A Niu: Hello, everyone! Thank you for coming to open my event.
Xiaoming: Hello, Senior Brother Niu!
A Niu: Hmm… what should we talk about? … Let me start by asking about your purpose for coming—what exactly were your intentions or thoughts in coming here to look for me?
Xiaoming: Ah, actually I still haven’t figured out what kind of event this is. I just heard that, in legend, Senior Brother Niu was here, so I specially came to pay my respects…
A Niu: How polite. It would be better to say you came to visit. I feel a bit like an absurdly ugly wild buffalo in a zoo—nothing much to boast about, but at least rare enough. I do hope you won’t leave disappointed.
Xiaoming: …
A Niu: Don’t you have anything you want to ask, or anything you want to tell me?
Xiaoming: I really haven’t prepared anything.
A Niu: Then do you want to hear me talk about my ambitions, and why I’m putting on this event, and so on?
Xiaoming: Sure.
A Niu: Hmm… here’s the thing… hey, let’s start from the beginning! First let me ask you: in your impression, what kind of activity is so-called “academia”?
Xiaoming: Uh, although I’m interested in philosophy, I don’t plan to do academic work in the future, I mean…
A Niu: That’s fine. I’m not asking whether you do academia or not. I’m just asking: as an “ordinary person,” according to your common sense and impressions, what do you think so-called academia is like? Or what sort of style do scholars probably have?
Xiaoming: I’m in the sciences, so when I think of academia I think of those researchers busy all day in the lab. Philosophers must be similar, I suppose—basically, they must be serious… well, very rigorous and earnest-looking.
A Niu: Good. In short, the typical image of scholars is that kind of person: either in a laboratory or in a study, head down and immersed in research, serious and earnest, with maybe a few assistants, or alone, at peace with the world and willing to be left in solitude, yes?
Xiaoming: More or less. I think that’s also most people’s impression of academia.
A Niu: And my purpose here, first and foremost, is to overturn this understanding of academia. I want to say that academia is not like this, and should not be like this.
Xiaoming: Oh?
A Niu: First of all, we can see that historically—mainly in Western history—every great age of intellectual flourishing: what was its social atmosphere like? It was definitely not full of coldness and solemnity; often it was lively and noisy. We can start with the first great age in Western history, the ancient Greek period. What kind of cultural atmosphere was that? The polis system—what we call polis democracy—was the way Greeks lived at the time. Free citizens who had no worries about food and clothing gathered together all day to discuss, argue, and give speeches. It was like the Olympic contests, where people competed to express their own ideas and outdo others. Philosophy or science was born in just such soil; that era was not led by those who were at peace with the world, content with solitude, and buried in research.
Xiaoming: That does seem to be the case.
A Niu: Then, skipping over the quiet Middle Ages, the next age of academic flourishing was…
Xiaoming: The Renaissance.
A Niu: Mm. The Renaissance was also rooted in a new, bustling stage for communication, especially the development of commerce, and most importantly the emergence and transformation of guilds, and so on. We won’t dwell on that today. Let’s focus on the great period that immediately followed: the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, ultimately completed in England, which was the most prosperous period in English scholarship.
Xiaoming: Yes.
A Niu: One major event in this period that simply cannot be left unsaid is this: coffeehouses appeared.
Xiaoming: Oh?
A Niu: Coffeehouses were first introduced from Turkey into Italy, but the first flourishing period of coffeehouse culture in Europe was in London, England, in the seventeenth century—roughly the period when English intellectual life was at its height. After the eighteenth century, coffeehouse culture in England gradually declined, and instead spread to the European continent, from Paris to Vienna and so on. You see, didn’t English scholarship also weaken? After that came eighteenth-century France, nineteenth-century Vienna—whether science, philosophy, literature, or art, it seems the more coffeehouses there were somewhere, the more masters that place produced. And there were social, political, and economic revolutions too: the English Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution… Historically speaking, these almost all coincide with the spread of coffeehouses.
Xiaoming: Chronologically that does seem to be the case, but what on earth does that have to do with anything?
A Niu: Think about it: what is the basis of the whole of Western scholarship, or rather its most fundamental background or condition? Starting from ancient Greece.
Xiaoming: I remember Aristotle summed up three points…
A Niu: Right, that’s it—leisure, curiosity, and the tradition of criticism.
Xiaoming: Exactly.
A Niu: And the environment of the coffeehouse just happens to provide this soil. Mm, first, you come to a coffeehouse—doesn’t that usually mean you’re in the state of having eaten your fill and having nothing to do? If you’re busy to the point of being overwhelmed, running around for all sorts of work, would you still have the mind to come here and slowly sip a cup of coffee?
