Chapter 10 My Whispers——Zhang Zhiyang's "The Gate" and the Way of Contemporary Chinese Philosophy

one Nine years ago, when I was taking a master's course at Peking University, a professor pointed to an article by Zhang Zhiyang and said to me angrily: What kind of writing style is this?Incomprehensible, inexplicable! Such criticism is not unique among people who "engage" in philosophy or professors of philosophy in mainland China.They have been used to a unique language mode and related way of thinking in the Chinese mainland register for forty years. The act of love for wisdom—named "philosophy"—has two forms since ancient times: Platonic and Aristotelian; the former expresses the nature of the mind in individual speech, and the latter expresses the knowledge of speech.Today's philosophical philology has its foundations laid by Aristotle's rhetoric.Chinese academic language has the tradition of Confucianism's philosophy of mind and Confucianism, as well as the way of Taoism and interpretation.

Zhang Zhiyang's philosophical language full of personality and penetrating power belongs to the way of expressing mind and nature, and has obvious traces of Hegel and Heidegger's language.Such metaphysical language will encounter difficulties in understanding in the era of pan-scientific or philosophical linguistics.For some professors of German philosophy, the philosophical expressions of Adorno, Bloch, and Heidegger have the same fate. Zhang Zhiyang's philosophical language also encountered a special reaction in the continental register of Chinese philosophy: it is not only difficult to understand, but also irritating. What is the reason?

In the past 40 years, there has been a pattern of language in the continental register of Chinese philosophy—of course, a revolution of thinking patterns first.The pure mind and pure academic philosophical discourse was labeled as a class and eliminated, and replaced by a philosophical discourse tentatively called "editorial". The "editorial" style has successfully subverted the traditional free language patterns in the continental Chinese domain and then monopolized the entire register. It has gradually generalized (full power) in the Chinese language domain. The editorial voice of philosophical discourse is just this One of the generalized speech fields.As the history of contemporary discourse that has taken place shows, even the most personal form of discourse, such as lyric poetry, has been "editorial" in voice.

The voice of "editorial" is a kind of morality—power appeal.This specific form of utterance is more restrictive than its denotative content—moral power itself.The fact that supports this judgment is that among some literati and scholars who have dispelled the concept of morality-power appeal to varying degrees, the voice mode of "editorial" (expressed in certain selected words and sentences) is still different to varying degrees. alive. Although the register of contemporary European philosophy has become intellectualized and philologicalized, and the rejection of Xinxingyu by colleges has almost been institutionalized, this exclusion does not have moral power.Mental language has its own domain of speech, and in the field of French philosophy, it even occupies a place in the academy.

Zhang Zhiyang's philosophical language is contrary to the "editorial" language that has been used for more than 40 years and the academic language that is gradually revived in the Chinese mainland register. Some people find it difficult or even annoyed to understand this, and there is another more The far-reaching reason, as far as the way of speaking and thinking is concerned, its long history is not comparable to the "editorial" style. two The act of loving wisdom (philosophical thinking—philosophical words) is an intellectual discourse activity, and wisdom and knowledge are inseparable from the beginning.This knowing is meaningful knowing, not technical knowing. "Shuowen" interprets "philosophy" as: knowing, from the mouth or from the heart, the origin of mind, speech, and knowledge is unified as "philosophy".

In the original unity of "philosophy" there is an unresolved tension: the tension between body and mind and knowledge.Philosophy's intellectual discourse comes from the mind and body, but it may damage the health of mind and body.This does not mean "bad words come out of your mouth" - Socrates free speech, was forced to commit suicide by drinking doves.Damage to physical and mental health here mainly does not mean damage to the speaker philosopher's own body and mind, but to other people's body and mind.The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca (Seneca) quoted Lukrez in a letter letter, involving this issue: Postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt; simplex enim illa et aperta virtus in obscuram et solertem scientiam versa est docemur que disputare, non vivere. Epist． 95, 13 (Since there have been scholars, there have been no good people, and the old simple and free virtue has become a vague and difficult knowledge, from which we can at most learn to argue, but we cannot learn to live.

