This “Notes” was written from the beginning, when I announced on February 22, 2008 that I was going into seclusion and locking up the blog, all the way to early July, and it was recorded in a notebook I carried with me. It really was because I had shut down the blog as a channel for pouring things out that I had no choice but to switch to another form.
Writing by hand feels obviously different from typing, and the articles you produce that way feel different too. The train of thought and the structure both seem more obstructed and less fluent. But being able to jot down, in an immediate and casual way, those fragments that originally could never have been written into my blog may perhaps have its own particular charm.
When an article is only written on paper, I always feel uneasy. Heaven knows that one day, if I casually lay this notebook down somewhere, these words may never be found again. If something has only ever existed in my head and has not been written down, then if I forget it, so be it—I would not care. But once words have been written down, I am always reluctant to let them go. In a certain sense, the reason I have been able to embark on the path of philosophy comes from my never being willing to give up my utterances and my words. My views may change, but I must personally witness the historical reasons why my views changed before I allow change to happen. I hope that the words I leave behind can be like documents in history, sufficient for us to trace the line of conceptual development from them; thus the particularly distinctive writing of this period is of course an important part of my own history of ideas. I look at history in the way I look at my own growth, or I look at my own growth in the way I look at history: accept change but reject rupture, embrace the future but never negate the past.
Back in Shanghai, I was idle and had no books to read, so besides watching animation, I might as well practice typing with my extra energy; besides, this notebook really wasn’t very long. So I typed this notebook into the computer for safekeeping. Of course I will also post it on the blog. For other readers, if you are not all that interested in my history of ideas, there is no need to read it. But if in the future you hear me declare, “I said so long ago…” or “I once believed…,” then you may be able to find the evidence here.
Apart from correcting some obvious typos and slips of the pen, I basically made no revisions. Text added afterward is marked in square brackets.
§1. 080222 Philosophy is a net
Even if some philosophers would prefer to use “a chain of interlocking links” as a metaphor for their system of thought. But in fact, philosophical systems are more like a closely connected network.
It seems Wittgenstein also said something like this (though what he said was “wall”): if a net has a hole torn in it, it is still a net. But if a chain loses one link, then it is no longer a chain.
No matter how much philosophers proclaim that their systems are interlinked without a break, a system with no flaws has no future. Precisely because their systems are nets rather than chains, loopholes and deficiencies do not bring down the whole system.
Ordinary thought is also a system—a net full of holes is still a net. It is just that philosophers’ nets are woven more tightly, more solidly, and more grandly.
As the saying goes, “Heaven’s net is vast and wide, the mesh is sparse yet nothing escapes,” and also, “the net is opened at one side.” Some philosophers intentionally sacrifice fineness for the sake of the net’s inclusiveness, while others deliberately leave gaps for the sake of its openness, and so on. Philosophers’ nets each have their own characteristics; there is no fixed standard by which to judge which are better or worse.
Everyone has his own net; a torn net is still a net, and a net only half woven is still a net. Many of the nodes in the network are already made—whether thanks to nature or to society’s shaping. Yet philosophers are not satisfied with this ready-made broken net; they want to continue the work of childhood—connecting.
The way children come to know the world and open their minds is by “networking”: they establish connections between different things and constantly mend the network so that new objects of perception can more easily fall into the net of understanding. “Understanding” is “connection”; when a thing is connected with other nodes in the existing network, we begin to understand it. When it has fully integrated into the whole system and become a solid node, then we have already “understood” it.
Of course, in order to build a more perfect network, philosophers have to overturn the existing way of connecting things, but this does not mean crudely tearing apart the original connections. Rather, it means inserting more nodes between the original ones and establishing a more complex mode of connection [this is not well said].
“Networking” is precisely the mode of human cognition, and perhaps also the mode of the world’s existence. The so-called “system,” suggested already by the “silk” radical in the character, is a network, not a chain. The growth of the human brain also manifests itself as mutual connections among synapses, perhaps as a corroboration. And the so-called “single-minded, stubborn fool” is precisely a satire of those who reject networks and prefer chains.
A network can have many through-going axes. In my case, such things as the starry sky, love, or media, games, science, history, pluralism, freedom, and so on can all serve as such axes, and they are also interconnected with one another; there is no need to subsume them all under a single line. [Or one could say that they can all be reduced to any single line.]
Establishing connections—what does it depend on? Of course, fundamentally it depends on a way of life. More specifically, one can use action, design, arrangement, art, and so on, or one can also use speech and concepts to form associations.
To strengthen the connection between watching TV and eating, you can move the television opposite the dining table, or move the dining table opposite the television…[Or paste the words “television” on the dining table. Concepts, as this special kind of impression, are the medium for connecting other impressions, just as money, as this special kind of commodity, is the medium for connecting other commodities.] And if one wants to properly arrange all kinds of things within a beautiful network, this can be facilitated through systematic work in design and arrangement. This is precisely why architecture bears ethics.
But in philosophy, the material for making connections is mainly concepts, or in other words, language. Of course, even without philosophers, language itself is a system, just as before architects, the environment of life was already a whole. The continuity and wholeness of the lifeworld make the construction of theoretical systems possible.
The purpose of a theoretical system is not to create “wholeness”; wholeness is something that already exists. What a theoretical system does is to clarify and sort out this wholeness, allowing the world or the self to present itself to people.
§2. 08022628
“Li” originally referred more to yielding than to respect; “The mind that yields and makes way is the beginning of li.”
The relation between yielding and awe?
At first glance, there seems to be a major difference between them: although we can say that yielding and awe are both attitudes between equal parties, clearly yielding is more often the strong toward the weak, whereas awe is more often the weak toward the strong.
Compassion and yielding—Chinese traditional virtue theory also seems to be a kind of “master morality,” while later the emphasis shifted more toward reverence and docility, seemingly in danger of turning toward slave morality.
Yet compassion, yielding, reverence, and compliance were originally parallel; whether one speaks of “ren” or “li,” both are a unity of yielding and reverence.
The key is that reverence and yielding are two sides of the same thing and cannot be separated. It is hard to imagine someone who is especially skilled at yielding but does not understand reverence at all, or vice versa. One who knows how to revere and stand in awe will naturally learn how to yield.
Reverence comes from recognizing one’s own finitude, from discovering one’s own limits. At the same time, only by discovering one’s own limits is it possible to become conscious of transgression, and then one will consciously shoulder what one deserves to shoulder, and consciously yield what one is not entitled to enjoy.
Ruler as ruler, minister as minister, father as father, son as son. In fact, “li” is precisely to properly shoulder oneself, to confirm one’s own limits, to make oneself what one is, neither overstepping nor shirking responsibility.
§3. 080302
To sympathetically understand a philosopher’s text, one must go beyond the text and enter the philosopher’s intellectual background. This “background” is not, or not merely, a “knowledge background,” but a “problem-awareness.” To touch upon a philosopher’s problem-awareness means that one must personally raise the question rather than understand the philosopher’s question only literally. If it is not so, then even if one can literally assent to the philosopher’s speech—“he is right”—that is still far from enough. But once one obtains sympathy behind the text, that is, once one gains the philosopher’s “passion” through “problem-awareness,” then what was previously only a literal assent or rejection of a statement will suddenly become clear; only thus can one spiritually take over the philosopher’s strength.
§4. Miscellaneous note: Today I bought Pizza Hut’s delivery, and when paying online with my ICBC card I was shallow. When it arrived, I habitually took out cash, but the deliveryman from Beisong stopped me and signed on the online payment confirmation form. In the evening a phone call came, insisting that I had paid an extra time then and had not signed; no matter how I argued, they would not listen. After several calls, they said they would return the money to me, which was truly both funny and exasperating. In the end, after verification (N hours), it turned out that some gentleman had ordered the same thing as I did at the same time, had also paid online and then paid again when it was delivered, and the two delivery boys had just happened to take the wrong signed confirmation slips… This shows several things: 1. Pizza Hut delivery customer service is very conscientious; 2. Coincidences do sometimes happen; 3. People often are more inclined to trust physical evidence than a person’s memory.
§5. Academic conferences will be replaced by online forums (already posted on KKBBS)
The irreplaceable “advantages” of academic conferences: gatherings, banquets, travel, funding…
The advantages of online forums:
1. Time-saving; typing is not much slower, but it saves a great deal of travel and procedure,
2. Freedom; reading is faster than listening, and one can skip the boring and focus on what interests one
3. Equality; everyone can become the protagonist
4. Flexible form; one can imitate the traditional conference process or blaze a new trail, and can flexibly use all kinds of technological means
5. More room for thought: it can still allow immediate exchange, but one can also think for a long time, while the topic remains there
6. /More rigorous\ and richer in resources: one can search online for relevant material at a moment’s notice, also flip through books and资料 at hand, or communicate with others.
