Two months ago, "Migrant Workers Translating Heidegger" attracted a lot of attention, and then gradually subsided. But one aspect that rarely gets attention in this discussion is the philosophy and Heidegger that Chen Zhi reads.
What exactly did he think of Heidegger? How does he see philosophy and where he is? This time, Li Houchen, an ideal columnist who has long been concerned about philosophical topics, invited Chen Zhi to conduct an in-depth discussion on these topics.
We have chosen to present this conversation as completely as possible, even though it is nine thousand words long and takes a lot of time and patience to read, but we invite you to enter this dialogue, to enter the sincere world of these two people, their discussions about philosophy, about ourselves, about people and the world.
Text | Li Houchen x Chen Zhi
Write on the front
Chen Zhi's reading of Heidegger has aroused concern and controversy for a month, during which time people are concerned about his life and survival, concerned about his interpersonal relationships, concerned about a "spiritual pursuit" based on the concept of "philosophy" as a whole, and arguing about the value of this pursuit.
From the concepts of "migrant worker" and "Heidegger", two concepts of temperament and pointing that are far apart, we naturally feel a contradiction, which represents a depth of excavation, and we either imagine a "spiritual kingdom" or imagine the "cost" of this pursuit.
But there is another important excavation here. Just think, if we have not yet examined the "Heidegger philosophy" studied by Chen Zhi in this topic, have we missed the truly substantive part? Since there is no grand", "spiritual pursuit", philosophy and Heidegger's philosophy are concrete here, so the real depth of this topic I think goes deep into the concrete "Heidegger philosophy".
"The Kid King"
Ideologically, Heidegger can bring direct contemplation to the plight of most of us today. Because today our problem is to not understand. We actively understand the problems of life from theory and reflection, we criticize consumption, we criticize entertainment, we criticize various ideologies, we criticize the culture of the Internet, and we criticize certain attitudes and methods of other people towards us.
When we make these critiques, we withdraw from the outside, watch the appraisal from the outside like a bystander, and give names and understandings to the "nature (essence)" of people and things, such as the "inner volume" of competition, the "PUA" in relationships. But back in life, most problems are "dead ends", and in addition to passive avoidance and abandonment, it is difficult to have a positive way to change.
That is to say, we cannot conceive of a "self-contained" thinking, and we are skilled in giving the object of our observation a "negative character." In Heidegger's view, the problem lies in perspective and thinking, namely, "forgetting existence (forgetting the actual life and existence that is continuously continued in concrete terms), remembering only the being (grasping the "nature" in the way of static observation). ”
This line of thinking was inherited by the "existentialism" that later learned from him and may be more familiar to everyone, the so-called "existence before essence". For existentialism represented by Sartre, understanding man's "state of existence (nothingness, freedom, and responsibility)" takes precedence over understanding the "nature (essence)" of actual human things, and if existentialism has inspired you, then one of its sources, Heidegger's philosophy, will only give you more.
From Heidegger's (hereinafter referred to as "Hays"), a thought is inseparable from the life of the bearer of this thought, the concrete thinker. That is to say, the thought of life is not mathematics and physics, and whoever thinks must go to the same truth. The thought of life will be concretely presented in different forms of life, and the concreteness and connection between this thought and our life is precisely what we lack.
Since we have already learned something about Chen Zhi's life before, what would be more appropriate to understand Hai's philosophy and get inspiration from our lives than to hear Chen Zhi talk about his understanding of Heidegger? So what influence did his thoughts, his readings, and his translations of Heidegger have on him? How does this make him specifically understand his life and the world?
I am afraid that this has to enter into this "spirit", into the essence and details of this pursuit, that is, the heidegger philosophy that Chen Zhi understands, and the key to this matter unfolds to us.
I tried to have a written conversation with Chen Zhi to show everyone the scenery and gains in his spiritual odyssey. I also hope that this exploration will inspire the lives and thinking of the rest of us.
01.
