This semester I only took these two courses: Heidegger’s *Being and Time* and Schopenhauer’s *The World as Will and Representation*. The day before yesterday I finally finished my paper on schedule, so this semester can be counted as a complete success.
I still didn’t take these two courses very seriously; I skipped more than half the classes, and I only finished both books at the very last minute. But since the teacher for the Heidegger course was only giving rather general, introductory explanations, and the Schopenhauer course was even more centered on student presentations, skipping class didn’t really matter. At least I seized the opportunity to grit my teeth and chew through these two books, and I certainly gained something from it.
I was dissatisfied with both papers. Of course, up to now I have never written a paper that truly satisfied me. But even relatively speaking, these two essays belong to the more unsatisfactory sort, so much so that after finishing them I felt sick to the point that I couldn’t even bring myself to proofread them once. I just hurriedly sent them off to the teachers’ inboxes and called it a day. The day before yesterday I reluctantly read them through again, and found that the Heidegger piece was a little better than I had imagined, while the Schopenhauer piece was even worse than I had originally thought!
If someone else had written the Schopenhauer paper and brought it to me for guidance, I would probably have scolded him fiercely — 7,000 characters may not be much, but it wasn’t even divided into paragraphs! The levels are chaotic, the structure is vague, and there are far too many quotations — far, far too many. In some places it should simply have been paraphrased in my own words. Good heavens! This was actually written by me personally!?
In fact, the Schopenhauer paper originally did have paragraphs: introduction — criticism of traditional rationalism — intuition and art — reason and philosophy. But because I felt the title of the second part was too long and awkward, and I couldn’t think of a better one, I simply deleted them all… Looking back now, perhaps even using “1, 2, 3, 4” would have been somewhat better. As for there being too many quotations, there really was nothing to be done. That’s why I say I’m not good at writing papers based on reading… If it weren’t a paper, but rather an impression after finishing the book, or if I were just asked to retell it in my own words, then it would be much more comfortable.
As for the Heidegger paper, although I didn’t feel very good after finishing it either, I was still somewhat pleased with it. The teacher’s assignment was: “Please choose one of the following topics. 1. Discuss the relation between ‘authenticity’ and inauthenticity in *Being and Time*. 2. Briefly explain the intellectual aim of *Being and Time*, and give your evaluation. (From the description of Dasein itself to the description of being.) 3. Propose your own topic. This is not recommended; unless you write extraordinarily well, it will be hard to get a high grade.” And the title I came up with was “The Path Toward ‘Authenticity’ — On the Intellectual Aim of *Being and Time*.” It really is 1+2=3, a bit creative, no? And it wasn’t as though I deliberately tried to combine the two topics; rather, I was naturally led to this one.
The greatest regret of the Heidegger paper is that I did not use a concentrated paragraph to set out the basic line of thought and logic in a simple, clear way. Still, what needed to be said was more or less mentioned in the paper, so I won’t add anything further.
I had wanted to read *Being and Time* for a very long time. My copy of *A Reader’s Guide to *Being and Time** was in fact one of the books I brought from high school to university, and among the books on my shelf it counts as one of the old-timers. Yet in all these years I actually never dared to touch it… Of course, through *Heidegger Selections* and some secondhand reading, I had already formed some preliminary impressions of Heidegger. This time, after reading *Being and Time*, I could finally connect those scattered impressions from before.
“Phenomenology” — I have always been rather afraid of it. Probably two or three years ago, I picked up one of Husserl’s books full of enthusiasm and started reading it, and after reading for quite a while I still couldn’t understand a single page. To this day I still have lingering fear; it has practically become a mental trauma~… Of course, I should be different from the me of two or three years ago now, and when I have a chance another day, I still ought to go and confront it again.
This time I approached *Being and Time* in three steps. First, I had previously read bits and pieces of it in fragments, but not completely, so I only had a slight impression of it. Then I read Chen Jiaying’s abridged version fairly carefully. Originally I planned to skim through the abridgment in two or three days and then tackle the full text, but in the end the abridged version itself took nearly two weeks to finish. Still, the abridgment worked well; when I turned back to the original text, it felt unusually smooth. Although I still could not possibly analyze it thoroughly line by line and sentence by sentence, I believe I have at least grasped the overall line of thought and the thread of the argument.
But being inwardly convinced is one thing; writing it out as a paper and making it clear is another. Teacher Zhang Xianglong said that *Being and Time* is a “work of art,” and I deeply feel that — when reading it, one can only marvel in astonishment and admiration, yet it is hard to express this in words.
Ancient Greece, freedom — Heidegger’s style had already been something I had some experience of through Teacher Wu, so it was no stranger to me. Of course, I do admire Heidegger. But I’m afraid I would not take Heidegger as my foundation; is it possible to go around Heidegger? I’ll think about that later.
From what I’ve read, I feel Heidegger is indeed quite close to Chinese philosophy. But I do not mean that overused “the unity of Heaven and humanity.” I don’t much like simply equating “the unity of subject and object” with “the unity of Heaven and humanity,” and dragging “the unity of Heaven and humanity” into “returning to nature” is even worse.
What I feel as a closeness is mainly the closeness between the Chinese language itself and Heidegger — “dao,” “jiazhe,” “nature,” “as,” “clear,” “perception,” “craft,” “future”… Just look at these words; they are almost naturally Heidegger’s words.
Compared with Western languages, Chinese has certain “shortcomings” that are often mentioned, for example, it does not have the copula “Be,” it does not have “Being,” and the problem of “existence” does not show itself. Yet from a phenomenological perspective, isn’t this a good thing? It naturally prevents conceptual misrecognition. Modern Chinese “shi” on the one hand, under Western influence, plays the role of “Be,” but on the other hand it also retains meanings like “good” and “well”; and moreover, astonishingly, it still preserves its original function as a pronoun: this, here. “Is day,” “is place”… Isn’t it said that the Da in Dasein means both “here” and “there”? Isn’t “shi” just like that? In any case, the characteristic of Chinese is that one word has many meanings, and semantic precision is lacking. According to the analytic-philosophical way of thinking, this is the worst possible language. But according to the phenomenological way of thinking? According to Heidegger, language is good insofar as it can “reach through” and make access possible, and Chinese can be said to be accessible in all directions. Moreover, modern Chinese itself is a product of “communication and integration between China and the West”: it preserves the tradition of traditional Chinese while absorbing a great deal of Western influence. Philosophy grown in this soil is naturally bound to be a philosophy of mutual communication and integration between China and the West.
In some respects, reading Schopenhauer is more exhilarating than reading Heidegger. I believe this is also one of the reasons why my posts on KKBBS have recently become increasingly fiery. Schopenhauer’s language is extremely plain and fluent, with not too many specialized terms and no verbose polishing; the writing is full of momentum, pouring out in one rush. And compared with the astonishingly prolific Heidegger and the like, almost all of Schopenhauer’s thinking is laid out in one book, *The World as Will and Representation*, in a full disclosure that is quite considerate toward the reader.
Of course, Schopenhauer’s interest is by no means limited to his prose. In my feeling, Schopenhauer is like a “hub” — the hub through which one departs from Kant and moves toward Continental philosophy. Whether later Wittgenstein or Heidegger, both have their germ in Schopenhauer, while the earlier source — Kant’s philosophy — is also preserved in Schopenhauer to the greatest possible extent. So although I undoubtedly admire Kant more, Schopenhauer has provided a model for how to stand on Kant and open up a new path.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
Leave a Reply