Xiaoming: No, I wouldn’t.
A Niu: So that’s the first point: “leisure” naturally emerges. Even today, even those who come to coffeehouses to study on their own or to hold academic meetings—compared with being shut up in a study or on campus to do things—don’t the atmosphere here clearly feel much more relaxed and casual? Not to mention the people in earlier times who came to coffeehouses just to chat idly and shoot the breeze. You see, the element of “leisure” is created very naturally.
Xiaoming: That is indeed so.
A Niu: Next, since it’s a state of having eaten your fill and having nothing pressing to do, since you are not rushing to complete some task or assignment, then if you still seek knowledge in such a relaxed and leisurely situation, it can only be driven by spontaneous curiosity and the desire to know, right?
Xiaoming: Probably, but what does the coffeehouse have to do with knowledge…
A Niu: Coffeehouses back then were not the same as coffeehouses now. Today we have lots of books, magazines, newspapers, television, the internet, and all kinds of other information channels, but those things didn’t exist in earlier times. So coffeehouses were actually like today’s internet: the most important information hub. Coffeehouses have now become places for dates, and it’s hard for us to imagine sitting together, chatting away, and then some stranger coming right over to sit next to us and join the conversation. But that’s exactly how it was back then: you could sit next to strangers, listen to their idle chatter, and even join in at any moment. People from every trade and walk of life—you could hear all kinds of knowledge and information in a coffeehouse.
Xiaoming: Oh, so it’s like internet forums today.
A Niu: Exactly. Take the scientist Hooke, for example. It’s said that he went to coffeehouses every day, and often to two or three in a row; at most, he soaked in five coffeehouses a day. He complained that coffee gave him indigestion, yet he roamed through more than sixty coffeehouses, simply because of his desire to chat with others and obtain all kinds of information. See? Isn’t that “curiosity”?
Xiaoming: Indeed it is.
A Niu: Compare that with this: although you say coffeehouses back then were like internet forums now, suppose a scholar said he went to two or three forums every day just to chat and post junk. How do you think ordinary people would see him? —Not doing proper work!
Xiaoming: That really doesn’t fit the usual image of a scholar.
A Niu: So when I call on everyone to come to the coffeehouse to find me, it is partly to reverse this stereotyped impression people have of academia, to restore those most basic, fiery academic passions, and to promote the spirit of the coffeehouse. Although coffeehouses are no longer what they once were, at least they remain a symbol.
Xiaoming: I can understand that. I also feel that when studying at school, activities like discussion sections are the most rewarding.
A Niu: But now, in university discussion classes, it’s already rare enough just to maintain an atmosphere of exchange among a small group within the same major and field, let alone break out of disciplinary boundaries and create that lively, free discussion environment where all kinds of scientists, artists, philosophers, and ordinary people can participate.
Xiaoming: That’s certainly true.
A Niu: So that is the third thing the coffeehouse provides: something like what Aristotle called the “tradition of criticism.” It is a whole atmosphere, not merely that everyone in each specialty gathers in little clumps to discuss with one another. If that were the case, it would still be the atmosphere of closed-door tinkering; just like an engineering crew, not working alone, but with a few people forming small teams to tinker behind closed doors. For “criticism” to become a “tradition,” it means that you cannot have one small group after another guarding their own little hilltops and acting as petty kings, content in their own little world. Rather, everyone must be willing to step out of their own turf, make contact, clash with one another, and compete on the public stage—that’s the right way.
Xiaoming: That may be true, but academia today is not the same as it used to be; many problems require very specialized training…
A Niu: Of course. Science is science—specialized learning by discipline—and indeed each field has to be split up and played in separately. But what I mainly pay attention to is philosophy. Other disciplines can be subdivided and handled professionally, but philosophy alone cannot be divided. One might even say that every philosopher has a philosophy that belongs only to him, and yet, on the other hand, philosophy has always been only one…
Xiaoming: Because philosophy is the study of all the sciences?
A Niu: That’s not what I mean. Think about it: academic specialties in the sciences are divided according to the objects they study, for example physics studies physical phenomena, biology studies biological phenomena, sociology studies social phenomena, atomic physics studies phenomena at the atomic level, astrophysics studies phenomena of celestial motion, and so on. Then tell me, what is the object of philosophy? What phenomenon? What problem?
