A one-sided orientation of Aristotle's metaphysics

Author: Deng Xiaomang (Department of Philosophy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology)

Summary: The premise of reconstructing contemporary metaphysics is a re-examination of the birthplace of metaphysics, which must be based on the comparison of Chinese and Western metaphysics today. In Aristotle, the beginning of Western metaphysics, metaphysics was oriented from the outset to the idea that a discipline of "existence as existence" must be established "after physics." On the one hand, this kind of learning explores the cause or basis (four causes) on the basis of the establishment of "individual entities", and on the other hand, it solves the problem of the identity of thinking and existence guided by the logical function of language. This is unheard of for Chinese philosophy, which lacks the spirit of Nuss and logos, and the starting point of Chinese philosophy is "nothingness" and the illogical function of language (metaphor, analogy, symbolism, etc.). It is necessary to synthesize the characteristics of Chinese and Western philosophies in order to reconstruct contemporary metaphysics and thus get out of the dilemma of both sides.

I. Aristotle's Orientation to Metaphysics

As we all know, Aristotle's Metaphysics, although not intentional by him, but a title that later generations added at random when compiling his posthumous works, that is, "The Later Articles of Physics", was distorted and made him the founder of philosophical metaphysics in later generations. The core idea of Metaphysics, on the other hand, is the study of "being" or "is" (v, whose feminine form is o σ α), which establishes that "existence as existence" is individual entities (o σ α); followed by the study of "how to arise" (how τò τ τ στιv), that is, the knowledge of "essence". This "essence" etymally speaking, is the past tense of v, which translates to What it was to be so and so. (1) This means that if we want to understand the nature of a being (or entity), we must know "how it existed", that is, how it became what it is from the past to the present (for example, to understand the nature of a person, we must understand his past history), which is the "essence". From this comes the third kind of learning, the knowledge of "causes" (α τιoν), because to investigate the essence, to investigate the "existence of the past", it is natural to investigate the "original cause" of a thing. Aristotle analyzed that there are four causes (the four causes), namely, material causes, form causes, actuation causes, and purpose causes, the latter three of which can all belong to forms. Their relationship to "being" or "being" is that the material represents the "what" of a thing, while the form represents the "how" of a thing, so the latter represents the "essential existence" or "reality", which is more profound and real than the former, and the former is nothing more than the "potential" existence. In the dialectical relationship between matter and form, (2) due to the agency of the form, individual entities have a universal meaning (species, genus), and the whole world of existence and essence is in an active, low-to-high purpose system, with inner life. (3) All this knowledge of the origin of the world is collectively called "first philosophy" by Aristotle, also known as "theology." ④

A distinctive feature of Aristotle's existentialism lies in its unity with epistemology and logic. Unlike later generations, which divided existentialism, epistemology, and logic diametrically, the reality of his physical existence, the truth of knowledge, and the logical correctness of expression are consistent. Aristotle's formal logic was called "instrumentalism" by later generations, which is actually inappropriate. In his case, logic could not be separated from its content simply as a tool or formal technique of thought, as later formal logic did. According to Aristotle's intention, he regarded logic as a science of the same nature as epistemology and ontology, so that logic was not only a tool for arguing the "first philosophy", but also "had the same principles as the first philosophy". (5) Not only does epistemological truth and falsehood lie in the conformity or non-conformity of the mind and things (beings), but also when logical affirmation means the combination of the principal and predicates that are mutually appropriate, and when negation means the separation of the subject and predicates that are incompatible with each other, both of these are the judgments that conform to the situation of things, so that they are true; conversely, they are false. (6) Thus, there is a correspondence and consistency between true and false, yes and wrong (affirmation and negation), existence and non-existence. Thus, Aristotle attributed the investigation of syllogism to formal logic and its fundamental laws (the law of identity, non-contradiction, and the law of exclusion) to the task of studying the "first philosophy" of the entity (ontology, existence as existence). Although the above-mentioned characteristics of the "three unifications" were abandoned in later Western metaphysics, Aristotle established his own metaphysical foundation, that is, some unproven premises he presupposed, played a directional role in the development of later metaphysics.

Now let's examine what kind of premises Aristotle had in this way, where did these presuppositions come from, and whether they were also conscious in Chinese philosophy? We can look at these issues at two levels.

