Tsaiyi Wu

In 1928， sinologist Richard Wilhelm sent psychologist Carl Jung a Taoist alchemist book that he had translated，T’ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chin，and invited Jung to comment on it. Jung suggests naming the book for Western readers The Secret of the Golden Flower： A Chinese Book of Life， and in his commentary proffers a methodology for reading Chinese classics. On the one hand， Jung insists that Westerners should not study ancient Chinese philosophy as merely scientific knowledge about an exotic culture， but should likewise consider it to be a body of living wisdom that would potentially solicit a transformation of one’s psyche. On the other hand， Jung uses the vocabulary of modern psychology to reinterpret Taoist metaphysics， as he asserts that science is the method with which the Westerners understand the world. The contributions of Jung’s commentary should not be evaluated merely in terms of how accurate his understanding of the Chinese text is， but of how and what he presents as a forceful defense of his unique hermeneutics.

Scholars often question how Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 conception of gewu 格物 (the investigation of things) can lead to the cultivation of the heartmind and, therefore, to moral action. This article answers this question by reviewing how Zhu Xi’s metaphysics originates from that of the Zhouyi 周易 (Classic of Changes), in which the principle of the Supreme Polarity bifurcates and constitutes everything. Gewu therefore does not mean to study the principle of things as external knowledge, but to cultivate a synthetic comprehension (guantong 貫通) of how principles in things are all connected and all related to the principles of one’s heartmind. Such a hermeneutic intuition is the foundation to virtuous actions, as one would be able to intuit the principle at work in all complicated situations. To reach this hermeneutic intuition is also proof that one’s heartmind has been cleared, and I argue that this state of knowing is not qualitatively different from the highest ideal of sympathetic correspondence (gantong 感通) in the Zhouyi. To build my argument, I analyze Zhu Xi’s method of reading the Zhouyi, as he urges the thinker to not merely study the orthodox commentaries of the Ten Wings (Shiyi 十翼), but to interpret for oneself the meaning of the hexagram specific to the situation—as a challenge of whether one can see how the principle manifests in a certain context. The import of my argument is that it offers a counterview to the disenchantment of the modern world. Whereas modern science has cut a chasm between objective facts and subject meanings, Zhuzi’s 朱子 gewu allows every individual to interpret for the manifestations of the principle, while our understanding must be personal.

The article explicates Nabokov’s metaphors of crooked mirrors and false doubles in his novel Despair，which articulate his aesthetics that art is self-obvious deception. For Nabokov，art is neither superior to nor independent of reality，but is rather its inferior mimic. Thus Nabokov’s simulacrum always refers to the revered model：the author himself. Nabokov’s aesthetics challenges the readers to have a different attitude toward art：rather than sympathy or appreciation，we should instead cultivate our critical discernment by distinguishing between the simulacrum and the true model. In our age of post-truth，Nabokov’s aesthetics provides us an ethical paradigm where reality is concealed but not altogether cancelled，a reality that is rather the prize that the readers are invited to actively seek out.

Inspired by Maurice Blanchot (1907—2003) who compares Stéphane Mallarmé’s (1842—1898) poetics to Orpheus’s descent into the underworld, this article seeks to account for the relationship between the two seemingly contradictory sides of Mallarmé as a psychological journey—one that seeks the mystery of things hidden in eternal night, and the other proclaims that poetry should contain nothingness only as the Orphic poet realizes that his desire to find the essence has violated the law and would thus make the thing disappear altogether. The first two sections of the article elucidate Mallarmé’s lesser-known musical poetics which seeks to distill the essence of things, to transcribe“the symphonic equation proper to the seasons,”with reference to his prose poems and Arthur Schopenhauer’s (1788— 1860) philosophy of music. The final section argues that Mallarmé’s nothingness means not autonomous language, as asserted by his idealist predecessors or structuralist/poststructuralist critics, but an ethical pronouncement to protect the mystery of the thing from poetic exploitation and exhaustion.