Li Houchen asked
(* Li Note: Heidegger's distinction between survival is very important in distinguishing between "true and false", of course, even in terms of word meaning, the "authentic" life is better than the "non-authentic" life.) In this part, I will start with the "authenticity" that Chen Zhi often writes about recently, and explore what authenticity is and the value of authenticity to people. What are the benefits of "true"? This is not an easy question. ）
You have mentioned words like "authenticity" and "mission" several times in recent articles, and made "mission" a key word for you. The former has an important meaning in Hai's philosophical system. Of course, in terms of word meaning, "true" is better than "false", living a real life is semantically better than a false life.
But the question immediately became, what is "authentic survival", in Hay's philosophy, there is certainly no simple answer, but I think this question is very worrying, and it is worth using as an introduction.
We often say the concept of "real ability", but also say "real ability is important, don't learn the flower frame", the implication is that the real ability is really able to achieve the goal, "work", and the flower rack, may play a temporary role, but can not achieve the final result. Here, "true" stands for "at work."
But sometimes it doesn't work, for example, good is definitely more "true" than evil, but we also know that good people do not live long, and sometimes bad people have a very good life, so it can be seen that this good "true" may not have good results.
The Horse of Turin
Of course, we also say that to face the "truth" of life, there is no guarantee of "happiness" here, and the "truth" may be cruel and more likely to make people despair.
It can be seen that "truth" plays a variety of roles in life, some related to happiness, and some are not. So what kind of "true" is Heidegger's "authentic existence"? What kind of state is a person who has this "state of existence"? Is there a "sense of mission"? If so, why is "mission" important? Isn't that also happiness?
02.
Chen Zhi's response
Heidegger's "authenticity" or "true self" is, in general parlance, "true self," and this true self is, in his words:
"This being chooses himself in its existence, acquires himself."
(* Li Note: This has a great connection with our popular concept of "living out the self" and "living out the true self", in the concept of daily flow, such a state is highly correlated with the "requirements" and "standards" of opposing and antagonizing the outside, and it seems that "living out of the self" needs to move towards "self-recognition", where we can see Heidegger's different ways of solving the problem. ）
In contrast to the non-authentic self, what is not authentic is always a more understandable direction, he said:
"The non-authentic self loses itself, or it does not acquire itself at all, but only appears to acquire itself."
And this loss of the self is the most common state in our daily lives, and the true self requires us to work hard to achieve it, and it is not once and for all, because just as entropy always tends to increase, we always tend to lose ourselves, and the true self needs to be constantly maintained, otherwise it will regress from the non-authentic state. (*Lee Note: This may be a knock on the current hot concept of "ordinary people")
"Man's existence is first and foremost not in itself, but in the midst of Das Man."
Heidegger's so-called "ordinary people" refers to what we usually call ordinary people, ordinary lifestyles, ordinary ways of thinking, ordinary ways of behaving, ordinary cognitions, as he said:
"This ordinary person is not any certain person, but all people are this ordinary person." ... The average state is a survivalist nature of ordinary people... Thus the ordinary man is in fact kept in the following average states: the average state of the things that are his own thing, the average state of the things that people approve of and what they do not approve of, the average state of the things that people allow him to succeed and those that do not allow him to succeed, and so on. The average state first describes what is possible and allowed to be risky, and it guards any exceptions that crowd in. Any superior state is silently suppressed... We call this the flattening of all existential possibilities. Mediocrity, average state, and leveling are all ordinary people's ways of being, and these ways form what we consider to be 'public opinion'. The public perception is now adjusting and always correcting all interpretations of the world and its present. ”
(*Lee's note: "Ordinary man" is a very important concept in Heidegger's philosophy for the state of "non-authenticity", which is used to present a kind of "no-self" that is difficult to realize and difficult to get rid of.) His difficulty in realizing precisely lies in the fact that when we learn the ways of others, learn the methods of others to reflect on the "control" and "alienation" of our own lives, and criticize this "alienation" with one voice, it seems that we are actively striving for ourselves, but in fact, we are evenly "hidden from ordinary people." ）
From a historical point of view, Heidegger's term "authenticity" derives directly from the individualism of the Romantics of the 18th and 19th centuries, which emphasizes the irreducibility of the individual, for example, the individual cannot be reduced to being a "rational animal" or a "human resource" of the company (Note: Nor is it possible to simply reduce it to a face of the common problems of the times).
It emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual, creativity (such as creativity in art) and the freedom and responsibility of the individual.
Of course, more importantly, this individualism requires individualism to be individualistic, and I tend to translate it as "mission."
I often illustrate this kind of committion in terms of Master Xuanzang's enthusiasm for Buddhism or Buddhism. Master Xuanzang's love for the Dharma is not a simple love, nor a simple interest, but a "truth" that he regards as his own "truth", a "truth" for which he can live and die for it.
The key here is that going to India to "learn the scriptures" is not only his "ideals" and "feelings", but practical actions and practical practices. Usually what we call "ideals" and "dreams" seem to be things that are not close to us, but things that are more distant. For example, many elementary school students are asked what their "ideals" and "dreams" are, which is only their "vision" and not their actions.
But for the mission, it's what is being done, though it may succeed or fail. Of course, "doing" here is not simply doing, not doing in the "daily state", but doing it requires a lot of effort.
For a person with a commition, whether the end result succeeds or fails, he/she is already on mission. Before Master Xuanzang, there were indeed many people like him who went to India to "learn the scriptures" and died because of this. But this did not prevent Master Xuanzang from devoting himself to his "truth." Even if he died on the way, as many people do, for him personally, he was "successful".
Indeed, as you said, the question of truth and falsity is at stake. Perhaps, in Nietzsche's words, human beings have a "will to truth", and human beings need truth and reject falsehood. The question of the relationship between philosophy and "happiness" can be said to have existed "since ancient times."
The standard of good or happy life pursued by the ancient Greek philosophers was: to live according to the positioning of man according to the laws of the universe, and the life of man according to the cosmic order is a good or happy life. Aristotle said that the most perfect and superior life is the "contemplative" life, because in the cosmic order man is set to be a "rational animal", so "contemplation" can best embody this rational spirit of man.
Wittgenstein
But this ancient Greek definition of "good or happy life" was replaced by other "good living" in later Western history, such as the Enlightenment rational tradition. However, from the 18th to the 19th century onwards, people expressed doubts and denials about the worship of "reason" in the Enlightenment. This is one of the origins of "Romanticism".
This confrontation and rebellion against mechanical rationality has continued into contemporary society, and Heidegger is one of the most famous representatives of this "rational society" in which he reflects. Heidegger was born into a devout Catholic family, his father was a sexton, and because of the family's poverty, Heidegger's education was funded by the church, which made Heidegger closely follow the official Catholic ideas in his early years.
Anti-"modernism" is one of the cores of Catholicism. Although Heidegger later stepped out of the dogma of Catholicism (at the time of his marriage to his wife, he explicitly terminated his Catholic faith and converted to Protestantism), throughout his life Heidegger was reserved, critical, and opposed to modernism. Of course, Heidegger's opposition to modernism is not only his religious background, but his own exploration of "existential problems" also leads him to the path of anti-modernism.
Hence the question of happiness. The so-called "existentialist philosophies" since Zickego (or even Pascal), including Heidegger, do not seem to pay much attention to "happiness." It seems that for these existential philosophers, "happiness" is not fundamental, but human "existence" is fundamental. The purpose of life is not how to find happiness, the purpose of life is to find a real life existence, or to find an "authentic life".
This authentic life has little to do with what we usually understand as "happiness." This authentic life can be said in many ways to be dangerous, critical, anxious, desperate, heavy, and stressful. These concepts are clearly incompatible with what we usually mean by "happiness."
But these philosophers argue that it is precisely the concept of "authenticity" that is incompatible with the usual concept of "happiness" that truly reflects the very essence of man, the "essence" of man, and what Sartre called "existence precedes essence."
