http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=523&fpage=1&toread=1
I suddenly remembered to post this. At the time I had only put up a link in “some text written on KKBBS during the period of seclusion,” and had not posted it in any more conspicuous way. In fact, that review is fairly important for explaining my philosophical ambitions—that is to say, how I view modern Chinese. I’m too lazy to write something new about that for the moment, so I’ll just put this old piece under the café column.
Butian
(Third Pole General Education Lecture) Chen Jiaying: The Influence of the Translation of Western Thought on Contemporary Chinese Reasoning
Third Pole General Education Lecture (No. 83)
“The way of the university lies in manifesting luminous virtue, in renewing the people, and in resting in the utmost good.”
“There is a sequence to learning: broad learning, careful inquiry, prudent reflection, clear discrimination, and earnest practice.”
“General education lecture” is the beginning of learning.
Presiding Speaker: Professor Chen Jiaying jychen@philo.ecnu.edu.cn
Topic: The Influence of the Translation of Western Thought on Contemporary Chinese Reasoning
Time: Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 19:00
Venue: Conference Center, 8th Floor, Third Pole Bookstore
Detailed address: Conference Center, 8th Floor, Third Pole Building, 66 West North Fourth Ring Road, Haidian District (50 meters east of Haidian Bridge on Beijing’s North Fourth Ring Road, on the south side of the road)
Professor Chen Jiaying
Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Capital Normal University. In 1977 he was admitted to Peking University’s Department of Western Languages and enrolled in German. The following year he was admitted to Peking University’s Institute of Foreign Philosophy to study Western philosophy. After graduation he remained at the university. In 1990 he received a PhD in Philosophy from Pennsylvania State University in the United States. After returning to China in 1993, he successively taught at Peking University and East China Normal University in Shanghai.
He has long been engaged in the study of modern Western philosophy, and has successively offered courses such as Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Contemporary Epistemology, Contemporary Philosophy of Science, Special Topics in Wittgenstein, Special Topics in Vendler, and Special Topics in Heidegger. He has published more than twenty papers in the field of modern Western philosophy.
Major translated works
Heidegger, Being and Time
Gore, The Earth on the Brink of Imbalance
Vendler [Zeno Vendler], Linguistics in Philosophy, Huaxia Publishing House, 2002.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Shanghai Century Publishing Group, 2001.
Chief translator of Western Great Ideas.
Major works
Outline of Heidegger’s Philosophy
Language and Philosophy — A Comparative Study of Contemporary Anglo-American and German-French Traditions, Joint Publishing, Beijing, 1996.
Philosophy of Language, 2003
A Reader on “Being and Time”
Beginning from Feeling [also known as “Thinking of the Great Way”]
Collection of Cool Winds
The Irreducible Image
Philosophy, Science, Common Sense
Letters from a Traveler.
Awards
1. “Philosophy of Language,” Peking University Press, 2003 (a Beijing Municipal Higher Education精品教材 construction project). Philosophy of Language was listed as a “精品教材” of Beijing higher education and won the first prize for Outstanding Teaching Materials at East China Normal University in 2007.
2. Translation, Heidegger, Being and Time — first edition, Sanlian Bookstore, 1987; second edition, 1989. The translation Being and Time won the second prize for academic achievement from the State Education Commission in 1995, and it is the only translated work ever to receive the award.
—
Third Pole General Education Lecture
(Third Pole Creative World, 8th Floor, southeast corner of Haidian Bridge, on the east side of Haidian Book City, Beijing North Fourth Ring Road West)
Website for inquiries: www.d3j.com.cn
[Thread Starter] | Posted: 2008-04-20 21:04
Linzi
Good, I’ll go listen then.
[1st Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-20 21:19
Gu Chu
Quite interesting.
[2nd Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-23 21:08
Xinzhai Lao Jiang
I saw this too late. Little Gu, would you mind recounting it and giving a brief commentary?
[3rd Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-24 23:41
Gu Chu
I’m actually not very good at recounting things; I just pick out a few points and talk about my own impressions. At that lecture I saw that a few senior brothers had also gone, but overall the audience was still very small.
