Departing on August 28 and returning to Beijing on September 4, this conference trip, counting from beginning to end, lasted a full week; it was the longest conference I have ever attended, practically a vacation.
Ever since I went to Nanning in 2009 to attend the Third Conference on Phenomenology and Philosophy of Technology, I have now attended five consecutive conferences. Aside from Nanning, where I only wrote a little “Miscellaneous Notes,” I went on to write full conference gripe-sessions about Hailar, Yangma Island, and Guangzhou, and I am now in the awkward position of having ridden the tiger and being unable to get off; this time, too, I ought to write one. At the very least, let me keep up this tradition while I still have not graduated yet~
The title is still called a travelogue, emphasizing the personal character of the commentary; its details, emphases, praise, and blame all obviously lean in a personal direction, and it is by no means an objective scholarly review.
On the evening of August 28, I took a direct train from Beijing to Jiujiang. Traveling with me were Wu Ningning, Su Li, Wang Zheran, and Jiang Che (the latter two took a later train). Jing Qi, due to health reasons, regrettably could not attend. Jin Shixiang and Liu Shengli had already gone to Jiujiang a day earlier, and spent a day at Senior Brother Xiao Lei’s home in Jiujiang; I heard they climbed up Mount Lushan along a secret passage and spent the night in a temple.
We arrived in Jiujiang early on the morning of the 29th. The teachers from Jiujiang University, the organizer, came early to meet us at the station, and everyone was uniformly settled for the time being in the guesthouse of Jiujiang University, waiting to go to the venue together in the afternoon. During this interval, I and a few classmates took a taxi to take a look at Xunyang Tower. Of course, Xunyang Tower is not the original site where Song Jiang composed his rebellious poem; it has long since been demolished and rebuilt. Still, as long as the cultural tradition remains—in other words, as long as that poem is still remembered—the signboard of Xunyang Tower can be passed down from generation to generation.
This is true. Although, speaking generally, “tradition” is precisely constituted by this sort of cultural continuity, Chinese cultural inheritance, comparatively speaking, pays even greater attention to this immaterial dimension. This is unlike many stone buildings in the West, where the antiquity of history corresponds to the durability of the material. Chinese architecture, being mainly wooden, if it is to be transmitted over a long span of time, depends entirely on the support of so-called “human vitality”: constant repair, alteration, expansion, and the maintenance of tradition through actual life and cultural identification, which is more important than ancient ruins and broken walls.
But this newly rebuilt Xunyang Tower really can hardly be said to continue any tradition. Here, all there is is a calligraphic work of the rebellious poem hanging on the wall, together with a circle of calligraphy and painting pieces; on the second floor they sell rice wine for 5 yuan a cup, and on the third floor they sell fans and many souvenirs, and that is all. Xunyang Tower ought originally to have been a tavern, but now it is merely a fabricated “scenic spot.”
By contrast, Bailudong Academy, where we went that afternoon, is truly a living tradition, or at least still retains the afterglow of tradition. It is not merely a tourist attraction; at the same time, it still preserves some of the functions of an academy—the evidence being that the first day’s program of our conference was to unfold within Bailudong Academy itself~
On the evening of the 29th we stayed at Bailudong Academy. I stayed in the west wing, while Teacher Wu and the others stayed in the central Chunfeng Tower. The whole courtyard still had an antique atmosphere, but the side rooms had already been fitted with air-conditioning and televisions, so living there was very comfortable. However, Jin Shixiang in the same room had it a bit rougher; it was said that he was bitten by mosquitoes all night, both legs swelled up, and they still had not recovered several days later. When he got up in the morning, he also found a gecko under his pillow.
Staying in Bailudong Academy and holding a conference there is clearly an extremely rare opportunity. Of course, from the environment here it is obvious that it is also frequently used as a conference venue in ordinary times, and this is a relatively good way of preserving the academy. A better way, naturally, would be for Confucian scholars to preside over continuous lecturing activities. I have long had an idea, and I will take advantage of the occasion to promote it again here: namely, to revive “Confucianism”, that is, first to establish the religious status of the Confucian tradition, and then, like a temple or church, hand over the academies and Confucian temples to Confucian believers to manage, carrying out lecture activities and ritual cultivation, while also making money from pilgrims’ incense offerings and from handling ritual business. In this way, the revival of Confucianism would at once acquire a financial foundation and the conditions for community formation. I feel that this plan is more realistic and more effective than Master Xianglong’s vision of a “Confucian cultural preservation zone.” —Whether or not ancient Confucianism should count as religion, surely we can establish a modern one, can’t we?
Back to business: the conference officially began on the 30th. On the first day, from 8:00 to 16:00, we held conferences all day at Bailudong Academy, and then went to stay and continue the conference at the Lushan Training Center affiliated with Jiujiang University on Mount Lushan. The conference lasted a total of four days; the last two days were only half-day sessions, and in the afternoons we were free to move about Mount Lushan at leisure. Overall it was very relaxed, and this may also have led to the conference seeming to have less intense clashes than before. In addition, the quality of the papers at this conference was relatively higher overall, which may also have been one reason the clashes were less intense, because the shallower the presentation, the easier it is to criticize, whereas a more carefully prepared paper requires more advance reading and more serious participation before criticism can be cautiously made. Of course, saying that the clashes were “not so intense” is only relative; compared with many lifeless academic conferences on the market, our atmosphere was obviously very lively.
August 30:
The first presentation was given by Zhang Xianglong, who had recently moved to Shandong University, on “Paradigm, Family, and Cultural Sameness — A Comparison of Kuhn, Wittgenstein, and Confucianism”. Teacher Zhang was attending the Conference on Phenomenology and Philosophy of Technology for the third time. The first two times he had been specially invited as a “master of the phenomenological circle” to attend and provide guidance; this time, however, he submitted his own paper and came as an ordinary participant to join the discussion. In the ensuing sessions, Teacher Zhang also participated enthusiastically, and was one of the people who spoke most often during the free discussions.
Teacher Zhang’s paper contains two main parts. First, it points out that an important breakthrough in Kuhn’s theory of paradigms depends on Wittgenstein’s doctrine of family resemblance. Some of Kuhn’s own formulations imply Wittgenstein’s influence, though not especially explicitly; more importantly, there really is such a theoretical connection. The so-called “paradigm” provides a certain original “unity” for a scientific community, but how is this unity realized? It is not that some specific set of laws, rules, or norms is unanimously accepted by all participants, and yet this unity still exists; so what, exactly, sustains the unity of a paradigm? By introducing Wittgenstein’s doctrine of family resemblance, Kuhn finally discovered that there is no need at all to find such a “thing” to sustain the community’s unity; this unity is precisely “family resemblance.” Then Teacher Zhang further connected the concept of “family resemblance” with the family in its original sense, arguing that family resemblance is in fact a kind of unity formed in the shared life of the family form, and further that family life under Confucian culture can provide a more profound and gentler family paradigm.
Teacher Zhang’s paper sparked many controversies, and Teacher Zhang was very happy, because what he feared most was that the related views would seem too commonplace in the philosophy-of-science circles. Since there was so much controversy, it proved that Teacher Zhang’s work may have a certain degree of originality. Teacher Wu Tong offered comments, broadly affirming Teacher Zhang’s work, but asking how the Confucian soft paradigm could be promoted in this wolfish, Westernized world—could one make the wolf fall in love with the sheep? In response, Teacher Zhang said there was no need to make the wolf fall in love with the sheep; in fact, ecology has already shown that the wolf’s way of life is precisely more fragile than the sheep’s. When the environment changes, the first species to go extinct are often the most ferocious animals, such as tigers; by contrast, flexible modes of survival are more stable.
Teacher Sheng Xiaoming pointed out that paradigms include both latent rules and explicit rules, while Teacher Zhang paid too much attention to the latent aspect, whereas the development of science and civilization requires norms to be gradually made explicit. Teacher Li Zhangyin pointed out that paradigms include not only family resemblance but also common metaphysical beliefs; as for Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblance, it instead treats resemblance as some already-given property (such as B resembling between AB and BC).
Teacher Zhang responded that paradigm theory especially emphasizes “pre-rule” character; merely following rules is not enough to achieve unity. Teacher Wu Guosheng objected, saying that one should say instead that unity is not limited to following rules, but following rules is a simplest way of achieving it; following common rules of course does provide unity, only in general that is not yet enough. Teacher Zhang replied that this is precisely the key issue in paradigm theory: merely following rules indeed cannot form unity. It is like memorizing all the doctrines in a textbook by heart, which is not enough to enter the scientific community; the key lies in application. Being able to do application problems is what counts as having genuinely gotten a foothold in science. And the reason application problems are possible lies not merely in mastering rules, but also in certain pre-rule cultural backgrounds or environmental discipline (to put it in my own language).