Este libro estudia, desde una perspectiva histórica, como los artistas modernistas, esa primera generación que empezó a reflexionar de manera intensa sobre el legado del Idealismo Alemán, buscó recrear el “yo” para recrear su relación con el mundo material. Teóricamente, el libro mantiene una conversación con los típicos intereses desantropocéntricos del siglo XXI y propone que el artista pueda escapar del antropocentrismo a través de la transformación del yo. La Parte Una, “Artificialidad” abre el debate con el culto del fin de siglo a la artificialidad, en el que los artistas como Theophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, J.K. Huysmans y Gustave Moreau se dedicaron a mostrar su amor por las esfinges pétreas, las estatuas de mármol o las apariencias inorgánicas. El culto a la artificialidad es una subversión perversa de la máxima de Hegel en la que la introspección es superior a la materia. En el culto a la artificialidad, el arte es superlativo a la naturaleza, incluso aunque el arte no se defina ya como imaginación inmaterial sino se reconfigure como una manifestación misteriosa que desafía al significado y subyuga al corazón sensible. La Parte Dos, “Ficción Autofilosófica” argumenta acerca del género en el que los artistas (Marcel, Proust, Walter Pater y Virginia Woolf) fijan las ideas filosóficas en el laboratorio de sus vidas y por lo tanto traducen a sus ideales estéticos —es decir, la manera en la que desean relacionarse con el mundo —en un viaje de auto examinación y autocultivo. En la novela de Pater, 'Mario el Epicúreo' el héroe explora como un percepto filosófico se puede traducir a sentimientos y acciones, demostrando que la literatura es un acercamiento único a la verdad ya que convierte la teoría en una experiencia transformadora. Mediante la exploración de los últimos descubrimientos de la psicología empirista, el artista busca escapar de la trampa Kantiana mediante el desarrollo de sus poderes de recepción y registrar pensamientos pasajeros y sensaciones. En resumen, el libro discute sobre como el desantropocentrismo no puede predicarse a través de una metafísica que presume que la subjetividad universal debe ser una forma de investigación estética que recrea al “yo” para recrear nuestras relaciones con el universo.

From a historical perspective, the book studies how modernist artists, as the first generation who began to rethink intensively the legacy of German Idealism, sought to recreate the self so as to recreate their relationships with the material world. Theoretically, the book converses with the topical de-anthropocentric interests in the 21st century and proposes that the artist may escape human-centeredness through the transformation of the self. Part One, “Artificiality,” begins the discussion with the fin-de-siècle cult of artificiality, where artists such as Theophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, J.K. Huysmans, and Gustave Moreau dedicate themselves to love stony sphinxes, marble statues, and inorganic appearances. The cult of artificiality is a mischievous subversion to Hegel’s maxim that inwardness is superior to matter. In the cult of artificiality, art is superior to nature, though art is no longer defined as immaterial imagination but rather reconfigured as mysterious appearances that defy signification and subjugate the feeling heart. Part Two, “Auto-philosophical Fiction,” discusses the genre where the artists (Marcel Proust, Walter Pater, and Virginia Woolf) set philosophical ideas in the laboratory of their lives and therefore translate their aesthetic ideals—the way they wish to relate to the world—into a journey of self-examination and self-cultivation. In Pater’s novel 'Marius the Epicurean', the hero explores how a philosophical percept may be translated into sentiments and actions, demonstrating that literature is a unique approach to truth as it renders theory into a transformative experience. Exploring the latest findings of empiricist psychology, the artists seek to escape the Kantian trap by cultivating their powers of reception and to register passing thoughts and sensations. Together, the book argues that de-anthropocentrism cannot be predicated upon a metaphysics that presumes universal subjectivity but must be a form of aesthetic inquiry that recreates the self in order to recreate our relationships with the world.

De-anthropocentrism is the leitmotif of philosophy in the twenty-first century, encouraging diverse and competing thoughts as to how this goal may be achieved. This article argues that the method by which we may achieve de-anthropocentrism is ethical rather than metaphysical – it must involve a creation of the self, rather than an interpretation of the given human conditions. Through engagements with the thought of Nietzsche, Levinas, and Foucault, and a close reading of Baudelaire’s poem “La Beauté,” I will illustrate three ethical commitments essential to de-anthropocentrism: to abandon the claim to knowledge associated with human reason, to remain in perpetual quest of an object, and to transgress the given perceptual structure through aesthetic experience. In contrast to Kantian philosophy built upon universal human reason, art is the ethical arena where each artist creates their own way to relate to the object, while de-anthropocentrism occurs – this article argues – when the artist includes the self as the field of creation. Object-Oriented Ontology in my assessment is the only branch of philosophy that truly achieves de-anthropocentrism.

This article compares the use of Romantic metaphor with the Chinese literary device xiang 象 (which I translate as “thing-metaphor”) in regard to how they embody different metaphysical relations between humans and things. Whereas Romantic metaphor transports a physical thing to the immaterial realm of imagination, xiang is a literary device in which the material qualities of the thing, while creatively interpreted to generate human meaning, retain ontologically a strong physical presence. Xiang therefore epitomizes a theory of creation that challenges the Western dualistic paradigm: that the poet creates not virtual copies of the thing, but meanings of the thing, and therefore our relationships with things. The article concludes with Heidegger’s discourses on metaphor to suggest that my discussion of thing-metaphor has universal applicability.