Just from the title, one can more or less guess the issue Professor Chen discussed: almost all of the “reasoning” vocabulary in modern Chinese is “foreign”—truth, knowledge, science, revolution, reason, experience… Even if ordinary people can still preserve more of Chinese tradition in everyday speech, once they start reasoning, they are inevitably full of foreign terminology. Academic discussion goes without saying; if you check the “keywords” in Chinese papers, you will find that nine times out of ten they are translations.
The significance of this fact for academic reasoning, especially philosophical activity, can hardly be overestimated. As Professor Chen said, the core task of philosophy is precisely “clarifying concepts” — from Socrates gripping a word and arguing over it, all the way to modern Anglo-American linguistic analysis and Continental hermeneutics, all have taken “clarifying concepts” as philosophy’s most central and fundamental task (if not its only task).
So there are roughly two ways to clarify concepts. One is the “analytic” route, analyzing the referent of a concept: for example, “A is F of B and C or D but not E…”; the other is the “interpretive” route, tracing the source and development of a concept—for example, what the root of the word is, where it was first used to mean what, who wrote what about it, what changes then occurred in history, and so on and so forth. In Professor Chen’s view, “interpretation” is more fundamental.
But the problem now is that both of these methods are greatly disadvantaged in relation to modern Chinese. Professor Chen did not say much about the “analytic” side, but in fact we know that the characteristic of Chinese is its vagueness and ambiguity; the meaning of words must always be understood in context. When it comes to precise and detailed definition and analysis, modern Chinese is naturally much weaker than Western languages. What Professor Chen focused on this time was precisely the enormous weakness of modern Chinese in this basic task of “interpretation” compared with the West — Westerners trace their concepts back to Latin and Greek, but when modern Chinese traces its concepts back, it also has to trace them to Latin and Greek and cannot trace them to ancient Chinese. On this one point alone, Chinese people are no match for Westerners, not even by a long shot. Not to mention that Western languages gradually evolved as an organic whole, and the concepts now used as academic terminology not only have a clear historical lineage, but are also rooted in everyday language. A concept has a whole series of concepts before it as scaffolding, whereas when Chinese people translate, they can only “one by one” introduce those concepts that sit at the top, and cannot bring over the entire network of roots.
The consequence of this is that modern Chinese reasoning concepts are detached both from historical tradition and from actual life, to the point that the reasoning concepts most important in philosophical discussion become both difficult to research philologically and difficult to feel.
What is even worse is that, as Professor Chen pointed out, Chinese scholars today often have no clear awareness of this problem, and instead use concepts casually, unreflectively, and with no vigilance at all. A Chinese paper may read more smoothly if looked at in a foreign-language version than in Chinese, because those concepts in Western languages feel more intimate and tangible than when they are in Chinese.
So one question we must ask is: how is Chinese philosophy possible? Or more precisely, how is a contemporary Chinese philosopher possible? Professor Chen mentioned that the current way of speaking of “Chinese philosophy” is problematic; it is not the same as German philosophy or French philosophy. Professor Chen writes overwhelmingly in Chinese, but no one would say he is doing Chinese philosophy; he is doing Western philosophy. And the group of people said to do Chinese philosophy refer to those who study ancient Chinese texts. But in the West, for example, Leibniz read the writings of French and British philosophers; he did not have many German texts to read, yet he is certainly counted as a “German philosopher”… A philosopher’s nationality is not determined by the object of study, but by the language the philosopher uses. And what is now called “Chinese philosophy” merely uses an entire set of Western modes of thought and ready-made conceptual systems to retell ancient Chinese texts. Such “Chinese philosophy” will forever remain in the position of the “interpreted,” but when will Chinese people themselves be able to become great interpreters? How can a truly independent philosophy be achieved in a language as disadvantaged as modern Chinese?
Professor Chen did not offer specific remedies for this, but emphasized that awareness must come first. One must have vigilance regarding the danger and consciousness of the difficulty. Although the undertaking is difficult, once achieved it will also be extremely great.