In addition, Teacher Wu Guosheng also raised two “fatal problems”: first, the connection between Wittgenstein and Kuhn was too forced; second, linking family resemblance with family was also too forced, taking Wittgenstein’s language games too literally. On this point, I am also willing to defend Teacher Zhang: these may be problems, but they are by no means fatal. Any scholarly interpretation is in a certain sense forced; if the author himself had already described everything clearly and explicitly, then later scholars picking it out again would be of little interest. If an interpretation is interesting, it is often because it reveals problems that the author himself did not clearly express or even did not realize. Such revelation may seem forced, but in substance it exposes what the author meant between the lines. Or perhaps it really does go beyond the author’s intention and generates new meaning from the text. The reader is an active participant in textual meaning; this is also a basic insight of hermeneutics. The key is not whether it is forced, but whether that linkage is interesting. In my view, Wittgenstein’s influence on Kuhn is definitely there; the key is how large that influence is, and whether it is irreplaceable—this is a question. Teacher Zhang clearly was not trying to confirm this question from philological or biographical research; his focus was on whether, theoretically speaking, this logical link provided by Wittgenstein is crucial enough for paradigm theory. If Wittgenstein is removed, and one relies only on other resources within analytic philosophy, can the same breakthrough still be achieved? I am inclined to support Teacher Zhang’s view: the key point in later Wittgenstein is that he revealed the “pre-rule unity” in language use, and this is extremely important. Of course, examples such as AB, BC, CD, DA can only be understood as examples: what they illustrate is that there is no “core consensus,” but they certainly do not mean that family resemblance is stitched together by already-objectified properties like A, B, C, and D. The point of pre-rule character is very important. As for whether Wittgenstein, when employing the term family resemblance, really connected it with “family,” I think probably not to that extent. But this forcing may not be meaningless. On the one hand, words themselves have connotations; even an inadvertent use may still contain meanings linked by etymology. On the other hand, if family resemblance is not supported by a common covenant, then what is its source? Undoubtedly, it is the cultural environment of shared life, and the family is precisely the basic form of such “shared life.” Thus tracing paradigm theory back to “family history” is a reasonable path.
My own approach is slightly different from Teacher Zhang’s. While also focusing on shared life and the cultural environment, I place more emphasis on media-technical factors. I believe that the “pre-rule unity” is supported by a media environment. Thus I trace from philosophy of science to “media history,” just as Teacher Zhang traces from philosophy of science to family history. In my view, family history is still not primordial enough, because the unity on which different family-organizational paradigms are based must itself be traced back to different media-technical environments: hunting technologies, storage technologies, architecture and communication technologies, and so on. The traditional Confucian clan paradigm is difficult to carry on under the modern media-technical environment. It is not enough merely to consider interpersonal relations and ignore the corresponding media conditions.
The second presentation was delivered by Teacher Meng Qiang of the Academy of Social Sciences, on “How Is It Possible to Say Goodbye to Kant? — Meillassoux on Speculation”. Qiang-ge introduced the recent work of the French rising philosophical star Meillassoux, who attempts to seek a new path beyond Kantianism. First, Meillassoux interprets Kant’s transcendental philosophy as “correlationism,” that is, “we can never do more than approach the correlation of thought and being, and can never set aside either side of the correlation to approach the other.” Meillassoux believes the opposite of correlationism is “absolutism,” but he points out that correlationism still carries an implicit absolutism, namely the absolutization of factuality. Meillassoux proposes the “necessity of contingency,” the claim that “everything is contingent” is itself necessary, and he attempts to establish a mathematical ontology to support his speculative philosophy.
Meng Qiang believes that the path of Kant’s philosophy is contradictory: “Copernicus finally drove man away from the center of the cosmos on the empirical level, yet the philosopher Kant put man back at the center of the cosmos on the transcendental level… Kantian philosophy is a Ptolemaic counterrevolution; spiritually it runs directly counter to the modern Scientific Revolution.”
Teacher Deng Bo commented, pointing out that the key question in the article is whether the framework of correlationism is compatible with Kant, and Teacher Deng himself believes that Meng Qiang/Meillassoux’s discussion is reasonable.
Teacher Zhang Xianglong pointed out that the key lies in what to do after Kant; the key precisely is the level that Kuhn/Wittgenstein emphasized before, namely the “non-rule-based practical use,” which is the crucial advance beyond Kantian philosophy. As for the so-called problem of the “absolutization of factuality,” Teacher Zhang believed that Heidegger had in fact already moved beyond subjectivism (called “subjectivism” in Meng’s article).
Teacher Li Zhangyin questioned the claim that Kantian philosophy and the Scientific Revolution are “completely opposed,” pointing out that modern science indeed possesses a transcendental framework.
I also raised my hand to speak, but was not called on. Over the whole conference I probably raised my hand about three times, but not once was I called on. The first point I wanted to make was the same as Teacher Li Zhangyin’s: Kantian philosophy is by no means a “Ptolemaic counterrevolution.” Meng Qiang himself also mentions that Copernicus moved man away from the center on the “empirical level,” while Kant placed man at the center on the “transcendental level.” What Meng Qiang failed to notice is that Kant’s insight lies precisely in his explanation of this empirical decentering as transcendental centering. Kant himself says this clearly right at the beginning of the preface: why did modern science achieve such tremendous success? Precisely because of such a reversal: in the past, human beings stood still and waited for nature to reveal itself, whereas now human beings have moved, and compel nature to speak the truth according to human demands. This is the essence of the experimental method: legislating for nature, with human beings issuing commands to nature. Placing human beings at the center of transcendental philosophy precisely means that human beings play an active role in epistemology. It is this aspect, rather than the formal question of whether man is or is not at the center, that makes Kantian philosophy comparable to the Copernican revolution. The crux is the transformation from the earth standing still to the earth in motion, from passive human beings to active human beings. Meng Qiang or Meillassoux has not grasped Kant’s profound insight, and merely takes the so-called Copernican revolution literally, arriving at a very superficial conclusion.
In addition, I do not think it appropriate to summarize Kant’s approach with the term correlationism. In fact, I myself have made similar remarks, but I was referring to the epistemological turn of the entire modern philosophy beginning with Descartes and Bacon, which can be understood as the “discovery of media,” namely the discovery that cognition always has to pass “through something” and cannot directly reach the object; this is similar to what Meng Qiang/Meillassoux call correlationism. But this is precisely not Kant’s contribution.
In his additional remarks, Meng Qiang further emphasized that Meillassoux’s contribution lies in “reestablishing the legitimacy of the ‘absolute,’ whereas under correlationism the ‘absolute’ is illegitimate.” In my view, this statement is profoundly mistaken. If one says that modern empiricism represented by Hume denied the legitimacy of the “absolute,” I can still support that, but what precisely brings the “absolute” back in is Kant himself. Kant’s thing-in-itself is precisely absolute, namely unknowable, and at the level of practical philosophy there is the famous “categorical imperative.” The crux is that Kant’s contribution lies precisely in “drawing the boundaries” of knowledge, thereby enabling us to speak again of the “absolute” within a certain limit without falling into hubris. What Kantian philosophy deprives “the absolute” of is only its “productivity”; that is to say, the “absolute” can only play a negative, restrictive role within the philosophical system and does not have constructive power. We cannot, like the rationalists, attempt to construct an entire system of knowledge out of thin air from some absolute base. But the concept of the “absolute” still occupies a place in Kantian philosophy, in the role of what might be called the “police station,” indicating the places where knowledge cannot reach “absolutely”; thus Kantian philosophy is a kind of “negative ontology.” Kant’s expression is clearer, more brilliant, and more systematic than Meng Qiang/Meillassoux’s so-called “the absolute necessity of contingency.” I did not see any constructive power in Meillassoux’s so-called “absolute.” In any case, if Meillassoux’s “absolute” has productivity, then it is probably unavoidable that it falls into the hubris of reason; and if it likewise has no productivity, then it is nothing more than a clumsy repetition of thoughts that Kant had already resoundingly and forcefully advanced long ago. Such repetition is not bad in itself, but to take repetition as “breaking free” is simply a gross mistake.
For many years now, Qiangge’s work has been aimed at trying to find new roads, seeking escape—escape from practical philosophy, escape from Heidegger, escape from Kant… Although in terms of actual viewpoints, Meng Qiang and I have much in common and a great deal of resonance, I do not agree with this fundamental attitude of determined escape. New breakthroughs in the history of philosophy are often achieved through return rather than escape. What I strive for is to return to Aristotle, return to Kant, return to Heidegger, to reinterpret the classical doctrines in a new era, to step back into those great philosophical ideas and uncover the possibilities within them that have not yet been fully unfolded, so that ancient thought may be given new life—that is my understanding of philosophical work. Meng Qiang’s attitude, by contrast, seems overly eager to chase trends and anxious to set up an independent banner of his own, and the result may well be to backfire.
The third paper was by Liu Shengli, an older fellow student who had already joined the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, on “From an Object-Total View to a Phenomenological-Total View—A Bodily-Phenomenological Interpretation of the Holistic View in Chinese Medicine.” Since graduating, Shengli has been focused on studying issues in Chinese medicine from a phenomenological perspective, and he has had many thoughts on the subject. This long paper is only one result of that stage of his work. The paper attempts an interpretation and defense of the so-called “holistic view” in Chinese medicine. The so-called holistic view of Chinese medicine has long been one of the features of Chinese medicine most often praised within the Chinese medicine circle, but in recent years it has generated many doubts both inside and outside the circle. People feel that Western medicine also thinks of the human body as a whole, and that Chinese medicine also reduces holistic problems to certain parts; thus the holistic view does not seem to be something especially unique to Chinese medicine. Starting from phenomenology, especially Merleau-Ponty’s bodily phenomenology, Shengli distinguished between the “object body” and the “phenomenal body,” and argued that modern science—including the holistic view as seen by some people in the Chinese medicine circle—essentially amounts to an object totality. A machine too has a concept of “wholeness,” but this wholeness is not that wholeness. The holistic view of Chinese medicine should be a “phenomenal totality.” The difference between the two concepts cannot simply be summarized by the pair whole-reduction; the two views each have their own different ways of totalization and reduction.
Teacher Zhang Xianglong offered comments. He first affirmed that Shengli’s definition of object/phenomenal totality was sound and reasonable, and that Merleau-Ponty’s resources were indeed highly apposite. His criticism was that Shengli had not sufficiently sorted out the concepts of “object” and “phenomenon,” and had not paid enough attention to the dimension of “time” (focusing more on spatial issues). Teacher Zhang believed that the revival of Chinese medicine is related to recovering a certain life paradigm—that is to say, it is not enough to develop the discussion merely from the perspectives of wholeness and space. Teacher Zhang also raised a question: from the standpoint of phenomenal body, how should one view genetic engineering (Teacher Zhang’s original words were cloning)? Does genetic engineering also transform the phenomenal body?
