http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/48c5bb42010008s4
61st Session of the Tsinghua University Salon on Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Technology
2007-02-28 10:05:18
61st Session of the Tsinghua University Salon on Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Technology
Topic: Beyond Technological Optimism and Technological Pessimism
Speaker: Wu Guosheng (Professor, Department of Philosophy, Peking University)
Commentator: Gao Lianghua (Associate Professor, Institute for Science, Technology and Society Studies, Tsinghua University)
Time: Saturday, March 10, 2007, 3:00–5:30 p.m.
Address: Room 335, Xinzhai, Tsinghua University (north of the library)
Contact number: 62794966 or 62798443 ext. 228, 62773013
Contacts: Chen Yijin, Shi Qixian
STS Office
Comments(14)┆Quote┆Read(108)┆Circle┆Print┆Rewarded reporting
The comments below represent only the views of the individual netizens and do not represent the views or position of Sina.com
2007-02-28 11:30:14
I really want to come and sit in, but unfortunately I have dance class on Saturday afternoon. If only it were on Sunday, sigh…
[anonymous] Gū Chù
2007-03-10 19:39:29
Last semester, because I had many courses to choose from on Fridays, I never went to listen to the “Ke Ke Forum,” and as a result I also never quite had the heart to come to Tsinghua to listen to the salon either… This semester I’m planning to show up often~
It was the first time I met Teacher Jiang (in person). My situation then was rather embarrassing. Relying on the fact that I had been to Tsinghua a few times before, I didn’t even look at a map; as a result, finding the library took me half an hour, and then after reaching the library, finding Xinzhai actually took another half hour -_-! I had set out from Peking University before one o’clock, and in the end I arrived only about the same time as Teacher Jiang…
When I asked my question at the end, I was a bit nervous, so I don’t know whether I spoke clearly. But the two questions I asked were mainly exploratory, and still need to be developed further:
My most important concern is: after the metaphysics of man has been dismantled, how is ethics possible? More specifically, how is environmental ethics possible? How can we build a new platform of problems for environmental ethics? I think that many other traditional philosophical problems may perhaps be dissolved, but ethics cannot be excluded from philosophy. Whether the question is “What is man?”, or “What ought man to do?”, or “What kind of person ought man to become?”, questions like these must be faced.
I asked “Do animals have technology?” in hopes of clarifying a number of things. Teacher Wu gave the answer that animals do not have technology, and that reveals many problems. First, Teacher Wu mentioned that “nature is not technology”; Teacher Wu said animals do not have technology, which means he thinks animals are (possessed of) “nature.” And if we look at the wording of Teacher Wu’s specific answer, the word “nature” he uses is indeed, in keeping with his usual practice, meant in the original sense of “nature” as “essential character.” In other words, it seems that Teacher Wu thinks animals do have “nature”—that is, they do have “essential character.”
Seen this way, Teacher Wu is not a “anti-essentialist” in the full sense. A thorough anti-essentialism opposes asking after the “essence” of all things; if that were the case, then Teacher Wu’s philosophy of technology would conflict with the “philosophy of nature” that is awaiting revival, because on the one hand it seeks to revive the original meaning of nature as “essential character,” while on the other hand it denies the legitimacy of speaking of “essential character” in every sense. In that case, a “philosophy of nature” in the sense of “essential character” would be impossible.
However, if one insists on thorough anti-essentialism, the development of ethics is also possible; the West has long made such attempts. But if Teacher Wu says animals are “nature” rather than “technology,” that is, if animals have (perhaps only) “essential character,” then his anti-essentialism is mainly directed at human nature—in other words, it is devoted to dissolving the metaphysics of man—human essence lies precisely in having no essence, in infinite possibility, and so on.
[anonymous] Gū Chù
2007-03-10 19:40:06
(continued)
By this point, one is approaching an existentialist position, and at this stage ethics can still be established; Continental existentialist ethics has also produced much. But Teacher Wu again mentioned Mill’s “naturalistic fallacy,” pointing out that environmental ethics must first overcome the accusation of the naturalistic fallacy before it can unfold. On this point I very much agree; I also feel that the development of environmental ethics must resolve this problem.
Teacher Wu pointed out that Mill’s problem lies in having a limited understanding of the concept of “nature,” seeing it only as a collection of natural things. But does correcting the understanding of the word “nature” enable us to overcome the accusation of the naturalistic fallacy? If we give “nature” its original meaning, namely “essential character,” then the naturalistic fallacy is reinterpreted as “human beings ought to act according to nature (essential character),” but the problem is that Teacher Wu has already canceled human “essential character” — human beings are unnatural, without essential character! Well then, if human beings have no essential character, how is it possible to act according to essential character? In the end, we have only updated the understanding of the word “nature” in Mill’s “naturalistic fallacy,” but a fallacy is still a fallacy.