Xiaoming: Hmm… for example, I’ve heard your specialty is philosophy of technology. Could that be understood as taking technology as its object of study? Other examples include Western philosophy, and if further subdivided, German classical philosophy…
A Niu: Certainly you can subdivide it that way. But in my view, what is split up in this way is not philosophy. For instance, we say those who study physics are called physicists, those who study biology are called biologists, but that is probably a completely different matter from philosophy of physics or philosophy of biology. If you say we can have a specialty called “technology studies,” or “science and technology research,” “metastudy,” or something like that, specially taking “technology” as the object of study, then I can accept that. But when we say “philosophy of technology,” it probably refers to something different, just as “cosmology” and “philosophy of the cosmos” cannot be equated.
Xiaoming: Then what do names like philosophy of technology mean, in your view?
A Niu: It’s like this: if you want to know what astrophysics studies, it’s definitely not enough to just say it studies the heavens; astrology also studies the heavens. First you have to figure out what physics studies, and only then can you say what astrophysics, as a field within physics, actually does, and whether it can really be treated as a specialty in its own right.
Xiaoming: All right then, what do you say philosophy studies?
A Niu: If you ask me, the mission of philosophy is “asking questions.” It does not study any specific problem, but rather addresses “problem” itself. Of course, if one insists on saying philosophy has a specific object of study, then I think it can only be “myself” — “Know thyself.”
Xiaoming: The oracle at Delphi…
A Niu: Yes. Because everything in philosophy is “self-reflection,” is the questioning of this “self.” And “I” is precisely that “identity.” You can break “I” down, for example into “my head,” “my body,” “my personality,” “my habits,” and so on, but understanding the “I” is not like natural science, where knowledge obtained by studying various specialties can simply be piled together without too many contradictions and entanglements. With this thing called “I,” although you can break it into different aspects and question them separately, the fundamental problem is precisely how these different aspects are unified. How does “I” reach consistency? How do my body and my spirit balance? How do my culture and my knowledge connect? How do my ideals and my reality reconcile? … The difficulty of the task “know yourself” does not lie in breaking “I” into different aspects; it lies precisely in how to integrate the different sides of “I.” Therefore, philosophy may perhaps be divided into certain topics or fields, and a given philosopher may devote particular effort to one field, but that may be because his own confusion and entanglement on one side of himself is especially severe. Yet in the end he still has to integrate the various sides of “I”; that is what philosophy is. So philosophy is fundamentally something that absolutely cannot be split apart…
Xiaoming: To be honest, I’m a little muddled hearing this, but I can more or less see what you mean.
A Niu: Also, because everyone initially begins reflection on the basis of their “mother tongue,” philosophy, although it must consciously transform language, nevertheless rests on the philosopher’s mother tongue—in our case, the everyday language of modern Chinese. That is why I am willing, and able, to converse in a coffeehouse with people from any background. No matter what your specialty is, or how much knowledge you have accumulated about the history of philosophy, we can still have a discussion.
Xiaoming: Mm, but what you just said didn’t really sound very “everyday”…
A Niu: Uh… of course… being based on everyday language doesn’t mean philosophy can only remain at the level of casual chatter. But if what I said really does leave you confused, then that is mostly because I haven’t handled my own expression well, not because of any fault of yours. Still, at such times, you should point it out without mercy, and then I will try to explain more; if you give no response at all, then I can only continue talking to myself.
Xiaoming: I understand. But it’s late today, so we really must take our leave. Let’s talk again when there is a chance.
A Niu: Mm. Thank you again for your support, and you’re welcome to bring more friends here in the future.
Xiaoming: Okay, goodbye.
A Niu: Goodbye.
March 7, 2009
Suixuan » Log » New Island Dialogue, No. 〇: Coffeehouse and Academia » Comments and Replies
Xiaoyue2009-03-13 09:10:25 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
It is precisely because life is not ready-made that I have no chance to let “preconceptions” accumulate.
Xiaoyue2009-03-13 08:47:50 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
First, I haven’t studied philosophy for very long. If you think one year is enough for someone to really delve deeply into philosophy, all I can say is that I’m just too stupid…
Second, I think your discussion of preconceptions is itself a kind of preconception. “Through philosophical reflection, one can constantly discover one’s own various preconceptions and biases”—that is exciting to you, but you still cannot deny the existence of other modes.
Third, for me, philosophy is not a challenge, only an interest, so I said that perhaps philosophy is not my ultimate pursuit.
Fourth, as for your saying that “integrating the thinking in books into life” will bring about the consequence of “preconceptions,” if there is no problem with the language itself, then either my expression is problematic, or your thinking is problematic.