7. More responsible: what is said (typed up) is clearly written in black and white, impossible to deny, and there will be no tampering when compiling meeting minutes.
8. More open: one does not necessarily need to take leave, spend money, or have credentials; anyone can participate. Of course, access restrictions can also be flexibly set in different contexts.
9. More environmentally friendly: no need to print and distribute large amounts of material, no need to take transportation, only some electricity to keep the computer on.
10. More lasting in impact. Conferences are limited to a small circle at most, perhaps eventually collected and published, but the discussion process of forums is open to the outside world and convenient for retrieval and reference.
§6. The evolution of organisms –> order and diversity; constraint brings richness. The pursuit of multiplicity and the pursuit of unity are the same.
§7. “Harmony” and “tension” do not mean eliminating tension; on the contrary, they mean taking up tension exactly as it is, in its original fullness: neither letting it snap nor letting it slacken, but allowing it to maintain tension and opposition appropriately, and with the proper measure and the proper force, to play a great note. Philosophers are mostly like this; Kant is a典型 example, for he took in, in their original entirety, all sorts of tensions such as empiricism and rationalism, Enlightenment and Romanticism, science and religion, ideal and reality.
§8. “Love” first of all is overflow
What is “pursued” is not possession of an object, but a state
The reason one pursues the object of love is not to obtain it, but to seek a channel of overflow with which one identifies oneself.
§9. What should television news actually transmit: the things one wants the audience to know, or the things the audience wants to know? News should be “free,” that is, it should transmit the things it wants to transmit; the audience should also be “free,” that is, if they want to know certain things, they should go and seek them out themselves, rather than relying on mass media like television to get them without effort.
§10. “Society’s people are knowledge, what is knowledge is knowledge.” And yet what, after all, does society recognize, and how can one sort out what is taken for granted and render it orderly?
Traditional thought says: it is objective, and therefore universally recognized. Thus the question becomes how to be objective.
SSK says: what is universally recognized is objective; then the problem is what counts as universal recognition, and how should one do it? By power? Brainwashing? Can that work?
Science should still pursue objectivity, not the recognition of the masses.
§11. The difference between the philosopher and the sage: the former has “love,” has a transcendent pursuit, and knows his own ignorance. The sage is a skeptic; skeptical spirit is not philosophical spirit. The philosopher is first of all a seeker; because of seeking he reflects, and because of reflection he cannot but doubt. The seeker necessarily doubts, but the doubter may not necessarily seek.
What is called transcendent pursuit does not mean a pursuit of the transcendent, but rather that the pursuit itself is transcendent and sacred, regardless of whether its object is transcendent and sacred. Transcendent pursuit, or “love,” is a kind of pursuit that does not aim at possession. To recognize or believe that the object is unpossessable, unconquerable, uncontrollable, and yet still pursue it, or rather devote oneself to it—this is transcendent pursuit, or “love.”
Love is selfish, but not a desire to possess and control; it is a desire to express and release, a desire for self-realization. Love is also selfless: it makes one “forget oneself,” yet this is not losing oneself, but rather allowing the “I” to have a home, realizing the self in self-forgetting devotion. The premise of self-forgetting is to affirm oneself, to affirm one’s limitations, and to shoulder one’s own constraints. The sage, by contrast, hopes to shake off all constraints and cancel all boundaries, yet does not wish to find himself.
The postmodern sage is exactly like the ancient Greek sophists, though their origins are more complex. Some are like jilted lovers: “What I cannot get, no one else should dream of getting.” They do not know that “love” by nature does not seek “getting.”
§12. 3/14
“Talk about feelings, talk about love,” “go steady” — the insight of the Chinese language. “Talk,” “say”: the form or method of love is first of all talking, communication, dialogue, the function of reason. Postmodernism is anti-reason, anti-logos; that is to say, don’t talk, first act. Practice comes before speech, so going steady is not as good as “really getting things done,” as “making love.” First “make love,” then talk, or simply don’t talk at all. This is not merely telling a joke: the postmodern tendency of “doing before talking” does indeed surface simultaneously in two levels, the academic view of knowledge and the popular view of sex and love in everyday life, and there is not no internal connection between them. Love should first “talk,” and only slowly then “do.” To talk but not do is pure (sacred); to do but not talk is bestial; to talk and do, to do and talk, is truly human.
§13. 3.15
How does one provide a defense for pseudoscience? The first question is: should one defend certain things at all? Reason is precisely “self-defense,” defending oneself with discourse rather than force. The irrationalist, by contrast, does not defend anything, or does not defend with discourse.
Defense also differs as defending oneself versus defending authority, defending what exists versus defending the ideal.
§14. Today I wanted to change to a new notebook, and tried to transcribe the valuable words again. As a result, after copying out two sections I found it exhausting, so I gave up. But when rereading the words on the first page, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: the strange slip of the pen of writing “事实上” as “事事上,” and “整” as “正,” which seems to happen only when typing on a computer. Who would have thought that after using a computer for so long, I could even bring this mode of error back into handwriting.
It seems that typing with a pinyin input method is bound to strengthen the auditory side of one’s sense of written language and weaken the visual/formal side; this is a suppression of the wondrousness of Chinese characters. It seems that keeping up the habit of handwriting appropriately is also quite meaningful; if one could handwrite in traditional characters, that would surely be better. But the drawback of handwriting is that it is slow, cannot break keep up with the thought, (/how on earth did these two slips of the pen happen??\) and is not conducive to articulating things in an orderly and systematic way; this has also been confirmed by my recent experience of writing.
The best way should be to use different media alternately and in combination: first think, talk (if one has a partner), then write some outline points by hand, and finally organize the text on the computer.
§15. The history of the People’s Republic of China is a history of intellectuals being abused. The Cultural Revolution was only one movement in it. From the Three-Anti Campaign, the Hundred Flowers, and the Anti-Rightist Campaign all the way down, to the climax of the Cultural Revolution, and then June Fourth as if it were the finale, though perhaps it was only entering a dormant phase.
Needless to say, even just in those two rounds—the Three-Anti Campaign and the Anti-Rightist Campaign—what happened was already appalling beyond words.
By comparison, the Nazi concentration camps, and even the burning of books and burying of scholars under Qin Shihuang, can almost be counted as excessively humane! Those tyrants merely annihilated the Other in the flesh, and did so with high efficiency, resolving the matter as quickly as possible—both the “pit” and the gas chamber were technical means for killing rapidly; the heterodox were made to die both painfully and quickly.
But the new China was different: it did not allow you a quick death. It made you live on and undergo “reform.” When Qin Shihuang sought to eliminate different ideas, he merely burned the books—burn them, kill them, and that was that. But the new China wanted to “struggle” with you, wanted you “consciously and willingly” to engage in “self-criticism” and “self-reform,” wanted you to “become a new person.” “The people” were benevolent, giving the “enemy” a chance to “mend his ways and start anew,” and giving you chances continually—that is to say, you were compelled to keep “mending your ways and starting anew” forever and ever.
People without “spirit,” without “soul,” may think nothing of this. Yet from the Three-Anti Campaign to the Cultural Revolution, it was a spiritual massacre for intellectuals. It sought to distort your soul, destroy your spirit, and make you consciously and willingly abandon your own personality. The methods for crushing the mind were so cruel that even those who had survived war and barbarity could not endure them; all the ugliness in human nature burst forth in that era, to the point that surviving as a “human being” in that time was almost impossible. You were either a machine, a screw, or a beast; there was also one other: a god. There were no people in that era.
What made such a crazed age? Mao’s despotism, of course—but that alone is not enough. There had been many tyrants in the past, yet though they could impose bodily tyranny, never before had an age launched such cruel tyranny against people’s souls.
“Thought and politics”—a middle-school subject that still exists today—points to the reason. So politics was no longer limited to managing materials and affairs; it also had to manage people’s “thoughts.”
There are deep and shallow thoughts, strong and weak thoughts. Some people’s “thoughts” take root more deeply, are more independent, more distinct—that is what is called “intellectuals.” They are “spiritual aristocrats.”
But “the people” demand “equality.” Now they not only demand equality with the old aristocrats in material wealth and possessions; they also demand equality with them in spirit. They cannot stand your ingrained air of being “above others,” cannot stand your lofty “dignity.” Even if you have already been ruined so thoroughly that your house has no walls left, even if you are poorer than the poorest worker, they still cannot stand your arrogance. Because you have freedom, dignity, personality, ideals, aspirations, and independence, while they lack these and do not want them; therefore they demand that you be equal with them.
Mao was good at mobilizing the “masses,” and that is what distinguished him from other despots in history. Even Qin Shihuang, however brutal, had no way to mobilize the people to carry out a thought revolution in conditions where the people could barely live; Mao, however, could in conditions where the people could barely live make people wage “struggle” against one another and carry out a “revolution” upon their own souls.