I have also thought about the issues Professor Chen raised. My ambition is to become a Chinese philosopher, or at least to bear witness to the arrival of that era. A Chinese philosopher must necessarily write in his mother tongue—modern Chinese—and I am of course fully aware in my own mind of the weakness of modern Chinese.
But does modern Chinese have unique advantages that Western languages cannot compare with? Obviously, yes. To speak broadly, first of all there is its uniqueness: the language and writing system of Chinese stand alone in the world; no second language can compare with it. So if modern Chinese can give rise to a philosophy, then that philosophy will also stand alone.
More specifically, we still have to begin with philosophy’s core work. I agree that the basic skill of philosophy is “clarifying concepts,” but is clarifying concepts limited only to the two methods mentioned above, “analysis” (or “decomposition”) and “interpretation” (or “tracing back to the source”)? In fact, there is a third, or rather a more fundamental, way. For the moment I cannot think of a suitable term, so I will tentatively call it “connection.”
The work done by dictionaries can be said to be a standard form of “concept clarification.” In fact, the aforementioned “decomposition” and “tracing back to the source” are also two extremely basic methods in lexicography, but dictionaries also have another way of defining words. Shuowen Jiezi is a model: one character explains another — “en, favor”; “hui, benevolence”; “ren, intimacy”; “qin, to the utmost”; “zhi, as in a bird flying from high down to the ground”… What exactly is this method? Analysis or interpretation? It seems like both, yet also like neither. There is neither tracing of word origins nor unfolding of analysis, only a “linking” between character and character. Is this kind of “linking” a clarification of concepts? Of course it is.
In fact, if one thinks carefully, both analysis and interpretation are nothing more than using a chain of concepts to explain a concept; in other words, establishing connections between concepts. The activity of human understanding and thinking is likewise nothing more than continually linking some concepts to other concepts, and in the end connecting concepts to certain intuitive impressions, at which point one “suddenly gets it.” To “suddenly get it” means precisely that connections between concepts have been sufficiently established and linked to intuitive impressions. Whether it is analysis or interpretation, or indeed philosophical activity as a whole, all one is doing is this one thing — linking concepts into a system and communicating with intuitive impressions. Analysis ensures that this net is clear and concise and does not become tangled, while interpretation ensures that this net has roots and sources and is solid and reliable; but the most basic thing of all is always “connection” itself. This is the true duty of the philosopher as philosopher. If one focuses only on analysis, then one might as well do mathematics; if one focuses only on interpretation, then one might as well do philology. Above basic skills, a philosopher’s “achievement” is always manifested in the weaving of a system of thought.
And this is precisely where modern Chinese has its strengths: Chinese is the language best at “connection.” Western languages can derive new words through changes in prefixes, suffixes, and parts of speech, but this method really is child’s play compared with the derivational methods of Chinese characters. Chinese word formation is practically magical: the same character, in different contexts, can become entirely different concepts; change the tone and many more emerge; change the radical and there are countless further variations; then combine it with another character to make a word… If one says that in Western languages the variation of a word proceeds in arithmetic progression, then in Chinese the variation of a character proceeds in geometric progression. How is it possible that a mere two or three thousand common Chinese characters can accomplish the communicative activity that the West needs countless words to accomplish? It is precisely because Chinese characters possess extremely rich internal connections.
The strength of Chinese “connection” is not only reflected in connections between character and character, word and word, but also in connections with history and intuition. Although modern Chinese, when tracing origins, must always trace back toward the West, this is also precisely a latent advantage—in other words, modern Chinese naturally contains the sources of the three great intellectual traditions of China, the West, and India. Modern Chinese of course still preserves its connection with ancient Chinese, and in the first large-scale translation movement brought in Indian language together with its thought; then in the second large-scale translation movement it brought in Western language together with thought and, in addition, ways of life. Such a “mixed stew” linguistic situation is of course a tremendous challenge for the work of “interpretation,” and yet what other language can so naturally possess the potential to integrate China, the West, and India? On the other hand, in all senses Chinese characters more easily establish connections with intuitive impressions and real life—for example, the “image” of the character, the conservatism of the vocabulary, and so on. In this respect modern Chinese has made progress over literary Chinese. The fact that Western languages can so quickly and extensively penetrate the everyday language of ordinary people is precisely proof of the closeness in Chinese between academic language and the life-world. If we can break free from the ideological shackles of Western languages and instead do scholarship using those languages that have already taken root in life, the dry and tasteless condition of Chinese academic texts may well be reversed.
