Mind and Matter Wander

Author: Wang Mingming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: The effort to return us to the world of things is implemented in human concepts, historical narratives, and modes of thinking. Lévi-Strauss expresses extreme concern about the "binary appearance of the world" centered around "civilization/wisdom" and "savagery/stupidity." He observes how civilization tramples the earth, incorporating every corner into its domain, destroying it again and again, and thus falling into the "melancholy tropics" of the jungle, seeking myths and reflecting on history among the "savages." The notes and essays arranged in five volumes were written in installments starting in 2004 and are now compiled into a collection. In summary, their content is roughly as follows:
The "Record of Discussing the 'Heavens'" in Volume One is actually a single, coherent piece. I aim to make a general comparison between mythic thinking, ancient thought, and the modern "episteme" in simple language, relating it to our lived world. Through the writing of this article, I hope to accomplish the following:
1. Recognize that the Bantu culture originating in Europe is merely a brief moment in the overall timeline of human history.
2. The knowledge, based on classification and detached from the living world, has played a "catalyst" role in the modernization of the world. This no longer needs to be repeated, but the modern knowledge problem highlighted by mythic thinking and ancient thought warrants comparative analysis.
3. Inheriting the approach of the modern anthropological school, I attempt to clarify the continuity (commonalities) between primitive culture and ancient thought (especially ancient Chinese thought), particularly the shared understanding of the unity of all things (including heaven and earth) and humans, and the potential contribution of this understanding to revealing the inherent dilemmas of the modern "episteme."
The articles included in Volumes Two to Four all involve "things." The listed articles were written sporadically and are not the results of a research project, nor do they intend to explain all phenomena. Broadly speaking, they focus on the following aspects of the concept of "things":
1. The relationship between things and humans as the content of the world, especially the idea of "unity between humanity and things" embedded in ancient Chinese thought (illustrated by the etymology of the character "thing," the rituals related to scholars, the symbolic status of jade, and the mysticism of writing).
2. The flow of things as a historical process (such as spices, tea, sugar, and water), particularly the characteristics of this flow phenomenon (whose essence is "cross-cultural") in relation to the "narrative of universal history" organized by nation-states, as well as the theoretical inspiration contained in this characteristic.
3. The "thing" as an object of philosophical reflection, its central role in the relationship between the subject and the object, and the rethinking of this relationship, especially the concept of "things" in ancient Chinese thought and Western thought (explained in two articles using Heidegger and Foucault as examples) and a reexamination of the French Annales School's thought on "things."
The final volume consists of brief critiques targeting existing explanatory frameworks for "change" and "modernization." The overall intention remains to critique historical discontinuism and stagism in the humanities through the arguments of others.