Being and Doing
For cj...
I was writing a huge response to your question when I found myself encountering a huge problem: given that Being is doing, does not that mean there is no such thing as a subject? Let me illustrate what I mean with an example:
If we no longer believe in traditional ontology, then we no longer believe in essences. For instance, "human beings are not rational beings", because "rationality" is an essence which exists for some mysterious reasons inherent in us, or out there in the Platonic realm. Instead, what is true is that "human beings do rational things", because being is doing, or in other words, a thing is what it does. The problem is this: how can we ever describe what we do, since our very grammar structure is rooted in essentialism? All adjectives (or predicates, properly speaking) are "essences" of a sort. "Rational things" indicate the essence of rationality inherent in those things. In fact, the proposition "apples are red" is problematic because the object we see as "apple" is a concept with its definition, which is its essence and "redness" is one of its attributes. Under the definition "being is doing", one wonders how is it possible for something like "apple" to have its being, when clearly it is before our eyes.
(Perhaps the idea of "existence" and "being" needs to be distinguished, for the apple exists, but it does not have to be.)
This might not be a problem for human beings, who are compelled to act. Whatever they do the actions will define their being. But it is all too easy to lapse back to essentialism. When Bob gives a loony to a beggar, we would like to describe him as a charitable man. But "chartiableness" is a kind of essence. We are now forced to ask ourselves: is it Bob's essence that causes him to act charitably, or is it Bob's action that causes us to attribute the characteristic of "chartiableness" to him? Nietzsche already suggested the latter; but, as he had warned us, our grammar system forces us to believe in the former: in a phrase, a subject is freely attached to any predicates; but as Nietzsche suggests, there is no such thing as a subject - the subject is an illusion. For example, "lightning flashes" is an absurd phrase. Here "lightning" is the subject and "flashes" is the predicate. But, Nietzsche, where do you see "lightning"? You only see the flashing. But the grammar structure demands us to invent a free subject, "lightning", and then attaches a predicate, as if lightning has a choice to flash or not flash. But if you extend this example to a human being, for example, "Bob" "donates a loony": it is very difficult to imagine that we only see the "donation of a loony" without seeing "Bob", for Bob did the action. We cannot help but think that Bob freely choose to donate the loony.
I do not believe the above passage made any sense. I myself am struggling to grasping the notions of "being" and "doing". I personally do believe that "a thing is what it does". This way one can escape "the tyranny of scientific knowledge" - a table to be described in terms of atoms and bonds, a cup of ice-cream in terms of sugar content, my walk to the bus stop in terms of centimeters. But it is then very important to either clearly divorce from essentialism or compromise the two concepts (essence and action) into one neat system of thought.
*PS: it is neat to see that in Chinese poetry very often the subject is omitted and there is only the predicate. If you refer back to my translations of Li Bai's poem "Thoughts of a Quiet Night" (in the entry "Translation of Two Chinese Poems"), you will see that in the literal translation there are no subjects, which is awkward in English, but perfectly normal in Chinese. I'm not sure if this has to do with modern ontology...
I was writing a huge response to your question when I found myself encountering a huge problem: given that Being is doing, does not that mean there is no such thing as a subject? Let me illustrate what I mean with an example:
If we no longer believe in traditional ontology, then we no longer believe in essences. For instance, "human beings are not rational beings", because "rationality" is an essence which exists for some mysterious reasons inherent in us, or out there in the Platonic realm. Instead, what is true is that "human beings do rational things", because being is doing, or in other words, a thing is what it does. The problem is this: how can we ever describe what we do, since our very grammar structure is rooted in essentialism? All adjectives (or predicates, properly speaking) are "essences" of a sort. "Rational things" indicate the essence of rationality inherent in those things. In fact, the proposition "apples are red" is problematic because the object we see as "apple" is a concept with its definition, which is its essence and "redness" is one of its attributes. Under the definition "being is doing", one wonders how is it possible for something like "apple" to have its being, when clearly it is before our eyes.
(Perhaps the idea of "existence" and "being" needs to be distinguished, for the apple exists, but it does not have to be.)
This might not be a problem for human beings, who are compelled to act. Whatever they do the actions will define their being. But it is all too easy to lapse back to essentialism. When Bob gives a loony to a beggar, we would like to describe him as a charitable man. But "chartiableness" is a kind of essence. We are now forced to ask ourselves: is it Bob's essence that causes him to act charitably, or is it Bob's action that causes us to attribute the characteristic of "chartiableness" to him? Nietzsche already suggested the latter; but, as he had warned us, our grammar system forces us to believe in the former: in a phrase, a subject is freely attached to any predicates; but as Nietzsche suggests, there is no such thing as a subject - the subject is an illusion. For example, "lightning flashes" is an absurd phrase. Here "lightning" is the subject and "flashes" is the predicate. But, Nietzsche, where do you see "lightning"? You only see the flashing. But the grammar structure demands us to invent a free subject, "lightning", and then attaches a predicate, as if lightning has a choice to flash or not flash. But if you extend this example to a human being, for example, "Bob" "donates a loony": it is very difficult to imagine that we only see the "donation of a loony" without seeing "Bob", for Bob did the action. We cannot help but think that Bob freely choose to donate the loony.
I do not believe the above passage made any sense. I myself am struggling to grasping the notions of "being" and "doing". I personally do believe that "a thing is what it does". This way one can escape "the tyranny of scientific knowledge" - a table to be described in terms of atoms and bonds, a cup of ice-cream in terms of sugar content, my walk to the bus stop in terms of centimeters. But it is then very important to either clearly divorce from essentialism or compromise the two concepts (essence and action) into one neat system of thought.
*PS: it is neat to see that in Chinese poetry very often the subject is omitted and there is only the predicate. If you refer back to my translations of Li Bai's poem "Thoughts of a Quiet Night" (in the entry "Translation of Two Chinese Poems"), you will see that in the literal translation there are no subjects, which is awkward in English, but perfectly normal in Chinese. I'm not sure if this has to do with modern ontology...
posted by Tristan at 11:12 p.m.
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