Perhaps it comes from the a priori forms of cognition, from the slicing up of space and time?
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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