Essay
Contents
Introduction… 1
Essay I: Subject and Object, Time and Being… 1
Essay II: Philosophy, the History of Philosophy, and Science… 3
Bibliography… 5
Introduction
The present writer is an undergraduate who has only just approached the temple of philosophy, and cannot possibly have any profound understanding of or research into philosophy. What I am going to discuss in this article is merely a few personal “impressions” — the discussion here will no doubt be insufficiently deep, insufficiently comprehensive, and perhaps even childish. As thinking and study continue to deepen, the questions and ideas mentioned here will become deeper or else change. However, the key point of philosophy does not lie in what the answers are; philosophy’s main task is precisely “questioning”[①], and that too should be the meaning of this article.
What I offer below may perhaps count as two independent essays, and the first half of the first essay could in fact be read independently as well. In truth, after I finished the first essay I felt dissatisfied with it, which is why there came to be a second essay; and I was also not sure whether the second essay met the requirements, so I have attached the two together. If the reader’s time is limited, you may begin with the second essay.
Essay I: Subject and Object, Time and Being
What, after all, is the real, essential “being”? — In my view, before discussing this question, one must first break down the boundary between subject and object.
Not long ago, an old classmate of mine chatted with me and asked, “So what do you learn in the philosophy department? Is it just dialectical materialism all day long?” I replied, “We’re studying German classical idealism, and talking metaphysics!” The other side had nothing to say…
Clearly, in many people’s minds, philosophy still presents that picture of “two great camps, materialism and idealism, locked in irreconcilable conflict.”
Yet when we come into contact with philosophy books and materials that are closer to us in time, the words materialism and idealism appear less and less often. That so-called “two great camps” has long since ceased to have meaning — or perhaps philosophy never had such a sharply drawn boundary in the first place?
Mr. Zhang Shiying says: “The history of Western philosophy is the history of development from the viewpoint of thought and being, subject and object as an undivided whole, through the separation and opposition of the two, gradually toward the viewpoint of their opposition and unity, and finally to the viewpoint of criticism and transcendence of the subject-object relation.”[②]
My own thinking about the subject-object relation first arose from the inspiration provided by contemporary new physics. By new physics, I mean relativity and quantum physics — the pioneering of these two fields, from the cosmic scale to the microscopic, has brought about a complete overturning of humanity’s worldview and view of matter! This is surely something that deserves our attention.
Relativity broke apart the concepts of absolute space and time; the observer as subject cannot extricate itself from space-time. Therefore, what ought first to be observed may perhaps be the observer itself… However, even more significant[③], and even more wondrous and uncanny, is quantum theory — because what quantum mechanics gives us is this: nothing is real; when we do not observe them, nothing can be said about them.[④] It is a particle when observed and a wave when not observed — quantum mechanics tells us that the result of an experiment likewise depends on whether, and how, you observe it during the process; moreover, the uncertainty principle also stipulates that we can never determine a particle’s position and momentum simultaneously — when we decide to observe its speed more precisely, we must lose information about its position.
All of the above scientific facts point to the same issue: the observer and the observed are an inseparable unity. The reasoning is simple: the subject (the observer) and the object (the observed) always constitute a unified system. Since the observer is part of the whole system, the standpoint it occupies and the way it acts will inevitably have an impact on the whole system! Therefore, the subject belongs to the object: and an object stripped of the subject has no “reality” to speak of!
The relation between “human” as subject and “nature” as object is the same; it is inseparable. Human beings’ so-called exploration and cognition of nature take place with humanity and nature as a unified system; the more deeply one seeks to understand nature, the more thoroughly one explores it, the more exhaustively one “interrogates” it, then on the other side at the same time — the greater the impact one exerts on nature’s original state! In other words, when people have thoroughly “explored” nature, nature can no longer remain in its original state. In addition, the impact on nature is at the same time an impact on the whole of humanity and nature: while conquering nature, human beings themselves are also being conquered, being instrumentalized, being alienated… Humanity and nature need to return once more to a harmonious and integrated relation; this is where the urgency of affirming the unity of subject and object lies today.
Moreover, to speak of “being,” one must also introduce the concept of “time.” Of course, relativity long ago told us that time and space are one; yet the importance of time does not stop there — time is moreover the very meaning of being: without death, survival would have no meaning; Heidegger says that death limits and determines the possibilities of Dasein. If Dasein is to be understood in its wholeness, death must be included[⑤]. It is precisely non-being that “brings forth” being, making it intelligible and granting it meaning. Only when we contrast a thing with the idea that it does not exist can we come to feel the significance of that thing’s existence.
In fact, when people speak of being, they have already included the limitation of time within it: when one says that something “exists,” the omitted qualifier implied is “now,” “at this moment” — we can hardly transcend time in order to speak of “being.” On the other hand, such “being” is also unreal, impossible to grasp, because “the present moment” passes in the blink of an eye. “Now” is elusive; “the past” is determinate, and “existing in the past” is real, but it has already become like smoke or illusion; perhaps “the future” is the most important of all, for “existing in the future” is uncertain, but precisely for that reason it is what we may be able to grasp.