In addition, Teacher Wu’s ontology not only fails to break the binary between human beings and nature; it seems instead to intensify the gulf between the two, pushing anthropocentrism up yet another notch—because the traditional asking after human essence often includes questions such as the distinction between humans and animals, the relation between humans and nature, the relation between humans and God, and so on. In tradition, “reason” is taken as the key to human beings’ superiority over animals. This certainly contains the danger of leading to self-exaltation, but I think emphasizing reason is still worthwhile, because emphasizing reason is in fact emphasizing human dignity, and at the same time emphasizing the capacity for self-discipline; and dignity, in a certain sense, is the basis of virtue. To say that people should “respect themselves, love themselves, and discipline themselves” is in some situations the same as saying that people should be moral beings. But now to say that what makes a human being a human being is “technology,” that humans are the only beings who possess technology, then within this kind of distinction between humans and animals it becomes very difficult to discover anything that can become human dignity, while it becomes much easier to find what allows humans to become arrogant—because technology is the power to transform “nature” (Teacher Wu said it is impossible to transform nature, so nature can be transformed, right?)—and in the end one falls back into the harmful tendency that what is unique and great about human beings is that they possess the power to transform nature (or nature-world).
As for Teacher Wu’s statement that only human beings have the ability to choose what to become and what not to become, after he said this the students below the stage were buzzing with discussion, saying that some animals also choose suicide, and so on; let me not go into that for now. The problem is that rather than saying this uniqueness of human beings lies in the fact that only humans are not constrained by “essence,” it is better to say that this “ability” of free choice—isn’t that still “reason”? Isn’t what it means to say that human beings possess reason simply that they have the ability to think about and reflect on their own actions and states, and make choices about them?
[anonymous] Xinzhai Lao Jiang
2007-03-10 21:06:12
Brother Gu’s question is sharp. On February 3 this year, when Professor Wu gave a lecture at the fifth talk of the Beijing Philosophy of Technology Forum at Jiuhuashan Resort, these same questions were also raised by different teachers.
Liu Huajie pointed out that animals have technology, technology learned after birth; I pointed out that according to Professor Wu’s main line of thought at the time, he did not need to insist that animals do not have technology. During the post-talk chat that day, Wu said that in Professor Zhang Xianglong’s phenomenology, animals do have technology. He also agreed that one can accept that animals have technology, although he thought this question was not important. On the way to dinner today, I asked him how it had somehow turned back around? He said he was somewhat wavering on this issue. I think there is no sharp boundary between animals and humans.
As for the question of how to define technology and nature, I think your characterization of his being not thoroughly “anti-essentialist” and “super-anthropocentric” (my words) is accurate. Including Dr. Zhang Meifang’s subsequent probing questions, I felt Wu’s answers were not good enough.
Actually, even if one denies “essentialism,” there is no need to insist that human possibility is infinite. As Professor Liu Bing pressed further, human beings also have some natural limits that are difficult to overcome. Although animals have stronger limitations, they may not necessarily lack a considerable degree of freedom and possibility; it is only a difference of degree, after all.
In fact, if everything is discussed within the relationship of causes and conditions, one can eliminate essentialism while still speaking of ethics and value judgments, but the content and positioning of ethics and value judgments will then be different. However, this may be difficult to explain clearly all at once here.
[anonymous] Someone
2007-03-11 07:31:05
“Essential character” should not be nonexistent, but rather undefinable, just as similar things like “motion” and “force” are, in essence, undefinable. Saying it this way seems to make a bit more sense.
Seeing Teacher Jiang mention the two characters 因缘, this thought suddenly came to me. The unfolding of essential character then depends on “dependent arising.”
[anonymous] Someone
2007-03-11 08:34:02
Whether animals have technology should really be a question of whether animals have free will. As far as what has been involved so far, one can only say: I don’t know.
[anonymous] Gū Chù
2007-03-11 14:37:19
I agree with “Someone’s” view: “essential character” should not be nonexistent, but undefinable. I can also more or less accept the historicist idea that there is no eternal “essence” that transcends history, and the existentialist idea that “existence precedes essence”; but whether it comes first or later, whether it is objective or constructed, the concept of “essential character” is meaningful and can be discussed.
I just looked at the written version of Teacher Wu’s report. It’s a pity the voice recorder ran out of power. Teacher Jiang’s question didn’t clearly explain “what ontological difference is,” and I have the same feeling; I wonder how Wu will respond?