In short, true “Chinese philosophy” is not philosophical work that takes Chinese classics as its object of study, but should be “philosophy written in Chinese”; a philosopher must be able to bring the potential of the language he uses fully into play; therefore, our generation must consciously learn the characteristics of our mother tongue, face up to its weaknesses, and develop its strengths.
[4th Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 15:02
Butian
Little Gu’s summary is really excellent!
[5th Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 15:24
Butian
I think this passage by Little Gu is very well said:
“More specifically, we still have to begin with philosophy’s core work. I agree that the basic skill of philosophy is “clarifying concepts,” but is clarifying concepts limited only to the two methods mentioned above, “analysis” (or “decomposition”) and “interpretation” (or “tracing back to the source”)? In fact, there is a third, or rather a more fundamental, way. For the moment I cannot think of a suitable term, so I will tentatively call it “connection.”
…
In fact, if one thinks carefully, both analysis and interpretation are nothing more than using a chain of concepts to explain a concept; in other words, establishing connections between concepts. The activity of human understanding and thinking is likewise nothing more than continually linking some concepts to other concepts, and in the end connecting concepts to certain intuitive impressions, at which point one “suddenly gets it.” To “suddenly get it” means precisely that connections between concepts have been sufficiently established and linked to intuitive impressions. Whether it is analysis or interpretation, or indeed philosophical activity as a whole, all one is doing is this one thing — linking concepts into a system and communicating with intuitive impressions. Analysis ensures that this net is clear and concise and does not become tangled, while interpretation ensures that this net has roots and sources and is solid and reliable; but the most basic thing of all is always “connection” itself. This is the true duty of the philosopher as philosopher. If one focuses only on analysis, then one might as well do mathematics; if one focuses only on interpretation, then one might as well do philology. Above basic skills, a philosopher’s “achievement” is always manifested in the weaving of a system of thought.”
Professor Chen’s lecture really revealed the greatest predicament we who do Western philosophy currently face. On the one hand, the source of our culture has been lost; on the other hand, Western things are learned with such difficulty, and are learned in our own language, which is so different from Western languages. At that point, what exactly is true philosophical work? What are we doing every day? What concepts are we talking about? Can we ourselves weave a net of thought for this world that satisfies us?
Indeed, Western philosophy is nothing more than a kind of conceptual game, but the key is that science and technology were nurtured within it, which gave it even more vitality. In this sense, how to view science and technology more deeply is the top priority of current philosophical work. The reason Professor Chen attaches such importance to the study of the history of science probably comes from this.
Whatever the future development may be, at least Professor Chen has keenly pointed out this profound problem, and I think it is something every intellectual urgently needs to think about seriously.
[ This post was last edited by Butian on 2008-04-25 16:50 ]
[6th Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 16:45
Xinzhai Lao Jiang
Little Gu’s ambition is worthy of praise!
Little Gu’s understanding is also worthy of attention.
Between the two worthies, the latter is obviously somewhat reserved.
I think language is part of a form of life; its roots lie in practice and ways of living. Language is certainly important, but it is impossible to understand things while remaining confined within language. There is much to be done in the deep, dark places beneath language.
One must not only investigate those things prior to experience, but also poke around in those things prior to language…
[7th Floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 21:05
Gu Chu
Of course language is rooted in life. I think I have never said that philosophy is confined within language; philosophy seeks to break out of the prison of language. But to do anything, one must first have self-awareness. Without a profound examination of the characteristics of the prison, there is no way to escape from it.