03.
Li Houchen then asked
The reason why the problem of "happiness" is mentioned is indeed because it is as "important" in our lives as true or false.
In the case of "sense of mission," almost all of the worst things in history I can think of have been driven by a strong sense of mission, such as the Crusades. They may not care about their own "happiness", thinking that even if they are not happy, they will complete their mission, they do not care not only about their own happiness, but also about the happiness of others.
Hayes himself became rector of the University of Freiburg under the Nazi Party in 1933, a choice that could not but be said to be a "mission". Of course, he resigned quickly and regretted it. However, I do not intend to state that "mission" is an evil concept, but rather to wonder what the cost of a "mission commitment" that is not involved in "happiness" will really be.
You think that the mission itself, whether successful or not, has been unconditionally "successful" because it is "in mission," I think the truth may be more cruel than that.
Williams's theory of "moral luck" is largely a question of this moral defense of committion, the most typical example of which is the abandonment of the family in pursuit of artistic Gauguin. If Gauguin ultimately fails and is not the great artist he is now, it is very risky whether this "mission" of art can still acquire an unconditional moral value.
Williams eloquently demonstrates that the moral supremacy of being able to achieve freedom from "results" with a similar "motivation" and "input" is itself grossly flawed. This in itself has a lot to do with the critique of 20th-century Romanticism, in which Germany, from Weimar to the Third Reich, not only sacrificed its own "happiness", but also paid the price for the "happiness" of Europe as a whole and even for all mankind.
So we have at least two questions here that are related to "authenticity":
The first is "contemplation" and "romanticism", what is the relationship between this and authenticity, and can "thinking" and "knowing" reach the "authenticity"?
The second is the relationship between the result of individual actions and others, that is, the problem of "happiness". Is there a tension between this and authenticity? Is it true that happiness is to be achieved? So I don't know if we can go back to Heidegger's philosophy and find an answer to this tension.
For example, in Being and Time, Heidegger speaks of an important state of authenticity, "determination," when he says:
"When the cry of conscience is directed towards being, it does not place the empty ideal of existence in front of it, but moves forward into the situation. This determined person has already acted. But determination is also not peculiar to practice as opposed to theory. Determination is the real worry, it is the worry of being able to live authentically. No matter how to distinguish between theory and practice, we must first set worry as a premise. ”
For example, what should be explained for the key "worry" here?
Hibernation
With regard to results and today's "happiness", I think it is inevitably related to a material life, a security of life based on the full consumption of a citizen class; on the other hand, "success", whatever the kernel, I think is always inseparable from "influence". In an intellectual sense, this is all criticized, whether it is consumption, material pursuits, success, for many people, these things also bring a lot of pressure, and hope to get rid of them.
But the market, consumption, material life, gaining influence, this is the basic form of urban life. Even intellectuals whose duty is to criticize them gain influence and the basis of their material life by virtue of this composition of knowledge production. The debate between Žižek and Peterson on the critique of capitalism costs as much as $1,500 a piece.
This is the price that the market offers for attractiveness. At this price, it is driven by the common "happiness needs" of participants, venues and organizers. It's hard for me to imagine, at least in the contemporary context, that we could live without such an assumption.
I wonder if this question is also related to Heidegger's concept of "co-existence," our authenticity, and how to take into account the basic situation in which we must live among other people.
(* Lee Note: The relationship between "true" and "happy" is not a simple relationship, and from a certain point of view, "true" is higher than happiness.) It really seems that when talking about happiness, "true" is vulgar. But the question is not so simple, and I challenge the "individual mission" with "happiness", suggesting a danger of not considering the sense of mission of "happiness" as a whole.
Here I also introduce Heidegger's concept of "determination" to distinguish between the false ways of "thinking", "reflecting", and "knowing" that many people today feel truth-seeking; and I introduce Heidegger's concepts of "worry" and "coexistence", asking about the inevitable relationship between this "authentic" life and public life and others, rather than "true" constituting a kind of self-defense. ）
04.