There is also another important question about the theme of this salon: Teacher Wu thinks he has provided a strategy for going beyond technological optimism and technological pessimism, but I don’t think that is the case. First of all, a question: why is technological pessimism pessimistic at all? According to Teacher Wu’s analysis, it is because traditionally people thought that human beings have human nature, and that technology is something other than human beings. To think that human power surpasses technology is optimism; to think that the power of technology overwhelms human beings is pessimism. Then Teacher Wu broke the binary between humans and technology, pointing out that human beings have no essential character, that human beings are shaped by technology, and that only human beings have technology; simply put: human beings are technology, technology is human beings. In this way, there is no longer a problem of humans and technology being mutually hostile.
But this line of thought seems too easy. Actually, for example, in the traditional thought that places reason at the highest position, and thinks that human beings are reason and reason is human beings, there is also the perplexity of “where on earth are human beings going?” Some people discover that the power of reason is destructive: reason’s derivations doubt and destroy everything certain, ultimately hollowing out faith, denying hope, and dissolving value, plunging people into nihilism and despair. That also counts as a kind of pessimism about reason. So even if we replace reason with technology and say that human beings are technology and technology is human beings, one still has to face the perplexity of “where on earth are human beings going?” One may likewise confront the destructive power of technology and likewise face disorientation and despair.
[anonymous] Gū Chù
2007-03-11 14:37:44
(continued)
Moreover, I think one major reason technological pessimism is pessimistic is precisely that the human “infinite possibility” and “freedom not to become something” that Teacher Wu loves to talk about are swallowed up by technology. In the face of the huge “machine,” as an individual human being, of course one can still have the power to choose—I can choose not to be a teacher, I can choose to strike, resign, not be a worker, and even choose suicide, choose not to be human… However, if we look from the perspective of humanity as a whole: if I don’t become a worker, someone else will; if I resign and strike, someone else will immediately take my place; the entire mechanized social order allows itself to develop according to its own logic and remain self-sufficient; I can choose not to upgrade my computer, but I cannot stop the pace of the computer technology itself reproducing and evolving; a country can say, I will not develop new weapons, I will not research nuclear weapons, but if you do not develop weapons, you will immediately be overwhelmed by other countries, and in the end you inevitably either be eliminated or reduced to a dependent appendage. To survive, you are forced to obey the logic of technology and help technology reproduce and evolve… An individual can choose to refuse or flee, but all humanity, in the face of technology, has no choice at all, and can only conform to the logic of technology and become a tool for technology’s reproduction and evolution. It is precisely this predicament of “the right to choose” being stripped away by technology that is the reason technological pessimism is pessimistic. Teacher Wu’s strategy does not respond to these problems. Perhaps Teacher Wu wants to evade the issue through a reinterpretation of the concept of “technology,” for example by saying that “technology” refers not only to large-scale technology but also includes embodied technology, and so on. But let us rephrase the question: if we express “humanity has no choice in the face of technology” and “humanity is alienated by technology” as “humanity has no choice in the face of machines” and “humanity is objectified or mechanized,” then these problems still exist. Just as reinterpreting the word “nature” as “essential character” cannot dissolve any question about the relationship between humans and nature; if we merely change it to “the relationship between humans and nature-world,” “the relationship between humans and ecology,” “the relationship between humans and animals/plants/the earth/rivers,” and so on, these problems still remain, and perhaps become even sharper because the concepts have been clarified. To sweep away all serious, profound questions in one stroke by lumping them together as “pseudo-problems” is the most unlikable side of logical empiricism. Teacher Wu says philosophy should build a platform for problems, which is correct, but one cannot just keep tearing down the platform.
[anonymous] Xinzhai Lao Jiang
2007-03-12 17:32:12
I don’t know how the transcript of the last discussion was written, but I seem to remember that the question was: besides technology, what else counts as ontological difference? Wouldn’t that make everything into technology? Wu answered very cleverly: I only say that technology is an ontological difference, not that ontological difference is technology. (That was roughly the meaning.)
Still, I continue to think that Wu gave everyone a bit of a spin last time. On the one hand, he said technology is ontological difference, stressing that philosophy of technology should not talk about technology merely by talking about technology. That is correct. At the same time, he also said philosophy of technology is not a departmental philosophy, and that philosophy of technology should be treated as first philosophy. The reason for this is roughly nothing more than covertly replacing “technology is ontological difference” with “ontological difference is technology.” (Of course, he did not say this directly, but such an assumption was implied and presupposed.) So when Professor Luo Jiachang said that your word “technology” could just as well be changed to “practice,” Wu could only agree. (I do not claim the above description is reliable; my mind has always been a mess, and exact paraphrase is not my strong suit.)
