Suixuan

标签：pursuit

  • Winter Break Essay V: Love, or the Search for Certainty

    Winter Break Essay V: Love, or the Search for Certainty
    Philosophy & Thought

    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…

    philosophypursuitPlatolove
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  • Philosophical Style and Attitudes Toward Love

    Life & Notes

    Philosophical Style and Attitudes Toward Love

    I always say that my philosophy “starts from the classical,” specifically, more or less from Kant and those around him. But that is only an external explanation; as for what this “classical” actually contains, I have my own understanding. In my view, so-called “classical philosophy” represents a style and an attitude, one marked by an entire era. Roughly speaking, the history of Western philosophy can be divided into four eras: antiquity (ancient Greece), the Middle Ages, the classical period, and modernity.—Of course, my “classical” here is classical rather than ancient, the sense of “canonical.” A rougher division would be simply classical and modern; a finer one could add primordial times…

    philosophyautobiographypursuitGreece
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  • On Women Philosophers and the Top-Bottom Dichotomy

    Philosophy & Thought

    On Women Philosophers and the Top-Bottom Dichotomy

    Here are some of the things I was forced to say in my comments after “I Won’t Date in a Café”; since I’ve written them down, they’re now black on white, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Given that this is no small topic, I’m setting aside a new post here for the archive. Later, my classmate Chern, who is even more evil than I am, said that mine was a “female philosopher cultivation plan.” That’s an interesting title, but it’s too liable to cause misunderstanding. My conspiracy is extremely complex: it is neither to seduce mm, nor to cultivate female philosophers, nor even to find an mm…

    philosophyculturediscussionpursuit
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  • What Is Questioning? — On the Search for Possibility, Again

    Philosophy & Thought

    What Is Questioning? — On the Search for Possibility, Again

    We often say that the core of philosophy is “questions,” and that philosophy’s mission is “to ask,” and so on, but what sort of activity is philosophical questioning, exactly? A question like “What’s for dinner tonight?” does not seem to be philosophy’s concern, so what, precisely, is philosophical questioning? I have touched on related topics in earlier essays. This article may not offer much that is new; perhaps it is just a review or a summary. First, people often talk about so-called “problem consciousness.” This term is used far too loosely, but what does it actually mean? In some places it is simply used as if it were identical with…

    philosophyfreedompursuitreason
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  • Philosophy and Nudity

    Philosophy & Thought

    Philosophy and Nudity

    Heaven knows why, amid the pressure of several entirely muddled papers, I still have the mind to write so many essays. But there’s nothing to be done: when you need to let it out, holding it in is miserable. Once I finish this one, this round of catharsis can come to an end. That is to say, from “From Fisherman to Pirate” on to this piece, one could say that a series has taken shape, and that it can be understood as the final complaints before setting sail. From here on out…… whew—anyway, I’m no longer sitting and waiting in the palace. This piece has been given a rather eye-catching…

    philosophyChinaphenomenologypursuit
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  • Draft Program for an Old-School Philosophy

    Life & Notes

    Draft Program for an Old-School Philosophy

    If I were recruiting a crew, of course I would need to explain what sort of style and route this ship more or less has. When it comes to a program, it is actually a rather ambiguous thing: it is either too general or too specific. It can be condensed to a single character, “love” or “I”; to two characters, “freedom” or “seeking”; to three, “play games” or “possibility”; to four, “preserve sameness while seeking difference” or “strive for excellence”; to five, “know yourself” or “that old bear of a mother-in-law,” and so on. Any of these could be posted as a slogan at the entrance to Suixuan. Of course,…

    philosophyscholarshipautobiographydiscussion
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  • The Labyrinth of Concepts

    Philosophy & Thought

    The Labyrinth of Concepts

    Concepts are like a labyrinth, language like a dense forest, and one can get so deeply lost in them as to be unable to extricate oneself. Zen says: the sea of suffering is boundless, but turn back and there is the shore; lay down attachment, and at once you can transcend. This may well be true. But why do I still remain stubbornly deluded? Because the labyrinth is a game. When you are playing a labyrinth game, isn’t your goal to get out of the labyrinth? Then you can obviously get out at any time—just lift yourself to a higher dimension and step outside. Why must you so obediently struggle…

    philosophypursuitlanguagetoys
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  • 【This event has ended】[Paused][Unpinned][Pinned 3] Seeking mm~【This event has ended】

    【This event has ended】[Paused][Unpinned][Pinned 3] Seeking mm~【This event has ended】
    Life & Notes

    【This event has ended】[Paused][Unpinned][Pinned 3] Seeking mm~【This event has ended】

    一、Announcement 1.  Male. Born in ’85. Philosophy of science and technology at Peking University. Suixuan Gucha. Born in Shanghai, settled in Beijing. I love wisdom, books, and cartoons. 2.  Seeking one mm. 3.  No conditions, no requirements (except those conditions that are analytically included within the ordinary understanding of the concept mm). 4.  This post will remain in force until the blog entry is closed. 5.  Reposting and circulation are welcome, but only this announcement section may be reposted, with the source indicated as EPR.ycool.com. 6.  Aside from interested parties or people interested in introducing someone to me, I will not report related progress to any other friends. 7.  Contact…

    philosophyculturefreedomautobiography
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  • The Joy of “Dissatisfaction”

    Philosophy & Thought

    The Joy of “Dissatisfaction”

    In my philosophy, “love” is an extremely central concept. A detailed exposition of this concept has not yet been worked out; but to give a preliminary indication, one may say that before we get to the level of “overflow” and “outpouring,” that is, before speaking of “giving” or “offering oneself,” the most primitive and basic meaning of “love” is after all “desire” and “need,” and its root is “dissatisfaction.” What I want to talk about here is precisely this “dissatisfaction.” People usually regard “dissatisfaction” as a bad state, associating it with pain and resentment; correspondingly, “satisfaction” is seen as a good state, associated with comfort and happiness. Yet I say:…

    philosophypursuitemotionlove
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  • Why “ideals” cannot be crushed by “reality”

    Life & Notes

    Why “ideals” cannot be crushed by “reality”

    (This article is chaotic; not recommended reading.) We often see people who are so-called “idealists” — university students, for example — who, after they “step into society,” are struck by all the cruelty of “reality,” eventually give up their “ideals,” throw themselves into the embrace of “reality,” and become yet another “petty bourgeois.” We then say that an idealist has become realistic? But what does that mean? What exactly is idealism? And what is it that drives them to “become realistic”? The issue I mentioned last time in the 08 undergraduate freshmen group is precisely this. The previous article did not finish it, so let me start over. Speaking of…

    philosophyautobiographyknowledgepursuit
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