Teacher Duan Weiwen asked whether object and phenomenon are a relation of “all or nothing”: either object or phenomenon? Is there a channel for dialogue between the two? For example, concepts such as qi and numerology in traditional Chinese medicine may perhaps also be objectified to a certain extent.
Teacher Wu Guosheng pointed out that the effort to save Chinese medicine has too much of the imprint of Western medicine on it. Even Shengli’s paper still allows Western medicine to lead it around by the nose in the form of confronting Western medicine.
Shengli responded that the object body is the formalization and objectification of the phenomenal body; the two are not unrelated, but belong to the same process of constitution, within which objectivity is a limit case.
In response to Teacher Zhang’s question about cloning, Shengli stated that he opposed cloning, and then mentioned examples involving thyroid removal and the like. I felt that he seemed not quite to have grasped the essence of the issue. The crux of cloning is that through genetic modification one is still producing or improving complete individuals one by one. The question, then, is whether gene therapy destroys the wholeness of the phenomenal body?
In my view, although Shengli sees the passage from phenomenon to object as a process of constitution, with objectivity as the limit of that process, basically speaking, the objectifying end still seems to be regarded as negative, while the phenomenal end is more superior. This also seems to be the attitude of many phenomenologists today. But in fact phenomenology (at least Husserl’s phenomenology) aims to ground the natural sciences, to retrieve the transcendental conditions forgotten by modern science—namely, the life-world. That does not mean phenomenology seeks to overthrow the natural sciences and rebuild an entirely new system. Rather, phenomenon and object should be understood as a relation of source and flow. A science that sees only objects is water without a source and is bound to run dry, but only a source and no flow will not do either. What makes science science is probably the necessary step of objectification and objectivity. It is only that when we ask how this objectification is “possible,” we discover that its transcendental condition of possibility lies in a prior world of phenomena. The constitutive process from phenomenon to object is precisely something that cannot be severed. The ailment of modern science lies in having severed its connection with the phenomenal world, attending only to empty forms and pure extensionality.
So there are two questions that follow. First, how can modern science be reconnected to its phenomenal root, how can we investigate the transcendental conditions of modern science and prevent it from falling into blindness or emptiness? Second, apart from a form of science such as modern science, might there be other possibilities, different scientific systems unfolded from their respective phenomenal worlds? And if such an alternative scientific system is possible, then in addition to requiring its phenomenological-ontological foundation, it would likewise need corresponding objectification and objectivity. Yet Shengli seems to place phenomenon and object in an absolutely opposed position, as if Western medicine were object science and Chinese medicine phenomenon science; this, rather, only reinforces the rupture.
That said, Teacher Wu’s attitude toward Chinese medicine is relatively skeptical, whereas many intellectuals of science and culture tend to esteem Chinese medicine. My own attitude is a bit more neutral. Basically, I think that as a great legacy embodying the cultural, intellectual, and technical traditions of ancient China, the significance of Chinese medicine is beyond question. But in terms of scientificity and reliability, Chinese medicine is not necessarily superior. I mentioned that the phenomenal world and the object world can be said to stand in a relation of source and flow, root and branch. Modern science and modern medicine have become excessively weighted toward objectification and have lacked the phenomenal dimension because of a certain forgetting and severing. Hence we hope to set science back on its proper foundations, reactivating its source of meaning from its original living waters, in order to correct some of the extremities, fantasies, and emptiness of modern science. But the reason Chinese medicine places more emphasis on the phenomenal world is not that it has severed the object world; rather, it is because Chinese medicine, as a development of science, still remains at a relatively primitive stage, and its object world has not yet been fully opened up. Of course, this primitiveness can offer certain references for Western science, which seeks to return to simplicity and authenticity; at the same time, the lessons of Western science’s past may also encourage Chinese medicine in how to further open up its object world without severing its connection to the primitive phenomenal world. But this Chinese medicine that has “not yet left the primitive” is hard to say is more advanced than modern medicine that “seeks a return to the primitive.” If we try to seek some possibility of an alternative science, we should face up to this fact: the distinctive science of China or the East has not yet matured, and a stable and reliable paradigm still remains to be established; we should not blindly praise the superiority of Chinese medicine.
In this sense, Shengli’s work is very good in terms of its basic positioning. He tries, at the philosophical level, at the ontological level, to open up a foundation for Chinese medicine and build a discourse system capable of defending itself. But how this system is to unfold, and how its specific scientific methods and conclusions are to be implemented, Shengli does not directly provide.
All the reports on the first day were 40 minutes for the main presentation, 10 minutes for commentary, and 10 minutes for free discussion, so in the morning there were just three papers. After lunch, there were two reports in the afternoon.
The fourth paper, that is, the first paper of the afternoon, was given by Professor Li Zhangyin of Shandong University on “A New Interpretation of Aristotle’s Concept of Cause.” Using Heidegger, Professor Li offered a new interpretation of Aristotle’s four causes. Professor Li suggested that what are traditionally called material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause should be rendered instead as apting cause, shaping-collecting cause, initiating-moving cause, and culminating cause. From this complete change in the translations alone, one can see that Professor Li’s understanding is highly original and very interesting, though I was not entirely convinced.
Teacher Wu Guosheng commented that Professor Li had problems obscured by words; one should “speak in ordinary terms,” and not become excessively mired in abstruse verbal tangles. Professor Li believed that what Aristotle called “cause” refers precisely to “origin,” and that Aristotle was discussing the four causes in this sense. Teacher Wu pointed out that if so, why distinguish them as two different words? Why especially introduce the concept of cause and explore it in depth? Teacher Wu pointed out that the core issue is related to motion, and that asking after “cause” is related to the context in which Aristotle discussed the problem of motion. Professor Li noticed the conceptual linkage between cause and origin, but overlooked the fact that the problem of cause and the problem of origin are indeed two different problems. Moreover, Professor Li spoke only of nature and not of craft, whereas Aristotle’s four causes and his philosophy of nature must be understood with reference to the distinction between nature and craft.
In response to Professor Li’s claim that the four causes have little to do with science, Teacher Zhang Xianglong pointed out that the four causes have little to do with modern science, but they do have something to do with ancient science.
I did not get a turn to speak. My comment was, first, that Professor Li’s entire paper lacked examples. For instance, when Aristotle discussed the four causes he gave many examples, especially examples from craft activities, to explain what the four causes are in different situations, and Heidegger’s interpretation also gives examples such as the silversmith. Professor Li, however, focused on concepts and lacked examples, which may well be precisely what Teacher Wu criticized as “not speaking in ordinary terms and letting words obscure the problem.” If one tries to test Professor Li’s new interpretation against concrete cases, I suspect that many things may not really hang together.
Second, Professor Li believed that the translation of the four causes should be more “verbalized,” and that terms like shaping-collecting and initiating-moving are better than formal and efficient. But I remained skeptical. What is called cause refers to some root of “motion and change,” and this root is in essence a kind of “agent of the event,” so it ought to be something noun-like. If causes are themselves also some “verbs,” that is, other motion-changes, then this creates confusion instead: what then is the cause of “shaping-collecting”? What initiated this “collecting”? Such an infinite regress may be benign, but it probably does not fit Aristotle’s original intention. Deliberately turning everything into verbs is likely an unnecessary complication.
Finally, I was most skeptical of the explanation of shaping-collecting and initiating-moving. It is true that in Heideggerian readings of the four causes, “gathering” is an important link, but Heidegger is saying that human beings (craftspeople) play the role of gatherers, not that among the four causes there is one cause specifically charged with gathering. The four causes converge in the world of human beings; the essence of “technology” is precisely this mode of convergence, so modern technology is what is called Gestell, that is, a special way of gathering together, not that technology is what is called “shaping-collecting cause.” In addition, Professor Li believed that “efficient cause” merely emphasizes the initiation and designation at the beginning of motion, that it is the cause of setting motion in train, and thus should be translated as “initiating-moving cause.” I greatly doubt this. If efficient cause only concerns the beginning, then what about once motion is already underway? According to Professor Li’s view, all causes refer to the “initiation and designation” of motion, and only efficient cause especially refers to the initiation and designation of motion “at the beginning”; I did not see sufficiently convincing evidence for this. Of course, efficient cause is indeed that without which motion “cannot get going,” but what this really emphasizes is the “immediacy” of efficient cause, not any special status in temporal sequence. Efficient cause is the most direct “agent of the event,” the “culprit” who is directly held responsible, but this does not mean it acts only at the single time point when motion begins.
The fifth paper, that is, the last paper of the first day, was given by Peking University student Jin Shixiang on “Motion and the Concept of Nature in Aristotle’s Physics.” Jin Shixiang himself greatly appreciated Professor Li Zhangyin’s earlier paper and thought that his own paper happened to complement it. At the previous conference, because of a favorable combination of circumstances, Jin Shixiang’s report did not come across well, but this time he had prepared thoroughly and had enough time, so his presentation was better; comparatively speaking, however, his text was rather stiff to read, not as clear and straightforward as the PPT. Drawing on the work of Klein and Joe Sachs, Jin Shixiang sorted out Aristotle’s explanation of the problem of motion and the process by which Aristotelian philosophy was gradually misunderstood and distorted from scholastic philosophy to modern science. Jin Shixiang mentioned that “in Aristotle’s philosophy, ‘form’ not only appears as the ‘appearance’ of a thing, but also regulates and guides the thing’s nature, unifying things that are coming to be and sustaining themselves into a whole that moves or acts as what it is.” Thus Jin Shixiang also especially praised Professor Li Zhangyin’s notion of “shaping-collecting cause.” Of course, I feel this may border on over-interpretation. I think the term “formal cause” need not be changed, but one must note that the concept of “form” is not the same throughout antiquity and modernity; even the concept of “cause” itself has undergone enormous changes, yet in translation it should still be called cause.