There is something powerful about intellectual discourse—Foucault says a lot about that.In fact, if the discourse constructed by philosophers is only for their own enjoyment, or for philosophers to appreciate, debate and chat with each other, it will not be so intrusive.The problem is that the creation of knowledge is also sold. As recorded in Plato's "Protagoras", Socrates and his young friend Hippokrates talked about the sale of knowledge when Sophistes (the old translation of the wise man, actually refers to the expert) gave lectures. H asked Su: What nourishes the soul?Socrates replied: *********** (knowledge, learning).But Socrates is not referring here to the kind of knowledge taught by Sophistes.On the contrary, Socrates attacks those vendors who seem to sell food, no matter what food they sell, they always boast that food is good for the body.In fact, these vendors don't know whether the food they sell is harmful to the body or beneficial to the body, just as the Sophistes don't know whether the knowledge they sell is harmful to the soul or beneficial to the soul, and the buyers certainly don't know either. (Protagoras, 313 ce)

What Socrates wants to explain is: philosophical thinking and philosophical words are first and foremost concerned with individual self-understanding and world understanding, which is called the source of the soul.Then there is the self-understanding of inter-individuals, the understanding of the world is only formed in the self-understanding of the individual, and philosophical thinking-philosophizing is originally individual generative. The individual's self-understanding and world-understanding appear in speech acts as the speech generation of I--the murmuring of I-am.No matter how many great words Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger have said, how many words have been constructed, their utterances are originally individual.The murmur of I am generated as an individual speech is more original than philosophical discourse, so it is an ontological determination.When the ontological structure of the speech generation of the self is destroyed, the speech generation of the self is out of place in the philosophical discourse activities.The basic discourse change in the 40 years of mainland Chinese philosophy erroneous domain is the dislocation of self in utterance, the source of which is that the status of individual self is erased by historical rationality in concept and banned by social transformation in reality.

Zhang Zhiyang deeply felt the dislocation of my words in contemporary Chinese studies. He said in the preface of a book: "I said", not to mention the trembling before I said it-it was really a kind of trembling:' I'm going to say it', 'Can I say it', 'Why should I say it'... Until I rushed out, I still said it with resistance and listened in fear at the same time. "(page 1) The embarrassment and panic of "I said" proves the degree to which the natural structure of individual speech is destroyed.I once briefly explained the process of this destruction: the moral deprivation of my presence by the plenipotentiary discourse.But another kind of retrospective dispossession predates the discourse of power.

three The social structure of modern China has gone out of order several times, and quite a few philosophers have therefore turned to social philosophy, social thought, or historical thought; this shift is accompanied by a shift in the discourse structure: from the position of the individual to the position of the nation or the state. There are historical reasons for the repeated shifting of modern Chinese philosophy: the sense of national crisis that started in the late Qing Dynasty is still a cloud over the register of Chinese philosophy. But the national crisis itself does not constitute the decisive factor for the dislocation of individual speech in the philosophical register.In the history of European philosophy, it is not uncommon to see philosophers who still murmur their existence amid national crises.Whispering me is not unique in modern Chinese philosophy, although it is quite slow in the progress and breadth of the way of speaking.The loss of individual speech in modern Chinese philosophy is not indicated by the number of murmurers, and the cause of the loss is not determined by the national crisis itself, but by the moral requirements of the individual from the national concept in the Chinese tradition of thought. dictated and determined.The deprivation of individual ideas by national ideas is even immersed in the whispers of self in ancient philosophy.However, after all, it conceptually restricts individual speech, not to mention the self-forward registers set up by Confucianism's mind-learning speech, Taoist's non-learning speech, and Buddhism's emptiness to maintain individual speech.The contemporary register is socially institutionalized and ideologically restricts individual speech.

