Watching Jing Qi struggle on the issue of “this” and formal indication, I can’t help but keep pushing back, and for that reason I have also read, intermittently, some material on Heidegger’s early concept of “formal indication,” gradually coming to some understanding.
Basically speaking, I have never placed much weight on the concept of “formal indication” (formale Anzeige, 形式指引), for several reasons: first, the phrase feels too Westernized, too specialized, and is easily read as jargon, leaving outsiders completely baffled. If there is a more plain and straightforward way of putting it, then there is no need to go through this phrase at all; second, this concept belongs to the period when Heidegger’s earliest thought was just taking shape, and the background of Husserlian philosophy and traditional philosophy is too deep. It is meaningful for philological scholars who want to understand the path by which Heidegger’s thought formed, but in terms of actively appropriating and developing Heidegger’s line of thought, it may not have all that much significance; third, Heidegger himself did not provide a very full explanation of the term. Although one can say his usage is consistent throughout, it is still not sufficiently detailed.
However, if one says that the concept of formal indication is still worth taking seriously, the key is precisely that it is a concept Heidegger used in the initial period of his thought; naturally, this implies a deep connection between his line of thinking and Husserl, as well as the philosophical background of that time, and also where the breakthrough lay that eventually allowed him to carve out a path of his own. From this, we can better uncover the links and differences between Heidegger’s philosophy and other philosophical approaches.
And this is exactly why I have never really supported Jing Qi’s excessive entanglement with this concept. Because Jing Qi came to philosophy by a roundabout route and does not have a deep philosophical foundation; apart from Heidegger, he has not grasped in depth the other relevant historical backgrounds, intellectual currents, and lineages of philosophy. Of course, those of us doing philosophy of technology do not cling to philological-historical textual criticism, but can, under the inspiration of one or two masters, learn by doing and freely analyze concrete problems. In this sense, there is no need to make the relevant philosophical sources too clear; focusing on Heidegger is already quite good. Yet if that is the case, then one should not become attached to, or bound by, a few of Heidegger’s specialized terms; one should try to explain Heidegger in one’s own language. Not only is it unnecessary to keep circling around the phrase “formal indication,” but even being too strict about more mature terms like Dasein and Gestell would also be unnecessary. And if one intends to seize on the term “formal indication” as the basis for one’s own thinking, then one should clearly understand why it is necessary to seize on this word.
Jing Qi says that he wants to “look at the form of Heidegger’s formal indication in terms of its lineage,” and this “in terms of its lineage” is quite right: the crucial significance of the concept of formal indication lies in revealing the lineages and sources of Heidegger’s thought. Yet what he actually goes on to explain leaves me deeply disappointed. In his mouth, this concept becomes obscure beyond measure, yet he flatly refuses to acknowledge the common ground between the “form” in “formal indication” and Husserl’s concept of “formalization.” Of course, the form in formal indication is more originary than the form in formalization, but it is undeniable that there is a direct relation between them.
Perhaps as Jing Qi says, the “form” of formal indication “is” the “how” of actual lived experience, but at most that is a conclusion. It is like saying “water ‘is’ H2O.” That statement is not enough, because if we do not have a “prior” understanding of what “water” is, then we cannot understand any definition or explanation of what water is. We first need to know what object we are talking about before we can understand the various explanations of what that object “is.” We know what the sentence “water is H2O” means, but we do not know what “石乌畏 is H2O” means, because we have no idea what this thing called 石乌畏 is at all.
That is to say, discussion of what an object is presupposes the prior condition that this object can indeed be understood as an object. Therefore, when we learn that “the form of formal indication is the how of actual lived experience,” we are still not satisfied, because we first need to have the object we are talking about identified for us; or rather, the object needs to be shown in some pre-propositional way.
And this “identification,” this “showing,” is precisely the indication/showing of formal indication.
The basic meaning of “form” is the form of “formal logic,” that is, abstract formal relations stripped of content. In Logical Investigations, Husserl proposed the distinction between “formalization” and “generalization” — the transition from “red” to “color” or from “color” to “sensuous property” is a generalizing transition, whereas the transition from “sensuous property” to “essence” and from “essence” to “object” is formalization.
This distinction is in fact similar to the analytic philosophers’ distinction between quantifiers and predicates. Analytic philosophers cite Kant’s remark — “existence is not a predicate” — thereby not only overturning the ontological proof of God’s existence, but also, in one stroke, laying the foundations of formal logic.
Russell’s theory of descriptions was even an attempt to solve the problem of the meaninglessness of “石乌畏 is H2O.” As is well known, Russell’s example is “the present King of France is bald,” or, in its more primitive form, the “golden mountain” problem — if the subject does not exist, then what is the object we are talking about? If our judgment that “the present King of France does not exist” is something we can meaningfully say, then what exactly is the thing said in this statement? Russell’s strategy is to translate the “subject” into a “descriptive phrase,” or rather, what we are really talking about is not the thing referred to by the subject, but a formal structure of the form ∃x[(Kx & ∀y(Ky → x=y)) & Bx] (predicate K means “is the present King of France,” B means “is bald”).
But does this solve our difficulty? At most, the theory of descriptions helps us become more precise once formalization has already begun. It does not solve the original problem: how do we comprehend the object we are talking about? Russell translates the object of discussion (the subject) into a descriptive phrase, and then the question becomes: why does this subject refer to precisely such-and-such a description? — “There exists an x, and x is the King of France,” so what on earth does “… is the King of France” mean? Russell turned “the King of France is …” into “… is the King of France,” but the problem remains: if we have no idea what “King of France” is in the first place, if we do not know what “石乌畏” is, then we cannot understand the proposition that defines this thing.