I would like to emphasize a passage in Jin Shixiang’s paper: “The Greeks’ concept of cause is similar to a court’s judicial inquiry. In ascertaining responsibility for a harmful act, what the judge pursues is not the mechanical causal account of how a dagger pierced the victim’s body, but rather the person responsible for the entire injury, tracing that person’s motive, purpose, means of injury, and so on. The judge tries to understand the whole case, rather than merely describing the physical process by which the event occurred… Likewise, for Aristotle, cause is that which is being asked for in seeking what is responsible for ‘being as being.’” This accords with my own understanding. In “Is Heidegger a Technological Pessimist?” I mentioned that Heidegger’s term Verschulden, translated by Sun Zhouxing as “bringing about,” is in fact “responsibility/debt”; to seek the cause is to seek the agent of the event, or the one who is responsible.
I once tried to explain the four causes with a simple example: for instance, if one asks, “Why did Zhang San die?” the following answers are possible:
1. Formal cause: what was the thing “like” — he died because he was struck by a blunt instrument and bled to death.
2. Efficient cause: who “did” it — because Li Si hit him.
3. Final cause: what was it “for” — because this way his money ended up in Li Si’s pocket.
4. Material cause: how could this thing happen — because a blunt instrument has the potential to injure people (a balloon cannot beat someone to death), and flesh has the potential to be injured and lead to death (Iron Man would not die).
Here the formal cause tends to describe the objective situation of the whole affair from the outside, and comes close to the way modern science investigates things; the efficient cause, by contrast, investigates the most direct agent of the event, the cause in the narrow sense; the final cause is close to “motive,” but strictly speaking it refers to the “ultimate” state that the event is to achieve; the material cause asks after the conditions of possibility. If the weapon were rubber rather than iron, the whole case might look entirely different. Thus, although material cause is only a passive element serving as the basis of possibility, it also participates in the construction of form.
…Back to the main thread, Teacher Sheng Xiaoming commented on Jin Shixiang’s paper. Teacher Sheng admitted that he had not really looked at the paper carefully and that his comments were rather perfunctory. I had long told Jin Shixiang that Teacher Sheng is very reliable academically, but in ordinary circumstances he is not very serious; thus, if you see him spontaneously asking questions or raising objections off to the side, they are often quite on point, but if you ask him to give a proper formal commentary, then he probably cannot be relied on all that much.
Although the paper had already clarified the difficulty in understanding Aristotle’s definition of motion—namely, that motion is the actuality of the potential as potential—someone still asked why this was not translated as “actualization.” Clearly this person had not read carefully or thought it through, though it is also possible that Jin Shixiang had not explained it clearly enough. I had already understood this clarification of the definition from Teacher Li Meng’s article and lectures. “Actualization” or “realization” points toward a “process,” whereas motion itself is a process of change; defining change by means of change is a circularity of same with same. Therefore, the thing used to define motion itself cannot be understood in terms of the concept of motion; it must be something that can be grasped by going around the concept of motion.
Let me explain this issue in my own terms: what is called definition, at bottom, and in its most primitive form, is pointing definition, that is, I point to some thing and say: “See, this is an apple.” Of course, in order for this definition to be understood, an entire context is still required; otherwise you do not even know whether I am pointing at an apple, red, or the concept of fruit. But broadly speaking, we need to find a scene and an object in order to provide the definition “See, this is…”. If Aristotle’s definition of motion is approached only at the level of terminology and concepts, it may seem very circuitous and baffling. But in fact it is extremely direct, a visible “see.”
To demonstrate what motion is, I can walk back and forth in front of you and point to myself, saying: see, I am in motion. But clearly motion does not refer to “myself” as a person; it refers to the activity of my walking. Yet to say that motion is activity falls into circularity again. The key is that when I point to myself and say, see, I am in motion, what I point to is indeed “I.” Rather than saying that what “see” points to is “my motion,” it is better to say it is the “I in motion.” Walking is one of my capacities. This potential is not always actualized; generally speaking, I am merely “the I that can walk.” This “I that can move” is indeed also “I,” but it is not always actual. So what is the actuality of “the I that can move”? It is “my motion.”
The explanation above is still rough. The key point is that the ancient Greek concept of motion does not refer only to locomotion, but also to changes of quality, quantity, and so on; the definition of change is the main aspect of the definition of motion. For example, a stone can become a statue; being a statue is the stone’s potentiality. So can we say that the “actuality” of “a stone as a statue” is motion? Indeed we can, but here “zuo” should be understood as the “zuo” of “making” — I am borrowing a Chinese pun here. A stone has the potential to become a statue; a stone is a potential statue. Here the stone is a “potential being” capable of change. So what is the “actuality of the stone as a potential statue”? This actuality does not refer to some original stone, nor does it refer to a finished statue. A stone is an actual stone, and a statue is an actual statue; these are two different things — Parmenides denied “motion” precisely through the sophistry that different things cannot be the same thing. But Aristotle pointed out where the “motion” lies between two different things; that is to say, it is the stone rather than the ready-made statue, yet the actuality of this stone is precisely the stone “as a potential statue,” or the “stone capable of becoming a statue.” The actuality of the “stone capable of becoming a statue” is precisely the “making” of the stone (toward a statue). When we point to a stone being carved in a sculptor’s hands and say, “There, this is ‘sculpture.’” Like “walking,” “sculpture” is the stone’s “motion” toward a statue. The actuality of the “stone that can be carved” is the carving of the stone; the actuality of changeable material is the material’s change. Here, once again, we discover the connection between Aristotle’s natural philosophy and philosophy of technology: “motion” is correlated with “as.”
The afternoon had only two reports, so it ended early, because next we had to drive up Mount Lu and transfer to the Lushan Training Center of Jiujiang University for dinner and lodging. The road up Lushan winds and twists, and I was almost about to throw up in the car. But of course it was worth it: although the accommodations were slightly worse than at Bailudong, the scenery on Mount Lu was picturesque and the air was excellent as well. For the next few days I stayed there very comfortably and happily — though I was so comfortable that I became a bit lazy, and in the end I did not visit many places.
The second day was the fullest day of the conference, with a total of 10 reports. From the second day onward, the reports were shortened to 30 minutes, with 10 minutes for commentary and 5 minutes for open discussion. The shortening of report time seemed to have little effect, but the reduction in open discussion was quite noticeable: the speakers often had hardly any words with which to respond, and discussion was difficult to turn into real interaction and exchange. Personally, I think the 25+10+10 format is better.
The sixth essay, which was the first session of the second day, was delivered by Professor Duan Weiwen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on “From Technology as the Essence of Man to the Transcendence of the Pain of Existence.” It was mainly based on some elaborations by Stiegler. Teacher Duan’s talks have always given me a feeling of “not understanding it but feeling impressed,” which is not really a compliment; in any case, clear argumentation is always better. But the reason Teacher Duan is hard to pin down is not because he lards his work with too many technical terms and jargon, or because his thinking is too deep and weighty, but because his line of thought and style of writing seem too airy and free-flowing. The commentator, Teacher Li Zhangyin, said that Teacher Duan had cultivated a “iron-head kung fu,” with the specialty of “ignoring both sides and talking only of one thing.” Teacher Li affirmed that Teacher Duan’s way of thinking basically embodied a Heideggerian style of philosophy of technology, but that many of the argumentative links were problematic, and he raised “ten major critiques” of it. I did not remember them clearly, but aside from some detailed issues, the general point was that Teacher Duan’s use of phenomenology was still not sufficiently thorough, and that his treatment of the human was still some kind of Platonic interpretation.
The seventh essay was delivered by Peking University student Hu Yilin (me), on “The Natural History of Media — McLuhan’s Method.” This article had a substantial amount of perfunctory content. Of course, it is a chapter I plan to include in my doctoral dissertation, but much of it directly borrowed from “An Initial Exploration of McLuhan’s Media Ontology,” which I had already presented at a conference in Nanning four years earlier. The main thing was that the interpretive framework of “natural history” is a recent result, so the report mainly discussed the first half. I analyzed the concept of “natural history” into fourfold meanings: “nature” simultaneously means both “natural environment” and “essence,” while “history” simultaneously means both “process” and “inquiry”; the four meanings produced by the intersection of these two pairs are all contained within the concept of “natural history.” This reorganization of the concept of natural history could in fact stand as an independent topic. I then set the four roots of natural history in correspondence with the four aspects of McLuhan studies, thereby presenting McLuhan’s “method.” Within the entire school of media ecology, McLuhan is generally considered the one least in possession of a “method,” but under my media-history program, McLuhan actually occupies the highest position in methodological significance. In a certain sense, McLuhan is the metaprogramme (while Mumford is only the pre-programme), and the others are further developments after McLuhan.
Teacher Deng Bo gave the commentary. Actually, I had originally planned to write an article centered on Walter Ong this time, which might have been more to Teacher Deng’s taste. Teacher Deng felt that the concept of “natural history” was liable to misunderstanding and suggested changing it; of course I could not do that, because the core of this article lies in this very term. Teacher Deng’s doubt was that what I was discussing was the artificial environment, which had nothing to do with the natural environment. That is certainly correct, but what I am concerned with here is the level of historiographical method: what interests me is the way, under this method, the media environment is treated as a kind of “natural environment,” rather than a discussion of the natural environment in the biological sense. Anyone who actually reads the article would not misunderstand it. Even just with regard to the title, I have already added “media” as a modifier before natural history, so there should be no reason for anyone to think I intended to discuss the question of nature. The most one could suspect would be this: how can media be studied as “nature”? What does that mean? I think I have already provided the explanation in the main text.