The dislocation of individual speech is transformed into national or national speech, and whether it is harmful or beneficial to the physical and mental health of others to speak for the nation and the country has not been specifically examined as social speech. Political and social topics occupy the main topics of modern Chinese philosophy. Even the statements of some traditional philosophical topics often imply the intention of prescribing ethnic political issues.But the ideological experience of the 20th century is: to establish a special language structure and way of speaking for social-political discourse, and its norms are value-neutral, belief-neutral, and arguable-falsifiable.The formation of sociological discourse separates socio-political issues from the formation of traditional philosophical discourse.Although the complete separation of philosophy and sociology is still pending, whether sociological discourse can really achieve complete value neutrality—the advocate Weber himself has not completely achieved it, and whether it can be completely free of individual factors is still under review. But the form of sociological discourse has basically formed a norm. In the discourse of modern Chinese philosophy, the separation of social discourse and individual discourse should not be completed.The moral deprivation of individual ideas by national ideas is still an unconscious emotion. Zhang Zhiyang's philosophical utterances are purely the murmuring of the individual self, and the attribute of the self in individual utterances is extremely obvious.Philosophy here decides to return to the place where I am, and to find the place of individuality in philosophical discourse. Returning to what I am saying, I am not about whether to abandon political discourse, but according to the requirements of social science, political discourse must be another language and way of speaking that is different from philosophy. Four Cicero once claimed: Errare, mehercule, malo cum Platone, quam cum isti: vera sentire. Disput. I, 17, 39 (I would rather err with Plato than with that gang [referring to Pythagoras] Believers] are correct together.) This prophecy shows the extreme individuality and self-attribute of philosophical statements.Its pertinence is limited to the domain of individual discourse and cannot be extended to social discourse.One of the substantive differences between the two statements is that the former has no right or wrong, while the latter involves right or wrong assertions.After all, philosophy is an expression of belief and the generation of words of mind. After reading "Being and Time", Scheler said: Heidegger's philosophy is the philosophy of everyday life, and my philosophy is the philosophy of Sunday, which casts light on ordinary days.In this regard, Heidegger might say that without ordinary days, there is no coming of Sunday. The differences revealed here do not involve right and wrong, but differences in heart and temperament.As Scheler said: Heidegger is close to the Greek wise men, and he himself is close to the Hebrew prophets. After social discourse has been separated from philosophy, the philological aspect of philosophical discourse remains necessary.Individual discourse directed at self-understanding and inter-individual mutual self-understanding requires the help of philological analysis to promote comprehension. To point out the individual nature of philosophical discourse is not to testify to relativism.Truth is not the property of the speaker, but the other locality to which individual utterances tend in utterance.In it is really the leaning of individuality. Fives Finding the self-existence of individuality is inevitably an ontological struggle in the register of contemporary Chinese philosophy.Zhang Zhiyang is not only aware of the deletion of individual existence by national ideas in Chinese thought, but also feels the deletion of the ontological claim of individual existence by "Chinese and Western cultures" used as ideas in contemporary Chinese philosophy.He had to "find a realistic foothold in the gap between the two major cultural barriers between China and the West, that is, personal authenticity and its limits."The question is: who made him "have to". The dualistic landscape of Chinese and Western cultures has been a tightrope of Chinese philosophy for hundreds of years.Although the philosophical speech that binds this rope is subject to the moral oppression of national ideas, it is the speaker who restrains himself after all.The dual landscape of Chinese and Western cultures does not constitute a decisive obstacle for philosophical discourse to return to self.The way of philosophical discourse returns to the ontology of self, and this rope will untie itself. Finding the reason why I am "is almost a paradoxical problem of existence" in the way of philosophy, the ultimate evidence provided by Zhang Zhiyang is: literature and meaning understood metaphysically-books deprive Dasein. "Every time I open a book, I always find that the meaning floats above the words, just like the book floats above life, just like life floats above me. I am tired of floating and want to grasp life, but What I grasped was the books, but the meaning, but the words, and as a result, I was still naked and unconcerned.” (p. 20) “The two major cultural barriers between China and the West” are nothing but a Kafkaesque piled up of books castle.In the "book" that is understood and used metaphysically, Zhang Zhiyang sees the demand for self-existence that he thought was insufficiently grounded——"book" is the messenger of God's vanity.God said, "You must".So the book turns "you must" into "I should". (page 19) In this way of speaking, what is interesting is how Zhang Zhiyang describes the ontology of Zain.His description is very succinct, and I am incomplete: "I, in the final analysis, am incomplete" (p. 3); ". (page 3) But