标签：fate

Heavenly Endowment

Life & Notes2022.04.01
Heavenly Endowment
At 11:39 a.m. on April 1, 2022, a new life came squalling into the world. Yes, I have a daughter now~ I chose her name a few days earlier: Hu Tianyu. Don’t worry, I’m not suddenly going to turn into a shameless kid-showoff. Writing in the public sphere will not become excessively intimate. On the one hand, this post is a special commemoration; on the other, it is also an excuse to talk about certain general topics through my daughter’s name. Back in the day my grandfather gave me a name: “Tian Ding,” meaning roughly that my fate was decreed by Heaven. In the end, though, it was never used….
everyday life freedom Heidegger democracy
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2022年4月1日
Personality Philosophy vs. Propositional Philosophy: On the Inevitability of the Decline of Continental Philosophy and the Immortality of Its Significance

History of Science & Scholarship2019.04.20
Personality Philosophy vs. Propositional Philosophy: On the Inevitability of the Decline of Continental Philosophy and the Immortality of Its Significance
I had mentioned this in passing on Weibo before, and because it was rather short, I didn’t plan to put it on the blog. Yesterday, at the small reading group, this question came up again, and after thinking it over I decided to post it after all, since it is ultimately a question about the basic orientation of philosophy. Byzantines Should Regard Themselves as Romans As a student of Wu, my philosophical position is of course inclined toward continental phenomenology, but in fact I am not very willing to call myself a phenomenologist or a continental philosopher. It is much like how, after the division of the Eastern and Western…
philosophy scholarship philosophy of science media
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2019年4月20日
The Self-Realization of Technology (Outline)

AI & the Future of Technology2016.04.18
The Self-Realization of Technology (Outline)
This year I’m definitely going to attend the phenomenology and philosophy of technology conference as well. This time I’m planning to ride the wave of fashion and write an article on artificial intelligence. I haven’t quite settled on the title yet—maybe I’ll call it “The Self-Realization of Technology—A Phenomenological Reflection on Artificial Intelligence”? The “self-realization” of technology somewhat echoes KK’s idea of “what technology wants”: people want self-realization, and so does technology. And “artificial intelligence” is precisely the process and result of this realization. My concern with artificial intelligence is obviously different from the philosophy-of-AI perspective usually discussed by analytic philosophers (though I will also try to touch on some…
technology media phenomenology AI
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2016年4月18日
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt

Life & Notes2012.06.04
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
On this special day today, I served as a Party introducer for the first time and signed the recommendation statement. Why am I not only willing to join the Party, but also willing to recommend others to join? I need to explain. Indeed, this is not only something I am willing to explain, but something I must explain. I joined the Party when I was in high school; if I had not joined then, I would probably be too lazy to apply now. But I would never simply attribute that decision to youthful ignorance. Certainly, as I have grown older, my life plan has changed enormously: from initially wanting to…
China history autobiography tradition
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2012年6月4日
Do the People Have the Right to Be Ignorant? — With a Discussion of Enlightenment and Unconcealment

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2012.05.14
Do the People Have the Right to Be Ignorant? — With a Discussion of Enlightenment and Unconcealment
People have the right to stupidity—this is Tian Song’s claim: “The people have the right to stupidity; if they are deprived of the right to stupidity, they will only have the right to be made stupid. The key question is: who has the authority to draw the line between civilization and stupidity?” Back then (almost six years ago now—terrifying), I already had reservations about this, though I did not discuss it in detail. Yesterday Jing Qi raised this claim again, and recently I have also been paying attention to pedagogical questions, so this is a good moment to talk through my thoughts. First of all, Teacher Tian, including Teacher Liu,…
China science freedom education
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2012年5月14日
Winter Break Essay V: Love, or the Search for Certainty

Philosophy & Thought2010.02.12
Winter Break Essay V: Love, or the Search for Certainty
Philosophy, or “love of wisdom,” is fundamentally an activity of love. I have always said that love is like philosophy, and philosophy is like love; related remarks can be found in the blog folder “谈情——说爱.” I also once wrote “Philosophical Style and Attitudes Toward Love,” in which I crudely mapped various philosophical styles across ancient and modern times onto various attitudes toward love. This was not some offhand joke of mine, The resemblance between philosophy and love is by no means merely a literary analogy; rather, it means that these two activities share something in certain fundamental senses. A culture, or a thinker, who has a certain philosophy will also…
philosophy pursuit Plato love
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2010年2月12日
My philosophy lacks healing power

Life & Notes2009.04.02
My philosophy lacks healing power
What can either I or my philosophy say to those who are mired in hardship? Of course, although my philosophy leans toward “black magic,” it is not incapable of providing positive force. But to be precise, what philosophy can provide is a certain immunity or resistance, so that once I encounter a difficult situation, I will be more likely to face it with calm, composure, or humor. Yet I know very well that it is not an effective cure, let alone an all-purpose tonic that can cure every illness. It is like getting a vaccination: only when you are in good health, or when the disease has not yet broken…
philosophy autobiography love fate
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2009年4月2日
On “Fate”

Life & Notes2009.03.25
On “Fate”
As I mentioned earlier, I feel as though I am being teased kindly by “fate,” and I may have used similar rhetoric in earlier essays as well. Well, this is similar to my saying things like “the ghost of Kant is poking me from behind” — it is simply a metaphorical way of expressing a “feeling,” and does not mean that I believe in “fate”; nor, of course, does it mean that I do not believe in fate. For an ill-defined concept, making an yes/no judgment about it is always pretty meaningless. First of all, I would like to declare that, with regard to the transcendental world of deities, I…
philosophy autobiography consciousness choice
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2009年3月25日
Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unconventional Introductory Book on Ethics

Philosophy & Thought2008.11.02
Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unconventional Introductory Book on Ethics
This is an article written for submission. Although this was the first time I ever submitted anything truly of my own free will and initiative (see https://yilinhut.net/2008/09/21/2750.html), it was still awkwardly written. And because no word limit had been agreed on, it is obviously too long; if it were published in some other medium, it would certainly be excerpted, and that would depend on the editor’s deft touch. Whether it is published or not, I am posting the original text on the blog; please do not repost it before the final version appears. Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unusual Introductory Reader on Ethics Gu Chi With the bestseller…
philosophy book reading freedom book review
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2008年11月2日