Re-reading “Big Questions—A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”

8,051 characters2008.08.26

The second edition of *Big Questions* has been on the market for some time. During the Olympics, on a whim, I read it all over again from start to finish, and was filled with a thousand thoughts and feelings.

The first Chinese edition of *Big Questions* came out in 2004. That was when I had just entered university, just begun taking philosophy courses, and was fortunate enough to encounter this book.

I bought the book roughly in the second week of classes, the exact date being around September 20, 2004. Why do I remember it so precisely? Because in the forum for the “Introduction to Philosophy” course at the time, on a post dated September 24, I “grandly recommended” this book, which I had “just bought four days earlier.”

That year’s Introduction to Philosophy course was taught by Mr. Ye Xiushan, and for the first time a course forum was opened online as well (though it was discontinued thereafter).

My present style had already revealed itself unmistakably back then: quiet and taciturn in everyday life, but if you gave me the chance to post text online, then I feared nothing under heaven.

A senior student later said that his first impression of me was “someone who dared to go head-to-head with Ye Xiushan.” Indeed, that is how I began my path in philosophy, and I was very pleased to see that, four years later, that provocative air still showed no sign of fading.

The issue I wanted to debate with Old Ye was the meaning of “debate” itself; naturally, I did not prevail, because he soon withdrew from the forum’s exchanges. The cause was that I was overjoyed to see such a forum had been set up, and after the first class I went to post my impressions of the lecture, incidentally urging everyone to discuss things actively—if there is a “forum” or “discussion area,” and nothing gets discussed there, why set it up at all? Who knew that Old Ye explicitly stated, both online and in class, that he opposed discussion and that debate was meaningless. After several fruitless rounds of rebuttal from me, Old Ye naturally did not change his stance, and the classmates and seniors on the forum did not step forward to support me either. So I took the hint and gradually faded out of the forum, leaving it to become merely a reading area for posting lecture notes.

Looking back now at the words I wrote then is of course like a world away. I have said before that all writing from before some point in my sophomore year now feels this way, that is, as if it were not written by me at all. At that time I clearly had not yet established enough confidence, nor was I skilled at presenting my thoughts appropriately and fluently; more often than not, I made laughable mistakes—for instance, I rendered “speculative” philosophy as “thought—debate” in order to highlight the importance of “debate.” Strangely, none of the various teachers and elders on the forum pointed out this reading mistake at the time. Of course, if I were to say it now, I would first make clear the connection between “辩” and “辨”; the underlying point would still be the same.

But my four years of experience have convinced me that my basic views at the time were sound. In that lonely “debate,” my positions on philosophical discussion, on a pluralist view of communication, and so on were established and consolidated, and to this day they have not wavered. My reflections on how to begin philosophy, on the relation between philosophy and the history of philosophy, and on philosophy of language also began to find their direction then. I gained all the benefits from discussion that I had proclaimed while trying to encourage everyone to talk.

Of course, I can also understand why Old Ye insisted on avoiding “debate,” especially after I had had more experience of Chinese “folk philosophers” and of some philosophy workers; I came to understand all the more how destructive a bad “discussion” atmosphere can be. But precisely for that reason, the instructors of “Introduction to Philosophy,” and the pioneers on the path of philosophy, have a responsibility to guide beginners in learning how to discuss, to teach them how to ask questions, to doubt, and to express themselves, rather than simply using their own authority to suppress discussion.

When I grandly introduced *Big Questions* back then, it was precisely as a way of contending with Old Ye. I was not citing *Big Questions* as another authority; I merely wanted to tell my classmates that an introduction to philosophy could also be taught in a completely different way—not by immediately brandishing *Critique of Pure Reason*, *Phenomenology of Spirit*, and *Being and Time* as three great mountains to intimidate you, not by throwing unfamiliar terms like “Dasein” at you to dazzle you, not by filling page after page with quotation marks in order to flaunt one’s distance from everyday language…but rather by making philosophy so friendly, so natural, that it becomes something close to you, something you need from the heart, something that becomes your own affair. Not a strange and abstruse monologue, but something that inspires you to ask questions and think for yourself; not treating the history of philosophy as a weighty canon of required reading to be pressed down on you, but making the philosophers seem as though they were speaking vividly right beside you, offering all manner of viewpoints, while you too could at any moment join in and insert your own; not suppressing your childish and superficial thinking and discussion, but teaching you hand in hand how to ask questions, how to think, how to express yourself, how to avoid letting your own speech fall into misunderstanding…

In fact, back then I only skimmed through *Big Questions* hastily. It seems that one or two chapters, and even the three appendices at the end devoted specifically to philosophical writing, the use of logic, and the avoidance of fallacies, were almost never read at all—I suppose I had already grasped these most basic essentials on my own. But for a beginner, such guidance should still be greatly beneficial. For me, the greatest significance of *Big Questions* was that it provided me with a “backer,” so that I would not shrink back in front of Old Ye and the senior students—though even without this book, I probably would not have shrunk back anyway. Still, the existence of *Big Questions* undoubtedly set an example for me. Its mode of expression, and the title “Big Questions” itself, probably kept influencing the progress of my thinking in my subconscious all along. Whenever I thought about questions like “What is philosophy?”, that giant question mark made up of the names of dozens of philosophers would always float up in my mind.

Compared with introduction books such as *The Tree of Philosophy* that I encountered later, what *Big Questions* lacked for me was that, in its discussions of specific questions, it rarely gave the answer that most suited my heart. Although *Big Questions* offered many ways of understanding and many possible answers for each question, it often lacked precisely an exposition that resonated with me. Although *Big Questions* frequently mentions Kant, some of its statements about Kantian philosophy now strike me as somewhat questionable, or at least not particularly interesting. So, out of personal preference, I later grandly recommended works such as *The Tree of Philosophy* as well. But more objectively speaking, the inspiration and help *Big Questions* can provide to beginners are among the richest and most important. If it has not yet provided a satisfactory answer, that can also be said to be precisely an encouragement to the reader. After all, in philosophical discussion, viewpoints and positions are never the most important thing; how to ask and how to express are what are most basic.

The translation of *Big Questions* is very smooth; this was probably the first book in which I remembered both the author’s and the translator’s names at the same time (of course, the main reason was that the names were easy to remember). Back then, in the translator’s afterword, I saw that the translator was from Peking University; later I learned that he was a graduate student senior; later still, I learned that he was a senior in science and technology philosophy; then I found out he was a student of Professor Wu; and in the end, he actually appeared alive and well right in front of me, eating meals with me, playing ball with me, and so on… The process of getting close to Senior Butian probably mirrors the entire trajectory of my own development: entering Peking University, approaching philosophy, embarking on academic work, and moving toward the direction of science and technology philosophy!

The second edition of *Big Questions* was jointly recommended by five renowned teachers, including Chen Jiaying, Jin Xiping, and Zhang Xianglong. In terms of content, it mainly added a few chapters, while the price was reduced by 6 yuan instead. Truly rare. If you want to find yourself an introductory book on philosophy, missing this one would be regrettable.

By the way, the second edition has some typographical flaws in the layout: for example, on pages 355 and 361 there are conspicuously two “□” characters, and “nirvana” has become “nirva□.” The first edition did not have this error. This mistake is somewhat baffling…

August 26, 2008