Thus, the present writer has attempted to discuss the premises and limits of “being”: I believe that there is no “being” independent of subject or object, independent of time; or rather, only when subject and object are fused into one, and the dimension of time is introduced, does “being” become meaningful.
Essay II: Philosophy, the History of Philosophy, and Science
What is philosophy, and how should philosophy be understood and practiced — these are questions for which it is hard to find a unified answer. But that does not mean that questions on which no consensus can be reached need not be thought about. On the contrary, these questions are crucial, and everyone should have their own understanding of philosophy.
“Philosophy is the history of philosophy”[⑥] — this is an understanding of the attitude toward and path of doing philosophy, and it makes a great deal of sense. Clearly, philosophy cannot be separated from the history of philosophy; to do philosophy, one must first place oneself within the history of philosophy, start from the source, and begin thinking from the earliest and most fundamental questions!
However, in my view, it is not enough merely to emphasize that “philosophy is the history of philosophy.”
“Philosophy is mainly not about studying other people’s views, but about striving to state your own views clearly in language that is as persuasive as possible and as interesting as possible; that is what doing philosophy is, rather than merely reading what others have said.”[⑦]
To do philosophy, one must avoid a certain tendency — becoming too intoxicated with the classics and neglecting to put forward one’s own views. The key issue here is not the handling of the relation between philosophy and the history of philosophy — most people understand the importance of the history of philosophy; I believe that how one understands “the history of philosophy” is itself also an important question.
What is the history of philosophy? It is not enough simply to regard the history of philosophy as “the history of one philosophical ‘work’ after another”[⑧]. If one merely equates the history of philosophy with a “history of classics,” then naturally such a “history of philosophy” becomes radically different from the history of mathematics, the history of physics, and so on — modern people indeed no longer need to study Euclid’s Elements or Aristotle’s Physics as theories. But what I want to say is that modern mathematics and modern physics likewise cannot be separated from the history of mathematics and the history of physics! In doing science, you too must first place yourself within the history of science; the whole history of science is a staircase. The only difference is this: in doing philosophy, each time one needs to walk back from the source oneself, whereas in doing science one’s starting point is already beyond one’s predecessors — and the similarity is that, if the staircase of history is discarded, philosophy or science alike will become meaningless.
I believe that “philosophical” history of philosophy is better seen not as a “history of classic texts,” but as a history of “questions”! — philosophy’s main task lies in questioning: it is precisely those philosophical “questions” that run through ancient and modern times and constitute the main content of philosophy. The history of science can also be said to be a “history of questions,” though the difference is that the history of scientific questions may be more appropriately called a “history of answers”; to do science, one must stand on the answers already reached and the results already obtained by those before us. Philosophy, by contrast, focuses on the questions themselves; therefore the foothold of doing philosophy is the “question,” and we approach the philosophical questions themselves through the guidance of the sages and the classics.
“Philosophy as a science that can be taught and learned…” — Teacher Ye Xiushan holds such a view. This is of course reasonable, but in my opinion, understanding philosophy as a science is something worth discussing, and may even lead to certain misunderstandings.
The first question involved here is: what exactly is science? Teacher Wu Guosheng divides science into three kinds: “natural history, rational science (derived from the ancient Greek tradition), and modern mathematical-experimental science”[⑨]. If we look at philosophy from the angle of its “pursuit of reason and freedom,” then philosophy of course can correspond to the traditional “rational science”: in a certain sense, philosophy and science alike, both originating in ancient Greece, are one! But the problem is that the science people commonly understand today is no longer that Greek rational science, and “is often equated with modern Western science”[⑩]! Thus, classifying philosophy under science very likely steers philosophy toward utilitarianism and positivism. For experimental science, which in modern times pursues power, emphasizes technical rationality, and seeks to replace the spirit of science with scientific method, carries the dangerous tendency to alienate human beings, sever humanity from nature, and separate technology and the humanities!
Our time is an age of technical rationality, and human survival long ago became inseparable from science and technology; but technology, on the other hand, has plunged human beings into predicament and bewilderment! I believe that in the present day it is inappropriate to lead philosophy into technical-rational science; philosophy should rather be regarded as a bridge that connects human beings and nature, and links science and the humanities!
It is worth mentioning that when the word “science” is understood in a broad sense, can one say that philosophy is science? I do not think so either. Russell pointed out: “What we call the ‘philosophical’ outlook on life and the world is the product of two factors: one is the traditional religious and ethical outlook, the other is what may be called ‘scientific’ inquiry, using the word science in its widest sense. The proportion of these two factors in the systems of different philosophers varies very greatly; but only in so far as both are present in some degree does the result deserve to be called philosophical. … It is something intermediate between theology and science.”[11]
That is to say, in addition to “scientificity,” philosophy also contains content on another side, which we may temporarily call “humanistic” — in any civilization with a long history, philosophy always constitutes the core part of its cultural substance.