Teacher Deng Bo also criticized me for making no progress on ontology in the later part, which is of course true, because I had almost directly borrowed the article from several years ago without changing it, and when it is actually incorporated into the doctoral dissertation there should still be many revisions. Of course, it is not necessary for this chapter itself to delve too much into ontological questions.
Teacher Zhang Xianglong asked whether McLuhan’s conception of historical time was some kind of theory of progress. I answered in the negative. In general, McLuhan does not want value judgments mixed into historical description, and in terms of the tone between the lines, McLuhan was rather disparaging of the era of alphabetic writing and print, while regarding the era of electronic culture as a kind of return to the era of oral culture. This can hardly be called a philosophy of progress, but in terms of an “evolutionism” without a value direction, McLuhan might perhaps also count as an “evolutionary view of history.” That is to say, the evolution of media ecologies is a kind of natural, irreversible process. Once new media take root and sprout, they develop a tendency toward self-propagation, and humanity can only adapt to them, not easily reject them. Of course, I mentioned that as individuals (or small groups), in the face of the torrent one may make one’s own choices and plan one’s own mode of survival, which of course also includes rejecting certain technological trends. But on the whole (the environment itself being a global concept that is constantly receding), the “uncontrollability” of technological development is also one of the reasons it is seen as a “natural environment.”
The eighth essay was delivered by Tsinghua University student Su Li, on “A Critique of Sensorimotor Theory from a Phenomenological Perspective — With the Duality of Perceptual Content as the Theme.” Su Li’s research has an analytical style as well as phenomenological training, and it follows the cutting edge of scholarship; she is very excellent. But for me, this article did not seem very interesting. Of course, the key is that the figures she criticizes themselves do not seem to have much going on. Su Li pays a lot of attention to recent developments in phenomenology in the Anglo-American academy, which certainly ensures the front-line nature of the research, but the problem is that this batch of phenomenologists with an analytic background are themselves not very interesting. This hybrid product of the Continental and Anglo-American traditions seems to occupy an awkward position in itself. First of all, from what standpoint are we supposed to evaluate them? Evaluating them from the standpoint of analytic philosophy is very different from evaluating them from the standpoint of phenomenology. From the standpoint of phenomenology, of course, one can point out that their implementation of phenomenology is not thorough enough, that their grasp is not comprehensive enough, and so on. But from the perspective of analytic philosophy, none of these are problems; the “natural attitude” or objectifying thought is not a defect either. Given an analytic philosophical background, the one-sidedness of the phenomenological method is precisely what is required. To put it in extreme terms, once you see a text discussing problems in the form of conventions such as “x thing, P property, t time,” it is hard for it to be an adequate use of phenomenology, because what is most intoxicatingly problematic in the analytic-philosophical approach is precisely this “abc-ization.” If the way this step is taken has not undergone sufficient reflection, then it is hard to say that phenomenology’s blood has been injected into the analytic-philosophical context.
There was another problem with this report, namely that while listening to it, perhaps because I had just finished speaking and had been tense for a moment, and also because I had eaten too spicy a dinner the night before, I started having a stomachache. So I basically did not listen very carefully, and I will not comment much either. I felt a little better during Wu Ningning’s session, and then in the next one I could not hold it in and went out to the bathroom…
The ninth essay was delivered by Peking University student Wu Ningning, on “Embodiment and Technicity — Hansen’s Ontology of Technology.” As noted above, I had a stomachache at the time and did not listen carefully, but because I felt a little better by then, and because I was already fairly familiar with Wu Ningning’s work in any case, the effect of listening to this session was still much better than in the two before and after it.
Wu Ningning’s article was mainly a commentary on the book Code-Body — Digital Media Interfaces by the up-and-coming philosopher Mark Hansen. Hansen introduces Merleau-Ponty’s “prosthesis theory of technology,” proposing a distinction between body schema and body image: the former is first-person, while the latter is third-person; the former changes dynamically with the situation, and ready-to-hand technological objects often become integrated as part of the body schema, while the latter often takes a definite body as its boundary. But the traditional prosthesis theory of technology splits body image and body schema apart, viewing technology as an appendage of bodily perception, with the “natural” boundary of the body occupying a certain priority. Yet this theoretical setup encountered difficulties in the face of the Internet, virtual reality technologies, and similar situations. By clinging to the boundary of the biological body, it made the analyses of philosophy of technology figures like Dreyfus and Ihde appear very rigid: because remote virtual technologies are far from the “body,” they are “disembodied,” and the perceptual experience gained through these technologies is forever thin and virtual. But many new technological phenomena, through their breaking down of the boundaries of experience and the richness of the resulting perception, have in fact exposed the shortcomings of this theoretical framework.
Wu Ningning/Hansen reinterprets the relationship between body schema and body image: body schema is more original and primary; it precedes the distinction between body and world, but within body schema there is already some body image, that is to say, within the original first person there is already some third-person perspective. This is the original encounter between self and other, or between oneself as another — the so-called “specularization,” which is “the process by which visual experience introduces distance into the sensing body.” Through the introduction of distance, through the differentiation of vision and touch, the spatiality of the tactile proper body is expanded by vision; the body no longer takes the skin as its boundary, but constructs inner and outer from the situation. The “mirror” is a kind of “proto-technology.”
Wu Ningning’s paper involves very profound questions, but her explanation was rather brief, and my retelling skipped many key links, so it may seem incomprehensible. Let me explain again according to my own understanding, though this may not necessarily correspond to Wu Ningning’s original intention:
First let us look at how to understand the claim that the “mirror” is a “proto-technology.” Senior brother Liu Shengli raised a question: clearly the mirror is a very late invention; earlier people used lakes and the like to see their faces. So does that mean we should say that lake water is proto-technology? Here one should note that the claim that the mirror is a proto-technology obviously does not mean that the mirror, as a specific technology, is more primitive in the history of technological invention; rather, it means that in a certain sense “mirror” is the “prototype” of technology, or that the technological object that most purely and vividly contains technicity as technicity is the mirror. That is to say, the essence of technology is understood here as “specularization.” The significance of “proto-technology” lies in the fact that, in a certain sense, all technology is some kind of mirror, and any use of technology entails “specularization.”
What does that mean? Does swinging a hammer also include some kind of specularization? Indeed it does. Let us return to this Heideggerian example: Heidegger divides the relation between human being and hammer into ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. When we hammer nails with a hammer, the hammer seems to be part of our own body; what we are attending to is the nail, while our perception of the hammer is in some pre-objectifying state. And if something goes wrong with the hammer, we pick it up and examine it carefully; at this point the hammer again appears as a present object with definite boundaries and position.
But the problem with Heidegger here is that the boundary between the ready-to-hand state and the present-at-hand state seems too clear-cut, as though it were an either-or relationship. Then it becomes difficult to explain how the “switch” between these two states is even possible.
In fact, these two states interpenetrate one another. When I use a hammer most skillfully, my perception of the hammer itself never completely withdraws; it never becomes fully transparent. Even when I am concentrating all my attention on the nail, the hammer never disappears from my visual field. My use of the hammer is never absolutely smooth; the hammer is always giving me feedback: resistance, heaviness, and its constant display of its own position to my vision.
On the one hand, the hammer seems to be part of my body, something I handle with ease; on the other hand, the hammer is always presenting itself as some alien existence, providing me with “feedback” from outside. This feedback is not merely an obstacle to “ease”; on the contrary, “feedback” is simultaneously inherent within “ease.” Without the existence of feedback, without using those feedbacks to determine orientation, measure distance, and constantly adjust oneself, the state of “ease” simply could not be achieved.
In these “feedbacks,” the hammer is not merely presented as a completely alien object, but as an extension of my own body, an extension of perception, as something I am currently manipulating. This is what is called “specularization”: the alien as myself, myself as the alien, this presentation enabling me to locate and confirm myself. It is through this locating that the boundary between me and the object appears — I am focused on the nail, the hammer separates me from the nail and connects me to the nail, I act upon the hammer and obtain feedback through the hammer, the hammer is both an extension of my body and a terminal of the external world; in short, the hammer appears here as an “interface.” In the practical activity of ready-to-hand handling, the “tool” or technological-media object does not vanish into the background; rather, it unfolds as an interface. The interface is the place where “our side” and “the other side” separate and interact, appearing as the boundary between the self-domain and the object-domain, and constructing the relationship between inside and outside, subject and object.
When looking in a mirror, if I blink, “the other side” blinks too; in this process, tactile, immediate, pre-objectifying experience of manipulation merges with visual, distanced, objectifying experience of feedback. Even without a mirror, turning one’s hand while looking at the movement of one’s hand is also a certain fusion of touch and vision, immediacy and mediation, pre-object and object. Holding one’s own hand before one’s eyes as an object and observing it is completely different from observing someone else’s hand. When objectifyingly observing one’s own hand, we are at every moment sensing and handling our own hand through touch and kinesthesia, and touch and vision are fused in this act of observation. And when swinging a hammer, the harder I exert myself, the greater the resistance coming back from the other side; if I apply force to the left, the hammer tilts to the left… all of this too is an original fusion of propriety and otherness. This fusion is precisely the process of “learning,” and it is the otherness contained within propriety, the specularization implicit in technology, that makes learning, mastery, reflection, and knowledge possible.