Like many other things, the concept of "mission" can be used differently, some for good and some for bad. The implementation of many social ideals will have many problems and even catastrophic consequences. This is indeed a problem. But on the question of sociality, I won't dwell on it here.
Because the concepts of "mission", "determination", "choice" and so on that Zikegaard, Heidegger, and others talk about are more about the individual, these concepts are more about achieving the spiritual goals of a single individual, and perhaps it can be said that "mission" is for the "self-realization" of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
In the 1930s, Heidegger did want to reform the mental amorphism in German universities and german culture as a whole, to reshape the German spirit, and believed that Hitler could lead the Germans to reshape the German spirit. Heidegger was rector of the University of Freiburg for only one year, because he realized that he was not capable of accomplishing this ideal, and that the real Nazi Party was not the ideal Nazi party he had hoped for.
This may once again show the "uselessness" of philosophers. But before that, his main energies were above the individual, on the question of how the individual understood existence itself (at least in terms of authenticity). And his tenure as chancellor did not work outside the well-being of the Germans, but perhaps on the contrary, the changes he expected and tried to try were based on the well-being of the Germans and even the Europeans, at least in his own opinion.
The moral connection between "mission" and "luck" that you mentioned, I think Heidegger's discussion is higher than this question, or deeper than this one. He has always emphasized that his "fundamental existentialism" is not ethics or moralism, and that his "fundamental existentialism" is to lay the foundation for all moral foundations or ethical values, but it is not ethics in itself.
And Zickergo also explicitly goes beyond the universal concept of morality, which flattens the individual so that the individual does not become a real individual (but becomes a sample of the "public"). Therefore, Gauguin finally succeeded, but people can still criticize and accuse him from the social level, and it cannot be said that Gauguin finally succeeded, and he can be exempted from moral criticism.
(* Li Note: Chen Zhi pulled back the perspective of the individual with the concern for "publicity" in my question, and emphasized that this perspective is beyond the "moral consensus", and it can only be, it should only be a person's "own business". This is a very important matter, can man ensure authenticity "from himself alone"? Buddhism should think that by processing and practicing one's emotions, feelings, and thoughts, one can attain truth and happiness, and that is naturally a very promising thing for us. If not, this authenticity will have to be "collided" from the life of others, which is a situation where everyone is deeply stressed now. Heidegger said that "this has always been my own" and seems to support "a man's own business". But in later years, the phrase added a note that "I have always meant to be ceded." "Provides a lot of tension for this problem. ）
Regarding determination, Heidegger defined man's true existence as "the determination to go first." Determination is a witness to true survival (Attestation), because in people's daily lives, people's goals, rules and standards are set, we only need to live step by step, and daily life does not require "determination".
(*Li Note: As mentioned in the previous article, in fact, the passive confrontation with social standards that is popular on the Internet is still a set of steps given by others.
Heidegger called this state of insolence "unreal existence", that is, the survival of losing ourselves, everything we have is set by society, and we only need to complete the tasks and standards set by society. In man's true existence, man must make decisions in his present situation.
Heidegger says that man's existence is care, because man's "basic construction" exists in the world, that is:
"What the existence of this being says is that the existence that precedes oneself in the world is the existence that resides in the world."
This sentence may be simply understood as: as the worry of human existence, man is essentially: (1) already in a social, historical, cultural, and geographical context, that is, he is already in a given state; (2) man is "planned" for the future, that is, his existence is based on a planning, attitude, and understanding of the future (whether conscious or unconscious). ;(3) Man is dealing with entities or things (including others who are here) in the present moment who encounter each other in the world, and we have to deal with all kinds of things and face all kinds of things in the present moment.
Even if you are bored and have no interest in anything now, you are still in a state of "encounter" with these things. Usually we do this subconsciously, but we don't understand this very clearly, and Heidegger presents our subconscious or pre-comprehension life in a phenomenological way, thus giving us a more accurate understanding of ourselves.