Thus we discover that even the most extreme scientistic thinkers or anti-scientific thinkers still belong within the domain of philosophy, because although the issues they discuss have their own emphases, they cannot avoid those most fundamental “big questions” that run through the whole history of philosophy. Therefore, philosophy is both diverse — the ways of understanding philosophy and the paths of doing philosophy can vary in countless ways; and yet philosophy is also unified — it belongs neither to science, nor to religion or art.
Science is “teachable and learnable”; what about philosophy? Kant said, “Philosophy cannot be taught.”[12] Of course, Kant himself taught philosophy at the university, and what he meant by this sentence is that the teaching and learning of philosophy are different from the teaching and learning of ordinary science.
I believe that, unlike science, what philosophy concerns itself with is not the answer to a problem, but the “problem” itself! It is precisely concern for these “problems,” for the most fundamental questions of nature, society, and human beings themselves, that runs through the entire history of philosophy and constitutes its core. Therefore, “to teach philosophy” means “to lead students into philosophical questions themselves, to make them think together with the great masters, rather than merely adding to them some objective knowledge they must grit their teeth and memorize.”[13] Likewise, to study philosophy must by no means stop at the accumulation or application of knowledge, but must “through cooperating with them (the philosophers), state them openly, defend them, rely on them, and, through clear expression and argumentation, truly put forward one’s own views.”[14]
What, after all, is philosophy? Russell says: philosophy, since remote antiquity, has not been merely a question for certain schools of thought or a matter of dispute among a small number of scholars. It is an important part of social life[15]. We study philosophy because philosophy is already included in the spiritual baggage we carry with us[16]. Philosophy is all around us, within life, running through history, permeating every discipline — but philosophy does not belong to anything else; it is not confined to any fixed formula or subject, but is diverse and free.
Bibliography
History of Western Philosophy [Norwegian] G•Hilberg N•Eijer, trans. Tong Shijun, Yu Zhenhua, Liu Jin, Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Introduction to Philosophy Zhang Shiying, Peking University Press
Into the Realm of Clear Light — New Directions in Philosophy Zhang Shiying, The Commercial Press
Finding Schrödinger’s Cat John R. Gribbin, Hainan Publishing House
A Brief History of Time [British] Stephen Hawking, trans. Xu Mingxian, Wu Zhongchao, Hunan Science and Technology Press
Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty [American] M. Kline, trans. Li Hongkui, Hunan Science and Technology Press
Heidegger [American] Patricia Ottenberg Johnson, trans. Zhang Xianglong, Lin Dan, Zhu Gang, Zhonghua Book Company
Thinkers (Second Edition) ed. Mackie, trans. Zhou Suiming, SDX Joint Publishing Company
Reading Guide to Being and Time compiled and written by Chen Jiaying, SDX Joint Publishing Company
History of Western Philosophy (Academic Edition), Volume I Ye Xiushan, Wang Shuren, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House
Fifteen Lectures on Modern Western Philosophy Zhang Rulun, Peking University Press
Big Questions — A Concise Introduction to Philosophy [American] Robert Solomon, trans. Zhang Butian, Guangxi Normal University Press
Reconsidering Science Wu Guosheng, New World Press
History of Western Philosophy [British] Bertrand Russell, trans. He Zhaowu and Li Yuezao, The Commercial Press
[①] History of Western Philosophy [Norwegian] G. Hilbæk and N. Ije, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, p. 5
[②] Introduction to Philosophy, Zhang Shiying, Peking University Press, p. 358
[③] Searching for Schrödinger’s Cat, John R. Gribbin, Hainan Publishing House, p. 5
[④] Same as above, p. 6
[⑤] Heidegger, [American] Patricia Ottenberg Johnson, Zhonghua Book Company, p. 35
[⑥] History of Western Philosophy (Academic Edition), Volume 1, Part I, Ye Xiushan, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, p. 15; Fifteen Lectures on Modern Western Philosophy, Zhang Xialun, Peking University Press, p. 1
[⑦] Big Questions — A Concise Introduction to Philosophy, [American] Robert Solomon, Guangxi Normal University Press, p. 6
[⑧] History of Western Philosophy (Academic Edition), Volume 1, Part I, Ye Xiushan, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, p. 16
[⑨] Reflecting on Science, Wu Guosheng, New World Press, p. 4
[⑩] Same as above, p. 3
[11] History of Western Philosophy, Volume I, [British] Bertrand Russell, The Commercial Press, p. 11
[12] Fifteen Lectures on Modern Western Philosophy, Zhang Xialun, Peking University Press, p. 404
[13] Same as above
[14] Big Questions — A Concise Introduction to Philosophy, [American] Robert Solomon, Guangxi Normal University Press, p. 15
[15] History of Western Philosophy, Volume I, [British] Bertrand Russell, The Commercial Press, p. 9
[16] History of Western Philosophy [Norwegian] G. Hilbæk and N. Ije, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, p. 1
December 21, 2004 <!–
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