the incompleteness is only the sign that I exist.The ontological identity of me is ultimately verified or confirmed by nothingness.I am, it is nothingness, "the nothingness is the attribute of becoming". (p. 34) If people have not forgotten the above-mentioned I am in tension with meaning—the ontology of words, Zhang Zhiyang’s following interrogation provides an explanation for this opposition: “‘Nothing’, why is it not a problem? Why not Enter language? The negation of it by artificial language or ideal language is only the self-negation of artificial language or ideal language, thus showing the existence of it - 'nothing'" (p. 35) In view of this, it is understandable that Zhang Zhiyang’s philosophical attacks on the phenomenology of existential interpretation focus on the falsity of existence.The falsity of existence is to conceal, evade, evade (it is the same thing anyway) the nothingness of my being or the nothingness of my being—that is, self-deception.Self-deception is the result of being "forced to become self-aware" by meaning-words covering up and covering up the nihility of self-existence.In the second part of the book, Zhang Zhiyang provides many wonderful phenomenological analysis cases. The nihility-falseness of individuality constitutes the basic concept of Zhang Zhiyang's philosophical discourse, and his philosophical discourse is firmly heading towards the ontological confirmation of the nihility of my existence.It is said that philosophical discourse should "take on the mission of nothingness", which is his philosophical belief.The philosophic mission thus deduced is: to reveal—to contend with self-deception—the nothingness, because “without the revelation of nothingness by language and thought, existing and full existence would not even find a place for the transcendence of action.” Here we go.” (p. 284) The nature of mind presented in this philosophical landscape appears quite tense.The ontological structure of individual xinxing is described as the conflict field of "inner emptiness and outer transcendence", which is his "starting point and destination to strive for". (page 87) The philosopher describes himself as "a man without a door."What is a "door"? The "door" is the "interface between existence and nothingness". (p. 282) Because existence is nothingness, and nothingness is existence, "doors" are like props on the stage, whether they are entered or not are on the same ground. six Positioning the ontology of me as nothingness, ancient and modern have the same way.Democritus said: Me Mallon to dene to mederi einai. Diels, 156 (The existence of nothing is like the existence of me.) In modern existential philosophy, such regulations have also been encountered.The affirmation of the incompleteness of the self is also a point of reference for many traditions of thought: the Greek tradition of thought called the finitude of man, and Christianity adopted a concept of sin that has been misinterpreted and interpreted inappropriately.In Buddhism and Taoism, we can also see the recognition of the incompleteness and even nothingness of the self. The difference lies in: how to arrange the incompleteness and nothingness in me.In Zhang Zhiyang's philosophy, everything related to "fulfillment" that can fill incompleteness and emptiness is firmly rejected by me as nothingness, whether it is ideas, spirit, God, or love or warmth.He wants to cling to incompleteness or nothingness, because "incompleteness is an opening to infinity without center and time, and it doesn't know what perfection is at all." (p. 4) It is worth asking: what is meant by this so-called "opening without center and time"? What is the relationship between "incomplete" and "open"?The words are unclear. Why refuse to be perfect?Zhang Zhiyang gave two fundamental reasons, one is negative and the other is positive.The negative argument is: "Perfection, like God, is a kind of self-compensation, or rather self-deception, for man's own imperfections and temporalities. . p. 101); the affirmative argument is: "The negative power of nothingness itself has the meaning of becoming, nothingness is becoming, and vice versa, what is becoming is nothingness" (p. 35); It is the source or basis of the generation of meaning to show the power of nothingness or to show its nothingness in front of a huge existence. (page 72) The term "nothingness" is used in Western philosophy in three senses: ontological (nothing), logical (nothing) and existential (nothingness).Zhang Zhiyang's usage belongs to the latter type, which is a description of an individual feeling of existence. The revelation of emptiness by philosophical thinking and philosophical words is not only a phenomenological analysis of self-deception in existence (see the next articles of this book), but also an attack on all existing philosophical mysteries that attempt to cover up emptiness in Zhang Zhiyang’s view ( See previous articles in this book).The philosopher sees this as an attack on the "ontological wreckage".In the interpretation of existing philosophies, the nihility of I am presented as [Niu Di] 牾 (German so-called Widerstand. Anyone who wants to know what Gadamer or Heidegger said about art, it seems that It is not appropriate to read Zhang Zhiyang's interpretation, just as to know Nietzsche, it is not appropriate to listen to Heidegger's "Nietzsche Lectures" first, where you will only hear Heidegger's own thoughts. If Zhang Zhiyang has not forgotten the ontological tension between the existence of the individual and the meaning of words (books, doctrines) affirmed by Zhang Zhiyang, his philosophical attack will appear suspicious, and its suspiciousness even affects his ontological stipulation of self-existence and the mission of philosophy Provisions.The trouble lies mainly in this: the existence of individuality employs the same means—words—meaning, to the ontological wreckage [Niu Di] 