CHAPTER I

IN SEARCH OF MEANING

YU XUANMENG

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

            One of the most obvious characteristics of the present process of modernization is that social life in all its aspects is changing more rapidly than ever before. Modernization changes the way of living as well as the picture of the world, so that one might say: "I seem not to be the person I was yesterday." And one might further ask: "Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?" It is an old question, asked many times regarding the identity of the human being. The theme "Traditional Culture and Modernization" poses the same issue and calls one to sketch out a more meaningful life for the future. Hence, I should like to discuss in this chapter the question: What is a meaningful life and, first of all, what is meaning as such?

            The meaning of life consists in one’s way of living. Speaking generally, every manner of life has its own meaning whether we like or dislike it, for, whether we appreciate or criticize it we have already understood its meaning. So, a meaningful life does not contrast with one that is absolutely meaningless, but with one that is valueless. There must be a relation then between value and meaning.

            Something valuable must be meaningful; but not vice versa. Value is only that part of the meaning which relates to the particular aim and interests of people in a certain historical period; in other words, with regard to man’s aim and interests, meaning is value. A meaningful life must in fact be a valuable life. Therefore, people usually consider persons who live a valueless life as the walking dead. On the other hand, people who are trying their best to live a valuable life are willing to sacrifice even their own life in order to realize their lofty ideal. Since value is so important to human life, we should investigate its background in the meaning system, for it is impossible to evaluate something against a background which is absolutely meaningless. What is this meaning system?

            To raise the issue of "Traditional Cultural and Modernization" means at least that people know that there is some difference between life in tradition and that in modernity. People look forward to modernization, because they are not fully satisfied with the tradition with which they are familiar. But, at the same time, they seem to be disturbed by the new troubles and challenges involved in modernization. Such disturbance can be seen from the books of some humanist philosophers. People bring about unacceptable effects while constructing the modernization to which they look forward. To be sure, modernization is expected to be a way to happi-ness and liberty for human beings, but in achieving modernization we must overcome the negative results which entail a devaluation of human beings. If it be accepted that one chooses and evaluates his or her life on the basis of a meaning system, it should be asked what is the relation between human beings and the meaning system? Do people create also the meaning system as the basis on which they choose and evaluate their lives? First then we must ask once again: what is the meaning of meaning, that is, what is meaning as such?

MEANING AND ITS CREATION

            The kernel of the question of meaning is that of the meaning of human life, for meaning is something created by humans. Meaning must be expressed, which humans know how to do, and must be understood and have a communicative character. Meaning then will be as humans create, express and understand it in the unique process in which meaning as such comes about. This is also the process in which human beings emerge as humans: for the question of meaning is that of one’s humanness. Thus, the question of meaning can be studied in many ways, each of which, if it be investigated deeply enough, leads to the question of human life. In other words, one cannot clarify the question of meaning without clarifying the meaning of human life.

            Some philosophers took the question of meaning as only a question of language inasmuch as meaning is communicated in lan-guage. However, it has become manifest that language, consisting of different sounds uttered by man, is itself a set of symbols which have no meaning of itself. Only as we accept through common usage that words as symbols represent factual things and are ordered in correspondence to real events does language become meaningful. That is to say, language has meaning because it can stimulate our consciousness about factual things or as a corresponding reaction. However, why one should pay attention to these rather than to those things and events in which meaning emerges surely is a matter concerning human life or existence. Furthermore, language does not cover the whole realm of meaning. For instance, one can grasp another’s tacit meaning by a twinkle or a shrug without words. If you really feel from someone’s eyes his or her kindness or ferocity toward you, though without words, you must have tacitly grasped his or her meaning more deeply and strongly than that in words. It is a Chinese idiom that: "Words are too poor to exhaust one’s idea", but this does not hinder people from communicating such ideas, for a clever person is good at grasping the implication beyond the words. All this shows that there are many things not expressed in language, though we understand them surely.

            We can also derive from Wittgenstein that human life is the root of the meaning in language. At first he thought that, if meaning consists in the correspondence between words and things or events, there must be something like an isomorphism of both language and events. He called this isomorphism a picture, and hence this theory is called "the picture theory". But is not this picture a real being beyond experience? As a philosopher in the experientialist tradition, he had to be disturbed by the above question and later came to another theory: "the theory of games." It is said that he got this inspiration from a football match. As all depends on the rules of the game in order for the match to proceed meaningfully, meaning must consist in the rules. But just as these rules are constituted by man for the game, meaning is created by human beings who are the origin of meaning. But it does not seem proper to reduce all kinds of human action to games, for human action is first of all for one’s own existence in a struggle full of blood and tears. Nevertheless, when Wittgenstein substituted "the picture theory" with "the game theory" he declared the truth that in his life meaning is created by human beings.