Second, the review of the existential level

First of all, from the level of "existentialism", we can see that Aristotle regarded entities as "beings as beings" or ultimate beings, that is, individual entities (such as "Socrates", "this horse" or "this one"), also known as "first entities". Why does the "first entity" have to be an individual entity, not heaven and earth, the universe as a whole, nature, or some relation? Aristotle did not say it, and later Heidegger helped him say it (although not directly named). He pointed out that Aristotle's "existence as being" is really just a "Seiende", and that we are able to question the being because we ourselves are this being, the "Dasein", which can only be individual beings, in fact existenz. Heidegger says:

The task is to analyze the beings, and the beings analyzed here are always ourselves. The existence of this being is always our existence... As the being of such a being, it has been entrusted to its own existence... The "essence" of this presence lies in its existence. ⑦

He argues that although we cannot say that "only if this thing exists, the real thing can be what it is in itself", that is, objective reality does not depend on our present, however,

Only when this exists, that is, only when the understanding of existence exists in the possibility of the state of being, can there be "being". When this does not exist, then "independence" is not "in", and "at ease" is not "in"...

At that time, it cannot be said that the being exists, nor can it be said that the beings do not exist... Existence (not being) depends on the understanding of existence. ⑧

This makes it abundantly clear that if we are to explore "being", we must start with the "here-and-now" of the "beings", that is, from the "survival" of man. (9) Of course, Aristotle did not yet strictly distinguish the "this one" of the general being from the "here and now" of man, and he still said it in a mixture (Socrates, this horse), but at least he expressed the person's presence by "this one". For example, Aristotle said that existence (τò ν, wu shoupeng translates as "real is") and "one" (τò v), wu shoupeng translates as "yuan one") as principles or causes are common, "in fact they are also the same and one thing", and then gives an example: "For example, 'one person' and 'man' are the same thing, 'existing man' and 'man' are the same, and there is no difference between 'one existing man' and 'one man'. (10) In other words, in Aristotle's view, to discuss "being" one must discuss "being"; to discuss "being" one must discuss individual beings, i.e., "this one"; and to discuss "this one", it is best to start with the actual "this person", that is, from the "here-being" or "existence" of man. From Aristotle to Heidegger, this line of thinking has been consistent.

But the question heidegger did not solve is: Why did Aristotle regard the study of "existence as existence" and thus of "this one" being as man's existence as "first philosophy", or as the primary subject to be explored by philosophy? As mentioned earlier, Heidegger simply asserted in The Introduction to Metaphysics that the "fundamental question of metaphysics" or "the most primitive question" is: "Why does the Being exist and not be there?" But he did not answer this question head-on, but asked back and forth, but lost the question of "nothing but nowhere". He said: "Nothing is nothing, there is nothing more to seek here", "Talk about the logic of nothing ... Talking about nothingness is not only counterintuitive, but also destroys the foundations of all cultures and all beliefs. Anyone who despises thought with its basic laws and destroys the will and belief in creation is pure nihilism. So he switched to another question:

Based on the above considerations, we will be able to delete the superfluous empty phrase "without being there" from our question sentence, so that it has only a concise form: "Why is there?" ”(11)

This is a bit of a strong argument. I have pointed out that this "fundamental problem" of Western metaphysics may not be a fundamental problem in the eyes of Chinese metaphysicians. For example, the whole Taoist philosophy (or Zen Buddhism) asks the opposite question, namely: Why does the being not exist? Or, why is there nothing (nothing exists, "form is emptiness")? How could Heidegger so easily exclude from metaphysical considerations the question by the hat of "pure nihilism" that "destroys the foundations of all cultures and all beliefs"? Or even if it destroys the foundations of culture or belief, even if it is nihilism, isn't it a possibility? Why can't you explore it? Unfortunately, apart from the previous generation of a fanatical Gorgea at Socrates' contemporary, no one from Aristotle to Heidegger considered this question. Westerners are no longer interested in looking at this aspect, but feel that it is meaningless.