牾.The nothingness I am in is posited and given meaning by the philosophy of nothingness, and this philosophy may also contain "ontological wreckage". At the very least, nihilistic entities often borrow wreckage from the history of thought in their resistance to ideas, reason, meaning, or doctrine.For example, the [Niu Di] theory of God—"God's absoluteness and holiness is a disguised transfer of man's finiteness and impurity" (p. 252) is adopted by Feuerbach and Marx's paraphrase. And the compensation-innuendo theory modified by Freud, the author did not dismiss it because it is only a theory, but cited it as an argument. (see page 101) From this point of view, the ontological relationship between individual existence and philosophical discourse, which has been a problem since Socrates—Socrates was apprehensive about "I say"—has not been resolved yet. seven The philosopher Arendt fell in love with Heidegger when she was a graduate student.Heidegger's thoughts and words are very individual and powerful, and Arendt's intentions cannot resist his attraction.Heidegger also feels a desirable sexual fit in Arendt, especially the philosophical melancholy that often accompanies her sense of death.Arendt had to change schools in order to complete her doctoral dissertation, but she thought (of course she hoped) that Heidegger would abandon his wife and run away with her, based on the fact that she saw that the essence of Heidegger's philosophy was romanticism. Arendt had a keen sense of philosophy - and her philosophies testify to it.In love, she made a mistake in judgment, and the existence of Dasein confused her philosophical thinking once.Heidegger is a Catholic, and at the train station that Arendt intended, Heidegger did not appear in front of her with a bookcase. Philosophical utterances are not always consistent with the self-existence of the narrator, and the same is true for literary utterances.Written by Camus, the whole mind is an insider. Since the differentiation of professions in modern society, philosophy has also become a profession. This will probably eventually become a historical philosophical trouble.The existential positioning of philosophical thinking and philosophical words is even more difficult, because the professionalism of philosophy is contradictory to the individuality of existence.The question may be asked: what exactly does the philosopher live in?Do philosophers regain or lose me in their own generation of speech?What can be further asked is, what does philosophical discourse fall into, what does philosophical thinking—philosophical discourse live in, and why do this thinking and speaking live? Contemporary Chinese philosophy has forgotten or never remembered that philosophical discourse reaches a desirable sexual fit, especially the philosophical melancholy that often accompanies her with a sense of death.Arendt had to change schools in order to complete her doctoral dissertation, but she thought (of course she hoped) that Heidegger would abandon his wife and run away with her, based on the fact that she saw that the essence of Heidegger's philosophy was romanticism. Arendt had a keen sense of philosophy - and her philosophies testify to it.In love, she made a mistake in judgment, and the existence of Dasein confused her philosophical thinking once.Heidegger is a Catholic, and at the train station that Arendt intended, Heidegger did not appear in front of her with a bookcase. Philosophical utterances are not always consistent with the self-existence of the narrator, and the same is true for literary utterances.Written by Camus, the whole mind is an insider. Since the differentiation of professions in modern society, philosophy has also become a profession. This will probably eventually become a historical philosophical trouble.The existential positioning of philosophical thinking and philosophical words is even more difficult, because the professionalism of philosophy is contradictory to the individuality of existence.The question may be asked: what exactly does the philosopher live in?Do philosophers regain or lose me in their own generation of speech?What can be further asked is, what does philosophical discourse fall into, what does philosophical thinking—philosophical discourse live in, and why do this thinking and speaking live? Contemporary Chinese philosophy has forgotten or never remembered the inherent requirement of self-understanding in philosophical discourse, and philosophical discourse has been led by two major doctrines—cultural nationalism and historical rationalism—to the grand theory of self-forgetfulness.If there is no internal turn in the philosophy of Chinese, it will only stay on the path of repeating Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida. It may be just as bad if the internal turn of philosophical discourse is understood as a transformation into a discourse of life philosophy or existential philosophy.Because that would only be a shift in form, not a shift in substance. It is not impossible for the inner turn of Chinese philosophical discourse, at least in Zhang Zhiyang’s philosophical discourse, this turn has already taken place, although the whisper to me may still be another whisper, and, as far as the turn is concerned, the philosophy’s The mission is to reveal nothingness, which is still not enough—although Zhang Zhiyang's philosophy has completed this process: revealing the nothingness of contemporary Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophy deserves to review Socrates' intentions and restore purely academic norms of speech.Otherwise, it may not be able to bear the challenge of Wittgenstein's job as a flower worker, nor the temptation of Kundera's narration: Throw away the schoolbag, let all the natural sciences and humanities fall on the ground, so that they can use their free arms To hug him (her) - "living elsewhere". Basel, July 1992