The tenth essay was Professor Wen Chengwei of Dalian University of Technology’s “On the Ethical Intentionality of Technological Design.” As I said earlier, at this point I could no longer hold it in and went off to deal with the “big problem,” so I basically did not listen. Of course, I was also not very interested in the article itself; it looked as if it might once again be crudely forcing phenomenological terminology into place. In fact, wouldn’t it also be fine to honestly and straightforwardly discuss “the ethical bias of technological design”?
The eleventh paper, which was also the first paper of the afternoon, was given by Professor Shu Hongyue of Hubei University, on “Technology as the Fork in Bergson’s Vital Impulse — Also on the Difference between Bergson’s and Heidegger’s Views of Technology.” Professor Shu believes that Bergson has a profound discussion of technology, proposing many viewpoints later advanced by Heidegger, but that he also differs greatly from Heidegger and takes an optimistic, affirmative attitude toward technology. One thing Professor Shu does have going for him is that every year he brings some new topic. At this forum, most of the regulars work in relatively narrow fields: those who do Husserl basically talk about Husserl every year; those who do Heidegger basically talk about Heidegger every year. Professor Shu’s objects of study, by contrast, change from year to year—Arendt, Stiegler, Bergson—figures with very different backgrounds and styles, and figures still lacking attention in China’s philosophy of technology, become one after another his topics, bringing a bit of novelty each year. That is of course a good thing. But the problem is also that Professor Shu’s research seems to carry a certain opportunistic mentality: although it often has fresh points, each time it is only a very superficial, rough excavation. Even setting aside some rather basic misreadings, these interpretations also seem to lack interest, perhaps because Professor Shu’s own scholarly taste is not clearly defined.
In Professor Shu’s writing, I could not see where Bergson’s and Heidegger’s views of technology coincide. It seems that “reflecting on industrial civilization” and “reservations about industrialization” are enough to count as the same thing, enough to count as the source of Heidegger’s theory of “Gestell”? That sounds rather baffling to me. Bergson’s optimistic attitude toward technological development and Heidegger’s profound insight into modern technology are of course very different in style, but I also did not see much in the paper that was comparable. As Professor Wu Guosheng, the discussant, said, a cautious attitude toward industrial civilization has always existed; it was neither Heidegger nor Bergson who first proposed it. If one could look back at Bergson from Heidegger’s standpoint, or vice versa, that might be interesting. Professor Wu mentioned that Bergson regards technology as one link in the evolution of life, which is a rather interesting view. But on the whole, Bergson lacks clarification on technology, and dualistic thinking remains deeply ingrained.
The twelfth paper was given by Professor Bao Guoguang of Northeastern University, on “‘The Essence of Technology’ and ‘The Technology of Essence’.” My impression is that over the years Professor Bao has always appeared as a faithful interpreter of Heidegger, and this time was no exception. But compared with his previous interpretive work, this time Professor Bao tried to imitate Heidegger and carry out further thinking, and Professor Li Zhangyin also affirmed that Professor Bao was attempting genuine thinking. But Professor Li also pointed out that the more Professor Bao thought, the more easily he would fall into error. Professor Li noted that there were some confusions in Professor Bao’s line of thought, such as failing to distinguish the concepts of technology and skill.
The thirteenth paper was by Shi Xianming of Luoyang Normal University, on “Heidegger on ‘Scientific Progress’ and ‘Creation’.” Shi Xianming distilled Heidegger’s thought on scientific change and argued that scientific change is a leap-like transformation of “basic concepts,” and that basic concepts are the transcendental basis by which a certain domain of affairs is first understood in advance; scientific change follows no regular pattern, while scientific creation is an activity drawing from “nothing,” and “nothing” is the source of creation.
Professor Bao Guoguang offered comments and raised some doubts. For example, he said that Shi Xianming did not pay enough attention to the distinctiveness of modern science, namely that it has already projected a mathematical world in advance; there was also too little discussion of how “Gestell” appears in science, and too little in-depth clarification of the meaning of “nothing.” Professor Li Zhangyin pointed out that the primordial creative activity Heidegger discusses is quite distant from scientific creation (even if it is the Scientific Revolution); these are problems on different levels, and to discuss them together is somewhat disconnected. Jin Shixiang pointed out that rather than saying the Scientific Revolution draws its source from “nothing,” it is better to say that it re-understands “nothing,” using “quantity” to tame what originally appears as “incomprehensibility.”
The fourteenth paper was by student Yan Dengyong of Shandong University, on “From techne to Machenschaft — On Late Heidegger’s Reflection on the Essence of Technology.” For this paper, Professor Wu arranged for me to give the comments. When I received the paper, I was almost startled: 3,500 words, no secondary literature, and a page full of incomprehensible jargon, which made my scalp tingle. Of course, criticizing it formally is not difficult; in fact, that is how I ultimately proceeded. But in the several days beforehand, I still tried to figure out some of the concepts in it. I quickly dug out the main text it dealt with, the Contributions to Philosophy, and read through it a bit. Unfortunately, this is nearly the most obscure and difficult text Heidegger ever wrote, and it is really hard to understand. Once I got to Jiujiang, I asked Professor Zhang Xianglong for advice; Professor Zhang was also especially serious, even asking to borrow the Contributions to Philosophy to look it over, and he gave me some guidance. In the end, I did gain some understanding of the relevant concepts, but the more I understood, the less I dared to speak. Although I could roughly infer the general meaning, which was basically consistent with Heidegger’s earlier and later texts, the entire conceptual apparatus used here is rather special, and it is very difficult to sort out clearly in plain language. In the end, I could only stop at formal criticism.
The core problem is that this paper does not obtain a clear and sincere position within the academic community. To put it in plain language, one cannot tell who on earth this paper is written for. Professor Wu has always emphasized the importance of secondary literature; a good academic paper must find support in secondary literature. Secondary literature need not be too much, but at the very least it should provide a basic positioning: why am I writing this paper? To what extent has the academic community studied the relevant question? How have other scholars regarded the relevant issue? Or have they generally overlooked it, or misunderstood it, or not discussed it enough?
This is not to say that an academic text can never be written in an obscure or difficult way, but in order to have the qualification to write a text that is hard to read, there are conditions. Either you are already a celebrated master like Heidegger, in which case others know your strength and are convinced that even if they grit their teeth and plow through your text, they will ultimately gain something; only then will your obscure writing be accepted. Of course, even with Heidegger, a text like Contributions to Philosophy is merely an unpublished draft; his published works are not yet so difficult to read. But Yan Dengyong’s paper is written in a way even more difficult than Heidegger’s original text—the simple proof is that the density of “jargon”/terms is even higher than in the original text—so what conditions does he have to attract other scholars to read his work? Or, if certain issues need to be pursued deeply, then the precision of the discussion may indeed have to appear obscure, but at the very least you need to explain why the issue is important and why it is interesting. For example, perhaps earlier scholars never noticed this issue, or perhaps they were all wrong, and once this issue is noticed, certain other issues will also suddenly become clear, and so on. You at least need to explain these circumstances, explain the background and the point of the writing, so that the reader feels that although this paper is difficult, it is one they must read. But now, Yan’s paper seems to be merely a set of self-cultivation reading notes. Unless one is very familiar with the relevant theoretical background, one will certainly be baffled by the jargon covering the page; and even if one is familiar with the background and has mastered the Contributions to Philosophy, after laboring through Yan’s paper, what exactly will one gain? He might as well spend his energy on carefully reading Heidegger’s original text again.
My words are somewhat sharp. What I mean is that in writing one must put oneself in the reader’s shoes: why should I read this paper, and not simply indulge myself in abstruse phrasing? Writing is for readers to read, not merely to prove one’s own strength.
Yan Dengyong’s entire paper not only cites no secondary literature, but even when citing Heidegger’s texts it only notes a Gesamtausgabe source, such as (GA5, S100), which seems very professional, very high-end, but there is nothing remarkable about that. Chinese scholarship on Heidegger already has a huge number of translations, and the translation of every technical term represents a certain interpretive scheme. Behind every important term’s translation there has been a great deal of thought and debate, and Yan Dengyong completely ignores the efforts of these predecessors. Some terms he directly adopts from existing translations (for example, “mouzhi”), while others he seems to have translated himself *for example, ereignis as yuan shi), but in either case, aside from adding the German original in parentheses beside the term, there is no explanation whatsoever. Where he follows previous translations, there is no citation; where he makes his own translation choice, there is no explanation either. Every bit of jargon comes out abruptly, as if all of it had already merged into Yan’s everyday language, and in speech one term after another bursts forth, as though once the German original is annotated everyone ought to know what it means. But of course that is not the case. I even wonder whether Yan himself has truly digested these terms, whether he really uses them so fluently and naturally.
Let me quote a passage here: “One day, the truth of Being may perhaps reclaim Gestell into its own essence. This ‘reclaiming’ means nothing other than this: Being turns out of the concealment of its clearly essentialized character and, relative to its untruth, enters into the explicit grounding of its original truth. And the source of this ‘reclaiming’ or turning-back lies in the transformation of Being’s own concealed, concealing throw (Zuwurf) into the originating throw in which Being’s truth (ground) explicitly clarifies itself (grounding). The opening up of this abyssal grounding as the throw of Being will then become the task of another original thinking as enquiry into ground (Ergruendung). Unlike the original thinking of the first beginning, the keynote of this thinking that starts over again will be restraint (Verhaltenheit).”
This is the final paragraph of the entire paper. We can see that right up to the very last word of the paper, new jargon is still continuously appearing, with no preparation beforehand and no explanation afterward, as if readers were supposed to be familiar with it.
Does he really believe that readers can calmly and smoothly make sense of his writing? I think he should be able to imagine most readers’ reaction in front of his text: me and my little friends were all stunned. But the philosophy world has long had this bad habit, as if making people feel bewildered and leaving ordinary readers in a fog is something highly satisfying; this is a very bad mindset. Of course, you can limit your readers to a particular niche, but even that needs to be explained sincerely and clearly.