Perhaps because my understanding of philosophy is itself extremely shallow, I have always taken an open-ended attitude. Basically, I accept first whatever I study. As for sorting out the knowledge I have accepted and my own thinking, I think it is still too early.
fog2009-03-12 23:54:54 [Reply]
hi.baidu.com/steorran
In the articles there, I tried not to introduce my own feelings any longer. steorran is the plural of steorra.
古雴2009-03-12 21:35:29 [Reply]
Also, I wonder whether that’s a typo on your part. Saying “integrating what one thinks in books into life” is not something I advocate. What is “in books” serves only as a different way of thinking, showing me different possibilities, so that I can see myself more clearly. I have my own thinking and my own way of life; I would not integrate what is in books into my own life. That way of reading is what I mean by reading more and more prejudices. Read in that way, you keep mixing more and more “thoughts from books” into your life, and what settles down is prejudice. Prejudice is what is “ready-made,” and life is never ready-made.
古雴2009-03-12 21:28:37 [Reply]
To think that “having prejudices” is somehow a rare thing—ah, haha.
Anyway, what makes philosophy so exhilarating for me is precisely that through philosophical reflection one can continually discover one’s own various prejudices and biases, then reexamine them and break through them. By smashing prejudices one keeps transcending oneself, continually encountering novelty and astonishment. Though at times the shattering of prejudice is painful, it is just like undertaking a real adventure—so thrilling!
After studying philosophy for so many years, to say that prejudice is rare—what a pity, what a pity… So where, then, do the interest and challenge of philosophy lie for you?
小月2009-03-12 17:59:05 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
What does distance matter? Standing as the two summits of the world, gazing at one another from afar is fine too.
小月2009-03-12 17:55:32 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
I never said I was some kind of elite, and in fact I’m not. So you see, haven’t our exchanges always been rather twisted and winding?
I really am studying on my own, and I’ve always felt “inferior” because I’ve read too few books… But when you say I have prejudices, that’s a misunderstanding. I remember once Xian Gang, in class, talked about what he considered to be the shortcomings of Chinese philosophy. I didn’t agree, and then my friend explained it to me; I said, don’t worry, I won’t treat his prejudice with my own prejudice. I’m mentioning just this one example to say that, for me, “having prejudice” is a rare thing.
Also, why should I shorten the distance between you and me? I don’t yet have my own goal—I only know that I must go through philosophy on this road. It’s like a spider spinning its web and then waiting; naturally something will appear.
I believe you’ve read a great many books, and that you can integrate the thoughts in books into life rather than merely citing them in papers. But in this world, the number of people who can do that will not be limited to you alone.
古雴2009-03-12 17:40:38 [Reply]
Here one cannot break away from context; to be precise, one should add “often” or “perhaps.”
When I say “the more one reads, the more prejudices one has,” I am not speaking of reading books in the general sense, but must be understood according to the context: I mean something like “studying and reading in order to shorten the distance from academic philosophers.” In my view, the result of such a way of reading is that the more one reads, the more prejudices one often has.
As for myself, of course, I deeply feel the existence of this situation—“the more one reads, the more prejudices one has”—which is why I say so. Therefore, while reading, I must constantly reflect, constantly return to the platform of everyday life to reorganize my knowledge anew. Only by such continual interaction, by never allowing knowledge to harden, by always keeping my feet planted on the ground of the market, do I dare say that my thought can always remain in a youthful and lively state. Of course, even so, I will still gradually leave the ground and build a palace of my own. But this palace is still built on the ground, so it is still those who stand on the ground who are closest to me. As for you, striving to climb another tower, you are only moving farther and farther away from me.
fog2009-03-12 12:48:31 [Reply]
“The more one reads, the more prejudices one has, and the farther one is from me.”
Don’t say you haven’t read much…
古雴2009-03-12 12:18:20 [Reply]
I have always welcomed differing opinions, but your differing opinion this time is extremely odd. You suggest that I find elites to converse with, but what sort of elite are you? You say that after several years of academic study I am far removed from ordinary people and so on, but it is said that you yourself have not gone through those years of academic philosophical training, have you?
Then your objection has no other effect than to negate yourself; I must ask: what reason do I have to exchange with you?
Perhaps you think that through self-study and the like, you are now shortening the distance you speak of. But how could that be? I never stand still; I am always continually transcending and improving myself, so on what grounds could you draw me closer? Moreover, in my view, the more one reads, the more prejudices one has, and the farther one is from me. My philosophy is rooted in everyday life; a ordinary university student is often “closer” to me than a philosophy “expert.”
