I always say that my philosophy “starts from the classical,” specifically, more or less from Kant and those around him. But that is only an external explanation; as for what this “classical” actually contains, I have my own understanding.
In my view, so-called “classical philosophy” represents a style and an attitude, one marked by an entire era. Roughly speaking, the history of Western philosophy can be divided into four eras: antiquity (ancient Greece), the Middle Ages, the classical period, and modernity.—Of course, my “classical” here is classical rather than ancient, the sense of “canonical.” A rougher division would be simply classical and modern; a finer one could add primordial times (the mythic age) and postmodernity at both ends, insert little labels like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in the middle, and so on. For now I’ll mainly speak in terms of the four eras.
What am I trying to say? I just want to explain a bit more clearly what this “classical” of mine probably means. In fact, my blog has long offered various hints, but mostly not in the philosophy folder; rather, there have been many hints in the “Talk Love—Speak of Love” folder.
Typical examples include the article “Philosophy of Love: An Introduction,” and “Me and Philosophy: A Love Story,” while the earliest article can at least be traced back to “From ‘Pursuit’ to ‘Demand’—The Idea of ‘the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.’” Today I’ll explain it a little more concentrically, assuming the reader has seen the “Introduction.”
“Philosophy” is also “love of wisdom.” In short, for me, the question of philosophy is the question of love—what I love, what I ought to love, how to love, what love is, how love is possible, how to express love, how to practice love, what love means, how to understand some particular kind of love, and what love in general is…… This cluster of questions is not merely a part of philosophical questions; in my view, it is all of philosophy. All philosophical questions can, in one way or another, be reduced to questions about “love.” And the errors and confusions of philosophy are at the same time errors and confusions about love.
Since I say that “classical” marks a certain philosophical attitude or style, it also corresponds to a certain attitude or style of love.
Let me begin from the beginning:
The style of ancient Greek philosophy can be marked with the simplest and clearest word (though then again it becomes a technical term of old-style philosophy)—“aesthetic devotion to beauty.” The word came to me through Japanese literature (aestheticism) and then Japanese anime (Boy’s love), so I simply borrowed it. However, the word is still not quite exact, because aesthetic devotion to beauty in anime is mainly drawn for women, whereas in ancient Greece women had pretty much nothing to do with it. But the word does have its marvelous precision; it would be a shame not to use it.
Literally, aesthetic devotion to beauty means being obsessed with beauty, and this “beauty” is itself some kind of pure, flawless perfection. Just as among the Greeks there was the aesthetic view of love represented by so-called “Platonic love.” Nowadays people often understand Platonic love as so-called “spiritual love,” but that is not accurate. The Greeks were not simply concerned with the beauty of the soul and indifferent to the body; a perfect, healthy body was also something Greeks loved. So what exactly is Platonic love, more precisely? It is “aesthetic devotion to beauty.” Excluding the entanglement of “sex” and the other passions and desires, detaching oneself from the dust of the world, aspiring toward that “ideal world” of pure love, it appears as same-sex desire for beautiful boys. This is the basic temperament of ancient Greek philosophy. Beautiful, yes, but in any case still a bit perverse, right? Yes—just imagine that the ancient Greeks’ favorite activity was watching naked men competitively running around in full view of everyone (the Olympics); how could that not be perverse? In short, this is the first philosophical temperament. I’ll stop at that for now and explain it in more detail when I have the chance.
Then came the Middle Ages: patristic philosophy or scholastic philosophy—in any case, philosophy in the name of God—which corresponds to another attitude toward love, simply called “arranged marriage”: get married first, and fall in love later. Whether in theory or in practice, whether in talking or in doing, the first thing is that a major premise has already been arranged for you. First you are bound together with God, and only then do you start discussing matters. Philosophy in this stage does not care about human freedom of choice or the capacity for rebellion; within an already given framework, it allows you to unfold disputes. Just like love under an arranged marriage. Even so, true love can still be cultivated, but the freedom of choice and rebellion is after all being suppressed.