MEANING IN THE NATURAL WORLD

            In a general sense, it might be agreed that humans are the creators of that part of meaning which concerns human life. But one might wonder how humans could be the creators of the meaning of natural things? We see the river flowing, the sun rising and falling, the flowers opening and withering, the seasons turning one by one. Are these not the inherent procedures of nature? We also know that acid neutralizes alkali, that a molecule of water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, and that atoms consist of electrons and neutrons. Are these not the innate attributes and intrinsic meaning of the natural things themselves? How can humans be the creators of meaning as such?

            It is not difficult to answer the question. We need only to dis-tinguish essence from existence. It is not determined by man whether a thing exists or not, whereas the essence or whatness of a thing must be named and described by man. The meaning of a thing is the whatness in which a thing appears to man. So long as a thing is named and described, it already has been noticed by man and has come into some mode of relation with him. For instance, the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, are distinguished by humans according to man’s various ways of action. To speak more clearly, the changing of the weather first got its meaning in the ways of life essential for man, such as hunting, farming and migration. Nowadays, we change our dress, choose our food and plan our moves as the season changes. It is unimaginable that weather would have had the meaning of four seasons if there were no human being.

            It is also accepted that the meaning of one and the same thing is in its changing or developing as time goes on due to the way in which man deals with it. This shows again that the meaning of natural things is revealed in man’s dealing with them; indeed, dealing with things is the human way of life. To use, appreciate, notice, dislike, fear, discard, bother, observe, investigate, and so on, are all ways in which man deals with things. The meaning of a thing may be changed along with the way in which man deals with it. The so-called innate attributes of a thing are mainly revealed by a way of investigation in which the thing is taken as an object in the exterior world. Here, the one relation between man and thing is separated into subject and object. Then the meaning revealed is abstracted and put on the side of the object as its own attribute. From this point of view, we hold that the so-called attribute of a thing is also a kind of meaning revealed in the particular way in which man and thing are separated as subject and object. Man reveals the meaning of things as well as of life. The revealing of meaning is identically the creation of meaning; man is the creator of the whole world of meaning.

            Though the question of meaning concerns mainly the essence, an actual thing must consist both of its essence and its existence; hence we should consider also the existence of a thing. This is the condition of the thing which makes it possible for man to reveal its meaning, for without existence we cannot factually encounter a thing nor decide which thing will be encountered in our life. To say "the possible condition" means that a thing has no meaning if it does not come into relation with man and hence has no actuality. Man, and only man, turns the existing thing into a meaningful thing because only man can establish the relation between himself and the things. As K. Marx and F. Engels said in The German Ideology: "Where-ver the relation exists, it is a relation for me; an animal does not set any `relation’ with anything, no relation at all; for an animal the relation between itself and other things does not exist as relation" (translated from the Chinese version, p. 24).

MARTIN HEIDEGGER ON MEANING

            Through an existential analysis in his Being and Time, Martin Heidegger described how the Dasein encounters things and establishes and reveals the totality of relationships involved in its Being and hence the meaning that is disclosed. The following is his main idea about meaning.

            Things come into relation with man in the activities of human life. Here the fundamental action is using tools to make the needed provisions for his own being. Doing this work establishes a relation: man uses the tool for some purpose and for something. In order for the work to go smoothly, one must have a good grasp of the tool and of the relationship involved, but the way of grasping the tool and the relation is different in the work from the way of grasping them in conception. In the work one grasps the tool and the relation in an unobstructive way. That is to say, one does not pay special attention to the tool and the relation. One’s concern is the work, and the more smoothly the work proceeds the better one grasps the tool and the relation; the relationship is in a state of "readiness-at-hand", which is grasped in a pre-conceptional way. "Readiness-at-hand" be-comes "present-at-hand" when, for example, one lacks the proper tool for the work, or the tool is broken. The tool then becomes obs-tructive and one recalls and explains the tool in its function of serviceability. This brings out the meaning of the tool in its "present-at-hand". But before we have the meaning in "present-at-hand", we already have had it in "readiness-at-hand".