Why is that? I once put forward a point in "Speculative Tension - A New Exploration of Hegel's Dialectic", that is, Western philosophy has shown two major spiritual opposites and unified entanglements since ancient Greece, which I call "the two origins of Hegel's dialectic", which is the "Nuss spirit" and "logos spirit" in Greek culture. "Nous", also translated as "mind" and "thought", was first proposed by the anaxagoras of the pre-Socrates as a driving force for arranging and moving all things outside the world; "Logos" (originally meaning words, languages) was proposed by the earlier Heraclitus as the intrinsic "measure" (μ τρια) of the original "fire" of the universe in burning and creating the universe. (12) Since then, logos and "representation" have become the theoretical basis for Parmenides to propose a series of "existence" propositions (such as "existence exists, non-being does not exist", "thinking and existence are one", "what can be expressed, what must be thought must be existence", etc.). (13) These two great sources of thought also constitute the internal structure of Aristotle's individual entities with existential and teleological implications: the Nuss spirit becomes the intrinsic motivation of the individual entity as a "form" of self-formation and can "realize" itself; the logos spirit is the norm and scale by which individual entities can shape themselves in the process of formation, so that individual entities can make themselves "exist in the world" in an active and stable way as "teleology". It is in Aristotle's teleology that these two principles are fully merged into one: "Logos becomes the Logos of organic life, and Nuss's impulse to life has an intrinsic scale and prescriptivity." (14) This is the implicit premise of Aristotle's metaphysics, namely, that it is necessary to proceed from individual existence in order to highlight on the one hand the agency of individual existence and, on the other hand, to enter the normativity of Logos. Of course, Aristotle's existential understanding of individual entities does not stop merely at the actual existence of man, but expands into a worldview, an intrinsic principle of all things, in which individual existence, by virtue of its intrinsic agency, rises through the ladder of life (species and genera) of the universe until it reaches the supreme God; but at each stage it maintains it as an individual substance by the intrinsic tension of these two principles, and even God himself is a (highest) individual entity.

This reveals a certain established primitive structure of the history of Western philosophy itself at its source, which is obviously completely different or even opposite to the primitive structure of traditional Chinese metaphysics. Chinese philosophy lacks both the logos and nuss spirits from the outset, so it is neither concerned with the objective structure of the existence of the world nor discusses the way in which the individual soul operates, and it has no fundamental interest in what kind of "knowledge" can be formed on these topics alone. Therefore, Chinese philosophy did not begin its journey by exploring the "origin" of the world (ρχη, also translated as "Shiji"), but from the I Ching onwards, there was a kind of practical wisdom. While the ancient Greeks searched for the final structure of the original world between the so-called "four elements", namely water, fire, earth, and qi, the Chinese philosophers regarded the "five elements", that is, "gold, wood, water, fire, and earth", as the world elements that could be regarded as their own practical objects. They never argue which "action" represents the origin of all things in the world, but emphasizes that these five must maintain a certain balance in the practice of human life in order to be beneficial to life. Obviously, in addition to water, fire and earth, the "gold" and "wood" that are more than those in ancient Greece in the five elements are directly related to the productive labor of the agricultural peoples (production tools and crops), so the "water, fire and earth" juxtaposed with them are also regarded as inseparable natural elements of man's own life. As for "qi", it was elevated to a higher level by Chinese philosophers, and even often compared with the "Tao" and "reason" as the law of human behavior (such as Zhang Zai's "Dao Qi Monism", Wang Fuzhi's "Reason in Qi", etc.). This is because, if the original "amorphous" school of ancient Greece (the Miletus school) reached its culmination in Anaxesmenes' proposition that "qi is the origin of all things", that is, the "most amorphous" of the four elements is clearly qi; (15) then this feature of qi (amorphous) provides the best symbol for the core concept of "change" in the I Ching. The Chinese metaphysical way is the way of change, and the way of change is essentially nothing more than the survival and life activities of people and all things ("the meaning of life is easy"), not the fixed existence of the world itself ("God has no direction and is easy to have no body"). But in spite of this, qi itself should also have some kind of order and law of operation, and the ancients separated a certain dynamic structure from qi, which is "qi dividing yin and yang", so "one yin and one yang is the Tao" (I Ching, The Genealogy of the Word). Lao Tzu expanded this idea to read: "The Tao gives birth to one, one life to two, two to three, and three to all things." All things bear the yin and embrace the yang, and the breath thinks that it is peace" (Tao Te Ching, chapter 42). This passage is usually interpreted as follows: The Tao gives birth to one qi, the qi divides the yin and yang (two), the yin and yang phases (three) become all things, and all things are stirred by yin and yang to achieve balance and harmony. But what is the most primitive "Way"? If we look at it from the perspective of Western epistemology, this will never be answered; but if it is understood in terms of Chinese practical wisdom, this is very simple, the Tao literally means the "way" or "walking" of life, (16) So "Tao" refers to an attitude towards life, which by extension is the model of this attitude toward life, that is, the natural way of all things, that is, "Tao Fa Nature" (Tao Te Ching, chapter 25).