There was only one substantive criticism: the title specifies the topic as “late Heidegger’s reflections on the essence of technology,” but the main text on which it relies is the Contributions to Philosophy from the 1930s, and the status of this unpublished manuscript is still disputed. I tend to think it is “middle” or “transitional” Heidegger, still retaining many concepts and lines of thought from Being and Time, while also containing many later ideas. But classmate Jing Qi thinks it is already late, and he classifies Being and Time as “middle,” and the “formal indication” as early. In any case, even if one says the Contributions to Philosophy are indeed counted as “late,” at least the more familiar “The Question Concerning Technology” is still the more typical late text, right? If one is discussing late Heidegger’s thought on technology, how can one ignore “The Question Concerning Technology”? A better strategy would be to clarify the connections and differences between the relevant statements in the Contributions to Philosophy, from techne to “Machenschaft,” and the later line of thought in “technology” and “the question.” But Yan’s paper only mentions this in passing.
I also took the opportunity to talk about my general view of interpreting Heidegger’s thought: as practitioners of phenomenological philosophy of technology, our original task is not to get tangled up in textual analysis. Heidegger himself was constantly playing with words. We can see that at every stage he had an entire set of special terms—such as the early “formal indication,” the anxiety, dread, and care in Being and Time, ereignis in Contributions to Philosophy, and so on. Every set of terms and the framework of thinking opened up behind it are very good, and Heidegger did not deny his earlier efforts; but the exquisite terminology of an earlier stage is rarely carried over to the end. He keeps changing to a new set of expressions. The mission of words is only as a “path,” only as guidance; they never become objects of fixation. And we later scholars should not become overly attached to terminology either, turning it into some kind of professional jargon to toss around, but should instead make concepts come alive. Only when we too are able to “change to a new set of expressions” will we truly be continuing the path Heidegger pointed to.
Faced with my sharp criticism, Yan naturally found it hard to accept immediately. He replied that of course it is good to play with concepts flexibly, but one must also observe rules and respect the consistency with which Heidegger uses concepts. That is true enough: Heidegger’s core concepts at every stage were not tossed around randomly; they all had an overarching force. But the question is, what exactly are the rules you are supposed to observe? Are they the rules set by Heidegger himself? Or the rules of the academic world? If I am merely inspired by Heidegger, using his ideas flexibly but speaking entirely in my own new vocabulary, then of course I do not need to follow Heidegger’s own rules. And if I am interpreting Heidegger but have misconstrued his rules of usage, then you have every right to criticize me. But the key question is: who, exactly, is not observing the rules? And your own wall-to-wall jargon, left unexplained—do the uses of each term also observe the so-called rules? None of this has been defined. This paper neither breaks through nor establishes anything.
The fifteenth paper was given by Professor Zhang Qiucheng of Northeastern University, on “A Tentative Discussion of the Relationship between Theory and Practice — Seen through Heidegger’s Distinction between Present-at-Hand and Ready-to-Hand Things.” Professor Zhang Qiucheng pointed out that the distinction between ready-to-hand things and present-at-hand things is the key to Heidegger’s argument that the practical attitude is superior to the theoretical attitude. But through an analysis of a real case from his own life—searching for wire to make a hook to unclog a drain—Professor Zhang Qiucheng questioned this distinction. He found that the wire in the process of being made was neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand; Heidegger’s distinction thus encounters difficulty, and therefore the attitude of practical priority is questionable. Practice permeates theory, and practical activity and theoretical activity are two sides belonging to one whole.
Professor Wang Haiqin gave comments and especially affirmed Professor Zhang Qiucheng’s way of developing his thinking through examples from real life, while also raising some doubts: to say that Heidegger’s distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand leads to practical priority probably does not fit Heidegger’s original intent; the ready-to-hand is itself the unity of theory and practice.
Professor Zhang Xianglong believed that Professor Zhang Qiucheng had understood the so-called theoretical attitude too broadly. In fact, during the process of looking for wire, the wire need not yet have been objectified; it is still a ready-to-hand state in which lived meaning comes first. Professor Li Zhangyin also agreed with this point: looking for wire is still a pre-theoretical activity in primordial life. A craftsman searches for tools from his surrounding world in order to operate, and this activity is entirely ready-to-hand; it is only because we, educated people, reflect on this activity at a second level that we mistakenly think there is some theoretical activity in it, when in fact there is not.
I also felt that simply linking the distinction between ready-to-hand/present-at-hand with the opposition between practice/theory is not quite appropriate. Professor Zhang Qiucheng indeed understood the theoretical attitude too broadly. In fact, theorization is a very extreme state; the ordinary present-at-hand state is not necessarily a theoretical attitude, let alone the fact that the wire here is still in a ready-to-hand state.
But to a certain extent I also support Professor Zhang Qiucheng’s work. I mentioned earlier, in the part on Wu Ningning, that Heidegger’s distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand does indeed seem somewhat rigid. In fact, no artifact ever completely withdraws in a purely ready-to-hand state, nor does any artifact ever become completely present-at-hand. Even for the most extreme objects of natural science, when they appear as objective objects in the most present-at-hand manner, some kind of proper bodily character, or to put it another way, some ready-to-hand state, still has not entirely vanished. And tools used skillfully and effortlessly by the most practiced craftsman always present some foreignness, some objecthood. And this “residue,” no matter how thinly it is scrubbed away, is always indispensable. That is to say, without a proper ready-to-hand relation, the very act of placing something opposite us would be impossible; and without internal foreignness, effortless readiness-to-hand would also be impossible. Even if Heidegger’s own distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand is not quite so rigid, the concept itself does indeed run the risk of being understood rigidly. It is very necessary to reflect on and re-sort this distinction.
The sixteenth paper was given by Professor Ji Haiqing of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, on “The Identity of Postphenomenology.” This paper originated from the previous conference, when student Wu Ningning gave a talk titled “Is Ihde’s philosophy of technology phenomenology?” and launched a critique of Ihde. At that time, Professor Ji had already engaged in some exchanges with Wu Ningning, and this year he specifically wrote a paper to discuss the question of the identity of Ihde’s postphenomenology, sorting out the relationship between Ihde’s postphenomenology and Husserl’s phenomenology, Dewey’s pragmatism, and Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, and arguing that postphenomenology is a phenomenology of pragmatism or a hermeneutics of things.
This paper of course invited student Wu Ningning to serve as discussant. Wu Ningning first acknowledged that in fact she and Ji Haiqing disagreed on most points. Ji Haiqing also acknowledged that Ihde’s method is obviously naturalistic and in many respects departs from the orthodox phenomenological tradition; only, Wu Ningning was evaluating Ihde from a phenomenological standpoint, whereas Ji Haiqing was trying to defend its independent status starting from Ihde’s own method.
Since Idhe himself did not claim orthodox status within phenomenology, and it makes no difference whether what he does counts as phenomenological or not so long as he is merely drawing on phenomenological resources to study technology, what is the point of examining Idhe from a phenomenological standpoint? Ji Haiqing believes that what makes Idhe Idhe is not that he is a phenomenologist; “the identification of the post-phenomenological identity should always be examined within the field of philosophy of technology.” But Wu Ningning points out that the so-called “field of philosophy of technology” itself remains unsettled: what “technology” means is itself something that first has to be defined, and the evaluation from a phenomenological standpoint precisely reveals Idhe’s narrowness as a philosopher of technology (and not merely as a phenomenologist). Owing to the background of Idhe’s thought, what he “illuminates” is only a part of technology. What Idhe focuses on are technologies that have clear objects of cognition, such as scientific instruments; while other rich domains of technology, such as tables and chairs, containers, roads, screens, and so on, are all ignored by Idhe’s method or are difficult for it to handle. Evaluation from a phenomenological standpoint is precisely helpful for us to understand the limitations of Idhe’s “philosophy of technology,” and why it has such limitations.
The seventeenth paper was Professor Meng Shaorong of Guangxi University’s talk on “A Phenomenological Analysis of New Network Media.” This article was coauthored by Professor Meng and two students. Professor Meng gave the opening remarks, and in fact the report was delivered by the first author, Zhu Jichang.
This article’s examination of new network media was too simplistic, summarizing features such as virtualization, massification, free-of-charge access, diversification, interactivity, and personalization, and it seemed not to go beyond the scope of an ordinary textbook or encyclopedia entry. The subsequent introduction of the phenomenological method clearly smacked of draping a tiger-skin banner over one’s shoulders to make a show of force; many of the interpretations and uses of phenomenology’s “big words” remained at the level of literal understanding.
Fellow student Su Li gave comments, first affirming that the article represented a brave advance into a very difficult topic, but the problem was that it moved too quickly and the steps were not steady enough. Su Li pointed out several issues and believed that the authors may have confused some basic phenomenological concepts.
The eighteenth paper was Professor Lei Depeng of Guangxi University’s talk on “Husserl’s Philosophical Scientism.” Professor Lei found that some people classify Husserl as a humanist, while others classify him among the opposing camp of scientism. So, was Husserl actually a scientistic thinker or not? Professor Lei argued that Husserl was not scientistic, but rather a philosophical scientism. Professor Zhang Changsheng commented, affirming that the title and the argument were correct, but Professor Lei had not noticed the different senses of the German word for “science.” Professor Wu Guosheng also pointed this out: in German, science is originally a broad concept. Meng Qiang noted that “philosophical science” in Husserl is itself a tautology.
The nineteenth paper was host institution Jiujiang University’s Professor Li Yimin speaking on “Husserl on the Completeness of Formal Axiomatic Systems.” Professor Li reviewed Husserl’s argument for the completeness of arithmetic systems and his criticism of Hilbert. Professor Li Yunfei commented, affirming that Professor Li Yimin was worthy of the host institution’s face and had won honor for Jiujiang University, but hoping that Li Yunfei would make some phenomenological extensions rather than remaining at the level of philosophy of mathematics. Fellow student Jin Shixiang questioned whether it was inappropriate to discuss Husserl’s philosophy of arithmetic separately from his phenomenology, since Husserl in his later period especially criticized the excessive formalization of modern science; to understand the early philosophy of arithmetic apart from the whole trajectory of Husserl’s thought is not very meaningful. Li Yimin translated the word usually rendered as “manifold” as “cluster,” and Professor Zhang Xialong raised a different opinion. Professor Zhang Xialong also pointed out that later Gödel had already used a brilliant method to prove “incompleteness” in one fell swoop, while Li Yimin believed that Husserl’s defense of completeness was flawless; this was obviously contradictory.
The twentieth paper was Professor Zhang Changsheng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences speaking on “The Constitution of Scientific Theory in the Horizon of Transcendental Intersubjectivity.” Formally speaking, Professor Zhang Changsheng’s text was too rough, not even containing a single citation, but when he actually gave the report it felt fairly clear. However, Professor Zhang only discussed the side of “transcendental intersubjectivity”; as for how scientific theory is constituted from it, there was a lack of in-depth explanation. Professor Li Zhangyin and Professor Zhang Xialong both raised some questions, but I did not listen closely.
There was no conference after noon, and we were free to move about Lushan. I and a few classmates first went to Guling Town on Lushan to buy some local specialties, especially tea cakes, which were still quite tasty. Then we walked through Jinxiu Valley to Xianrendong; along the way we ran into Professor Zhang Xialong and his wife. After reaching Xianrendong, we returned via Huajing and just made it back in time for dinner. This counted as the day on which I walked the most during those days in Lushan; at many other times I was just holed up in the room sleeping my head off… Speaking of which, Lushan’s air really is excellent, and sleeping is especially comfortable…
September 2, the last day, with five reports remaining.
The twenty-first paper was Professor Zhang Zhiping of Shanghai Normal University speaking on “On the Phenomenological Implications of Hume’s Philosophy: Taking His Analysis of Factual Inference and Its ‘Necessity’ as an Example.” Senior brother Liu Shengli commented, affirming that the report had a distinct structure and clear argumentation. However, Senior brother Shengli emphasized that Hume was deeply influenced by Newtonian mechanics, had a strong tendency toward naturalism and empirical realism, and that the relationship with phenomenology was somewhat forced, seeming like a presentation in the spirit of Whiggism with the conclusion already in hand. He agreed more with the article’s third part, that is, the sorting-out of the differences between Hume and Husserlian phenomenology. Professor Zhang Changsheng then pointed out that Husserl was indeed greatly influenced by Hume.
The twenty-second paper was Senior brother Xiao Lei of China University of Political Science and Law speaking on “A Phenomenological Interpretation of Hume’s Problem of Causality.” Senior brother Xiao Lei had been carrying a guqin these past few days, occasionally playing a few pieces for us, which raised the tone of the Lushan trip quite a bit~ Senior brother Xiao Lei also believed that Hume’s philosophy had a certain phenomenological implication, and his focus was on the problem of causality. But aside from looking for a phenomenological flavor in Hume’s discussion, Xiao Lei’s main task was to reconstruct Hume’s problem of causality from a phenomenological starting point. Senior brother Xiao discovered that Hume’s doubt about causality, at a deeper level, is actually a doubt about the “identity” of objects, a questioning of the relation between the world and objects. Professor Yan Qingshan commented, expressing great admiration for Senior brother Xiao’s article, especially its third part’s discussion of the concept of “actual matters.” Professor Yan believed that Senior brother Xiao had made a major discovery in Hume studies: namely, that Hume’s problem of causality cannot actually be posed within Hume’s own system. After Schlick, Hume’s problem of causality became a problem of induction; in essence, this narrowed Hume’s problem. Professor Yan also pointed out that the article was still not sufficiently strong in its use of references, and that “actual matters” (for example, whether it is a word or a proposition) still needed further clarification.
Professor Lei Depeng raised some criticisms, first that the article had not paid attention to Hume’s more important work, namely A Treatise of Human Nature, and had only cited its simplified version, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, while also neglecting Berkeley, which led to some inadequate understanding. In addition, Professor Lei believed that Senior brother Xiao’s text was more in the style of analytic philosophy, and it was impossible to see where the so-called phenomenological interpretation was manifested. Professor Zhang Changsheng, however, felt that Senior brother Xiao was indeed striving toward phenomenology in the third part. I cannot remember the other discussion and Senior brother Xiao’s responses.
The twenty-third paper was Professor Wu Guolin of South China University of Technology speaking on “Reality and Entity: From a Phenomenological Perspective.” As usual, Professor Wu Guolin was talking about quantum philosophy. This time, through three examples—the AB effect, EPR, and delayed-choice experiments—he discussed the relation between reality and entity. Professor Wu Tong commented that he had made much progress, and that the analysis unfolding in the examples was deeper than before. However, Professor Wu Tong still questioned whether these analyses necessarily had to be dressed up with the banner of phenomenology.
The twenty-fourth paper was Professor Yan Qingshan of East China Normal University speaking on “On Speech Virtue: A Phenomenological Philosophy of Language.” Later Wittgenstein proposed that the meaning of language lies in use, but the rules of language use are not fixed and clear-cut; they are generated within language games and have the characteristic of family resemblance, with no unified standard. If that is the case, how do we ensure that the use of words is good or correct? Professor Yan proposed that it is the virtue of language users that guarantees the correctness or goodness of language use, and therefore we need a virtue-theoretical semantics. Professor Yan still insisted on the ideal of analytic philosophy, namely the pursuit of a better, clearer language, but this ideal was no longer about seeking a fixed, unified grammatical rule; rather, it was about seeking a linguistic virtue, seeking a way of “cultivating virtue,” learning how to use language in a handy and natural way, or how skill becomes second nature.
Meng Qiang gave comments, affirming Professor Yan’s path of “analytic phenomenology” and believing that his notion of speech virtue had originality. He raised questions about some details of the argument. Professor Zhang Xialong gave this article a very high evaluation, praising it as “mellow wine,” with a rich flavor. He also suggested referring to Heidegger’s theory of formal indication and to the Nicomachean Ethics.
Professor Zhang Qiucheng questioned the term “virtue,” saying that it had not been clearly defined, and expressed incomprehension at taking being handy and becoming skillful through practice as expressions of virtue. Privately, I also spoke with Jin Shixiang and supported Professor Yan: the concept of “virtue” originally had no ethical meaning; it simply had to do with skilled use. I said that the concept of virtue is actually very simple—it just means “good,” but this “good” does not first of all have ethical significance; rather, it is an extremely plain meaning, the “good” in expressions like “all right, that’s done well.” Becoming skillful through practice is actually closer to the original sense of virtue.
The final paper was Zhuoli of Fudan University’s “Toward Post-contextualism: A Reconsideration of the Truth of Verification.” Zhuoli had joined the conference at the last minute before it opened, so there was no arrangement for a commentator. He himself also spoke too much and used up the discussion time. After he finished, the proceedings quickly moved straight into the closing ceremony, so I do not have much impression of the report.
In the closing ceremony, Professor Wu Tong spoke first. He made a PowerPoint presentation showing some image materials from each conference since the first one, for us to look back on together. Incidentally, he identified four “standing committee members” who have attended every conference without fail: Professor Wu Tong, Professor Wu Guosheng, Professor Deng Bo, and Professor Li Zhangyin. Then Professor Deng Bo spoke, expressing hope and expectation for the future of this little community. Professor Shu Hongyue, as the host of the next conference, expressed his welcome. Finally, Professor Wu Guosheng specially expressed his thanks to all the teachers of Jiujiang University.
That afternoon I succumbed to laziness and mainly slept, not going out to sightsee. In the evening, to make up for it a little, I went to Guling Town to watch the film Romance on Lushan Mountain. Since its premiere thirty years ago, the local cinema has been continuously screening—and only screening—this one film, creating several records. It shows two screenings every evening, and there are still quite a few viewers. We generally felt that Romance on Lushan Mountain was well worth seeing; its simple and sincere plot and the actors’ dramatic style of performance are things rarely seen in films today. A simple and brisk love story never goes out of date in any era, and seeing this film on Lushan is especially fitting~
On September 3, we spent the morning on Lushan. After lunch, we all went down the mountain to Jiujiang for free time; our train would not leave until evening, and a few of us decided to visit Donglin Temple. Fellow student Shao Yanmei from the Academy of Social Sciences, because of motion sickness and wanting to rest, got a dayroom near the train station, and we entrusted our luggage to her for the afternoon. Lightly burdened, we took a taxi to Donglin Temple, returned by bus, and finally went to Walmart to buy some specialties. We also had a meal of Jiangxi cuisine at a rather distinctive restaurant called Liangzhuo Fanzhuang, making full use of the last half-day. Donglin Temple is a very good place—grand and dignified—and even under open tourism it still feels very quiet. The monks went about chanting sutras and worshipping the Buddha on their own; Buddhist objects, books, and so on were distributed free of charge as karmic affinities, which felt very good. It was just that the local area seems to attach great importance to not wearing revealing clothes into the temple. We encountered a female visitor wearing hot pants that exposed her thighs, and she was shouted at and driven out by an elder monk, which felt a bit exaggerated. That elder monk was probably violating the precept against anger and creating verbal karma.
The train journey went smoothly, and we arrived in Beijing early on September 4. The Lushan trip was thus over.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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