            As human action broadens, the amplitude of the relation involved in human dealing with the world also broadens. The total relationship thus involved is what Heidegger calls meaning. His point that meaning is relation is underscored in the above fact that people usually explain the meaning of the tool in its function or service ability. The whole relationship in "readiness-at-hand" is the environ-ment for the human being, while that in "present-at-hand" is what we call the outer world. Further, the relational totality is established by people in their cooperative work. So, the environment or the world is for them the common environment or the common world in which they communicate and understand mutually (cf. chapter 3, section 17-18).

            We can learn from Heidegger that meaning is neither purely subjective nor purely objective. Meaning opens from the single ground of phenomena which contains man and the world as its two poles. Or one can say that it is in man’s encountering the world that meaning comes forth. Phenomenologically, man must be a "being-in-the-world"; hence the term "Dasein" is used to denote man. Man reveals meaning according to what he might encounter and how he deals with for his own being. For example, even today among some herdsmen the words of greeting may be "how about the livestock", instead of "how are you". While for some fishermen, it is a taboo to overturn the whole fish on the plate when eating, and they even forbid saying the word "overturn" when they are on the sea.

            Many phenomena can be explained in a Heideggerian sense. For instance, since meaning is the relational whole involved in man’s encountering the world, nowadays, when we talk about meaning we also call it "the meaning system" or "the net of meaning". A thing has its meaning only when it is situated in the relational system, and we understand its meaning according to its place in the context of that system. In other words, a thing has no meaning until it’s involved in the relational system: an absolutely solitary thing is definitely meaningless, even should there be such a thing. Though a thing has its place in the total system of relations, if it has no place in certain parts of the system which happen to be the focus of the concerns of certain people, then, for these people the thing is relatively meaning-less. Similarly when something is placed inappropriately in our communication, there results an absurdity.

THE MEANING OF HUMAN LIFE

            Since the meaning system is created and revealed in one’s action for his Being, the breadth and depth of the system reflects that of one’s action. Meaning is after all the meaning of human life, and the picture of the world in one’s eyes reflects the degree of one’s vitality. Even if one constructs his own world picture only by learning or speculating, it is still a result of his intelligence. So we might say, the meaning of one’s life is that of the world picture or the worldview constructed. Man constructs his world picture for the most part in terms of his goals, so we usually evaluate the meaning of one’s life through his purposes and the related success with which he displays his vitality and involves the relational system. A person, though well-off, may be of less positive meaning if he lacks a goal. However, those who have a high purpose and success, must learn to reflect upon their meaning in terms of this cause and success. Otherwise, they may forget that man himself is his own ultimate aim, and may objectify and lose themselves in their goal so that they begin to wonder where is the meaning of their life.

            Zen instructs people to be good at reflecting on the meaning of life in daily life. A well-known Zen proverb goes: "Fetching water, splitting logs, all of those are full of wonderful Tao". Here Tao is the ultimate aim and ideal for Zen Buddhism, and also can be understood as the meaning of life. This is to say that the meaning of one’s life is nowhere but in one’s own present daily life. The awareness of this truth must make the disciples optimists in their lives. It encourages disciples to endure pain and hardship and to develop confidence that they can overcome difficulties. In so doing they constantly enjoy the meaning of their life.

            But implied in this instruction there is also something negative because the disciples are required to adapt themselves to any cir-cumstances they encounter and even meekly to submit to maltreat-ment. In this way, there seems to be no need to improve one’s life, and even unreasonable things are to be allowed.

            Anther problem concerns the unity of meaning. To be sure, meaning is rich and colorful according to the different regions, times and occupations of people. The meaning system of earlier peoples may differ from that of modern people, as that of artists may differ from that of scientists. Since meaning is after all the meaning of life, the terms of the various meaning systems should be united into one so that people may formulate a complete picture of the world and seize their own essence as a single whole or identity. Otherwise, one may wonder which is the real meaning of one’s life and where one’s essence lies. This urges man to search for the unity of meaning among people not only of his own time, but also of the past.

            Various meaning systems can be united into one because the particular aims, whence emerge the various kinds of human action and hence the various meaning systems, are all ways to one’s ultimate aim. It is this ultimate aim which is the ground for the unity of the various meaning systems. The various meaning systems are integrated into a meaning totality as many branches are integrated in a tree; the unity of the meaning totality ensures the unity of the meaning of life. As each branch is one part of an integrated whole, a person in his own meaning system is at the same time in the meaning totality. Hence, what a person does is a key link in the relational totality involving the entire people. Everyone, though he lives in a corner of the world and has a particular occupation, may have his complete meaning of life as well as a complete picture of the world. Furthermore, one person may have several meaning systems in his or her life, so long as he undertakes several tasks or plays different roles in society. But he can still have an integrated picture od meaning if everything he does serves his ultimate aim.

            Of course, different meaning systems may contradict each other, especially, as meaning systems correspond to their respective value systems which can contradict each other. This is manifest in conflicts and wars among people when some meaning systems vanish along with the defeated side. Generally speaking, the meaning systems which survive conflicts are more effective in facilitating people’s ultimate aim. This can be observed in the history of man-kind. Here, we see also that the ultimate aim always functions as a coordinating force integrating the different meaning systems into a unity.

OBJECTIVISM

            Modernization raises many new issues in the realm of meaning, of which the most remarkable is perhaps objectivism. This can be contrasted to one’s attitude or outlook on life. According to this attitude, people take the world as their environment and deal with things mainly in terms of their direct needs in life. Thus they give meaning to things according to the relation these have to people in their life. Though people discover many "innate attributes" in things, they intend to discover only those which have some interest for human life. Thus, we have found only a small portion for our direct aim is to live, not to discover these "innate attributes" in things. Objectivism, however, is concerned only to discover the "innate attributes" in things no matter whether or not they have any interest for human life.

            At the beginning, human beings uncovered more and more "innate attributes" as the breadth of human action broadened. The more attributes revealed, the more there were available for human life. This could have been the motivation from which the objectivists’ attitude developed.

            Expecting more to be available from "innate attributes", objec-tivists unconsciously changed their way of life. As the "innate attributes" of the thing are revealed in their own way man must develop a way different from those of daily life. In this way, persons no longer live directly for the sake of humans themselves, but for the sake of uncovering these attributes, and thereby become a key link in the chain of attributes. Since this does not follow the path of one’s will and as one does not know where the chain of attributes leads, there arises wonder as to where we are going.

            Further, the attributes uncovered through objectivism are not always available to human beings. For instance, people have access to a great amount of energy through the "innate attributes" unco-vered by objectivism, but we are clearly aware that man thus has the power to destroy the whole of humankind many times over.

            Theoretically, what we have found in objectivism is also a system of meaning, for it is founded by human action; but it is not a system of value, for it does not unfold itself in correspondence with human interests. For example, the theory concerning the structure of molecules and atoms is a meaning system, but no one would take it as a value system.

            Though its origins can be traced to earlier times, objectivism has become more dominant in the process of modernization than ever before. More and more persons are trained earlier, even in their childhood, to be inserted into the chain of the "innate attributes" of the thing. The persons with the objectivist attitude play an important role in social life, while persons with no special technique lose their right to live in a society which is organized technologically for the sake of uncovering the chain of attributes in matter. Because it is thought that the human being should live according to the direction of the chain of innate attributes, as the attributes of things are unveiled the ultimate aim of human beings becomes veiled.

            Objectivism separates meaning from value, which, in turn, causes various kinds of psychological conflicts. When one faces a world different from his life-world, one could not help feeling alie-nated, for one reflects his own meaning from the world picture one establishes by oneself. When one deals with two worlds -- the life world and the world in objectivism -- one might think of oneself as separated personalities. And when one wholly loses oneself in the world of objectivism this could only be the loss of one’s own essence? The split between meaning and value leads also to a con-flict between science and morality. It was reported, for example, that there was a fierce quarrel over whether one can as an experi-ment make a hybrid between a human being and a gorilla. In science this is not an absurd problem; it is even meaningful. But if an infant were to be born how should one treat him? Can it be allowed to die as an animal, or should it be given the rights of a human and allowed to produce its own child? Such questions are moral ones. This debate makes us wonder where we are headed.

            Many times before, human beings have integrated various meaning systems into one whole of meaning. Can we integrate the objectivist meaning system and the value meaning system into a unity? This is just the point. In the past, the ultimate aim of human beings was to integrate the various meaning systems into a whole of meaning. As an ultimate aim, this must be one for all humankind. But where is it; how can we find it today? We have seen that there are conflicts among communities, peoples and nations due to their respective aim and interests; do people really forget their ultimate common goal?