An Analysis of Traditional Chinese Thought and Heidegger

A thorough understanding of philosophy is hard to achieve. And in trying to understand the many topics floating in the ether, I have found it most useful to aim my studies towards the common, most fundamental thread: language. Language, as one of the primary mediums through which people exchange information, is as important as it is frequent. For without language, the writing I commit now would be null, as would the sources which inspired my thought. The purpose of language is communication, but can language ever be truly communicative? Traditional Chinese thinkers complained of language’s divisive and paradoxical nature, while postmodern Western thinkers like Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer did too remain leery of language. By studying the philosophical contributions to linguistics of the Traditional Chinese thinkers, Laozi, Confucius, and Zhuangzi, as well as that of German postmodernists Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, I aim to determine the extent to which an effective use of language is possible.

Language is a tool because of its specificity, its ability to divide objects/ideas from one another. These divisions thus allow for a mind to focus on particulars, rather than a singularity. The idea of “focus” is important, because to focus entails the conscious aiming of the mind towards something. In the sense of consciously aiming, “focus” is opposed to “experience,” experience being the passive, unselective, reception of Being itself. The essence of language is its specificity, and it is within this essence that its inherent limitations lie. While focusing through the specificity of language can be good for knowing a single object/idea among many, that very specificity is not certain, it is not definite, it is only potential. Exemplification of the limits of this potentiality can be found in any dictionary:

• Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
• Right: morally good, justified, or acceptable.
• Good: possessing or displaying moral virtue.
• Virtue: behavior showing high moral standards.
  Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8