When Reading a Philosopher, One Must Pay Attention Not Only to What He Says on the Surface, but Also to the Emotions and Intentions Lurking Behind His Words.

When reading a philosopher, one must pay attention not only to what he says literally, but also to the emotions and intentions lurking behind his words.

This is where the key and the pleasure of interpreting philosophical texts lie. Of course, if we are to interpret a text by means of the text itself, extracting what the philosopher said is only the most elementary procedure. But if your interpretation is merely a straightforward paraphrase of the philosopher’s views, then what is the point of such an interpretation anyway?—and by “point” I always mean both “meaning” and “interest.”

If you can express a philosopher’s thought in a more concise and lucid language, then why did the philosopher himself not do so? Why did he write in such a verbose way? Why unfold his arguments in such tortuous and obscure fashion? Why not lay out his position clearly in numbered points, one, two, three, four?

On the one hand, it is sometimes indeed the case that the philosopher himself is simply incapable of doing this, and that is perfectly normal. For example, the person who organizes Newtonian mechanics into a textbook is certainly not Newton himself, and Einstein himself may not even be able to provide the most rigorous and concise version of relativity theory. On the other hand, especially for philosophers, not only is every sentence they write not without reason, but even the parts they do not write down, or do not make clear, are often not without reason either. In particular, the reasons why a philosopher does not state certain things plainly—whether intentionally or unintentionally—often reflect the more important matters behind his specific views: the supporting beliefs, the fundamental mode of thinking, and the self-positioning by which he understands himself.

Take Aristotle, for example. Suppose you notice that when discussing the question of first principles, he says, “First principles cannot be infinite in number, otherwise existence would be unknowable.” But so what if existence is unknowable? Why can’t existence be unknowable? Aristotle gives no further discussion. And this “not discussing” precisely reflects one of the most basic creeds in Aristotle’s entire theory of knowledge: the world is knowable. Or take Aristotle’s theory of the elements and his physics: why are the basic qualities “dry, wet, cold, and hot”? Why are the basic motions “push, pull, carry, and turn”? Behind these positions that are set out before us, there is always concealed an active, tactile hand; Aristotle thinks and understands the world through this hand—just as behind the modern scientific worldview there is concealed a passive, observing eye.

In short, when interpreting a philosopher, one must pay attention not only to why he said this sentence, why he said that sentence, but also keep an eye on this: why did he not say some things out loud, and why did some things have to be said in such a roundabout way…

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