Notes from the Xindao Salon, 09-04-18

· Today’s salon had some newcomers dropping by, though the meaning of the café had not yet fully revealed itself to them. Welcome, friends, please keep spreading the word~

· The little ones were calling for Senior Brother Bu Tianshi, hmm~~

· In my view, a double major and a minor are not very meaningful. If you want to sit in on classes, it would be better to use the electives allotted by your own department to choose courses. But I won’t say too much about this either.

· As for questions like course selection guidance, it is better to ask senior students than to ask your advisor~

· Science fiction, as literature, can inspire thought, but it is not advisable to take science-fiction novels as the basis, let alone the warrant, for thinking.

· As for the plan to search for extraterrestrials, Jiang Xiaoyuan’s “academic paper” is not very reliable. If I get the chance another day, I’ll cultivate myself a bit and write something personally to have a look.

· For a large stretch of time today we were still discussing the Plato issue in Liu Zhe’s introduction to Western philosophy. We found the metaphor about musical instruments in Chapter Ten of the Republic. I discovered that I had rather underestimated Plato before, but I certainly had not underestimated Liu Zhe; Liu Zhe’s interpretation is indeed still not reliable.

· For example, Liu Zhe’s reply to a question from a junior female student mentioned: “In Plato, as we have shown, knowledge means to have definition which can answer question in form of ‘what is F’.” (I won’t say much about the fact that Liu Zhe cannot speak Chinese… but I still have to speak modern Chinese, so I will first give a rough translation of this sentence: “In Plato, as we have already shown, knowledge means obtaining a definition that can answer questions in the form of ‘what is F.’”) I don’t know exactly how Liu Zhe was “showing off,” but presumably what he was showing off was only the part after that “which…”; and as for the premise that knowledge is some kind of definition (or anything similar—clear explication, description, delimitation, and the like, things close to definition), he seems to have taken that for granted. Indeed, even when he explains Parmenides, Aristotle, the Stoics, and so on, he seems to display more or less the same manner. This is the typical look of a philosophical reader corrupted by modernity, corrupted by logic.

· When modern people with the default configuration talk about “knowledge,” they often tend to assume by default that knowledge is some kind of “definition” or proposition or assertion; the only question is what conditions a sentence must satisfy to count as knowledge. So people like Liu Zhe go on to discuss things like how propositions obtained in the empirical world, such as “Socrates is a human being,” can also yield knowledge rather than merely true belief, imagining that this is some uniquely insightful understanding, and thinking that those “Platonists” who believe Plato advocated a stark bifurcation between the real world and the world of forms have distorted Plato. In fact, Liu Zhe’s line of thought is itself a sort of New Platonism distorted by modernity, or rather some symptom of logicism.

· In my view, Liu Zhe went astray from the very start in the way he thought about the problem. Let me reiterate: he is discussing the problem of knowledge under the default framework that “knowledge is a sentence satisfying certain conditions.” But that is certainly not Plato’s line of thought; Liu Zhe needs to cultivate the basic skill of reading philosophers.

· I am a complete layman when it comes to Plato’s philosophy, but I dare to disparage Liu Zhe in this way. My confidence does not come from my own self-satisfied logic, but from the following: first, I have textual evidence; Liu Zhe is merely talking nonsense off the top of his head, spinning out syllogisms Plato never even knew about, without staying close to the text. Second, my understanding makes Plato’s philosophy appear more coherent, and the contradiction between epistemology and aesthetics in Plato that Master Xianglong mentioned no longer seems irreconcilable. Third, my understanding fits the development of the entire history of Western philosophy; the Plato I interpret looks more like a Greek philosopher and no longer like Liu Zhe’s logician. Fourth, I admit that my interpretation is influenced by phenomenology-hermeneutics, but phenomenological method more easily returns to the origin.