What material does a philosopher use to create? Just as a sculptor creates in stone and a painter creates with canvas and pigment, a philosopher creates with concepts. Although philosophers can occasionally dabble in performance art, just as sculptors occasionally engage in theoretical discussion, a philosopher’s primary duty is to discuss, write, and communicate through language. One must thoroughly understand and master the properties of our building materials before one can possibly endow them with a soul that transcends those materials.
I also mentioned above that the connection with real life is one of the strengths of Chinese. A philosopher must strive to weave together the relations between concepts, to sort out the relations between concepts and history, but in the end, if one is to gain “understanding,” to “make sense of it,” the key is to find the relation between concepts and real life, or, if you like, intuitive impressions. As for the idea that we can bypass concepts, bypass language, and directly “grope around” somewhere prior to language, that of course is also fine; but that is more the way of artists. As philosophers—at least as philosophers in the narrow sense, along one particular path set alongside science, religion, art, and other ways of engaging the world—we are always taking concepts as our medium and material, and I think one should be clear about one’s own mission. What I am stressing is that language is crucial for philosophers, not that language is the most important thing for every way of life, nor that truth lies in language. Philosophy, poetry, language, art, and other forms of life are all “the Way,” or the ladder that is “put down after one has climbed the tower,” and they are there for the sake of “access.” It is only that philosophy and poetry happen to be paths mediated by language, so if one chooses this path, one must take the self-reflection of language/concepts as one’s proper work.
I often say that a person who does not understand English cannot possibly understand English through an English-English dictionary. A dictionary can only link one concept to other concepts; but what ultimately gives a person understanding is surely the connection with intuitive impressions in life. An example from the Shuowen I cited earlier also makes the point: “En—hui—ren—qin—zhi” is strung together one character at a time, but it ends with “zhi, a bird flying from high down to the ground” (至，鸟飞从高下至地也). What is distinctive about this final entry? It precisely evokes an intuitive image. The “chain” is completed here, implying that intuitive images are exactly the foundation of word meaning.
One aspect that Chen Laoshi especially warns against is precisely that contemporary Chinese philosophical discussion is severely detached from “life,” because it awkwardly handles imported terms without roots or foundations, resulting in writing that does not read smoothly and is “inaccessible.”
I was also thinking of this: we say “reading translations cannot replace reading the original texts,” and that is unquestionably a consensus in academia; but the corresponding statement—“writing in a foreign language cannot replace writing in one’s mother tongue”—seems far from being taken seriously by scholars. Many people even take pride in writing only in foreign languages. They may say that writing in a foreign language expresses ideas more accurately and more fluently, whereas switching to the mother tongue feels awkward. The reason for this is precisely the tremendous cultural disadvantage Chen Laoshi speaks of. But some people feel no shame at all; on the contrary, they seem to look on it with complete indifference, as if it were nothing unusual.
In fact, what does it mean when a Chinese scholar says that writing in a foreign language allows him to express himself more fluently than writing in his mother tongue? I think it means that he has not at all thoroughly understood what he is trying to express. As mentioned earlier, “understanding” ultimately depends on establishing a connection between concepts and intuitive impressions. So the first question is: can this scholar bypass his mother tongue and directly connect the foreign language with intuitive impressions? That is, what we often call “Think in English.” If he can fluently “Think in English,” then one can indeed say that he understands what he is expressing. Yet just how far can a Chinese person get “in”? A Chinese person spends enormous effort and finally reaches the level of “Think in English,” but this is nothing more than the level Western elementary schoolchildren have already long since reached. How, then, could philosophy done this way possibly compare with that of Westerners? Moreover, philosophy produced in this way can hardly be called “Chinese philosophy.” If he cannot “Think in English” at all, then it is even worse: he needs to “translate” the foreign language into Chinese before he can think, yet the things he writes come out more fluently and clearly in the foreign language. This can only mean that what he writes is not what he thought.
[On the 8th floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 21:57
Linzi
Chen Laoshi says it well: two hundred years ago it was almost impossible to translate Chinese into English, but now it is already very easy.
I just wonder: is modern Chinese actually closer to classical Chinese or to English?
In fact, language is only a medium, carrying the cultural depth and modes of thought of the people who use it—in other words, the way they enter into the world.
