As the unity of death and conscience, the first decision stands in temporality, which arises from the inaction of nothingness and the self-timeization of nothingness. Thus, the indifference of nothingness in the world is first of all the openness of this being, then the whole of the world, and finally the originality of "existence in the world." In this sense, "existing on earth" can be grasped as "in existence without existence."
■ | Peng Fuchun
The general understanding of the instrumentality of the road has also led to the scientific understanding of the road as a method. In modern science, the status and role of the method has been unusually strengthened. The method is no longer just at the service of science, but in turn, science serves the method. This is what Nietzsche called the triumph of the scientific method over science itself. In science, subject matter is set by method. But this method is a veil and forgetting of the nature of the road.
Heidegger points out that while methods are related to scientific equipment and tools, the former is more primitive than the latter. This is because the method originates from the road. In etymology, the Western way is to follow the path and embark on the road. This method is not a specific research procedure of human design, but a path that arises from the manifestation of things as they are. The former distorts and harms the nature of things, while the latter reveals things as things themselves. Methods are subordinate to the path, and the present method is only a branch of the path.
Unlike the instrumental, methodological view of the way, Heidegger's understanding of the way is primordial. The path as the original is the movement that opens the way for itself. It is the original giver and founder of the road. The path is not a ready-made object before man, waiting for people to walk, nor is it a man who comes out, it is the footprint of man's random walking, but the road makes man reach something that concerns them and summons them. In this sense, the path operates on its own. The road is the road that drives everything. The road thus understood belongs to the zone. This area is not an ordinary zone, but a zone of forest clearings. This zone, which is both manifest and obscured, is the push, where the road itself arises.
If Heidegger's thought appears not only as a path, but as a reflection on the meaning of the path itself, how can the relationship between the path and the subject of Heidegger's thought be understood?
It is generally believed that the theme of Heidegger's thought is to think about the truth of existence or the existence of truth. This manifested itself as a different problem at different times. In the early stages it is to question the meaning of existence, in the middle is to question the nature of truth, and in the late period it is to question the locality of the clearings in the forest. This doesn't seem to be directly related to roads and roads, but in fact they all relate to roads and roads.
The theme of the first stage of thought is the rejection of the world. Here, survival has the meaning of the road. Although Heidegger's motivation was to inquire about the meaning of existence in general, he did not proceed from the existence of a general being, but from the existence of a particular being, that is, the existence of man, to reveal the meaning of existence. This lies in the fact that man, as a special being, distinguishes himself from what is in front of his hand and what he has in his hand, and is a being who can understand his own existence, and lives as a "living being." Heidegger named man's existence this being, that is, the existence standing in truth, that is, in the clearing in the woods.
Man's existence is his existence in the world, and the nature of his existence is survival. Survival is a standing existence, like a road running. And existence in the world is also the openness of this existence, which is manifested as the cosmopolitanization of the world. The cosmopolitanization of the world means that the world is not an entity and an object, but a path, that is, the world itself. The pattern of this composition of existence in the world is first of all the mood, followed by understanding, and then the sinking. It is in the state of understanding, in the experience of fear in the world as a whole, that the meaning of existence, i.e., the indifference, reveals itself. Likewise, as nothingness, the wholeness and non-wholeness of the world tend to become clear, and this is by virtue of which it unifies the mood, understanding, and sinking.
In existence towards death, the existence of this being fulfills the provisions of its originality, because death is its own, unrelated, and insurmountable possibility. This as a possibility of existence is proved by conscience. As the unity of death and conscience, the first decision stands in temporality, which arises from the inaction of nothingness and the self-timeization of nothingness. Thus, the indifference of nothingness in the world is first of all the openness of this being, then the whole of the world, and finally the originality of "existence in the world." In this sense, "existing on earth" can be grasped as "in existence without existence." #大道哲学 #
The author is a professor of philosophy at Wuhan University, and is the author of a series of academic monographs "Five Books of Guoxue" ("On Guoxue", "On Laozi", "On Confucius", "On Huineng", "On Confucianism and Taoism", all published and distributed by the People's Publishing House). This article is excerpted from "Heidegger and Lao Tzu on the Tao", and the title is added by the editor.