(Additional note: so-called prior grasp of the subject under discussion is not only about whether one can understand the subject’s intension, but also because its “extension” is equally ambiguous. For example, we do not know whether “石乌畏” is “an object,” or a group of objects, or a property, or a personal name. The meaning of the “existential quantifier” lies in preliminarily setting up a certain “universe,” or domain of entities. But Russell’s paradox has already shown that one cannot set up a total set that includes everything of everything; one can only set up specific sets. An existential quantifier is meaningful only under some presupposed universe. But if we have absolutely no understanding of the x depicted by this existential quantifier, then in fact it cannot be formalized. Unless, without our noticing it, we have fabricated a “set of everything of everything” that requires no presupposition at all.)
Once formalization has already begun, once we have already taken things as a, b, c and read properties or relations as P, Q, R, then we have already grasped our object of discussion in some way. We use words, we use symbols, to seize hold of certain objects, and then proceed to describe and define them. But the precondition is that these objects must first show themselves as something that can be seized.
Heidegger said:
Formal predication is not limited by the content of things, but it must nonetheless be motivated in some way. How is it motivated? It originates in the sense of the relation of Einstellung itself. From the object, I do not see what its content-determination (Wasbestimmtheit) is, but rather, to a certain extent, I “see out” its determinacy (Bestimmtheit). I must disregard what is in the content of the thing and focus only on this fact: the object is something given, something grasped in an attuned manner. Hence, formalization originates in the relational meaning of pure attitude-relation itself, rather than in the “what of general content” (Wasgehalt).
Formal indication is neither a formalization nor a generalization. Formalization and generalization are both “ordering and arranging” (Ordnen) of things, but before that, we need first to seize the things themselves.
When late Heidegger speaks of Gestell (enframing), he means that the world of modern people is like a large bookshelf with clearly arranged rows and no secret compartments, with every thing placed neatly and orderly upon it, each book having an exact location, and the task of science is nothing more than to further organize their order. And this task seems unrelated to our own lives, and concerned only with the labels already pasted onto the books.
But ordering is possible precisely because there are always gaps between things. If the bookshelf had no gaps at all, we would be unable to move a single book. Heidegger said: “In order to carry out the ordering purely in accordance with the content of the thing-connection, the thing-connection itself must be loose (frei), it must have room for freedom.” To organize a bookshelf, we not only need to grasp one book after another, but must also understand the space of this bookshelf. That is to say, in order to arrange the order of books, what we must first understand, before focusing on the content of the books, is the “space” granted to each book, and this “space” cannot be found simply within the book itself.
Moreover, in fact, the “world” is not so monotonous; the organization of world-order is at least a good deal more complicated than tidying a study. In a study, the arrangement of each thing points to the others; things always show themselves within some kind of space, or rather, are able to show themselves within some kind of room. The bookshelf leaves room for the books, the paper leaves room for the pen, the bed leaves room for the quilt, the desk leaves room for the chair… and in the final analysis, the arrangement of the entire environment leaves room for human life.
When we are able to refer to a certain thing, this means that we have already been situated in some space, a space that reserves the place for that thing; but this is not to say that the thing has already, in a ready-made way, occupied that place. When we talk about a book, we understand its relations to the bookshelf, the desk, the lamp, paper and pen, and so on; these related things construct an environment, a context, thereby reserving a space for the object that is the book. When we talk about the “King of France,” we understand his relation to France, to politics, to history, and even his relation to the President of France or the King of England; these related things leave room for the King of France. But these “relations” are not ready-made, not actualized, not rigid functional relations — perhaps in the end we discover that the book we are talking about is not on the bookshelf at all, or that there is not even such a book, or that there is simply no King of France at all; but this does not cancel the “relation” between the bookshelf and this book. The bookshelf has indeed left room for the book being discussed; whether the book actually shows itself in that space is another matter.
Thus one can say that “formal indication” corresponds to “substantive indication”: the environment created by bookshelves, desks, and so on, in the formal sense — in the sense of enabling the thing to be identified — lets a book show itself as an object; but whether that book can in fact show itself at some specific location is another matter. Therefore, the meaning of “formal indication” is precisely an “indeterminate” “attunement to relation.” Heidegger said:
This form is something relational (etwas Bezugsmaebiges). And indication is to show in advance the relation of the phenomenon — though in a negative sense, as warning! A phenomenon must be given in advance in such a way that its relational meaning is kept in suspense. One must guard against adopting the view that the relational meaning of the phenomenon is originally theoretical. The relation and realization of the phenomenon cannot be predetermined; it is to be kept in suspense. This is a stance (stellungnahme) that stands in extreme opposition to science.
In short, “formal indication” is not some mysterious, ineffable concept. Like any term Heidegger uses, it does not completely break away from its most general and literal meaning — form refers to external relations, in contrast to content; indication is the identification of a thing, or, to say it differently, the showing of its trace. Only in Heidegger’s case, this formal relation is not theoretical or functional, but pre-theoretical and non-mathematical; not a ready-made, fixed, exact connection, but an indeterminate historical relation. And this identification or showing is also not substantive, not something already placed before our eyes, but intentional and prior.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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