As for “essential character,” my view is exactly opposite to that of the two of you. “Essential character” does not exist, but in our linguistic activities it is hard to avoid using it. Madhyamaka says only “nominal designations are provisionally established.” But I suppose my view will probably be branded as nihilism by Little Gu, and for the moment it will be hard to argue it out, hehe.
Someone is right: the definitions of technology and freedom depend on each other. But I still think that there is no basis for denying animals freedom of will.
[anonymous] Gū Chù
2007-03-12 20:39:48
Actually, as for this thing called “nature,” I haven’t really figured it out either. What I mainly want to insist on at present is that “nature” is something that can be talked about. But as for whether it actually exists, that depends on what exactly “exist” means—the most vexing philosophical problem since antiquity. I don’t yet have any definite view on that.
Nihilism, in fact, is not necessarily bad, nor is it necessarily superficial, and it is not necessarily pessimistic either. Buddhism, however it may be explained, cannot escape the label of nihilism, but it is not only profound; it can also often be optimistic and affirmative, exhorting people to take hold of their own destiny. This is not the same as the kind of nihilism I mean, the kind that drives people into despair. Nihilism in that sense is negative: it holds that doing anything is utterly meaningless, and therefore gives up control over one’s own destiny. My understanding of Buddhism is limited to taking two elective courses with Teacher Zhou Xuenong and reading two idle books; it doesn’t even amount to the barest surface knowledge. It is only a matter of “feelings.”
[Anonymous] Gu Chu
2007-03-13 01:52:27
As for “ontological difference,” my feeling is that I had originally seemed to know what it was about: Heidegger’s ontological difference refers to the difference between “being” and “beings,” but listening to Teacher Wu speak on and on, I ended up feeling that I didn’t understand it anymore……
Seeing Teacher Jiang say that Teacher Wu “turned ‘technology is ontological difference’ into ‘ontological difference is technology’” suddenly made everything clear to me…… If we forget that we are talking about “technology” or philosophy of technology, and instead take Teacher Wu’s lecture as an introduction to Heidegger’s phenomenology and existentialism, then regard the word “technology” as shorthand for “the ontological difference that makes human beings human,” then it becomes quite easy to understand. So my confusion is not what “ontological difference” means, but rather what exactly the concept of “technology” means that has not been explained clearly: if technology must include embodied techniques and language techniques, and must also include the ability to freely choose “what is not,” then why not simply replace it with “practice,” or with what Marx called human “species-being” — “free, conscious activity” — which would be more accurate?
[Anonymous] Xinzhai Lao Jiang
2007-03-13 09:32:00
Yes, at the time I commented that Teacher Wu wanted to do two things at once:
1. Use Heidegger’s phenomenology to study technology, that is, advocate the ontological program in research on philosophy of technology. This is of course very important, and entirely legitimate.
2. At the same time, use this ontological philosophy as first philosophy. Because seemingly nothing can get away from ontological difference. Since technology is ontological difference, philosophy of technology is first philosophy. In this way, Wu’s program becomes very important: it is what he likes to call the overcomer of the “historical absence of philosophy of technology.”
The first point follows naturally, but the second actually has a gap in its argument. Still, on a forum devoted to philosophy of technology, where everyone is a philosopher of technology and has long been under the pressure of philosophy of science, it is only natural that one would also readily support such a program upon hearing it.
Wu has recently been putting a lot of effort into old Marx, and now he is basically Heidegger + Marx.
Under Wu’s strategy, the distinction between technology and other manifestations of ontological difference is very hard to make out clearly. In addition, when he says that technology is not nature, if one is not careful, one can fall back into the trap of essentialism. In fact, the distinction between nature, technology, and culture itself is a product of culture. If one so laboriously tries to exclude animals from the domain of technology, the tendency toward essentialism is hard to avoid, just as you questioned at the salon.
[Anonymous] Someone
2007-03-13 11:16:06
Hearing Teacher Jiang’s words makes one think of Levinas. Never mind animals; even whether one person can fully acknowledge that another person has the same free will as oneself is probably hard to say.
The same is true in reality: not all technologies can be mastered by everyone, and the question of how to handle such differences should probably not be reduced to multiculturalism.
[Anonymous] Xinzhai Lao Jiang
2007-03-13 19:07:22
Yes.
The freedom of animals cannot be simply erased, and the freedom of human beings also cannot be affirmed merely in an abstract and empty way.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
Leave a Reply