But Aristotle's metaphysics determined from the outset that what he wanted to explore was not first of all what kind of attitude to life he wanted, nor was he going to establish a way of operating the objective world as the basis for his actions, but to directly explore what the existence of the objective world was" exactly, and only by establishing the basis of this existential theory could other issues be discussed. (17) Thus the establishment of the first entity is the basis for all talking about everything, it is the primary category of the various "categories", and all other attributes or objects of evenness, species or quantity, including the words "walking", "healthy", "good or bad", are attached to it and exist on it. (18) Thus, although Aristotle also has some works of practical philosophy and ethics, these are not metaphysics, not first philosophies, but learning that extends on the basis of first philosophy. The practical philosophy of Lao Tzu and the I Ching is true metaphysics. Aristotle may have thought that practical philosophy can also be the first philosophy to transcend existence and non-existence (the So-called "Distinction between Existence and Non-Existence") in China, and even less did he think that the true meaning of "being" or "nothing" can actually be understood or "reduced" to "being" or "doing nothing", "having desire" or "no desire". (19)

III. Review of linguistic and logical levels

In addition to the existential level, the second level of Aristotle metaphysics is the linguistic level, the first of which is the level of everyday language, followed by the level of logic. As soon as we modern people see this statement, we will immediately think of Heidegger's famous proposition: "Language is the house of existence." It is just that Heidegger has his own special rules for "language", which cannot be equated with the level of everyday language, nor can it be equated with the level of logic. But to regard language as the home of existence is also what Aristotle believed in. We see that whenever Aristotle speaks of existential problems, he must look for his own basis in the everyday language and grammar of man, that is, to see how we usually speak, and thus to determine the logical relationship between existence and other categories. Obviously, this is directly related to the Greek "existence" ( v , infinitive ε ναι ) itself as a lexical or verb ( " is " ) . Throughout the Indo-European language family, all sentences or propositions are or can be connected by a series of words or system verbs "is", which is why the influence of Greek existentialism easily affects the philosophical thinking of several major European peoples who use Indo-European languages, and it is also a major obstacle to the understanding and acceptance of this existential theory of Chinese philosophy belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. In ancient Greece, however, the use of language as the ultimate proof of existence did not begin with Aristotle, and since Heraclitus elevated "Logos" to a central philosophical concept and sanctified it ("Sacred Logos"), the Greek admiration for Logos (language) intensified, and by Parmenides he constructed it as a public platform for discussing all existential propositions. First, Parmenides clings to the only clue of "Logos" in order to connect "one" with "being." "Existence" is "one", because what can really "one" be permeated to the end is the Logos (language), that is, the "is" (existence) in the Logos. In his words, the daughter of the sun god led the poet to the light, and opened the door of truth with the "logos", and the goddess admonished him: "Use your logos to settle these disputes that I have told you", and pointed out to him "the reliable logos and thoughts about the truth", that is, "existence is present, it cannot exist, this is the reliable way (because it leads to the truth)". (20) It follows from this that Logos was Parmenides' entrance to his existentialism, and that "Logos" is "expressing" and "speaking." The proposition that "existence exists" is derived precisely because of "expression" that he says: "For you can neither know nor speak of non-existence," "What can be expressed and thought must be existence," and "Thought can only be a thought fit for existence, for you cannot find a thought without the existence it expresses." (21) The identity of "being" and "thought" in this sense is established by the expression of logos and language, and since the root of "thought" (vóησιζ) is vóνζ, that is, "Nus", this identity reflects the inseparability of the Logos and Nuss spirits.

This obsession with language in Western philosophy at its source, this worship of the sacredness of logos, is not seen in Chinese philosophy. In my article "Anti-Linguistic Tendencies in Chinese Philosophy" (22), I analyzed the linguistic content and position of language in several philosophical concepts in Chinese philosophy that are most closely related to language, "Tao", "Name", "Speech", and "Reason", and finally concluded: "Ancient Chinese philosophy generally ignores the mediating role of language and emphasizes the directness of experience. Language is always discarded before it has time to take shape, the relationship between language and meaning (name and reality, speech and meaning) has never been truly reversed, and thus the logical nature of language has never been played out and realized. In response to my point of view, Mr. Wu Jiang of Nankai University issued a consultation, proposing that Chinese philosophy should not embody "anti-linguistic tendencies" but "superlinguistic tendencies", on the grounds that: "The so-called attitude of ancient Chinese philosophy to 'contempt and abandonment' of language itself is only a superficial phenomenon, and the mediating role of language must also be fully understood." In fact, the role of Chinese philosophy on language is the use and development of language from its illogical nature. The illogical nature of this language is metaphor, and ancient Chinese philosophers expressed the meaning of supra-linguistic in the form of metaphorical language" "The reason why Chinese philosophy has not fully utilized the logical nature of language is because it has recognized the limitations of language in this aspect, and has prominently developed the metaphorical aspect of language. Chinese philosophy is intended to reach a realm beyond language through metaphor." (23)