The integration of the world will inevitably make cultures increasingly homogeneous, and language, as something that exists for communication, will be the same; modern Chinese in particular.
Chen Laoshi said that language is merely a framework for building a house; what matters is who lives inside.
And our philosophy today is nothing more than building a house in Chinese and living inside Western thought.
So whether we use English or Chinese to talk about philosophy does not make much difference.
What matters is how, on the basis of the thoughts of our predecessors, we use our own thinking to raise and solve problems—the old ones and the new ones.
[On the 9th floor] | Posted: 2008-04-25 22:35
Gucha
Brother Linzi’s understanding seems to be off. I think that “our philosophy today is nothing more than building a house in Chinese and living inside Western thought… so whether we use English or Chinese to talk about philosophy does not make much difference” means that right now we simply do not have any “philosophy” at all. Chen Laoshi should mean the same thing, which is why he says that the concept of “Chinese philosophy” as people talk about it today is problematic.
If one were to produce an independent philosophy, then of course the difference between talking about philosophy in English and talking about it in Chinese would be quite significant. Just as the difference in what language one uses to write poetry is also very significant—indeed, people say that poetry is what is lost in translation, and Chen Laoshi mentioned this too.
Chen Laoshi’s intention is to awaken our vigilance, so that we will pay greater attention to reflecting on our own language. He is by no means trying to make us think that “it does not matter much what language one uses to talk about philosophy.” Brother Linzi’s understanding seems to have it reversed. I wonder, exactly what is so good about what Brother Linzi says is “well said” by Chen Laoshi?
[On the 10th floor] | Posted: 2008-04-26 01:18
Gucha
In short, Chen Laoshi’s meaning should be: “It is ridiculous and shameful to say that it does not matter much what language one uses to talk about philosophy,” yet many scholars can actually take it completely calmly.
[On the 11th floor] | Posted: 2008-04-26 01:20
Linzi
Philosophy seeks “truth”; different languages do affect philosophical thought, but not as much as they do poetry.
If poetry is what is lost in translation, then philosophy should be what ought not to be lost in translation.
What Chen Laoshi wants is for us to be wary of those who do not really understand Western philosophical concepts but nonetheless use them to write articles. If one does understand them, then one can use either English or Chinese, just like Chen Laoshi himself, who can express his thoughts well in both Chinese and English.
Of course, what I said above is just my own feeling, not Chen Laoshi’s meaning.
What I mainly want to say is that the philosophy we speak of today all comes down a single line from ancient Greece through modern European philosophy. Even if we use Chinese, we are still thinking about the questions Plato, Aristotle, and Kant thought about, and even the way we think is to a large extent determined by them. What we should do is clarify the impact that linguistic differences have on thinking through these questions, and then continue thinking about these universal questions.
[On the 12th floor] | Posted: 2008-04-26 10:20
Gucha
I suddenly want to bring this thread back up again~~
Linzi says at one moment “Chen Laoshi wants to…,” and at another “it is not Chen Laoshi’s meaning,” which is a bit baffling. I do not know whether Chen Laoshi agrees that he can express his thoughts well in both Chinese and English; I rather doubt it.
Linzi’s thinking is relatively simple: he believes that “thought” is something floating around outside language and above life, and that language is merely a “tool” for expressing that thing. Whether one uses German, English, or Chinese, one can all face the “same” question, say, the question Kant thought about. But in fact, that is not so. “Questions” are never things floating outside “language,” and language is not something suspended above life. Questions are intrinsic to language, and thinking can never detach itself from language—even if some elevated or broad sense of thinking can proceed through imagery rather than through symbols, it is still rooted in a way of life.
I wonder whether we can eliminate the influence of linguistic differences on how we think through problems. Even if we could exclude the influence of linguistic differences, would we still have any problems left? And if so, in what form are the so-called universal questions expressed? In Western languages or in Chinese? Or are there some things that can correspond exactly between Western languages and Chinese? Or can we think about problems apart from language? How is any of this possible?
[On the 13th floor] | Posted: 2009-03-18 14:28
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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