Then in the classical period, or the canonical period, the corresponding attitude toward love is precisely the kind of “free love” we regard as more classically our own. It emphasizes and affirms human rational freedom: a person can rely on his own judgment to choose the object of love. As for how such judgment can be achieved, it comes through the activity of “courting”—through conversation, through dialogue. Through efforts at the level of language one comes to know the object and to express affection. Finally, love is confirmed in the form of a “contract.” As for the level of “doing,” it generally is not paid much attention. What is called “romance” is mainly concentrated on the level of “talking,” while “doing” is often not much of a problem.
Classical philosophy in the broad sense has a number of shared characteristics, such as idealism, the avoidance of sex and desire, and especially an unwillingness to speak plainly about the issue of “doing,” and so on. Modern philosophy, by contrast, gradually began to attend to these material and practical dimensions—for example, to concern itself with “desire” (beginning with Schopenhauer), with “doing” (beginning with Marx), and with striving to break the perfect fairy-tale world of princesses and princes (skepticism). Thus modern philosophy appears as a comprehensive rebellion against traditional views of love. “Desire” moves from the backstage of romance to the front of the stage and is expressed nakedly; and “doing” love begins to be placed before “talking” love, to the point that the level of “talking” is no longer cared about at all. Quite a few people, after a miserable heartbreak, go on to deny love and not believe in love, and from then on regard the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty with contempt, falling into nihilism and relativism. The root cause, in the end, is the distortion of their view of love. That is roughly what modern philosophy looks like.
If one looks more closely at some smaller philosophical currents, one may perhaps find even more colorful attitudes toward love: such as the Oedipus complex, fetishism, S&M, lolicon, and so on, not to mention abstinence, promiscuity, and the like. For instance, modern empiricist philosophy seems to have more than a little sadistic tendency; analytic philosophy seems rather fetishistic; phenomenology is a bit lolicon……
Ha…… Though I joke, you must know that my words are always serious. These correspondences may perhaps be explained in greater detail when I have the chance later. In any case, what I want to say is that if there is a style of loving wisdom, then there is also a style of love. Before I provide a detailed analysis, I can only ask the reader to savor it for himself.
So then what it means for my philosophy to start from the classical is now clear: that is, my love starts with “courting.” It begins with communication at the level of language. But after all, it does not remain confined to the classical. In my philosophy, I have also absorbed the elements of “desire” and “practice,” and I no longer place such emphasis on the formal “contract.” In addition, I have introduced all sorts of attitudes such as historicism (fate), pluralism (true heterosexuality), and existentialism (the adventure of life), along with original elements like snark, the internet, games, and so on. But in basic terms, it still ultimately comes down to the main thread of “courting”: the method and attitude of courting should already have surpassed the classical, but the core idea of “pursuing through speech / moving the other person through communication” has not changed. Without communication, nothing can begin.
By putting it this way, I may make both my philosophy and my love sound frightening, which is truly an effect I do not wish to create. The key is that if one holds some prejudice toward the activity called “philosophy,” such as assuming it to be abstract, dull, rigid, and the like, then the result is likely to be a priori judgment that my love is likewise frightening in just such a way. So I don’t dare say too much on this point. What I would rather say is that my philosophy is lively, animated, passionate, romantic, colorful…… just like courting, and my love is serious, steady, reliable, free, focused…… just like doing philosophy.
March 19, 2009
A supplement:
So-called “skepticism” can be traced back to Hume, though Hume only woke up to the unattainability of the fairy-tale world and then began to fall into confusion; this step is worth affirming. But the extreme skepticism that tears everything down is similar to hating love after heartbreak. For example, those contemporary people who denounce philosophy as a mythical “grand narrative” and thus turn to sociology are like those who deny love, denounce traditional courtship as deceiving “flowery talk,” and then turn instead to care only about the place of power and interest relations in love.
As for Kant, although he is a representative of the classical, he still seems inclined toward a style of self-love + daydreaming, and does not value actual communication with the other; so Kant did not manage to fall in love (I do not mean any disrespect to Kant). Nietzsche, by contrast, is like someone who, after heartbreak, develops a tragic sensibility and moves toward a heroic, tragic grandeur. Existentialism, in turn, emphasizes subjectivity and its freedom and initiative to an extreme degree, and stresses self-cultivation; the corresponding view of love is classically expressed in Fromm’s The Art of Loving. Historicism pays special attention to the cultural and match-making relations that serve as background. Utilitarianism regards love as a kind of bargaining. Analytic philosophy’s fetishism prefers the doll it designs itself to a living, elusive object. Phenomenology’s lolicon prefers to pursue those things that are most original and immature……
My own love will absorb some elements from the various attitudes above, but in the end it will all have to settle into a love view of my own that starts from the classical. Exactly how it will look still awaits a slow unfolding.
March 24, 2009
Latest comments
- fog
2009-03-20 11:44:44
Posting it here is useless.
Should I move it for you to the pie board or the department board? - fog
2009-03-22 14:35:27
By the way, the literal meaning, or “reading the words and taking them at face value,” is somewhat forced in this way; one needs to consider more what occasions these terms are used for in the current environment.
Otherwise, “hua,” literally speaking, becomes “the bones of water,” and “po,” becomes “the skin of earth.” - 古雴
2009-03-22 14:52:03
What problem are you talking about? Where have I been forced? In this article, when I say “literally speaking,” I mean the term “aesthetic devotion to beauty,” right? In the current environment, there is still a distinction between literal meaning and extended meaning. What do you mean by “the literal meaning”? For example, the literal meaning of “hua” is smooth, slippery; its extended meanings can include sly, oily, and the like. The literal meaning of “po” is a natural phenomenon in which soil and rock slide down from a mountainside; its extended meaning can be things like moral decline. It has nothing to do with what you said about the bones of water and the skin of earth.
- 古雴
2009-03-24 18:36:30
A supplement:
So-called “skepticism” can be traced back to Hume, though Hume only woke up to the unattainability of the fairy-tale world and then began to fall into confusion; this step is worth affirming. But the extreme skepticism that tears everything down is similar to hating love after heartbreak. For example, those contemporary people who denounce philosophy as a mythical “grand narrative” and thus turn to sociology are like those who deny love, denounce traditional courtship as deceiving “flowery talk,” and then turn instead to care only about the place of power and interest relations in love.
As for Kant, although he is a representative of the classical, he still seems inclined toward a style of self-love + daydreaming, and does not value actual communication with the other; so Kant did not manage to fall in love (I do not mean any disrespect to Kant). Nietzsche, by contrast, is like someone who, after heartbreak, develops a tragic sensibility and moves toward a heroic, tragic grandeur. Existentialism, in turn, emphasizes subjectivity and its freedom and initiative to an extreme degree, and stresses self-cultivation; the corresponding view of love is classically expressed in Fromm’s The Art of Loving. Historicism pays special attention to the cultural and match-making relations that serve as background. Utilitarianism regards love as a kind of bargaining. Analytic philosophy’s fetishism prefers the doll it designs itself to a living, elusive object. Phenomenology’s lolicon prefers to pursue those things that are most original and immature……
My own love will absorb some elements from the various attitudes above, but in the end it will all have to settle into a love view of my own that starts from the classical. Exactly how it will look still awaits a slow unfolding.
2009年3月24日 - unic
2010-02-25 01:06:01 Anonymous 210.77.59.5
Yesterday I read your article about the mathematization of the natural sciences. It inevitably made me think of the face of sociology as a social science of the modern era, which has also been hugely influenced by the mathematization of the natural sciences. I feel that many sociologists have abandoned the search for the internal causes of human society, have long upheld external functionalism, and then have gone on to wobble toward breaking down internal and externality in order to seek some kind of interdependent relations in society. In fact, the core issue of sociology is also “force.” The force between people. To ask “how is society possible” and “how is the individual in modern society possible” both really point toward the search for “force.”
I think the social sciences’ search for internality is even more urgent than that of the natural sciences; the uncertainty of taking mathematics as a cause is even sharper in the social sciences.
The grand narrative that stands out most in sociology is, after all, the structural functionalist Parsons.
Can it be understood this way: starting with Newton’s clear definition of force, mechanism and nature both broke down the boundary between externality and internality; this is the contribution of classical mechanics to modernity. And sociology, as both maker and product of modernity, is inevitably deeply affected by this contribution as it comes through the natural sciences.
#A bit of news outside the main topic
#Chinese-characteristic English words# Freedamn Chinese-characteristic freedom, Smilence smiling but silent, Togayther finally joined in matrimony, Democrazy wishful thinking, shitizen common people, Innernet Chinese internet, Departyment (zf) relevant departments
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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