In response to this, I do not object to saying that Chinese philosophy "despises and abandons" not all linguistic natures, but only the "logical nature" in it, but rather uses and develops another illogical nature of language, such as a metaphorical function; but the problem is that since language has two natures or functions, that is, logical and illogical, it cannot be asserted that a philosophical language that develops only one of its functions has a tendency to transcend the whole language. Only what has been experienced can be said to be surpassed, otherwise it is not surpassed, but has not yet been achieved. A language, especially a philosophical language, if it does not pass through the inevitable stage of "logicalization", if it remains only in the stages of ethics, aesthetics, intuitive experience, and metaphor, analogy and anthropomorphism, it must belong to the "pre-linguistic" language, as is the language of some prehistoric primitive peoples; if it insists on this primitive low level and opposes and suppresses the transition of language to the logical level, its tendency must be to abolish language and move towards the silence and silence of language, in other words, "anti-linguistic". Both cultural anthropology and linguistics research to date have shown that the production of primitive human language initially revealed some illogical function (emotional function, metaphorical function, anthropomorphic function, etc.) rather than a logical function. This non-logical function, as long as it has not yet jumped to the level of logic, no matter how developed, how rich, how unique, can not be regarded in essence as beyond the language itself, but only the initial stage of language. But if language has gone through its logical stage, and on this basis, in turn, excavates the neglected original experiential or metaphoric function behind the logical function of language, and returns to the "ineffable" or illogical "Meinung" to the "living world" itself, as in modern hermeneutics and phenomenology, it can be called "superlinguistics". This kind of hyperlinguistics is by no means a lack of logic, but a renunciation and transcendence of logic. In my opinion, the traditional Chinese philosophical language has not yet reached the level prescribed by logic, and therefore has not yet reached the level beyond logic, so it cannot be called "supralinguistics". In short, the difference between the "superlinguistic" tendency and the "anti-linguistic" tendency is to see whether a language has given full play to its logical nature and then returned to its illogical nature (negation of negation), or whether it has not crossed at the beginning, but has tried its best to suppress its logical instincts and adhere to the original illogical instincts. The former can be said to be "superlinguistic", while the latter can only be regarded as "anti-linguistic". (24)

Looking at this controversy after more than 20 years, it should be said that in essence, both sides are not wrong, but how to express it. At the very least, we all acknowledge that language itself contains a dual nature or function, namely logic and metaphor; Western philosophy values the former, while Chinese philosophy values the latter. But I think that from the perspective of the historical development of language, the latter is a relatively primitive concept of language, and the former is a language concept of a relatively high level of evolution; although today, the primitive concept of language has a momentum of revival, while the logical concept of language of Western science reveals its various ills, and it is necessary to go back and absorb the rational components of the original concept of language in order to restore the rich vitality of language itself; this does not mean that, Thus Chinese philosophy can cross the stage of logical language and directly enter the latest context of modern Western language concepts. We still desperately need to take the lesson of logical language in order for us to play to the "latecomer advantage" inherent in our own language.

Since what we are talking about now is not the question of what Chinese philosophy should do in contemporary times, but how to reflect on and review the problem of Western philosophy embarking on a scientific road of no return because of its one-sided attachment to logical language at the source, this requires us to reflect on the various unconscious linguistic achievements of Chinese philosophy in the metaphorical function of language, and through this contrast, to break the stereotype of Western linguistics that logical language is the only accurate language. Here, we must adopt a "double standard" that treats Chinese and Western metaphysics differently, (25) in order to transcend the respective shortcomings of both sides and find a possible way out for the reconstruction of contemporary metaphysics.