· The most basic point in my understanding is that the “knowledge” in Plato is absolutely not “definition” in any sense, not a proposition described in words, and even less a conclusion deduced by logic. Plato’s geometric deduction technique is a method auxiliary to “recollection”; in the end, it is all about making you “remember,” making you “see.” In the passage Liu Zhe selected (distinguishing opinion from knowledge), it explicitly says that the difference between knowledge and opinion lies in the difference of the “objects” they concern, but what is the “object” concerned by sentences like “AisB”? The junior female student’s question really hit the nail on the head; it’s a pity the email was written too tactfully~ Liu Zhe’s reply, on the other hand, was off the point~ In my view, Plato’s knowledge is not any form of propositional deduction, but an “intuition” of some object. This object is called a form or idea, and this way of “seeing” is “recollection.”

· This time I found even stronger textual evidence in Chapter Ten of the Republic. The electronic version is here http://www.jledu.com.cn/dyzy/wxk/ly_show.asp?name=%C0%ED%CF%EB%B9%FA%20%20%B5%DA%CA%AE%BE%ED I don’t have the book at hand, so I won’t mark the page numbers for now.

· “In the same way, then, we must say that although the poet knows nothing except the art of imitation, he is able by means of words to portray the arts themselves superbly, when he uses rhythm, meter, and melody to speak, whether about shoemaking or military command or anything else, while the audience, since it likewise knows nothing about these matters and knows only how to recognize things through words, always thinks that he has described them better than anyone.” — That is what Plato is saying to Liu Zhe XD

· “No matter what subject one speaks of, there are three arts: the user’s art, the maker’s art, and the imitator’s art” — note this three-level division.

· “The user of anything is the person with the most experience of it; the user reports to the maker the goodness or badness of the thing’s performance as seen in use. For example, the flute player reports to the flute maker how the various flutes perform in playing, and instructs him what kind should be made, and the maker makes it according to his instruction. … Thus one person knows and reports about the goodness or badness of flutes, while another trusts him and makes them according to his request. … Therefore, the maker can have only a correct belief about the goodness or badness of this instrument (this is the belief one has in conversation with someone who truly knows the instrument, when one is forced to follow his opinion), whereas the user can have knowledge of it. … The imitator, regarding whether what he imitates is good or bad, has neither knowledge nor correct opinion… ‘The maker of a work two steps removed from nature is called an imitator… all… imitators… stand two steps removed from the king or from the truth.’”

· — These texts make it very clear, and from them we can also see why Plato’s epistemology and political philosophy are so tightly linked. Let me sort out Plato’s line of thought — first, the philosopher is likened to the user of an instrument; he truly knows the instrument’s good and bad, not through deduction at the level of words, but through direct experience and the intuition thus obtained. The philosopher can intuit the forms, so he can tell the maker, who stands one level below, his judgment about good and bad. Then the maker, from the performer of the instrument—that is, from the philosopher who intuits the forms—obtains “true belief.” The philosopher tells the instrument maker his judgment about good and bad; what is conveyed here is by no means knowledge itself. What the maker gets is not knowledge but belief; only the philosopher can possess true knowledge, not anything language can convey. Next, the maker, having obtained from the philosopher the true belief of how to make a good instrument, describes the way he makes the instrument in words or in any form of plan or攻略, and passes it on to the imitator. What the imitator gets is neither true knowledge nor true belief; the imitator is two levels removed from the king, “the lowly child of lowly parents.” And Liu Zhe actually takes this lowly level as his starting point to interpret Plato’s epistemology. If such an interpretive approach is not a rare revolution over thousands of years, then it can only be sheer nonsense.