(* Li Note: "Worrying" and "going first" are Heidegger's very important perspectives, but it is not mysterious at all, that is, people live to "do something", and to do something is to deal with things and people, it is definitely doing something in the "future". However, this perspective is very important, which is very different from people who live to "understand" or live to "live in the present", which is a basic so-called "existential" perspective. In Hai's view, it is not that "wanting to understand" or "living in the moment" is good or not, worth the question of whether it is worth it, but it is not an impossible question. ）
And "being in the world" includes coexistence with others. If The authenticity of Zickgoe is more inclined to independence and de-sociality, then Heidegger's concept of authenticity has a social dimension, and he even says that authenticity is only a variation of the non-authentic existence of ordinary people. This social dimension makes "co-existence" important in Heidegger:
Out of this "why" of choosing one's own energy, this is determined to liberate oneself and face its world freely. Only a determination to turn decisively toward itself brings this to the possibility of allowing others to "exist" in their own most intrinsic abilities, and to unfold together their abilities together in the exercise of liberation. This kind of determinedness can be the "conscience" of others. The coexistence of authenticity stems only from the existence of the true nature of determination, not from ambiguous and jealous promises and the chatter of brotherhood in ordinary people and the karma they want to engage in. ”
I think it's important to separate authenticity from society, because authenticity is more about the individual. As for what social consequences the individual's true decision and mission have led to, then it may be judged after completion, unless it is a "decision" with obvious serious consequences.
Summary of the pen talk.
This is the first part of my conversation with Chen Zhibi, and I will share it with you. Hopefully, we can learn about Heidegger's philosophy and the inspiration it inspires us to live. And this inspiration is composed of Chen Zhi's understanding of Haishi from his life.
For him, meticulous philosophical study is related to the "true life", and this authenticity is related to the "mission" (he does not think that his mission is philosophy, philosophy may be only the way).
This mission is not a passive and free "personal spiritual habitat", and in his path of exploration, the "coexistence" of relations with others, as well as practical practice and "care", have always been important, and I think this is the key to his acceptance of such a written conversation, dialogue rather than just "contemplation".
As Chen Zhi quoted from Hai's sentence:
Let a being of others "exist" in their own most intrinsic energy, and unfold their energy together in the exercise of liberation. This kind of determinedness can be the "conscience" of others.
"Nostalgia"
But here I still have a disagreement with him, or something that needs to be continued to be explored. At the end of this essay, he says that "we must separate authenticity from society, because authenticity is more about the individual", but above he says that "if the authenticity of Zickerg is more inclined to independence and de-sociality, then Heidegger's concept of authenticity has a social dimension", which is not contradictory, but there is a key problem in it.
That is, can "authenticity" be divorced from the result?
If authenticity can be formed by "taking care of what you want", this is naturally the simplest, or it seems to be the clearest, after all, what you don't like seems to have a great inspiration for this problem; if authenticity depends on "facing the problem of publicity (co-existence)", it is naturally more difficult, but in the Internet age, it is not particularly difficult to devote yourself to online public justice discussions and concerns, and learn some critical perspectives; if authenticity still depends on "what really affects something", the acquisition of authenticity is more troublesome.
If Xuanzang really set out to suffer on the way, if a person's struggles in the face of public and society are really fruitless, can he really gain authenticity in the dimension of "individual"? Of course, here is like the "Moral Luck" article written by Nagel and Williams, is authenticity also related to luck?
This is not just some sort of "proof problem" of authenticity, which is very fundamental and in turn profoundly affects our practice and our overall understanding of the course of life.
I hope that this discussion with Chen Zhi on the specific exploration of philosophy can give you a little inspiration and encouragement.
*The original title of this article is "Talking with Chen Zhi's Pen", statement: The views of the article only represent the author himself, not the position of the ideal platform, and are welcome to provide discussions with different opinions.
The headline image is from "The Child King", edited by Su Xiaoqi.
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