Specifically, when Aristotle, in order to establish his existential metaphysics, unthinkingly obtained from everyday language the various usages of v (being, yes) as his theoretical basis, he first relied on the grammar and logic of language, and excluded the rhetorical techniques of metaphor, analogy, suggestion, exaggeration, silence, etc. (26) Even the recognized unity of existentialism (ontology), epistemology, and logic in his metaphysics is argued from a semantic point of view, as he rightly claims: "There is no real difference imagined by some people between the argument for words and the argument for thought." It is absurd to think that some arguments are directed at words and some arguments are directed at ideas, and that the two are not one and the same"; but this identity of words and thought has a premise, that is, everyone recognizes the same meaning for the meaning of words, and he gives the example that "single" and "existence" people "assume that there is only one meaning, and argue that all things are one". (27) Ambiguity is sometimes difficult for even experts to detect, for example, "some argue that 'being' and 'yuanyi' are identical in meaning, while others say that 'yuanyi' and 'existence' have multiple meanings, thus solving Zeno and Parmenides' arguments." (28) He paid particular attention to the logical hierarchical relationships between words, such as the individual and the general, since many seemingly contradictory or opposing propositions are caused by ignoring the differences in the levels of this relation. For example, he said, "Is it possible that non-existence exists?" But non-existence is indeed something. In the same way, existence will not exist, because it is not an individual thing that exists", "Isn't 'existence something' and 'existence' the same?" Non-existence, even if it is something, it will not be generally". (29) In general, non-existence is non-existence; but in a particular sense non-existence is also "something", as we also say that lack of patience is "a"defect" of someone. Moreover, existence is "non-existent" if it is not an individual being; but "being" and "being" are not "identical" in general, just as "non-being" is not generally something, even if it is "something". (30)

Obviously, although Aristotle used linguistic norms as his metaphysical and existential argumentative tools, he only exploited the logical function of language and forgot the metaphorical or transcendent function of language, or more precisely, the "self-transcendence" function of language. The examples he used to support his metaphysics were those of logical statements, but he never gave examples of non-logical functions such as metaphors, suggestions, etc., nor poetry. Of course, he did this in order to make his theories more "precise", more strictly prescriptive, inevitable, and operable, and not just "poetic metaphors" like Plato. (31) His great credit lies precisely in the fact that he has since embarked On the path of a "scientific" science of Western philosophy, and has purified the language of this scholarship into a rigorous language of logic, freed from the anarchy caused by all kinds of vague, ambiguous, mysterious and chaotic interpretations. But his blind spot also lies in the fact that this practice has set a precedent for the "crisis of human nature" that is intensifying in modern and contemporary Western scientism. In fact, he could not abandon the irrational and illogical aspects of human nature, nor could he cancel the metaphorical, suggestive and poetic functions of language; but he forcibly let these functions be included in the category of logical reason to be explained, and what could not be included was regarded as fantasy and superstition and excluded from "science", which opened the door for irrationalism, mysticism, intuitionism and other ideological trends to get rid of logical reason and flood.

If these non-logical currents of thought could not dominate the development of philosophical thought in the West for more than two thousand years, usually only in a certain era (such as the early Middle Ages) or as an accompaniment to mainstream thought, then the dominant thing in traditional Chinese metaphysics has always been the illogical function of language. We can see that the highest-level propositions in Chinese philosophy are generally established through the linguistic expression of logical paradoxes. The most famous is, of course, Lao Tzu's "Tao Ke Dao, Extraordinary Tao" (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1); Zhuangzi's "Debate Is Not Silent" ("Journey to the North"), which is equivalent to Wittgenstein's "Silence on the Ineffable", which is actually a "linguistic paradox". Because saying "the Tao is not tao" itself is already "Taoism", it just shows that the "common Way" is also "Tao", but the level of Taoism is higher; "arguing is not silent" is itself the ultimate "debate", and "keeping silent" is actually a kind of speech, that is, the so-called "silence is better than sound at this time". It is just that traditional Chinese metaphysics has never considered that these functions of language beyond words still belong to language, the transcendent function of language itself, but to attribute them to the mysterious function of non-language, so philosophers often abandon language and point directly to the human heart as a thing, which is what I call the "anti-linguistic tendency" in Chinese philosophy. And this aversion to language is in fact nothing more than an aversion to the logical function of language, which is evident not only in Taoist metaphysics, but also in Confucianism and Buddhism, and we can even say that this is not a feature of any school or school of learning, but Chinese universal "national" characteristic. However, despite this, traditional Chinese philosophy has objectively acquired a large number of rich linguistic experiences in terms of the so-called "unspoken meaning", in the poetic understanding of language, and in the suggestive expression (the so-called "interpretation" of the Buddhists), which is enough to provide us with sufficient material for today's "phenomenological restoration" of modern language that has been ossified by analytic logic, and is also an indispensable basic element for us to reconstruct contemporary metaphysics into a "post-linguistics".