· In this way we can see why in Plato’s Republic it is necessary to have the philosopher serve as “king”: only the philosopher can see the truth, can possess true knowledge, and can offer truly reliable judgments about the goodness and badness of things, while the craftsmen obtain confidence from the philosopher, thereby ensuring that their beliefs are true and reliable. From king to craftsman to imitator, this is a transmission from top to bottom, with no route for reverse flow, just as the user of an instrument does not need to seek help from the maker in order to judge the instrument’s good and bad, whereas the maker of the instrument must listen to the user’s demands, while descriptions at the level of words are the lowest and meanest, not even belief but outright ignorance—at least this is how Plato should be understood. In the modern age of egalitarianism, people often assume by default that everyone is equal before knowledge; therefore what people endorse is a legal society rather than a monarchy, and the meaning of law is precisely to define in words judgments of right and wrong, good and bad. But under Plato’s line of thought, such public provisions at the level of words are not knowledge, not even belief; knowledge is not something everyone can equally obtain, and only a very small number of philosophers can possibly intuit the forms and thus possess knowledge. Therefore the ideal social system must be monarchy rather than legal rule. If you understand Plato this way, everything becomes smooth and coherent. Liu Zhe, can your explanation do that too?

· As for the complex final issues of politics/law/ethics/freedom, to be frank my thinking is really very shallow, and these issues involve too much; of course they cannot be made clear in a short time. In the blog’s“Ethics——Politics” folder there are some related discussions, but they are all far-reaching and not deep enough; let me cultivate myself slowly on one hand, while gradually discussing them on the other.

· Seen in today’s vicinity: xyw/jr&?/dr/byz

· Possible topic next time: undecided
2009年4月18日

Latest comments

• Ceiling

  2009-04-19 09:16:51

  Liu Zhe’s line of thought is the typical line of thought corrupted by analytic philosophy. One line of thought explains all the thoughts of all eras, and thus all under heaven becomes one.



• Gu Cha

  2009-04-19 09:59:13

  Did Yali not go on the spring outing?



• msfan

  2009-04-19 10:28:13 anonymous 219.234.81.66

  If someone could guarantee that opposing him would have no bad consequences, I would definitely open fire! T_T



• benj

  2009-04-19 12:18:11 anonymous 125.34.13.133

  Who is the newcomer?



• Gu Cha

  2009-04-19 12:58:12

  Two beauties~~ It’s a pity neither of them took part in the group discussion and then left..



• mist

  2009-04-20 00:00:39 anonymous 219.234.81.66

  Try facing Liu Zhe directly; perhaps direct communication would be better than talking about him here yourself.
  Or let him know what you think.



• 
  

  Gu Cha

  2009-04-20 01:08:06

  Why?
  Recently you seem quite cocky~~ I don’t need anyone to tell me what behavioral norms to follow. If you want to tell me what I should or should not do, and besides, you are not my elder; besides, I have never listened to elders’ instructions anyway. What I want to see is reasoning. You tell me why I should do this, rather than merely telling me it is best to do this. To be frank, what I hate most is that old-elder-style lecturing: no reasoning, just these imperative sentences dumped on me with no beginning and no end. I want to know on what basis you can offer me these maxims and exhortations.
  From the outset I have been walking the road of doing things differently; do not try to persuade me by saying how ordinary people should usually do things, for that will probably only make me even more self-satisfied. I have an incomparably strong identity of personality and confidence in it; my speech, actions, thoughts, character, and so on in all respects will all remain coordinated and consistent, so it is impossible for me to change myself because of some local, isolated remonstrance or maxim. I am always changing, yet I always manage to maintain my inner unity; that is the trait I am most proud of. Of course, you may stimulate me to reflect by showing me reasoning or expressing feelings of liking or dislike, but it is best to use orderly argument or lyrical exclamations, not imperative sentences; isolated imperative sentences will be ignored.

  Here at the end I also give an imperative sentence. First, given the principle of equality in communication, you give me an imperative sentence, and I may likewise return one. Second, my imperative sentence expresses feelings directly related to both sides of the communication, including myself; I am not going to make random suggestions to others about how they should interact with yet other people. Other people each have their own preferences; how he treats his issue is his business, and I am not some old elder, so why should I worry about it? Third, I am not simply giving an imperative sentence; rather, after some explanation and clarification, I finally arrive at the imperative sentence “Don’t lecture me!”.
  

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.