The key is not dictatorship, but the “people’s democratic dictatorship,” letting the people carry out the “dictatorship”—that is what is most terrifying.
In every “struggle,” Mao did not deploy tanks and artillery; his power was exercised mainly not through the army, but through the use of “the people.” The “masses,” especially the fervent young, became the cruelest weapon.
Seen this way, June Fourth did, after all, reveal something different. It was still a group of politically inflamed young people, but this time those who suffered were finally themselves. And the Party, on its side, was no longer able to use the “masses” to balance the situation. Afterward it could no longer reverse black and white and celebrate slaughter. The Party could only silence people and seal their mouths, and from then on not mention the old affairs. Thereafter, even if it arrested “counterrevolutionaries,” it could only do so secretly and conceal the news, no longer parading them through the streets for public humiliation, no longer allowing the masses to spit on and throw stones at the “counterrevolutionary enemy.” Simply put, with June Fourth as the marker, the Party after Reform and Opening Up could no longer incite the masses and the youth.
But the masses are still the masses, the youth are still the youth, and we too are still under a “people’s democratic dictatorship.”
§16. Philosophy is an activity of critique and also an activity of defense, and not aimed at the Other, but self-critique and self-defense. The two are not contradictory; they are the process of seeking the self, knowing the self, or establishing the self. The former, from the negative side, and the latter, from the affirmative side, ultimately confront the same question: what am I—I from where, where am I, and where am I going? This is the first question, and also the gravest one.
§17. In temperament, I may count as a cold person (if “cold” has a slightly positive ring to it, then let’s switch to “indifferent”), because people seem to think rationality is cold, and indeed it is. When others recount certain experiences or confusions, I am often “unmoved”; I only know how to help them calmly analyze and sort things out, but I am not good at “feeling what others feel,” at showing the feelings one ought to show. What I am better at is philosophical “sympathy,” that is, understanding sympathetically and thinking from another’s standpoint. But if you ask me also to express emotions from that same standpoint, that is not easy; or rather, I can only go back to removing emotional interference in order to consider matters rationally and calmly. It can be seen that my thinking is, after all, masculine. As a bystander, if one is to offer advice to the party directly involved, of course one should be steady and rational; only then can one clarify the problem. Otherwise, if one stirs up emotions and adds fuel to the fire, one often makes the problem more muddled and obscure. Therefore I do not deny this temperament; I only know its limitations as well. Calmness and detachment can indeed, in many situations, allow the bystander to obtain clearer and more penetrating insight, but true “sympathy” after all is rooted in emotion, and philosophical sympathy is no different. Fortunately, I believe I am still a person overflowing with feeling; though not delicate or sensitive enough, I can make up for that with endurance and fervor.
§18. Scientific laws only hold in ideal conditions created in the laboratory? No.
Logically speaking, scientific laws, often as “counterfactual conditionals,” indeed can only “hold” in an ideal world, a Platonic world; the real world is an imitation of the world of the years, or rather the world of ideas is a model of the real world. Scientific laws also do not “hold” in the laboratory {.
But the people who propose local knowledge in the laboratory do not seem to be (or claim to be) logicians or Platonists.
There is no such thing as absolute, necessary “holding.” In fact, the problem lies on another level as well: whether a law “holds” and the scope to which it “applies” are two different matters. Though these two levels are intrinsically related, their development is often separate. For example, one first establishes a set of laws of electricity, and only afterward applies electricity to explain lightning. Whether the laws of electricity can or cannot explain lightning phenomena does not affect whether those laws “hold”; that question only concerns whether the laws of electricity are “applicable” here.
Scientific laws are like tools of explanation. The design and manufacture of tools, though of course considered in light of their use, also have other standards, do they not? In design and manufacture, people assign standards to these tools.
The notion of local knowledge still has merit: in order to make scientific explanation more applicable, one can do so by transforming the real world, that is, through the process of standardization.
It should be clear that the standards of scientific laws themselves are bestowed by the subject (a priori theory), whereas the relation between scientific laws and the real world is a matter of “technique.”
§19. Only recently, after digging out my certificates, did I learn that the honors I received at Peking University these past few years really were quite a lot: in freshman year I was selected as an Outstanding League Member, in sophomore year as a Model Student, in junior year as an Outstanding League Cadre; every time there was an evaluation I got my share, and I was almost collecting every university-level honor there was… In my final year, I would add yet another one, an Outstanding Graduate, and even at the municipal level. In fact, these years I have had neither merit nor toil nor even fatigue in “work”; the main reason I could be selected as exemplary every year was my popularity in the class, and in several votes I was probably always at or near first or second place.
Voting is obviously an unfair, or rather an unreasonable, form of election. For example, in our class, because there were more girls, girls received scholarships far more often than boys. But if not by voting and instead by teacher appointment, that would probably be even less appropriate. A compromise might be for the teacher to nominate and then let the students vote. In that sense, China’s “election” system does still have a certain rationality~
I have no interest whatsoever in “titles,” but “honors” still make one happy; after all, they represent recognition from others. Of course, the honor worth pursuing should first of all be the hope that others recognize me in the way I myself recognize.
Note: Two days later I gave up the municipal title to another classmate. It is said to be useful for things like civil service exams, and in that way I have four university-level awards in a row, which looks more pleasing to the eye anyway.
§20. The standard for establishing standards is obviously a different thing from this standard itself. What one seeks in establishing standards is the “reasonableness” of the standard, that is, that it “makes sense.” In addition, depending on the circumstances, one also pays attention to precision, operability, and so on. But the criteria established by these criteria are of course not, in turn, their own criteria.
For example, we can ask whether the rule “children under 1.2 meters tall are exempt from admission fees” is well formulated, reasonable, workable, and so on. But obviously, this rule cannot be used to measure goodness, reasonableness, and the like; one cannot say that those exempt from the fee are therefore good, reasonable, workable… The formulation of “law” is like this too: in making laws one must pay attention to their reasonableness, but law itself is no longer the standard of reasonableness; lawful ≠ reasonable.
§21. The unity of knowing and acting: knowing is knowing, acting is walking the path; in the final analysis, it all comes down to one word, dao.
Whenever one talks about the unity of knowing and acting, one always ends up dragging in philosophy and social practice, as though one wanted to set philosophy and the whole of society, and all 360 trades, in opposition to each other, as though philosophers were people who do not do things while everyone in other lines of work does do things.
This shows that philosophy has its uniqueness and transcendence in people’s minds, but it also implies the danger of distorting and emasculating philosophy.
Marx criticized traditional philosophers for only interpreting the world, when the key is to change the world, and so on. Then, following Marx (of course in a distorted and exaggerated way), China emphasized practice: oppose empty theorizing, go deep into society, go deep into the grassroots, and only then can one produce scholarship that does not depart from practice. And thus there emerged the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Cultural Revolution, and the movement of educated youth going up to the mountains and down to the villages. Why go up to the mountains and down to the villages? For practice, of course. If you don’t practice, won’t you only be engaging in empty talk?
Certain people are of course not quite that harsh; they only say that one needs to enter society and become “self-reliant.” Here the contradiction appears: if one both needs to go deep into society and needs to be “self-reliant,” how is that possible? Going deep into society means establishing closer connections with other people and participating in the social division of labor. Division of labor means mutual dependence: how can a worker produce even half a finished product and yet be “self-reliant”? Probably when that fellow says “self-reliant” he is thinking of economic independence, of earning one’s own living. But “money” itself cannot sustain one’s living; the value of money depends on the market. How can one be self-reliant? To speak of “self-reliance” would perhaps only make sense if one set up a farm and achieved self-sufficiency, but that clearly is not called “going deep into society.” So what, exactly, does someone mean by bringing up “self-reliance”?
Perhaps he wants to say one must labor and earn money, as if philosophers are lazy gluttons, all of them living off ill-gotten gains, money taken without work? Leaving aside mental labor and so on for the moment, even if a philosopher were the child of aristocrats, did no work at all, and lived off the family estate, so what? Would he then not be “self-reliant”? But I think he also could not be entirely “other-reliant”; if that were the case he would be a vegetable. Then what about the so-called people who generally “earn their own living”? Do they not all require the gifts of many conditions in order to be able to “rely on themselves”? Your citizenship, your residence, your right to education, the existence of providers of occupations, and so on—all these are like “family property” bestowed on you in advance before you can even speak of any “self-reliance.” Human beings are not beings outside society; once a human is born, he is already within society, and you inevitably must “enjoy the fruits of others’ labors”; otherwise you would be trying to escape society, but what you are talking about is entering society.
Apart from “money,” there are far too many ready-made things on which social beings rely, and among them “money” is precisely the thing least capable of being “self-reliant.” Money depends on the entire market, depends on the entire state; without a whole system from top to bottom, “money” is just a pile of waste paper, not even digestible if eaten. How could you rely on it for “self-reliance”?
Philosophers, or intellectuals, bear a historical mission. They are not satisfied with taking “ready-made” things and just “enjoying the fruits of others’ labor,” but instead trace them back to their source and take on the possibilities that made them possible in the first place. Ordinary people, however, only see “money”—which does not seem all that “ready-made” to them—and thus it is quite natural to understand “self-reliance” as “earning money.”
In this sense, philosophers are the ones who truly deserve to be called “self-reliant.” They can grasp their own place within history and between Heaven and humanity, and they are not to be mentioned in the same breath as those who think earning money is independence while remaining utterly ignorant of where exactly they themselves stand [or “know”].
Of course, I have always emphasized that philosophy is rooted in life and ultimately returns to life; this can also be extended to say that philosophy is founded on practical activity and ultimately influences practical activity. But what does that mean? Does it mean that you must have several years of social work experience before you can do philosophy? This is the same issue as with philosophy of science: must one first become a scientist before one can talk about the philosophy of science? Of course, some exposure to and experience of different trades and professions is necessary and beneficial. However, the question is: to what extent must one practice? I once heard an example from a high school teacher: how many steps are there in the staircase of the teachers’ building? You walk it every day, every day you “practice,” but you probably still couldn’t say. Yet if you go and “practice” again with the question in mind, then after walking it once you will know.
If you do not have sharp insight and a sense of problems, then no matter how much you practice, you will not derive any knowledge. If you do have them, then going and walking it once, even just taking one look, can yield something. [Of course, if the requirement to personally practice is a moral demand, then there is no helping it: philosophers can only resign themselves to being “pirates.” But if one is criticizing a philosopher’s insight, the lack of practice cannot serve as a direct reason.]
Then what about philosophy’s influence on “practice”? This must be distinguished from “using philosophy to solve practical problems” and from “demanding that philosophy fit reality.” Philosophy will certainly produce changes; your philosophy is bound to change your life, and the philosophy remembered by history is precisely that which can change the direction of history. Yet philosophy’s influence on “reality” cannot be measured by its practicality or immediacy and the like. Sometimes it is precisely the opposite: the more “impractical” a philosophy is, the greater its power to change the world may be.
Take Plato’s Republic, for example. Ideal, right? Impractical, right? Detached from reality, right? No matter which era one looks from, it is an “ideal” kingdom; yet what influence did this one book have on the history of the entire West? How lasting and far-reaching has been the influence of the interpretations, disputes, and criticisms surrounding it on the whole of Western civilization, such that even thousands of years later we still feel its force.
Like Alexander’s expedition, Plato’s writing and teaching were subjectively an attempt to change the world, and objectively they changed the world in far-reaching ways as well. Which of the two was more “practical”?
Someone will say: you can’t eat words; after all, “practice” refers to material creation, doesn’t it? My answer is, first, as noted above, “money” can’t be eaten either. A social being depends on many conditions in order to get food, including conditions related to “talking.” On the other hand, while it is true that in the end human beings must eat, they need thought even more. A person who only thinks and does not eat, even if he starves to death, is still a human being; a person who only eats and does not think, even if he is alive, is already just a plant.
§22. Is material reward for moral exemplars conducive to promoting morality?
This topic sounds more like a debate topic than a philosophical question, because delving deeply into it involves something quite complex, and it is not a matter that can be settled with a simple “yes, beneficial” or “no, not beneficial.”
Let us first look at the material for the composition: “During the Spring and Autumn period, there was a rule in the state of Lu that if someone abroad saw a Lu native reduced to slavery, he could advance the money to redeem him and then return home for reimbursement. One of Confucius’s disciples once advanced money abroad to rescue a Lu native who had fallen into slavery, and insisted on not seeking reimbursement, in order to show his resolve and sincerity in ‘righteousness.’ When Confucius learned of it, he not only did not praise this disciple, but instead criticized him, believing that such behavior would hinder the rescue of more people, because if in the future a Lu native advanced money to save someone, asking for reimbursement would be awkward, while not asking for reimbursement would mean suffering an economic loss, and after a year or two one might ultimately give up rescuing people. Another of Confucius’s disciples jumped into the water to save someone and was rewarded with a cow, which he happily accepted; Confucius highly praised him, saying that this would encourage more people to jump into the water to save others.…”
I do not know the source of this story [I know now], so for the time being let’s take it as true. My attitude here is the same as Confucius’s.
Some people insist that one must first admit that there is no morality beyond material interests before they can recognize the rationality of giving material rewards to those who do good; otherwise they cannot make sense of it. Such people are actually confusing the “promotion” of morality with morality itself. Let me give an example: the relation between a craft and the promotion or transmission of that craft. Does a craft depend on certain written book knowledge itself? Obviously not. A craftsman who cannot read may still master the craft very well; on the contrary, if while operating you always have to keep thinking about the principles of the knowledge and even occasionally consult the book, that means you still have not truly “mastered” the craft. That is to say, when you truly acquire the craft, you must transcend book knowledge; both in the end and in the beginning, the craft has nothing to do with books.
And yet, is writing down the principles and knowledge of the craft conducive to the transmission and promotion of that craft? Certainly, sometimes books become unnecessary shackles and obscurations, but in general, yes, they are conducive—or at least they can be conducive.
Learning a craft may happen through a master teaching hand in hand, through observation and imitation, through reading books, and so on; these are all means or channels of learning, and none is absolutely necessary. Moreover, the test of whether you have truly learned the craft is precisely whether you have freed yourself from these intermediaries. Only when you have moved beyond the master, transcended imitation, and freed yourself from books can you be said to “possess” it.
“Morality” is not a “craft,” but the analogy works here. Material reward is a means of “promoting” morality, not a constituent requirement of morality itself. Only after one has freed oneself from and transcended material claims does one truly count as “possessing” morality; but as a means of promoting and encouraging morality, there is nothing objectionable about material reward.
§23. Let me add, in passing, that this gentleman’s insistence on refusing reimbursement still places too much weight on material interests. If one has seen through the fact that morality transcends interest, one would not attach such importance to getting paid or not getting paid.
“Money-mad” comes in two kinds: one is the traditional sort of money-grubber; the other is the person who treats money like stinking filth and flees it at all costs. Both are mesmerized by money and cannot see through it.
For those who avoid money, is money then a bad thing? But if it is a bad thing, why would you hand it over to others? Wouldn’t that be selfish? You enjoy your own peace and quiet, while making others bear the evil of wealth? Yet those who both avoid money and are selflessly public-spirited are, in essence, still treating money as a good thing; only then does it make sense to yield it to others. From this one may infer that the more someone avoids and gives way to money, the more seriously they take money. Otherwise, it is simply selfishness: seeking only one’s own peace and quiet and caring nothing for others.
What, then, is money, exactly, if one truly sees through it?
§24. Is material reward conducive to promoting morality? — Earlier I only said that the validity of this proposition does not require us to presuppose that morality itself is related to interest. But can material reward as a means actually be effective? How is it effective? That still needs discussion.
Before talking about reward, let us first talk about punishment — what is the relation between punitive systems (laws and regulations) and morality?
Here we are dealing with a question of jurisprudence: what is the reason for punishing crime? Is it the justice of an eye for an eye? A life for a life? Indeed, in establishing the rule of law one must take “justice” into account, that is, the degree of punishment should strive to be “commensurate” with the degree of wrongdoing. But this does not mean that they are internally bound together, and are the law-abiding all obeying the rules merely in order to avoid punishment and thus not violate the law? Of course not. Those who refrain from breaking the law out of fear of punishment are only a tiny minority; most people obey the law simply as a matter of course.
Morality, too, is a matter of course; those who do good for the sake of reward do not truly possess morality.
But what is the real meaning of reward and punishment systems? They are a kind of “ritual,” a symbol. They symbolize the pursuit of “justice.” At the same time, they are a kind of craft, a kind of means, for maintaining and promoting the order and atmosphere of society.
§25. It is obvious that once one grows up, looking back at the works one wrote in youth and thought so highly of will always make them seem childish and superficial. I myself have already felt this deeply even when looking at “works” from only three or five years ago. But what do people mean when they say such things? They seem to be saying: don’t be too cocky about what you write, keep a little slant, and so on. Yet I am precisely going to write it, and I am full of confidence at every moment.
In fact, can the growth of an individual’s thought be compared to the intellectual history of a culture? Standing in the “present” and looking back on past thought, one inevitably finds it harsh and childish; yet the development of thought proceeds precisely through continual expression and repeated interpretation.
One can read one’s own texts the way one reads philosophical texts; one can read one’s own changes in thought the way one reads the history of philosophy. — Why am I writing this? Where do my concerns lie? How has my thinking evolved? What are the threads? Is this not how philosophy itself develops? Why can I not develop my thinking in this way?
In the history of philosophy, there is only transcendence, never replacement. I will not deny any of my texts; rather, I will transcend them. But they will never be replaced. They are there, and so they will forever offer possibilities, just like philosophy itself.
§26. “Love your enemies” — the Gospel of Matthew. / This is a religious kind of call. Philosophically, once one’s position is clearly stated, perfectionism and idealism are not superior or inferior to one another. But I call to you with a religious feeling: friends, feel love, believe in love! Embrace hatred with tolerance!\\
Perfectionists are dangerous. In a controlled environment, they are merely harsh with themselves and harsh with the things around them; yet at root they are making demands on the whole world. They want to make the whole world “perfect,” to make it conform to their wishes. Childish psychology.
Note that perfectionism and idealism are easily conflated, but they are not the same. The idealist pursues; the perfectionist demands. The idealist pursues the ideal out of love for the good and beautiful, whereas the perfectionist demands perfection out of hatred of flaws.
Still, after all, love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and perfectionism and idealism can transform into each other.
To retain hatred, yet tolerate hatred, and to feel the force of love more deeply out of hatred — that is what a true idealist does.
If one becomes obsessed with hatred, thinking only of how to change the hateful, then one’s eyes see only the two characters “struggle.” “Fight against Heaven, fight against Earth, fight against people — endless delight”; “strike hard at a single fleeting selfish thought”; “take class struggle as the key link”… these are the ultimate intensifications of perfectionism.
You must know: because of love, because of concern, one comes to hate. Forgive your hatred! Go embrace love, yearn for love. Jesus said: “Love your enemies.”
§27. 4-1
What is entrusted in the real world to someone as his or her “superego” is an “idol”: a doll molded by one’s own hands, a child’s toy.
When someone unfortunately mistakes another living, breathing person for his “idol,” then once the idol shatters, he will be in agony.
But a living person can never make a competent idol; if you play with one long enough, it is bound to break.
Immature love is idol-love; at bottom, it is nothing but a child’s narcissism.
Mature love does not treat the other as an “idol,” but falls in love with a living person of flesh and blood, with both beauty and flaws, a solitary person who belongs to no one’s domination. To fall in love with a person of flesh and blood means to know for certain that he is by no means your perfect idol, but a flawed reality that does not belong to you. Only when you learn tolerance, only when you learn to accept the other person’s whole being — strengths and flaws alike, whole and complete — have you truly learned love.
§28. Learning to distinguish fairy tale from reality is a sign of growing out of childhood.
But do children really not know the fictive nature of fairy-tale worlds? In fact, they know it long ago; they have long been able to distinguish the real from the imagined.
Yet the distinction between fairy tale and reality does not consist merely in the distinction between the real and the fictive. In fact, children may distinguish the real from the fictive by means of the “world within reach” and the “world not yet within reach.”
They are still waiting for the fairy-tale world to come true, all the way to waiting for that “dream lover” and “Prince Charming.”
Love is often the closing chapter of a fairy tale; fairy tales always end at love, and never go on to describe the messy life after marriage.
Marriage is not the grave of love, but the grave of “fairy tales.” The intimate shared life of marriage will smash the last idol to pieces. From then on, one must face squarely the real world, with all its defects.
§29. Struggle is not a good thing, but even struggle comes in two kinds. One kind is struggle because of love; the other is struggle because of hate.
Two people both like the same thing, but it can belong to only one. If the two are Confucian gentlemen, they will yield to one another.
If they are warriors, they will struggle for it.
But such struggle is wholly based on great respect for the opponent — he is my fellow traveler. So the victory must be decided in the most just way possible; the winner will possess it with a clear conscience, and the loser will also laugh heartily, feeling delighted and refreshed. This is the struggle of warriors. There is only love and passion, and not the slightest bit of hate or resentment.
But some others, because someone else has seized what they love or because someone else does not yield them a chance, become resentful. In the end, they struggle out of hatred for their opponent.
Only the latter kind of struggle brings evil.
A world without struggle is hardly possible, and it would also be dull.
With struggle, with contest, there can be heroes; with struggle, with contest, there can be epics.
Struggle is not bad; what is bad is hate.
If you must struggle, you must understand clearly: are you driven by love or by hate?
For example, if you are going to take part in the War of Resistance Against Japan, you must interrogate yourself: from where does your motivation come more? From love of the motherland, or from hatred of the enemy?
If it is the latter, then no matter how righteous you are, you are still a butcher. Not a hero.
§30. How could an ideal possibly be struck down by reality?
The more reality presents a contrast with the ideal, the more it will only make one yearn for the ideal, the more it will make one crave the ideal; how could that possibly strike down the ideal?
Those so-called “idealists” who say they have been struck down by reality are merely in disguise! Their true face is that of perfectionists, those children who never grow up. They hope the world will become a fairy-tale world; they are infatuated with fairy tales and cannot face reality, endlessly inventing new fairy tales so as to keep escaping from reality.
When reality finally rushes in naked before them, leaving no room for escape, their tiny hearts at last suffer a “blow.” If they still want shelter, they can only continue deceiving themselves and others under the name of “idealism,” complaining and lamenting, affectingly expressing their pain.
They try to dispel their mood either with optimism or with pessimism.
Optimism says: there are still more good people in the world; merits ultimately outweigh faults; good people will always get their reward.
Pessimism says: no matter what, this world has no hope; suffering is inevitable.
Both are self-deception, escape from reality.
Idealism is neither optimism nor pessimism. Idealists know full well the darkness of the world and the ugliness of human hearts, but precisely in the boundless darkness, the idealist looks up and sees starlight, and lights the lamp in his hand.
§31. Love does not need to be learned, nor can it be learned. Everyone has love; what one must do is merely find it. Find, amidst the jungle mixed with hate, the desire to conquer, possessiveness, lust for power, and so on, the love that is the source of all those emotions. One must pour love into the vessel of reason, letting it fill people’s empty hearts.
In the spiritual sense, the “self” is composed of reason and love. Reason is form; love is matter. Reason restrains and defines the expression of love.
A human being is like a sculptor: it gives matter its shape, and through that shape brings out to the fullest the inner potential of matter.
§32. Philosophy takes concepts as toys, assembling an “idol” of its own. It neither seeks idols from others, nor gives up the search; rather, it legislates for itself and makes itself its own standard.
§33. If it is said that women always tend to seek dependence, while men more often hope to become the dependence of women, then I was once the latter. But now I neither seek others to let me depend on them, nor do I wish to be depended on by others; I simply depend on myself.
§34. For learning virtue, the meaning of exemplars or idols is similar to that of material reward: they are only a kind of medium. Only when one has cast off dependence and can act ready-to-hand oneself does one count as having learned, as having inherited.
Excessive dependence on moral exemplars does not help one learn morality. Just as always relying on a wise person can only make oneself more stupid, always being unable to do without a brave person can only show your cowardice. To leave the exemplar behind and walk your own road is the true inheritance.
§35. The tragic cause of the leap from the Three-Anti Campaign to the Cultural Revolution lies, besides so-called autocracy, even more in the power of the masses; but what specific force was stirred up?
Moral perfectionism; the “idol” complex; “hatred” of the enemy; the desire for “practice” that changes heaven and earth; and the childlike temperament that is self-centered yet without a self, obedient to authority yet wilful in action.
§36. As for the basis of “love,” I once said it was “fate,” but now I feel that word is not quite suitable; “bond” is better. The word probably comes from Japanese anime, but it is very apt.
§37. “Pain”? Is it painful to persist in an “ideal”? Is it painful to do what you think you ought to do? As if this were truly great — enduring excruciating pain while still pursuing the ideal. So what? Am I supposed to sympathize? Am I supposed to encourage each other? No! Such pain does not deserve my sympathy!
Why should pursuing an ideal become a painful thing? Isn’t this something you yourself chose, in order to pursue what you love? How could a free pursuit be painful? How could it be contradictory? Unless the one making the choice is not yourself at all, or you simply do not know yourself, and instead rely on others to provide you with a “self.” Of course you cannot get yourself from others; contradiction and pain are inevitable, and serve you right. Wanting a “self” while avoiding the self — of course that is painful.
This pain is not at all great. On the contrary, it is precisely the source of danger. You repress hatred in your heart, yet speak of love; because the person you love loves, so you love too? Absurd! How can love be collected by someone on your behalf? Once this contradiction collapses — for example, when the idol is smashed — the repressed hatred erupts out of control, and then everything is ruined.
§38. “The ego is a bridge”? Did Freud say that? Or did you?
The “ego” is the only truly real “I,” the “I” that is aware of “I.”
Freud used the German “it” to refer to the level of desire and the unconscious. Translating this as “id” in Chinese easily causes misunderstanding, as if “it” were a more authentic “I” than the “ego”? I am I; it is not I.
The “ego” is a mediator; if the ego is strong enough, it will even become a “legislator.” Freud’s own metaphor was that the ego and the id are like a rider and a horse. How did it become a “bridge”??
You are still “avoiding the self,” like someone fantasizing about becoming a perfect knight (a very strong superego), while not even daring to sit on a horse (not daring to be the “ego”); so he simply lies on the ground and says to the horse and the knight in his dream: I am a bridge, you step on me and communicate with each other! Truly ridiculous.
Perhaps this person thinks that the perfect knight is over there, and that as long as I build a bridge, the knight on that side will run over, mount the horse, or the horse on this side will run over to find a horse to ride, and everything will be perfect? Truly ridiculous.
There is no perfect knight. If there were, he would already have ridden off into the distance on his horse, raising dust behind him; yet you imagine that he will also conveniently ride off with your horse. Does hiring a good rider to ride your horse mean that you too become a good rider? Truly ridiculous. [What is called a “bridge” is probably precisely an attempt to connect the real world with the fairy-tale world: one clings desperately to the fairy-tale world and refuses to let go, while one’s feet have sunk into reality. In such a state, one becomes a “bridge.”]
§39. Looking for another “me”? But before another one, have you even found this one? Your one and only “self” is just lying there being a bridge. As for your “superego,” it was originally being played by others on your behalf. The person acting the “superego” for you goes on strike and quits, and then you are displeased, insisting on finding someone else to play with you, unwilling to perform or demonstrate it yourself, and calling that obstinacy. To put it bluntly, it is simply childish temper.
You need to find an actor who can perform the perfect image in your mind. But what are you, a snake? A director? You cannot control the stage. A screenwriter? You cannot produce a decent script. From beginning to end you are just an audience member, doing nothing, only saying ah, shouting ah: “This person is good, that person is regrettable, this person is moving, that person is more ideal…” But you remain an audience member; what have you done? Apart from satisfaction and dissatisfaction, what have you done? Apart from satisfaction and dissatisfaction, what have you done? Have you sought to seize control of the stage? Have you written a script to make clear exactly what you want to see? Have you gone and demonstrated it yourself? If you are unwilling to do anything, afraid to do anything, and forever “searching” as an audience member for the best performance, yet can only feel pain and suffering and hatred when you fail to find the perfect performance, what is that? Aren’t you ashamed? On the stage of your own life, the actors, director, screenwriter, and audience are all yourself. When you are the director, you must make decisions; when you are the actor, you must be professional and responsible; when you are the screenwriter, you must explain clearly and write plainly; when you are the audience, you must be quiet.
§40. Pursuing “peace” and pursuing the “universal” are two different things. “Universal spirit” is the real source of war. (in a comment on Wu Fei lao shi’s blog)
§41. Fairy tales have two layers of meaning. First, they are stories that children love to hear; second, they are the stories adults hope to tell children.
§42. I do not deny “hate,” just as I do not deny “self-interest.” What one must do is confirm it, let “hate” sublimate into love, let “desire” sublimate into love.
Hatred of evil is precisely the heart of “shame and loathing,” the first sprouts of human nature. But hate itself is by no means “benevolence” or “righteousness.” Some people, under the banner of “benevolent and righteous gentlemen,” fight with hatred in their hearts, yet they are fit only to be called bloodthirsty people. Because they hate the enemy, when they harm the enemy they can actually feel pleasure. But true warriors, when they are forced to harm others, do so only with heaviness.
There is no single standard for the brave. There is a kind of brave person who insists, under any circumstances, on not harming others; although people regard his behavior as cowardice, although in fact his behavior causes others even greater indirect harm. Even so, he still refuses to kill some villain in order to save everyone in the world. He does not use utilitarian standards to make himself his own master. I am not such a person, but I can understand this greatness.
§43. What kind of behavior is it to sacrifice oneself to save another’s life?
Of course, this is a noble, or rather, an excellent behavior. Because most people cannot do it, it is also something worthy of respect. And yet can it be called a “correct” behavior? No, it is not correct, and it is not reasonable.
It is unreasonable because the logic of the matter [often] simply does not make sense: why should one life be exchanged for another?
Only because what is sacrificed is precious does sacrifice become sublime. If the sacrificer does not value his own life, and regards it as worthless, then discarding life is not admirable. But why is a precious life still worth sacrificing? Is it because another person’s life is more precious? Why should one’s own life be less precious than another’s? Is this not first and foremost a shameful thing?
Or is it that no weighing of pros and cons is needed, and sacrifice is simply an obligation as a matter of course? Then are people who think this not saying that when others encounter corresponding circumstances, they too should sacrifice without hesitation? What a tyrannical despot, to demand that everyone in the world die for the moral standard of one single person?
Noble behavior is often not “justifiable,” or not rational.
§44. If the essence of wealth is “relationship,” the dependence of human beings on others and on nature, then is true wealth not precisely this “dependence,” this “bond”? People can earn true wealth through the giving and receiving of love. Then what is “independence”? The pursuit of freedom and independence is not in contradiction with the pursuit of mutual dependence — if the latter is “earning,” then the former is “spending.” It is precisely through broader and deeper connections that human beings obtain freedom and independence. A person who escapes society and becomes a misanthrope has not gained freedom. The reason he tries to extricate himself physically and materially from others’ assistance is precisely that his spirit and emotions have long since been dominated by others.
§45. Whether one speaks of great figures, martyrs, or sages, what is wanted is respect, not worship. They are the outstanding, the worn-down, not authority.
To regard others as authority is not respect; and to imitate their behavior without accepting their spirit is a satire on their spirit.
§46. “Altruism” should not mean negating oneself, but enlarging the “self” and taking others as part of oneself.
§47. The pursuit of independence and the pursuit of reliance can be mutually convertible—not only realizing one’s own independence, but also realizing the independence of others; not only realizing that one oneself needs reliance, but also realizing that others too need reliance. Realizing that there is no absolute independence and no absolute reliance, one grasps that mutual independence is also the basis of mutual reliance, and mutual reliance is also the prerequisite of mutual independence.
§48. “Get it started.” “I know this song, but you’ve got to get it started for me first…”
The function of concepts and symbols is precisely to “get it started,” to awaken impressions.
§49. “Reason” means “to reason things out,” means “to speak.” Human rationality is manifested in this: relying on “speech” to contend. When the parties differ, they do not rely on violence, do not resort to conspiracy, but contend for victory through debate.
A rational society is one that ensures that “speech” becomes the most important way for political parties to struggle. What is called a democratic view of amalgamation lies not in the people’s “rights,” but in making the people, rather than certain specific standards, become the measuring stick by which the outcome of debate is judged.
§50. There is no good war, and no killing without dispute. Even a war of defense is evil. Either bear the evil and go to war, or when someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn the right also. Or else, use thought and language to resist; words are more powerful than any weapon.
§51. “Principle” always contains “law,” but “law” is not the principle of “principle”; “law” still has to “reason things out.” Inquiry itself is reasoning. Then what is the basis of “principle”? Perception, direct experience, “there,” “look”…
§52. The first step in opposing scientism is not to equate science with “reason.” Science cannot do without rationality, but science does not represent the whole of “reason.” “Reason” is everywhere. Scientific laws are not reason but “laws”; “laws” are always made by people and are always conditional. Even the “fundamental law” is still made by people. Science does not monopolize “law” either; law is everywhere.
§53. What is the mission of the state? The role of the state is to maintain order, but why maintain order? What is the purpose of the state?
The pursuit of the people’s “happiness”? The maintenance of “democracy”? All this is empty talk.
What is the purpose of “home”? What is the meaning of this kind of order called family? What does “home” carry?
“Carry” is “carry” itself. Continuation, the continuation of relations, succession, maintenance. The purpose of a family being together is simply to be together; the purpose of relatives and friends drawing near to one another is nothing else but “relations” themselves, the continuation and development of relations.
People need one another, people love one another, are bound up with one another; this is not for the sake of anything. The mission of the state is precisely to carry that history in which people are mutually connected and bound together.
What the state must sustain is neither “democracy” nor “happiness,” but “relations,” “history,” and common life.
§54. One must respect rules rather than obey them, respect justice rather than attach oneself to justice.
§55. “Principle” requires “self-discipline,” the freedom of pursuing reason.
But reason can of course never be “absolutely” free; discourse and concepts ultimately depend on life, custom, and practice, and if discourse itself is cut off from the meaning life has bestowed upon it, it is nothing but a pile of hollow symbols.
But this does not mean that “freedom” is a vain demand. Just as for a person, one of course must rely on nature and society in order to live, we can still speak of a person’s “freedom”; we can still meaningfully distinguish freedom from slavery.
For a person, pursuing freedom does not mean severing the ties between oneself and the environment, but critically affirming and re-accepting those ties, facing up to the fact that dependence is part of the pursuit of freedom.
To demand the freedom of reason does not mean seeking a pure world of ideas detached from real life, but letting reason itself confirm its own reliance, and letting reason take responsibility for itself.
§56. 4/23 (already posted on KKBBS) [the one about Teacher Chen’s lecture]
The core task of philosophy is conceptual clarification, with two methods: analysis and interpretation.
Modern Chinese has to trace back to the Western languages, so interpretation is difficult.
Besides analysis and interpretation, modern Chinese has one strong suit: connection.
The method of the Shuowen Jiezi: neither tracing origins nor unfolding analysis, but explaining one word by another, “A, B ye.” This too is a way of explaining. “Connection,” “relation,” “link”…
Modern Chinese is not good at analysis (it is vague and polysemous), nor good at interpretation (tracing origins inevitably has to go back to the Western languages), but it is undoubtedly good at “connection.”
Between homophones there are connections; between characters with the same form but different meanings there are even more connections; changing just one radical of a character is also a connection; the same character forming different phrases is also a connection… The number of Chinese characters is so leisurely, yet they can create a linguistic system no less rich than that of the Western languages, precisely by relying on “connection.” Chinese does not need to create new characters to express new meanings; it only needs to establish new “connections” among old characters and words in order to complete the task. This is precisely the incomparable advantage of Han Yu.
Although philosophy’s central task is the clarification of concepts, philosophers do not stop there. After completing this basic work, philosophers must also splice and assemble concepts in order to construct theoretical systems. And what is called a system is precisely a tight network. In this respect, a language like modern Chinese will be able to display its full strength.
Modern Chinese is already naturally linked with Chinese tradition, Indian tradition (from the first large-scale translation), and Western tradition (the second~), and is naturally full of intuitive connections. As long as philosophers take charge and organize it, we are fully capable of creating modes of connection that Westerners would have difficulty perceiving, connections that are difficult to reach in their depth and breadth.
§57. Analysis (decomposition) and interpretation (tracing back to origins) are also different forms of “connection.” “Thinking” itself is “connection”: linking one concept after another, and in the end establishing a connection with intuitive impressions, and then everything becomes “clear” — “figuring it out” means having connected out a path.
§58. If the “id” is always a mass of directionless desire, then how is “doing whatever one wishes without overstepping the bounds” possible? This requires the control of the “self” (reason) to reach the state of mastery — “man and horse as one,” “man and sword as one.” The horse is still irrational, but “man and horse as one” is as if man were horse and horse were man; this is the state of doing whatever one wishes without overstepping the bounds. Only a highly mature “self” (reason) can make this possible.
§59. There are two kinds of “extremization.” One is to push a theory, viewpoint, or rule to the limit it can contain, that is, to the “edge”; examining edge conditions helps make the problem clear, and this is a legitimate use. The other kind of “extremization” is to break the limit, that is, to break through the restriction it ought to have. The former is probing and confirming the boundary; the latter is trampling on it and ignoring it.
To break through a boundary, one should have ample reflection and confirmation, and find a new boundary. Wantonly trampling boundaries is illegal.
§60. What should one do when facing an opponent who “thinks” with emotion and despises reason? The only way is to keep one’s distance, and not take him as an opponent. Just keep talking to yourself.
§61. Reason can of course guide emotion. Just as emotion can of course influence reason.
§62. As a true pluralist, my friends would hardly “hurt” me; even if they betrayed their word or secretly tried to do me harm, I could accept it, and even approve of it (in certain situations). But there are two ways of hurting me: one is to express contempt in my face, for instance by despising my philosophy in an irrational way; the second is to tell me that my closeness has hurt him/her, in which case I would have to give up closeness, keep my distance, and even part ways. [In fact even these two seem no longer able to hurt me, or at least they can by no means cause me lasting pain]
§63. Philosophy arises from the desire to seek “understanding,” that is, the thirst for knowledge. One hopes to understand this world, and also hopes to understand others and oneself. When you eagerly long to understand, reading will yield something. If one is unwilling, afraid, or even resistant to understanding the other, then one is probably cut off from philosophy.
§64. Someone asked me: when I see society cruelly crushing living lives, how could I possibly not hate? It is as if they were saying that in such moments one ought to hate; not to hate is a moral failure, a lack of feeling… But I must ask in return: when you look at this world’s endless misery and ugliness, do you know only how to hate? Do you not want to inquire, to clarify the roots of suffering? Do you think remaining in hatred can make the problem clear? Or do you think humanity can, without calmly seeing the problem for what it is, rush up to fight with its enemy? Do you think irrational impulse is glorious? Irrational impulse may not necessarily create a disaster like the Cultural Revolution, but before calm reflection, how do you know you will not stray onto the wrong path?
§65. My philosophy advises people to pursue freedom, to pursue independence; but if someone says that she/he simply needs to find an “idol,” then what? Nothing much. That is just ordinary people; most people are like this. Philosophers’ pursuit of freedom is nothing more than setting the idol up as a transcendent being and then subjecting it to critical reflection. But ordinary people should also have self-knowledge; if they are blind to their own slavishness yet regard themselves as masters, the consequences are dangerous.
§66. Ethics enlightens people to understand “I ought to…,” rather than letting people use willfulness as the standard by which to judge others.
§67. When women communicate with one another, they tend to seek emotional resonance: one side speaks of her own suffering, and the other tells of similar experiences or feelings, thereby deepening intimacy; men, however, tend to offer advice or give answers. [Writing this, I had probably just finished reading Intimate Dialogue Between Men and Women] If, when a woman longs for emotional resonance, you respond to her: “This is not worth suffering over; the problem is simple…,” she will probably regard you as being in Shanghai. But in typical male communication the opposite is true: men seldom pour out their suffering to others; once they do speak of it, if the other person responds that he too has similar feelings, men will often instead feel despised, because such a response denies their uniqueness. Men find it hard to understand why women keep repeating certain troubles without ever trying to “solve” them; women, in turn, find it hard to understand how men can deepen intimacy through mutual provocation and struggle. It is reasonable to say that traditional philosophy is not suited to women: independence, seeking solutions, dispute—these are precisely what men desire, women fear, and philosophy requires. Some future philosophy of women will surpass all this, but after all it will still have to be rooted in it.
§68. Since reason (language) is always learned from experience and life, and there is no private language, how is the freedom of reason possible?
This can also be illustrated by “climbing to the second floor and taking away the ladder”: undoubtedly, if one has reached the second floor, one must have come up by some ladder, and the second floor also cannot hover in empty space, but is always supported by something rooted in the earth. But we can imagine that once a person is on the second floor, his activities no longer depend on how he originally climbed up; once one has reached the second floor, exactly which path one came by is no longer important. This is “universality.” [But universality is also limited, because mediation is less a ladder than a medium]
§69. Books I’ve bought, flipped through, skimmed, looked at, read, gnawed over…
“Bought” books mean I know that such a book is on the shelf, know roughly what its theme is, and when a relevant need arises I can conveniently take it down and look at it.
“Flipped through” is one step higher than “bought,” meaning that at least I have looked through some of its passages.
“Skimmed” is the lowest level of “reading through”; many unimportant parts are swept past, but basically it is read from beginning to end. If, in the course of skimming, one finds something interesting, one will stop and look more closely; but if one merely skims past it, then it is about the same as not having read it.
“Looked at” is also a kind of “skimming,” except that the material skimmed past still leaves an impression.
“Read” means at least having gone through the whole text at the pace of silent reading.
“Gnawed over” no doubt means having read it back and forth repeatedly many times.
§70. You take one step closer, and I will never retreat; you take one step back, and I will never pursue. This is my strategy for making friends.
§71. The Olympic spirit demands respect for “others,” whereas the universal spirit only demands respect for “our own kind.”
§72. Why are there so many people who attach importance to “economic independence,” to earning money and supporting themselves, as if those who cannot be economically independent were guilty, deserving of shame? Yet at the same time they evade intellectual independence, especially despising philosophers who, in pursuit of independent thought, “detach themselves from reality.” It seems that only economically “self-sufficient” peasants can then have a clear conscience.
In a sense, what they say is not wrong. Peasants are “at ease in conscience,” because they simply do not “ask”! The philosopher is not afraid of being laughed at; he only wants to shoulder his own soul, not merely to take good care of his flesh.
Such people will say with perfect confidence: yes, I simply do not want independent thought, I simply want to rely on authority. But at the same time they will solemnly question philosophers: you, after all, depend economically on other people’s labor for your livelihood. Such people feel that they are perfectly reasonable; eating, of course, is more important than thinking.