Of course, it is really necessary to carry out a metaphysical construction "after linguistics" on the basis of the non-logical function of language, and Aristotle's "after physics" formulation of the logical function of language and its definite role in existentialism and epistemology are also elements that cannot be excluded, although not the only element to be considered; otherwise, the non-logical function of language, no matter how vivid and colorful it is in use, can not really achieve linguistic self-consciousness, but will move towards its own loss and diffuse (amorphous). Just as traditional Chinese philosophy and current postmodern trends of thought have emerged. In this regard, Aristotle's logical understanding of the nature of language is today not a scum of ideas to be discarded, but a wealth of human thought that must be valued. The real "hyperlinguistics" is not to jump out of linguistics and engage in another set, nor is it to exclude the logical function of language and cling to its non-logical function, but to include logical function and non-logical function, including self-transcendent linguistics, that is, "meta-linguistics". Our metaphysics of Aristotle and its logical basis in language is not to be completely negated, but to transcend and discard, and this is our orientation of Aristotle's metaphysics in reconstructing metaphysics.

(1) Aristotle: Metaphysics, translated by Wu Shoupeng, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1981, p. 342. The most confusing thing about this phrase is the past formula v (Was, translated as "once was") of v. The Germans understand this, hegel said: "When we speak in German of the past Sein (existence) as Gewesen (which used to be), we use the word Wesen (essence) to represent the past tense of the auxiliary verb Sein ('is' or 'existence'). This irregular usage of language seems to contain a correct view of the relationship between existence and essence, for we can undoubtedly recognize essence as past existence. Hegel: Small Logic, translated by He Lin, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1980, pp. 242-243.

(2) People have always been puzzled by Aristotle's interpretation of the existential entity, one moment saying that the material is the entity, and the next time saying that the form is the entity. Chen Kang said in his article "Studying the Basic Essential Questions in Aristotle's Theory of Essence from the Perspective of Occurrence": "There is a thing that is very surprising enough, that is, there is an unusually significant and urgent question in Aristotle's theory of essence, but from ancient times to the present, no one has ever proposed it, let alone an attempt to solve it, or even a satisfactory answer!" This is a contradiction of Aristotle: in the Categories Aristotle considers individual objects to be the "first entity" (Chen Kang's translation as "fundamental essence"),the "species" (eidos, "Edos", also translated as "form") as the "second entity" (Chen Kang's translation as "secondary essence"), and in Metaphysics (Chen Kang's translation of "Later Parts of Physics"),form ("Edos") is considered to be the first entity, above the individual entity. "Thus the individual objects and the inferior positions of Edos, as affirmed in the Category, are reversed in the 'study of essence'." See Wang Zisong and Wang Taiqing: Chen Kang: On Greek Philosophy, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1990, pp. 247, 279, 319. Chen Kang uses the "theory of occurrence" to explain this "inversion" phenomenon; I use "dialectics" to reduce this phenomenon to the dialectical transformation of concepts into opposites. Deng Xiaomang, "Some Problems and Trial Solutions on Greek Philosophy", "Explorations of Western Philosophy- Selected Works of Deng Xiaomang", Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2014, pp. 115-118.

(3) For the architecture of Aristotle's metaphysics, see Deng Xiaomang: A Preliminary Study of Aristotle's Metaphysical System, Western Philosophical Inquiry - Deng Xiaomang's Selected Works, pp. 83-106.

(4) Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1026a20-24, pp. 119-120.

(5) A. Shea Akhmanov: The Logical Doctrine of Aristotle, translated by Machu, Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1980, p. 100.

(6) Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027b20-23, p. 124.

(7) (8) Heidegger: Existence and Time, translated by Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1987, pp. 52, 255-256.

(9) I have called this tendency the "existential impulse" of Greek philosophy, which comes from the "Nous spirit" of the Greeks. Deng Xiaomang, "The Tension of Speculation: A New Exploration of Hegel's Dialectics", Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2008, pp. 39 below, pp. 59-61.

(10) Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 57.

(11) Heidegger: Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Xiong Wei and Wang Qingjie, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1996, pp. 24-25.

(12) Deng Xiaomang, The Tension of Speculation: A New Exploration of Hegel's Dialectic, pp. 11-103.

(13) Deng Xiaomang and Zhao Lin: A History of Western Philosophy, Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2014, p. 24.