小月2009-03-12 11:57:05 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
Mm, all right, I admit that at times we are talking past each other, but I can’t possibly understand your philosophical interests thoroughly right from the start; I have to get to know them gradually through exchange.
And besides, everyone walks a different philosophical path; that’s perfectly normal. I wasn’t objecting to your idea of exchange; as your explanation says, I only misunderstood. Look, in the end our ideas are converging…
I myself don’t even know exactly what it is I’m pursuing, and for now I don’t have a destination. The only thing I’m certain of is that I will take the road of philosophy…
As for what you want to gain through exchange, I don’t understand that yet; let’s take it slowly, all right?
古雴2009-03-12 10:23:02 [Reply]
The key issue is what my philosophy seeks; what it is I hope to obtain by seeking exchange. I’m afraid you have not really understood these things. You may criticize me by saying that this way of exchanging is inefficient for achieving my aim, or you may directly criticize my philosophical pursuit itself as unreasonable—either way, I would be glad to learn from it. But please do not use your own pursuits and goals to evaluate my means; perhaps what you pursue, the state you long for, is precisely what I want to free myself from.
古雴2009-03-12 10:15:10 [Reply]
I feel that your meaning before and after seems different.
Could I really be trying to find hawkers in the market to converse with? You say Socratic dialogue is like a marketplace, but weren’t his interlocutors mostly elites too? Scenes of grabbing people on the street for conversation are, after all, only the rare exception. As things stand, the people I mainly aim to recruit are students and younger juniors from the Philosophy Department at Peking University; I certainly am not going out into the street to recruit people.
You seem to completely fail to understand my philosophical interests; I don’t want to spend too much breath explaining, because it’s exhausting. If you oppose my idea of exchange, then you need not come and exchange with me—simple as that.
Several years of academic study do not necessarily yield any “advantage”; if you truly hold that view, then that is the way of the sophos. And I am walking the road of the lover of wisdom.
小月2009-03-12 09:22:03 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
Actually, there are many problems that, through the thinking of those before us, can already be said to have been solved from certain angles (for ordinary people, as long as they are persuaded by the answer, that counts as solved). The problems generated by ordinary people living in our era are basically not much more numerous than the problems of our predecessors.
You have gone through several years of academic study, so you already possess a kind of superior advantage. Although you are also using ordinary language to converse with them (or making such an effort), the thinking of your predecessors has already naturally been integrated into your discourse, and this can only leave your interlocutors like Socrates’ interlocutors, with only the share of nodding in agreement. (Kant, influenced by Rousseau, came to love the people, but how many ordinary people have read Kant, and how many can truly understand Kant?) When you chat with ordinary people, although the platform has already changed, the distance is still just as great.
What I mean is that for a dialogue like yours, it would be best to bring in elites—real elites, with no pejorative sense intended—such as people from the scientific world or the art world. The achievements of civilization over several thousand years in China and the West are concentrated in these people. Chatting casually with them might touch something fresher, perhaps.
古雴2009-03-11 22:04:24 [Reply]
Today’s “vegetable market” is no longer what it used to be either. The everyday language people use in today’s vegetable market has, from ancient Greece and ancient China onward, undergone a long process of development, accretion, exchange, and fusion, while at the same time drawing comprehensively on countless achievements of civilization—science, art, religion, and so on—before growing into the shape it has now. So although it is all just ordinary people chatting, the chatting I do and the chatting Socrates did already stand on entirely different platforms.
I do not care how technical philosophy has become within the academy, but I am familiar with my mother tongue, and I also know that I always first learned my mother tongue before it was even possible for me to enter the academy to study, and before it was even possible for me to understand those specialized concepts.
Xiaoyue2009-03-11 21:08:06 Anonymous 58.31.78.153 [Reply]
Your café conversation is very much like Socrates chatting with ordinary people in the vegetable market of ancient Greece, but it also inevitably came out with such an “unordinary” passage of talk, which you attribute to your own expressive ability. I, however, feel that your attempt to once again place philosophy—after thousands of years of evolution and over the past few centuries having been carried out within the academy—back into the “vegetable market” is naturally not such an easy thing, nor is it something that can be done in a particular time and place on a whim.
So I chose to make myself actively draw closer to philosophy, feeling that this is comparatively practical and feasible, at least for me.
fog2009-03-08 00:38:15 [Reply]
Classmate Aniu, hello。。。
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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