Have you perhaps heard the old saying: “Better dead than without freedom.” That surely does not refer to economic independence.
Moreover, dependence on others also comes in two forms, slavish and free. For instance, economically we are always dependent on the whole social system, dependent on the division of labor in society; the money one earns depends on the banks to have meaning (otherwise it is just waste paper), but this kind of dependence is different from relying as a slave on one specific master.
Intellectually, people always depend on the whole culture, on public language, but this too is different from depending on certain authorities and idols.
§73. The reason some “philosophers” scorn arguing with others is that they are arrogant and think too highly of themselves. But the true philosopher is humble. Yet true philosophers often also do not wish to discuss things with ordinary people; this is not because they are ignorant of truth, but because they are ignorant of freedom. Those people do not stand before the philosopher as independent thinkers; rather, they either rely on unreflective “common sense,” or borrow authority at will to use as a shield for themselves. Their most shameless tactic is to attack with things outside thought itself, such as contempt for character, moral reproach [of course this refers to using the concept of morality in the common-sense rather than philosophical sense], pursuing the philosopher’s practical experience, and sometimes even forcing the philosopher into a corner with accusations like “you’re not old enough” or “you’re too old.” The philosopher has no choice but to avoid them, so as not to be endlessly entangled with such slavish struggle (mob fights). The philosopher’s struggle is a duel or a contest. The Olympic spirit.
§74. I always criticize a certain person face to face only out of respect or regard for them; but if he takes my criticism to be due to condescension or contempt, then it becomes fact. A weak, suspicious, and self-abasing person will lose my respect. Of course, I will still respect his personhood [he will still be respected by me as a person, but no longer as an opponent], but I will no longer criticize him, and will only say: “Take care of yourself.”
§75. Can a person who has lost reason become the “end” of Kantian ethics? But does he still possess legal rights? Can property still be held in his name? Can “end” be extended to non-human beings? But legal rights perhaps can?
§76. The transcendental theory of “love”: if there is something unconditional, absolutely “lovable,” then it is precisely love itself.
§77. Human beings ought to understand sorrow and pain. If one does not feel sadness in the face of reality’s cruelty, then one is too numb and indifferent. But there is one thing that must be clearly distinguished: to understand pain is not to pursue pain; these are two different matters! Just as we say that a person who does not feel pain is numb, and that a person who feels pain yet faces it with composure is heroic, a person who takes pleasure in pain is a “masochist.”
To think because of pain, to think about pain, and to think for the sake of pain are entirely different.
§78. Equality is mutual respect, and respect is the prerequisite of “reasoning things out,” not reason itself.
§79. In what sense can “love” not be “taught,” and in what sense can it be taught?
Love, as a piece of knowledge or a moral rule, cannot be taught. For example, the Sermon on the Mount teaches people not to steal, and if a person unconditionally believes in Jesus, then he can manage not to steal. But Jesus teaches people to love their enemies; then no matter how much a person believes in Jesus, it is hard to say that one can simply love, and genuinely, from the heart, love one’s enemies. In this sense, love cannot be taught.
But in a similar sense, philosophy too cannot be taught, because philosophical thinking, like love, cannot be done on one’s behalf by others; it must arise from one’s own demand and be pursued freely, and trusting authority cannot help one obtain philosophy or love.
Like philosophy, love cannot be taught, but it can be cultivated and trained; elders can, as guides and inspirers rather than as authorities or idols, help and encourage the younger generation to seek for themselves.
§80. Pain is bad. What philosophy seeks is to rise above pain, not to immerse itself in the masochism of pain. But I am not saying that pain should be eliminated or defeated. Any method of eliminating pain is itself painful—for example, methods of anesthesia, methods of oppression, methods of striking another place so that a new pain covers up the old one, and so on. To set oneself against pain will plunge you into an endless vicious cycle. Therefore, the way to transcend pain is to confirm it, to affirm it: for example, injections hurt, medicine is bitter, but once you understand it, once you confirm it, you can bear it quite easily. This does not require you to avoid it, nor will it lead you to become obsessed with it.
§81. Weakness is a human constant, but [therefore] weakness is not a virtue.
§82. It is not that one understands and then respects; rather, one respects and then may perhaps understand.
§83. If one cannot understand oneself, how can one expect others to understand one, and how could one possibly understand others? The purpose of communicating with others is first and foremost still to understand oneself.
§84. What one can always rebut is never another person’s choice, but the “reason” by which the other person made that choice.
§85. Can thought eliminate pain? No. But thought can “digest” pain. For example, after a certain pain arrives, if one cannot make sense of it or see through it, it will linger for a long time, recurring again and again in one’s mind, impossible to shake off; even if one temporarily forgets it, once one remembers it again, one still cannot let it go. Then thought is able to make clear the stagnation of pain in thought, and the adverse reactions such as poisoning that may be caused by indigestion.
§86. Why not let pain linger in the mind for a long time instead of digesting it away? There is nothing wrong with that. Only, do not let privatized emotions interfere with rational thinking, so that one ends up building universal views on the basis of private feelings and private desires. To the extent that the foundation is universal and public, to that extent the conclusion can also be universal. And to build universal truths on a limited, private foundation is dogmatism.
§87. When two people are chatting past midnight, a little after 12, then in the strict sense it is already the next day. But at this point, which is more accurate for a person to say: “I went to school today,” or “I went to school yesterday”? From the standpoint of logic and definition, the latter is more accurate; yet at such a moment, the accurate expression is actually more likely to create ambiguity, while the “incorrect” expression can convey the message with certainty and precision.
§88. Perhaps my manner of argument is aggressive, but I merely use reason to strike at reason; I certainly do not like using forceful reason to oppress others. On the contrary, my forcefulness is precisely aimed at the pretensions of others’ reason.
For example, if you shout, “I hate/like so-and-so/so-and-so thing, that’s just how I hate/like,” then I will not pull out a whole string of reasons to argue that your hatred or liking is wrong. I do not reason with someone who does not reason. But once you say, “He is morally corrupt…, so I hate him,” then I can ask further: what counts as moral corruption? Why does it deserve hatred? — Because you have wrapped your emotions in rational language, you have begun to reason, and then you must take responsibility for yourself; and my criticism is precisely meant to prevent the abuse of reason.
§89. Guan Yu scraped bone to treat his wound; where exactly does his strength lie?
§90. What is called “instrumental reason” means, on the one hand, turning “instruments” into “reason,” and on the other hand, turning “reason” into an instrument. The former manifests itself as scientism; the latter as the revival of the “wise man.” Technology has become the master, while philosophy once again sinks into sophistry.
Is environmental ethics also a kind of sophistry?
§91. I have a box, and the box is full of gold. Then do I also possess a box of gold? Not necessarily. If I merely possess this box, yet know nothing about what is inside it, and have never even thought to inquire into or examine its contents, then what I possess is at most just a box. Only when I discover what is contained in it, and know that there is gold inside, do I truly possess a “box of gold.” “Possession” is not merely physical ownership; it also includes cognition and understanding. If I know nothing of the meaning and function of “gold,” then what I possess is still nothing more than a pile of yellow metal; only when I understand its value and its use do I possess its value.
Human beings are born free; a person is always himself. But to what extent does a person actually “possess” freedom, possess himself? That too depends on his “self-awareness,” his cognition and understanding.
§92. Reason is the ability to make choices according to principles.
§93. There is no such thing as “justifiable self-defense.” In a dangerous situation, when there is no time to respond calmly, instinctive actions are carried out without weighing alternatives, and therefore are neither justifiable nor unjustifiable [or rather, one can only speak of justifiability within the pact established by a certain community]. Only rational “choice” can be discussed in terms of right and wrong.
As for the specific method of weighing, that is the work of legal experts.
§94. To understand an idea is to be adept at linking it into a network of concepts.
§95. Is “not being moved” a virtue?
§96. Who can accept my unconditional love unconditionally?
§97. Just look at those people who have been “surrounded,” “bombarded” by Chinese netizens for their remarks. This shows that “punishing speech” does not come from dictators; rather, it has a broad popular foundation. The Cultural Revolution is not over yet.
§98. The word “understanding” contains acceptance and tolerance. The broader one’s heart is, the deeper one’s understanding of this world becomes.
§99. The quality and organization of these notes are just too poor, sigh.
This stage of “pen” notes ends here.
Entered on July 20, 2008
最新评论
- 随缘
2008-07-21 16:39:11 匿名 124.205.77.136
Little junior fellow, you’re truly diligent—let me give you a thumbs-up, and another look of admiration…
To be honest, I also often want to record the occasional sparks of thought that burst forth, but inertia quickly douses that impulse!
Hehe, keep it up!
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
Leave a Reply