(14) Deng Xiaomang, The Tension of Speculation: A New Exploration of Hegel's Dialectic, p. 61.

(15) Deng Xiaomang, The Tension of Speculation: A New Exploration of Hegel's Dialectic, p. 19.

(16) For an explanation of the term "Daoke Dao", see Wu Cheng: Notes on the True Scriptures of Tao Te Ching, Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2010, p. 2. Goethe's Faust writes that Faust translated the Bible in the study, saw the first sentence of the Gospel of John, "Im Anfang war das Wort", and changed it to "Im Anfang war die Tat", which is somewhat similar to here. However, Lao Tzu's "Tao" does not really advocate "doing something", but rather advocates a natural way of living of "doing nothing", or advocating an attitude of doing nothing in everything.

(17) This line of "materialism" was established at least in Socrates, as he said in the Menort: "I know nothing about virtue; and how can I know 'how' of anything when I do not know what it is?" If I don't know anything about Meno, how can I say whether he is beautiful or not; rich and noble, or not rich or not? Peking University Department of Philosophy, ed., Ancient Greco-Roman Philosophy, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1982, p. 152.

(18) Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1028a10-31, p. 125.

(19) Wang Bi's commentary on the Tao Te Ching breaks the sentence in chapter 1 that "there is always no desire to look at its wonders, and there is always desire to look at its wonders" as "There is always no desire... There is often desire..." (Ma Wangdui books are the same as this), which has been criticized. But I think that this is the philosopher's commentary, which really goes deep into the root of Lao Tzu's thought.

(20) (21) Wang Zisong, Fan Mingsheng, Chen Cunfu, Yao Jiehou, History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1997, pp. 595-596, 634.

(22) Deng Xiaomang, "Anti-Linguistic Tendencies in Chinese Philosophy", Zhongzhou Academic Journal, No. 2, 1992, pp. 42-47.

(23) Wu Jiang: "Anti-linguistics, or Superlinguistics?" ——Discussion with Mr. Deng Xiaomang", Zhongzhou Academic Journal, No. 3, 1993, pp. 58-62.

(24) Deng Xiaomang, "An Analysis of "Superlinguistics" and "Anti-Linguistics": An Answer to Mr. Wu Jiang," Zhongzhou Academic Journal, No. 6, 1993, pp. 82-83.

(25) Regarding the "double standard theory" of treating Chinese and Western cultures, I have proposed it more than a decade ago and have emphasized it again in recent articles. Deng Xiaomang: Criticism and Enlightenment, Wuhan: Chongwen Bureau, 2019, pp. 14-18.

(26) Aristotle speaks of rhetoric in The Discernment, but mainly from a logical and grammatical point of view, without reference to metaphors, analogies, hints, etc. Aristotle: The Instrumental Theory (Part 2), translated by Yu Jiyuan et al., Beijing: Chinese Min University Press, 2003, p. 621.

(27) (28) (29) Aristotle, Instrumentalism (Part II), pp. 571, 618, 608.

(30) Aristotle thus distinguishes the relationship between being and being from the usual general and individual "species" relations, arguing that they can only be "analogous" and not equivalent to each other, because "existence is not a species" and the universality of existence is beyond the universality of all species. Heidegger praised Aristotle for thus "putting existential problems on a whole new basis." Heidegger: Being and Time, p. 5. Obviously, the universality of "being (is)", because it is the highest universality, no longer has its own essential definition like other species, genera and classes, because any definition already requires "is" ("X is..."). So, Heidegger says, "the 'universality' of existence must be sought at a higher level." The structure of being and being is beyond all beings. Existence is authentically transcendens [beyond]. This transcendence of existence is a transcendence that is different. See Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 47. According to this he argues, Aristotle's attempt to solve the problem of the structure of existence and existence within the system of categories remains impenetrable, and that "any existentialism which, if it does not first fully clarify the meaning of existence and understands the clarification of the meaning of existence as its basic task, is in the final analysis still blind and deviates from its most intrinsic intentions.", however rich and compact the system of categories it may have been. Heidegger: Being and Time, p. 15. Because Aristotle forgot the "transcendence" of existence itself, Heidegger called it "existence forgetting."

(31) Aristotle criticized Plato's idea as "nothing more than a poetic parable and a fictitious text." Aristotle, Metaphysics, 991a, p. 25.

(Original information: Journal of Tsinghua University, Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition, No. 20204)

Source: Journal of Tsinghua University, Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition