分类： 论著发表

刘任翔／文

（原文载《世界哲学》2025年第3期，页108–119；网络首发于《外国哲学研究》公众号）

一、  问题的提出

超越性与内在性的关系是现象学的核心问题之一。对二者之对立的思考基于一个前提，即我们所是的这种存在者（人）的有限性（Endlichkeit）。正是因为从胡塞尔开端的现象学运动以彻底化的姿态思考有限性及其诸环节（如时间性、具身性、被动性、多元性），有关内在与超越的问题才得以成为哲学的根本问题之一。

但是，有限性这个概念就其内涵而言是一个静态的、“几何化”的概念。它仅仅说明，某一存在者存在于特定的界限之内；它仅仅是在逻辑“空间”中划定了该界限，而并不能把握该存在者与界限及界限之外事物的具体关系、以及该存在者的存在方式是如何具体展开的。因此，在“有限性”标题下展开的讨论有可能陷入概念混乱，乃至沦为鸡同鸭讲。现象学将“内在”与“超越”这对概念论题化，可以看成是进一步界定有限存在者之有限性的努力。

本文聚焦海德格尔在1929–1930年的几部作品中通过引入“有限化”或“有终化”（Verendlichung）[1]概念而实现的对有限性之思的深化。根据海德格尔研究的权威索引，“有限化”概念最早出现于其1926/27冬季学期讲课稿《哲学史：从托马斯·阿奎那到康德》（全集第23卷），最晚出现于其1934/35冬季学期讲课稿《荷尔德林的颂歌〈日耳曼尼亚〉与〈莱茵河〉》（全集第39卷）。[2]不过，海德格尔真正以独创的方式解说“有限化”概念，是在1929–1930年的如下几个文本中：《康德与形而上学疑难》（1929，全集第3卷）、《形而上学是什么？》（1929）、《德国观念论与当前哲学的困境》（1929，全集第28卷）、《形而上学的基本概念》（1929/30，全集第29/30卷）以及《论人的自由之本质》（1930，全集第31卷）。

在学理上，聚焦海德格尔在这一时期的“有限化”学说的考虑如下。在近年来的海德格尔研究中，1930年的“论真理的本质”一文（收录于全集第9卷《路标》）往往被当作海德格尔“转向”（Kehre）的标志。在这一文本中，海德格尔从《存在与时间》中基于此在的生存论分析的基础存在论立场，转向有关存在自身或存有（Seyn）的显/隐二重性的学说——换言之，从此在的展开状态（Erschlossenheit）和事物为此在的被揭蔽状态（Entdecktheit），转向源始的被遮蔽状态或隐秘（Geheimnis）。[3]转向之前的海德格尔将形而上学问题追溯至此在的有限性，而转向之后的海德格尔则直接言说存在自身的有限性。[4]循着这样的逻辑，一些学者站在后期海德格尔的立场上批评前期海德格尔的此在分析，要么认为它缺失了超越的维度[5]，要么认为它所能容许的超越只是一种自欺式的“主体主义重复”[6]。这样一来，此在的有限性所提供的视角似乎就成了一个陷阱，将前期海德格尔困在由“向死存在”所框定的界限之内，使他看不到这种有限性在超越者（存在自身）中的根据。而另一些学者则认为，此在分析将实践置于理论之先，已经隐含着对主体中心论的克服[7]，而实践视角恰恰意味着从此在的有限性之内出发的视角[8]。从而，有限此在的内在领域就是一个不应放弃的边界；脱离它而直接谈论存在自身，就意味着重新滑入前批判的形而上学。也有一些学者试图提供折衷的道路，例如认为有限的人的最高尊严就在于守护存在自身的无蔽状态与（更为根本的）遮蔽状态。[9]不难看出，这些讨论的关键是如何看待有限此在之内在性，以及相应地如何看待存在自身对这种内在性的超越。

本文想要展现的是，“有限化”概念蕴含着海德格尔让此在的有限性“动态化”的努力。有限化的动态模型容许我们将此在的有限性中蕴含的内在性和超越性理解成是相容的、甚至是相互需要和相互成就的，而不是在一种“非此即彼”中依照一方而要求排除另一方。不仅如此，有限化的动态模型或许是海德格尔在“转向”存在自身之有限性前有关此在之有限性的最为成熟和完备的学说。在1930年后，由于“转向”的缘故，“有限化”一词从海德格尔的写作中淡出了；在全集第39卷中的短暂出现仍然延续了1930年的模型而并无明显推进。[10]不过，正如下文所要揭示的，这种淡出仅仅意味着海德格尔思考重心的转移，而此在之有限化的学说仍然是一种可以独立自存的学说，并从此在的角度补充说明了：存在自身“无化”的运作方式是如何被“此之在”（Da-sein）所承担的。

出于上述考虑，本文用内在性和超越性这个概念对子来分析海德格尔有关“有限化”的论述。尽管他本人并未明确通过将内在性与超越性对置的方式来展开对“有限化”的解释，他的具体言说却为两种看似方向相反的解读留出了空间。这两种解读可以粗略地称为有关此在之有限性的内在性解读和超越性解读。根据内在性解读，此在的有限性表现为其生命被无数“小型”的死亡或死–去（dying）所渗透，从而该有限性无需倚赖一个超出了此在的“外部”来界定。根据超越性解读，此在的有限性始终是根据在世存在那悬临着的终结来规定，从而其“内部”的视阈舍去这个绝对的“外部”便不可理解。

本文在论证上分为三步。首先，借助E. 施泰因（Edith Stein）在《马丁·海德格尔的存在哲学》（Martin Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy）一文中对海德格尔“向死存在”学说的批判，区分对有限性之解释的内在性立场和超越性立场。其次，通过细读海德格尔1929–1930年的五种文本中出现“Verendlichung”一词的段落，表明海德格尔的论述对内在性立场和超越性立场都有所支持。最后，提出一种关于此在之有限性的模型，论证内在性和超越性在该模型中是相容的，只是刻画了有限性的不同方面，从而导向一种超越内外之分、超越“几何化”思维的设想此在有限性的方式。

二、解读有限性的两种立场

在《马丁·海德格尔的存在哲学》中，施泰因以其有神论的立场与海德格尔（在她看来）不可知论的立场交锋，而争论的焦点就在于如何理解此在的有限性，以及海德格尔用死亡来划定此在的在世存在的“边界”的做法是否足以解释这种有限性。这里考察施泰因对海德格尔的批评，只是为了区分理解此在之有限性的两种路径。这两种路径的代表分别是施泰因本人和施泰因所理解的海德格尔。

我们首先考察后者。施泰因大体认可海德格尔对“存在之意义”追问的路向，但认为海德格尔对此在的生存论分析（Existentialanalytik des Daseins）不足以达到对存在之意义的恰切把握，因为这种分析有意将讨论限于“此世”的有限生命之内，对人经由死亡进入的永恒存在避而不谈。

施泰因敏锐地把握到了海德格尔的如下观点：如果此在的生存是由它对自身诸可能性的操劳（Besorgen）而定义的，那么，这些可能性要保持为可能性，此在就必须被它所尚未（noch nicht）是者所规定。对此在的整体存在（Ganzsein）而言，作为终结（Ende）的死亡就是最根本的“尚未”，而被这个“尚未”规定就意味着此在的向死存在（Sein zum Tode）。[11]对向死存在的分析，完全是在“此世”的范围之内展开的；死亡仅仅是个体的此在在此世的生存中所面临的终极的可能性。[12]至于是什么承托着这种终极可能性、此在在遭遇这种可能性“之后”又会遭遇什么，海德格尔则不置一词，因为他的方法论将凡此种种列为存在者层面（ontische）的问题，对它们的回答要基于此在分析所面向的存在论层面（ontologische）的问题。

换言之，施泰因将海德格尔看作一个纯粹在此在的有限存在内部去定义有限性的思想家。尽管死亡的现象似乎指向了生命的某种“外部”，海德格尔却悬搁了对外部的探讨，而仅仅基于此在终有一死这个在生命内部就能把握到的可能性视阈来刻画此在的有限性。“向死存在”的要点，不在于“死”，而在于“向”：“向”意味着“尚未”死，意味着尚在“生”的内部。只不过，这样的“生”，由于处处为终有一死的可能性所渗透，不再只是散乱的情节的拼接，而获得了整体存在的特征：我们因为生也有涯，会去考量自己这一生应当如何度过，会面临人生中或此或彼的抉择——毕竟，我们不可能实现一切的可能性，生的有限意味着某些可能性之间是互斥的。

在考察海德格尔《形而上学是什么？》中的相关段落时，我将借助L. 劳勒（Leonard Lawlor）的解释来进一步探讨被死所“渗透”的生意味着什么。这里，我们首先转向施泰因的相反观点。

施泰因承认此在的有限生存是一种向死存在，也和海德格尔一样认为此在是“被抛”（geworfen）入这种存在方式的。但是她认为，死亡的概念必然预设了经由死亡所过渡到的存在方式（哪怕这意味着彻底不再存在），被抛的概念必然预设了将此在“抛出”者。按照传统哲学的语言，施泰因提出，对有限性的界定必然预设了某个“奠基着却不被奠基、而是自我奠基的存在者：某个抛掷了‘被抛’者的存在者。”这个自我奠基并奠基和抛掷了有限此在的无限存在者，就是上帝。换言之，“被抛性（Geworfenheit）被揭示为被造性（Geschöpflichkeit）。”[13]

施泰因进而通过对死亡或死–去（Sterben; dying）的现象学分析来展现它如何指向了一种超越了有限生命的存在。她指出，许多人在最终“输掉”与死亡的斗争时所展现出的平静释然，并非有关生命从有到无的想法所能支撑；他们的“向死存在”并非“向终结存在”（Sein zum Ende），而是“向一种新的存在（方式）存在”（Sein zu einem neuen Sein），尽管这种转换必须经由“死亡的苦楚、自然实存的剧烈崩解”来实现。[14]在死去这一现象中，施泰因看到的是：此在重归那作为根基的无限存在者的怀抱，克服身上的时间性而上升至永恒的存在。[15]

因此，对施泰因而言，有限性只能是一个消极的或褫夺性（privative）的概念，有限就意味着“未被救赎的存在”（unerlöstes Sein）。[16]如果囿于有限性的内部，就永远无法恰切地理解它，因为有限之为有限恰恰在于它一刻不停地向着超越者、无限者追寻，要隐失到后者中去；只有在这种追寻和隐失之中，有限的存在才被揭示为有限。因此，施泰因对海德格尔单纯从有限性出发去定义此在的“超越”（Transzendenz）的做法也不满意：在她看来，超越意味着打破有限性，而有限存在者作为被造物（ens creatum），自身是无力实现这种打破的，只有仰赖超越的（transzendente）、无限的存在者即上帝。[17]简而言之，有限性离开了超越者便不可理解。

如果我们将施泰因在对海德格尔的批判中展现的立场称为对有限性的超越性解读，那么她所呈现的海德格尔则可谓开展了对有限性的内在性解读。

三、海德格尔对“有限化”的内在性解读

海德格尔在“有限性”之外又造出“有限化”这个概念，是为了避免人们将有限性当成一种偶然地加于本可“无限”的存在者的属性，而致力于将有限性展现为一个按照自身的节奏逐渐展开的过程。仅就这一点而言，他似乎确如施泰因所解读的那样，倾向于对有限性的内在性解读。

海德格尔在《德国观念论与当前哲学的困境》中对费希特的批评印证了这一点。在海德格尔看来，费希特耶拿时期的知识学首先预设了无限的绝对自我，尔后才追问这个绝对自我如何“有限化”：“自我本身在此是无限的，只不过被有限化（verendlichet）了！”[18]自我性的题中之义是“将自身降低、亦即有限化（sich verendlicht）和限制到它的设置活动、亦即知识中去”。[19]

这种对“有限化”的定义，即一个本可以无限的存在者因为偶然附加上了有限性而变得有限，恰恰是海德格尔所要反对的。在海德格尔对费希特绝对自我学说的解构中，不再是绝对自我先被预设、而后被有限化；而是费希特首先把握到了有限化的运动本身，却因为传统形而上学体系性框架的限制而不得不为这个运动“造出”了一个无限的“起点”，即绝对主体：“它（自我）有限化了自身，而且为了能如此这般有限化自身，它本身还必须成为绝对主体。”[20]换言之，有限化的过程在存在论上是在先的，而无限的绝对主体（绝对自我）反倒是从有限化过程出发而反向建构的。刻画了人的“自我性”的，并非是绝对自我，甚至不是被事后地“有限化”了的绝对自我，而是作为一种原初活动（过程）的“有限化”本身：它并非从静态的无限性到静态的有限性的“化”，而是在其运动中内在地建构出两个看似静态的“极”。

类似的论证出现在《康德与形而上学疑难》中。在批判性地讨论康德对“有限的理性存在者”的设定时，海德格尔说：

“有限性并不只是简单地附加（hängt an）在纯粹的人类理性之上的东西，相反，理性的有限性就是有限化（Verendlichung），即为了有终结的能在（Endlich-sein-können）而操心。”[21]

恰恰是向着终结的可能性开放，使得人类理性这样的东西成为可能；理性完全是从有限的人类存在的内部出发得以理解的；它是“有限化”的产物而非前提。

到了《形而上学的基本概念》中，有限性的“非附加”特性得到了更细化的讨论，并与此在的“个体化”或“单独化”联系起来：

“有限性不是仅仅附在我们身上的某种特性，而是我们的存在之根本方式。如果我们想要成为我们之所是的存在者的话，我们就不能离弃这种有限性，或者就此自欺欺人，而是必须守护（behüten）它。这种保护（Bewahren）是我们的有限存在（Endlichsein）之最内在进程（innerste Prozeß），也就是说，我们最内在的有限化（Verendlichung）。有限性只在（ist）真正的有限化之中。在这种进程中，最终将发生人在其此在上的一种个体化（Vereinzelung）。个体化——这并不是指，人要保持他那个瘦弱而渺小的自我，那个自我在对待世界的这个或那个方面狂妄自大。这种个体化毋宁说就是那种单独化（Vereinsamung），每个人首先都会因之而达于万物之本质的近旁（Nähe），都会达于世界之近旁。”[22]

由于毫不含糊地将有限性承认为“我们的存在之根本方式”，通过哲学的思考否弃或梦想超越这种有限性就只能是痴人说梦。哲学的恰当姿态是“守护”我们自身的有限性。然而，守护既不是固步自封，也不是敝帚自珍地将有限自我的原则等同于存在论层面的唯一原理，而是将我们的有限存在把握为一种不息的运动，把握为“有限化”这种“最内在进程”。哲学只有追随这一进程、牢牢地把握进程之内的视角，才能理解个体的自我（费希特）或个体的理性存在者（康德）是怎么回事。假如一开始就预设有限化进程之外的超越者，则存在者整体将只能展现为无差别的平面，而此在的在世存在中展现出的那种事物来到“近旁”的现象将永远成谜。

在这里，海德格尔触及了他对此在之有限性的讨论的核心，即“整体存在”（Ganzsein）的问题。事实上，在《存在与时间》第45–53节[23]中，海德格尔之所以提出“向死存在”概念，正是为了回答此在原初的整体存在何以可能的问题；“向–”的结构正是海德格尔对这一问题的回答。在一个由无差别并置的现成存在者组成的无限的平面上，谈不上什么“整体”；整体之整体性只能来自于一个有限此在的内部视角，它首先表现为通过该此在的存在之领会（Seinsverständnis）所展开的世界的世界性（Weltlichkeit），而这又离不开该此在从无差别的存在样态（常人）出发被个体化的过程。因此，海德格尔说：

“在存在者的整体之中生存（im Ganzen des Seienden zu existieren），无非就是一个特有的问题：我们称之为世界的这种‘在整体之中’（im Ganzen）意味着什么。此时在这种追问和寻求中，通过这种上下求索（Hin-und-her）所发生的，就是人的有限性。通过这种有限化（Verendlichung）所发生的，就是人之最终的单独化，每个人都因之作为某个独一无二者（Einziger）而面对整体。”[24]

“上下求索”意味着对原点和方位的标定；它展开了一个有限的世界，因为只有当世界有原点、有方位、有边界（尽管并非确定的边界，而是更接近于“地平线”）时，它才能是一个整体，我们也才能生存“在”它“之中”。但是，由于世界总是向着此在而显现、为着此在而展开，世界的整体性也就要求该此在不能仅仅是平均的、可替代的“一个”，而必须能够是“独一无二者”。假如此在如同现成存在者那样是可以相互替代的，那么任何原点、方位和边界都只是武断的、在流俗意义上“主观的”规定，而无法赋予世界以整体性。因此，有限化的运动必定在有限的整体和独一无二的此在之间的场域中展开。

在这些有关“有限化”的论述中，我们似乎找不到任何对有限的此在之外的存在者的预设和倚重。一切都是从此在在其生存之中对存在意义的领会出发来解释的。在对费希特、康德的思路的批判性解读中，海德格尔甚至专门强调对有限性的定义不能基于无限者、超越者。可以说，“有限化”刻画的就是有限性之内的运动，这个运动甚至能够反向地建构种种在传统哲学中被认定为超越者的东西。以此观之，海德格尔的确如施泰因所说，在解读有限性时采取了内在性的立场。

四、海德格尔对“有限化”的超越性解读

然而，事情并没有那么简单。如果我们仔细聆听海德格尔的言说，不难发现他对有限性乃至“有限化”的刻画也有着超越性的维度。毕竟，“超越”（Transzendenz）的概念也是他在1929–1930年思索的核心概念之一；可以说，有限的此在若非同时是一种超越，便与此在之外的现成存在者无异。[25]在上一节的《康德与形而上学疑难》引文中，也能看出端倪：有限化是为了“有终结的能在”，“能”与“终结”就已表明，规定了此在的有限存在的是终结（Ende），而终结是尚未实现的可能性。我们由此被带回了施泰因对海德格尔“向死存在”学说的解读和批判：有没有一种可能，即施泰因将“超越性”的意义窄化了，将它等同于向着某个现成（vorhanden）的超越者的行进或“上升”，从而错失了海德格尔那里对此在的有限性所蕴含的超越性的独特论说？

有关海德格尔的超越学说，学界基本有一个共识，即超越问题不再像在康德、胡塞尔那里那样首先是知识论问题，而是首先是存在论问题。[26]但是，在此基础上，一些学者认为“超越”指的是此在从其向来属我性（Jemeinigkeit）出发而超越自身[27]，另一些学者则认为“超越”首先是指存在自身或真理对人的超越[28]。后一解释似乎更接近施泰因对有限性的超越性解读；而且，即便是支持前一解释的学者，也倾向于将其解释的“超越”概念限制在海德格尔转向前的时期，而在解读其转向后的时期时引入某种超出了此在之范围的原则，如存在自身、存有或真理[29]。因此，两种解释的分歧可能只在于“超越”一词实际适用的范围；而如果我们不拘于名相[30]，就会发现两者都指向了超出此在者——换言之，都指向了本文第二节中以结构方式定义的对有限性的“超越性解读”。

然而，超越性解读所必须面对的难题是，存在自身的运作方式如何不同于传统形而上学意义上的超越者（transcendens），从而如何不致彻底刺穿并消解那在对此在之有限性的追问中刚刚建立起的内在性领域。在回答这一问题时，首当其冲、也最亟待深入理解的，是《形而上学是什么？》中这一包含了“有限化”的著名段落：

“此在基于隐而不显的畏（Angst）而被嵌入无（Nichts）之中。此在的这种被嵌入状态（Hineingehaltenheit）就使人成为无的场地守护者（Platzhalter）。我们是如此有限，以至于我们恰恰不能通过本己的决心（Beschluß）和意志（Willen）把我们自身源始地（ursprünglich）带到无面前。在我们的此在中埋藏着一种有限化（Verendlichung），而这种有限化埋得如此深邃（abgründig），以至于那种最本己的和最深刻的有限性拒不委身于（versagt）我们的自由。”[31]

在《形而上学是什么？》中，对“畏”的生存论分析是为了揭示出此在被“嵌入”在“无”之中。这里的“无”不能等同于施泰因所说的超越者，因为“无”首先不是一个存在者（Seiende）。尽管如此，“无”仍然超越了此在，尤其是超越了个体化的此在的“决心和意志”、超越了自由，以至于此在不可能仅依托其有限存在内部的资源而“将自身源始地带到无面前”。在这里，“有限化”似乎不再能够被理解为某个严格地处于此在的存在之领会内部的东西。相反，存在之领会本身要依据有限化、尤其是依据人成为“无”的“场地守护者”这一观点来解释。

这是如何可能的？首先，根据“形而上学是什么？”中对“无”的定义，被“嵌入”“无”之中指的并非是从属于某个更大的集合，而是恒常地被置于一切可能性的终极的不可能性（死亡）的悬临之下，或者说恒常地被置于一个事实上是无根（Ab-grund／深渊）的根基（Grund）之上。进而，守护（halten）着“无”的场地（Platz），就意味着作为一种在此的“有”而将原本无差别的“无”接引来世间、注入诸存在者之中。以此观之，此在并非首先已经是根基稳固的存在者、尔后才获得了对存在的领会；不如说，存在（在当前语境中与“无”同义）自身呼唤着存在之领会（Seins-verständnis），呼唤着作为其“场地守护者”的此在。简而言之，之所以“有”（es gibt）此在（Dasein），是因为“在”（Sein）呼唤着一个个的有限的“此”（da），以便展开为每一个“此”所居于的世界。张柯将该机制称为存在自身对此在的“需用”（Brauch）。[32]

以此观之，此在的有限性的确不再能够仅凭其“内部”的决心和意志来把握；相反，它成了超越性的“无”所呼唤的必要环节。无论是在对“向死存在”的论述，还是在对“无”的论述中，海德格尔虽然是从此在的生存论领会出发，却并不可能囿于其范围，而是必须导向超越。这难道不也是一种对有限性的超越性解读吗？

五、内在性解读与超越性解读的相容性

在第二节中，我们区分了对有限性的两种似乎对立的解读。在第三、四节中，我们却发现海德格尔围绕“有限化”的论述似乎同时支持这两种解读。这是何以可能的？

人们当然可以开展一种传记式的研究，试图说明海德格尔在1929年发生了某种思想转变。本文采取的是另一条进路，即在论理层面指出，海德格尔有关“有限化”的思考表明内在性解读和超越性解读可能是相容而非互斥的。通过现象学地说明此在的有限性如何可能既是内在的、也是超越的，我们甚至能够反思那从一开始使得我们将两种解读对立起来的哲学框架是否本身是成问题的。

我们从劳勒对《形而上学是什么？》中前引段落的创造性解释出发。在本文第四节中，这个文本支持的是对有限性的超越性解释；而受德勒兹的福柯解释影响的劳勒却从中读出了一种内在性解释，他将之称为“生命–主义”（life-ism）。

在劳勒看来，海德格尔的“有限化”概念导向的是各自独一无二（singular）的“生命过程”。[33]他追随多数海德格尔学者，将“无”理解为一种尽管自身不断抽身而退、却不断给出“有”的积极原则，此即“无本身无化着”（Das Nichts selbst nichtet）[34]所要表达的动态含义。基于这一点，劳勒论证说“有限化”必定不是一个一蹴而就的事件，而是一个无止境地（indefinitely）重复的过程：有限化本身就意味着“不断有限化”（re-finitization）。[35]换言之，此在的有限性就展现在：它作为“无”的“场地守护者”，永恒地在“有”的显现和“无”的自我遮蔽之间摇摆。

但这样一来，此在的死亡就不能仅仅被当成是一生的“绝对的界限”，仿佛它在发生之前都尚未发生，仅仅作为此在筹划的某种“边界”而存在。[36]相反，应当依据“有限化”永恒运动的特征，将死亡理解为“分散于整个生存”的内在的限制——具体而言，死亡被“无止境地增殖”了，它从生命终点所代表的“一锤定音”的死亡，变成了渗透整个生命的无数小型的死去。活着（living）与死着（dying）是同一回事，从而，“作为有限化，死实际上就是生命自身。”[37]

借助福柯在《临床医学的诞生》中对“比夏区”（Bichat’s zone）的分析，劳勒论证到：如果疾病可以看成是一种寄生于（branché sur）人的生命的生命，它就不是从外部降临到人的生命之上，而是意味着人的生命的“内在偏离”。[38]因此，“向死存在”也不再是向着某个超越了此在之有限生命的终极可能性而存在，而仅仅意味着该有限生命在内部就被无数的“死去”过程（即“有限化”）所渗透和蚕食，被无数“微小的断裂”（des écarts infimes）所切割。

然而，如果我们后退一步，考察劳勒对海德格尔的解读的整体走向，就会发现，他提出的“纯粹内在”的有限性概念尽管极具创见，与本文第四节中所描绘的对有限性的超越性解释却并不矛盾，而只是补充了向着死亡并在“无”的“无–根基”（Ab-grund）之上存在的此在的内部情形。向着有限存在之外或之上的超越运动，与在内部不断偏离、崩解、被蚕食的过程，有可能只是同一过程的两个侧面。甚至可以说，舍去超越运动，便无法理解内在的崩解；舍去内在的崩解，也无法理解超越。超越运动和内在崩解是同一过程的彼此倚赖的两面，这就是我此处想要提出的、使得内在性立场和超越性立场相容的关键。为了具体说明这一观点，我将对海德格尔同期著作《论人的自由之本质：哲学的导论》中的如下段落进行一次“非正统”的解读：

“试图摆脱限制，不仅远没有克服（überwinden）有限性，恰恰反而可能更是一种有限化（Verendlichung），如果这种限制属于人的知识之本质状况，而取消限制的尝试就会导致理性分裂（Zerrüttung）的话！”[39]

这个段落原本是在解读康德的先验辩证论中有关理性之“越界”的观点。黑格尔有关思辨理性“克服”了概念化的知性所固有的限制、从而克服了人的知识之有限性的观点，是海德格尔此处的“靶子”。海德格尔认同康德的观点：理性固然每每试图摆脱可能经验的限制，这种企图却恰恰是有限性的征兆，因为只有有限者才会如此心心念念地追求无限，而真正的无限者早已安居于无限性之中了。进而，有限者取消限制的尝试，导致的是理性的分裂，这体现在（例如）纯粹理性的二律背反之中。

尽管如此，海德格尔在这一段中却未必只是给出了一种对摆脱限制之企图的消极评价。如果说，有限此在的存在方式就在于“有限化”，那么说“试图摆脱限制恰恰更是一种有限化”，是否意味着摆脱限制的企图和尝试也属于人的本质？放到前文的概念框架中，这就意味着超越的运动独属于本质上不可能克服限制的人。另一方面，这一超越的运动又不可避免地遭遇挫折，挫折的终极来源就在于：有限的生命内部已被侵蚀出无数的“死”的裂隙，生命逐渐内在地崩解、并将最终带来真正的死亡，从而，并没有什么连续的、累积性的、无止境的超越。甚至生命的内在崩解有时恰恰是源于超越运动遭遇的挫折，源于人永不安于其有限存在相对安全的“内部”。

为什么一种在其内部不断崩解的生命，恰恰能够承担起超越其自身限度的尝试，并且“屡败屡战”？尽管没有文本上的直接依据，如下的观点与我们先前的探索是相容的：有限的生命，固然从其内部不断崩解、不断被死亡所蚕食，从而并非什么颠扑不破的根基，但蚕食着生命的死亡或死–去同样是有限的，这表现为生命的崩解总需要时间。而在时间耗尽之前，脆弱易朽的生命却足以成为超越的尝试的“踏板”。这种使人不断“踏空”却又在“踏空”之中提供了有限的支撑的生命，或许就是一种堪当“根基”的“无–根”。形而上学汲汲于寻找颠扑不破的根基（fundamentum inconcussum），从而在不断衰老死去的生命中寻不到意义；但生命的意义并不在于衰老死去本身（尽管这是其不可抹去的一面），而在于衰老死去所需的时间、以及这种时间所容许的超越。内在崩解这种“有限化”过程时刻向我们提示着自己的限度，使得我们时刻向往超越，而超越虽永远不可能一劳永逸地成功，其失败却也需要时间。我们由此能够有限地“流连”于超越的“途中”。有限此在的意义，便在这一“之间”（metaxu）中展开了。[40]

如果说，这种在生命崩解所需的有限时间之中所实现的、在终将失败的超越运动半途的流连，就是“有限化”的深层含义，那么“有限化”就确如海德格尔所说，不在于从某个不受限的状态的“坠落”，而在于有限性之本质（Wesen）的持续展开。对它的解读，也就不再能够区分内在性的立场和超越性的立场。内在崩解和超越运动同属于一个“有限化”过程，事实上也同属于一个“时间化”（Zeitigung）过程：仅有内在，则崩解无意义；仅有超越，则运动无支承。执著于内在与超越的对立，似乎只是一种将有限性“几何化”的思维方式导致的；而如果有限性转而被理解为“有限化”，则“内”与“外”根本无法切割，尽管这两个方面可以分别描述。

六、 结论

本文考察了海德格尔在1929–1930年的五种文本中通过“有限化”概念对此在之有限性的深化。通过区分对有限性的内在性解读和超越性解读，本文表明“有限化”意味着有限性一种动态模型。在这一模型中，作为有限此在之超越性边界的死亡被重新解释为散落于生命各处的内在崩解；这种崩解一方面以其限度而使超越运动成为必要，另一方面又因为需要时间而为超越运动提供了有限的、暂时的支承。这样以来，对有限性的内在性解读和超越性解读就在“有限化”的动态模型中被统合起来。这一方案与朱清华在O. 波格勒（Otto Pöggeler）的启发下提出的超越模型的“内在转折”（immanenter Wandel）颇为相似，可以说是为朱清华所说“相互震荡或摇荡（Gegenschwung）的本质构造”提供了一种具体说明。[41]

此外，“有限化”的动态模型还容许我们在面对此在的有限性时不必立即像后期海德格尔那样转向存在自身的有限性，即“隐秘”和“迷误”（Irre）[42]，而是可以暂时驻留于有限此在之本质的持续展开，以思考有限生命所独有的借助细小的死亡而获得细小的新生的方式。这与转向之后的海德格尔用“无”来刻画超越于此在的存在自身的做法是切合的，因为“无”作为后–形而上学的超越者，不再是将有限者引向自身、从而以其绝对的自身同一性来“同化”有限者的无限者，而是以其“退隐”来容许、鼓励乃至引诱有限者自身差异化的“虚位”。用张柯的话来说，当海德格尔将“无”设定为存在自身的内在可能性时，他就是用“有限性之思”将无限性“降解”成了有限性的核心真理（而非取消之）。[43]

蔡文菁曾在《论人类自由之本质》的语境中将人类有限存在所独具的“伟大”（Gröβe）解读为一种“谦逊而富有尊严的姿态”，它意味着让存在者以各自差异的方式存在（Seinlassen）。[44]本文表明，差异化同样适用、甚至首先适用于此在自己，而这是通过死亡的内在化（在生命内部的无限散布）来证成的。在《论人的自由之本质：哲学的导论》前引段落的更前一段，海德格尔用“不和”（Veruneinigung）来刻画“有限化”。[45]“不和”未必是消极的概念，它也可以意味着从“统一”（einig）的东西中走出来、分化（differenzieren）出来，在有限场域的内部引入差异和多元。对个体的此在是如此，对此在的共同体亦是如此：无数的小型“死去”，也为无数的新生“让”出了缝隙。

（作者单位：武汉大学哲学学院  责任编辑：张琳）

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注释

[1] 目前学界对于 “Verendlichung”尚无令人满意的译法。译为“有限化”，相当于是在字面上与“有限性”（Endlichkeit）保持一致；译为“有终化”，则是强调了其中对“终结”（Ende）的暗示，并且体现出Verendlichung所蕴含的“向终结存在”（Sein zum Ende）的动态特征。在下文中，我统一用“有限化”来翻译“Verendlichung”。

[2] Cf. François Jaran and Christophe Perrin, The Heidegger Concordance, 3vols., vol.2, Bloomsbury, 2013, p. 592.

[3] 参见邓定：《此之在的有限性与真理之本质——论海德格尔哲学中的真理、揭蔽及隐秘问题》，《浙江社会科学》2023年第5期。

[4] 参见仰海峰：《有限性：早期海德格尔形而上学的理论核心》，《理论探讨》2001年第5期；詹莹莹：《论人类自由与有限性——海德格尔与卡西尔在达沃斯辩论的启示》，《天津社会科学》2015年第2期。

[5] 参见张海涛：《海德格尔前期哲学“超越”维度的缺失》，《东南学术》2019年第4期。

[6] 参见杨晓斌：《主体主义重复——海德格尔意向性超越的自欺》，《理论与改革》2015年第5期。

[7] 参见贺来、郭晶：《“主体中心困境”的超越——海德格尔的思考及其启示》，《江西社会科学》2011年第31卷第12期。

[8] 参见牛小侠、陆杰荣：《海德格尔“有限性”思想及其“实践”意蕴》，《学习与探索》2011年第6期。

[9] 参见杜敏：《无限性与有限性之思——海德格尔神学悖论解读》，《系统科学学报》2011年第19卷第2期。

[10] 参见海德格尔：《荷尔德林的颂歌〈日耳曼尼亚〉与〈莱茵河〉》，张振华译，西北大学出版社，2018，第99页。

[11] Edith Stein, “Martin Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy”, M. Lebech trans., Maynooth Philosophical Papers 4(2007): p. 62.

[12] Ibid., p. 75.

[13] Ibid., p. 71.

[14] Ibid., p. 78.

[15] Ibid., p. 79.

[16] Ibid., p. 81.

[17] Ibid., pp. 84-86.

[18] 海德格尔：《德国观念论与当前哲学的困境》，庄振华、李华译，西北大学出版社，2016，第305页。

[19] 同上，第176页。

[20] 同上，第159页。强调为笔者所加。

[21] 海德格尔：《康德与形而上学疑难》，王庆节译，上海译文出版社，2011，第206页。

[22] 海德格尔：《形而上学的基本概念：世界–有限性–孤独性》，赵卫国译，商务印书馆，2017，第10页。

[23] 参见海德格尔：《存在与时间》，陈嘉映、王庆节译，商务印书馆，2020，第321–369页。

[24] 海德格尔：《形而上学的基本概念：世界–有限性–孤独性》，赵卫国译，商务印书馆，2017，第14页。

[25] 参见海德格尔:《从莱布尼茨出发的逻辑学的形而上学始基》，赵卫国译，西北大学出版社，2015，第225–300页。

[26] 参见王庆节：《超越、超越论与海德格尔的〈存在与时间〉》，《同济大学学报（社会科学版）》2014年第25卷第1期。

[27] 参见梁家荣：《海德格尔“世界”概念的超越论意涵》，《同济大学学报（社会科学版）》2008年第5期；屠兴勇：《存在·此在·人——海德格尔“死亡”现象学的三个维度》，《同济大学学报（社会科学版）》2010年第21卷第1期；王庆节：《超越、超越论与海德格尔的〈存在与时间〉》，《同济大学学报（社会科学版）》2014年第25卷第1期；杨晓斌：《主体主义重复——海德格尔意向性超越的自欺》，《理论与改革》2015年第5期；朱清华：《海德格尔的超越和超越论的克服问题》，《现代哲学》2024年第4期。

[28] 参见张柯：《超越与自由——论前期海德格尔思想中的“根据律”问题》，《西南民族大学学报（人文社会科学版）》2011年第32卷第9期；张海涛：《海德格尔前期哲学“超越”维度的缺失》，《东南学术》2019年第4期。

[29] 参见朱清华：《海德格尔的超越和超越论的克服问题》，《现代哲学》2024年第4期。

[30] 这里不展开讨论海德格尔在《哲学论稿》（全集第65卷）中列出的五种超越概念（参见朱清华：《海德格尔的超越和超越论的克服问题》，《现代哲学》2024年第4期），因为本文主要从结构而非观念史角度探讨超越问题，其着眼点始终在于对有限性的“超越性解读”。

[31] 海德格尔：《路标》，孙周兴译，商务印书馆，2011，第138页。

[32] 参见张柯：《探基与启思：海德格尔对德国古典哲学的整体评判研究》，商务印书馆，2023，第362页。

[33] Cf. Leonard Lawlor, “Verendlichung (Finitization): The Overcoming of Metaphysics with Life”, Philosophy Today 48.4(2004): p. 399.

[34] 海德格尔：《路标》，孙周兴译，商务印书馆，2011，第133页。德文本可参见Martin Heidegger, Wegmarken (Gesamtausgabe 9), Vittorio Klostermann, 1976, p. 114。

[35] Cf. Leonard Lawlor, “Verendlichung (Finitization): The Overcoming of Metaphysics with Life”, Philosophy Today 48.4(2004): p. 403.

[36] 参见刘晓英：《死：生存哲学有待展开的话题——兼评海德格尔生存论意义上的“死”及其哲学价值》，《理论探讨》2004年第2期；王建斌：《向终结而在：海德格尔的死亡观》，《湖北社会科学》2011年第12期。

[37] Leonard Lawlor, “Verendlichung (Finitization): The Overcoming of Metaphysics with Life”, Philosophy Today 48.4(2004): p. 404. 江向东表达过类似的观点。参见江向东：《试论海德格尔的“向死存在”——从时间的本体化视角解读〈存在与时间〉中的“死”》，《学海》2006年第2期。

[38] Cf. Leonard Lawlor, “Verendlichung (Finitization): The Overcoming of Metaphysics with Life”, Philosophy Today 48.4(2004): p. 405.

[39] 海德格尔：《论人的自由之本质：哲学的导论》，赵卫国译，商务印书馆，2021，第224页。

[40] 这一结论使得我无法同意施泰因为有限性开出的处方，即永恒地安息于无限者（超越者）的怀抱。自由的有限性，既不在于固守无限的反面，也不在于向着无限的隐失，而在于恒常地从自身之内出发追寻无限性，在于不息的、无止境的运动。

[41] 参见朱清华：《海德格尔的超越和超越论的克服问题》，《现代哲学》2024年第4期；Otto Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger, Verlag Karl Alber, 1992, S. 30.

[42] 参见邓定：《此之在的有限性与真理之本质——论海德格尔哲学中的真理、揭蔽及隐秘问题》，《浙江社会科学》2023年第5期。

[43] 参见张柯：《探基与启思：海德格尔对德国古典哲学的整体评判研究》，商务印书馆，2023，第466–468页。

[44] 参见蔡文菁：《自由与有限性——对海德格尔〈论人类自由的本质〉的解读》，《哲学分析》2018年第9卷第5期。

[45] 参见海德格尔：《论人的自由之本质：哲学的导论》，赵卫国译，商务印书馆，2021，第223页。

Renxiang Liu (Wuhan University)

Article information

Liu, Renxiang. “Prescience and Patience: A Reassessment of Technoscience in Light of Heidegger.” Studia Phaenomenologica, 24 (2024): 165–180. https://doi.org/10.5840/studphaen2024249

Published open-access by Zeta Books under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Full text link: https://zetabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/SP24_Liu_OA.pdf

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Abstract

In this paper, I respond to contemporary debates on technoscience by asking about how science and technology are fusible. This directs me to Heidegger’s critique of calculative thinking in modern technology and science: it turns things into objects of representation so that they may be ordered and manipulated. The unilateral availability of objects for the subject is achieved by attending to what Heidegger called the “mathematical” in things, i.e., conceptual schemes pre-delineated before encountering things. To imagine an alternative, I transform the phenomenological account of temporality into a thing-centric account of the unfolding of things at their own rhythms. What matters is to be patient for such rhythms, to enter a relation of mutual availability. This is in effect becoming the paradigm in contemporary practices of technoscience. The inquiry shows what is problematic (prescience) and what is promising (patience) in the technoscience that is still taking shape in our age.

Keywords

Technoscience, calculative thinking, object of representation, the mathematical, rhythms of unfolding.

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1. Introduction: Disentangling Technoscience

Since the words “science” and “technology” entered daily discourse, they have been perceived as designating two closely intertwined yet different aspects of our engagement with the world. The task of science is to know about things in the world, especially about the regularities according to which they perform, while technology is about operating on them and even producing things which have never existed before. Even Bruno Latour, one of the major proponents of the intertwinement of science and technology, ascribed them to different “modes of existence” in a recent work.[1]

This makes it all the more curious as the word “technoscience” has been employed in philosophy since mid-1970s to address the further fusion of science and technology in late modernity.[2] The major concern behind is that both the subject and the object of scientific research have been reshaped when “technology becomes the milieu, the driver and the finality of research.” (Hottois 1984) On the one hand, material, social, and political agencies are at play in technoscientific practice, so that the “subject” of technoscience is no longer the Cartesian subject with a detached stance and purely cognitive intentions but rather “irreducibly plural” and engaged (Hottois 2018: 130). On the other hand, scientific objects nowadays are fabricated through “sociotechnical shaping and production”: instead of facts and laws about objects that exist independent of inquiry, technoscience “seeks to establish demonstrable capacities of construction and control by functionalizing objects, implementing new capacities and enhancing their value.” (Bensaude Vincent and Loeve 2018: 173) In other words, the fusion of science and technology in contemporary technoscience concerns a shift in the very task which scientists set for themselves.

Since technoscience cares not so much with the essence or “nature” of things than with their affordances and propensities for technological operation, it is understandable that most technoscientists are ontologically uncommitted. However, as Bensaude Vincent and Loeve point out, this does not mean that technoscience is ontology-free (2018: 178). The inquiry into how things would respond to operation presupposes an understanding (Heidegger might say “pre-understanding”) of the senses in which the thing “is” and the operation “is.” Regarding this, Hugh Lacey (2012) argues that technoscience continues to be conducted within the “decontextualized approach” and therefore inherits its ontology from “pure” science, while Bensaude Vincent and Loeve (2018: 176–180) would see technoscience as thoroughly contextualized, helping nature deliver its own, local capacities, rather than imposing a homogeneous framework on nature.

This paper continues the discussion of the ontology which is often only implicit in technoscience. However, instead of debating directly over the mode of being of technoscientific objects, it begins from the examination of an idea which contemporary discussions about the fusion of science and technology usually take for granted and thus leave undiscussed—the idea that science and technology are fusible in the first place. After all, why do scientists feel justified to take up as objects of scientific research what technology—from simple apparatuses of measurement to Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and genetic modification—offers them? To answer this question, we need to turn to earlier discussions of technoscience, even those avant la lettre:[3] there is a tradition of thought which holds that modern science has always been thoroughly intertwined with technology—in today’s vocabulary, that modern science has always been technoscience. Within this tradition, Heidegger’s reflection on technology and science stands out, as it allows us to disclose the way in which both science and technology operate temporally—that is, both seek to determine things in advance, so that they are known and manipulated as pre-delineable objects. The temporal analysis is itself not explicit in Heidegger’s words but rather often implicit in his critique of “calculativethinking” and in his characterization of the “thing” in contradistinction to the object. With a transformation of what the phenomenological tradition says about temporality, I would like to show that attending to the temporal unfolding of things at their own rhythms helps us both understand Heidegger better and shed light on the question of the fusibility of techno-science.

Thus, in the following, the formulation “techno-science” (with a hyphen) does not necessarily imply the deep and explicit fusion of science and technology that we find nowadays and which is discussed under “technoscience.” It connotes more generally that science has always been technological in that it seeks to pre-determine things as objects. While this seems an anachronism, it will help us grasp what is at stake even in contemporary debates about technoscience.

2. Heidegger on Calculative Thinking

Buckley (1992) identifies in Husserl and Heidegger a critique of the “crisis” of modern rationality, with modern science as its major embodiment. In Heidegger’s thought, the crisis is that of “calculative thinking” [rechnendes Denken], which in turn is characteristic of technology. In other words, a thought pattern which is characteristic of technology is the motivation behind science. This interpretation of Heidegger is affirmed by Dupuy (2018: 141): “science is subordinated to the practical ambition of achieving mastery over the world through technology,” though Dupuy is critical of Heidegger’s position. Thus, it would be helpful to examine what “calculative thinking” meant for Heidegger.

The words “calculation” and “calculating” are scattered through Heidegger’s article, “The Question Concerning Technology.” (Heidegger 2000) Buckley’s characterization of calculative thinking is the following:

The word “calculative” is connected to a type of thinking which is motivated by measurement, by the search for results. It finds its most powerful expression in modem science. The word calculation also connotes how this thinking aims at manipulation and control. […] this thinking of science aims not just to observe the situation, but to use its observations to make predictions, to plan for the future, to quantify in the sense of “taking stock” and thereby to keep everything in order. This thinking thus also betrays a fundamental sense of a need for certainty and security: it wants to know exactly where “things” are and precisely what “they” might be doing. (Buckley 1992: 235)

In this characterization, we find ideas which we usually associate with technology, such as manipulation, control, keeping in order, and pursuit of security. On the other hand, these ideas are constantly at work in scientific inquiries: despite the discourse of neutrality and disinterestedness, scientific research (including contemporary technoscience) pursues knowledge of worldly objects for the sake of keeping them in order.[4] The exclusion of contingent interests is for the sake of the certainty of control.

Conversely, for Heidegger modern technology is not the mere application of modern science but manifests the hidden essence of the latter: to control, order, and organize the world, to put the world into a picture [Bild] which is secure and constantly available for us. (Buckley 1992: 241) Technology and science converge on their embodiment of calculative thinking.

Calculative thinking works by way of representing, which means identifying things with objects and placing them before ourselves (as subjects) like a picture. Representing makes possible the calculation and manipulation of things, for otherwise our entanglement among things would make it difficult to manipulate them; conversely, things are turned into objects of representation for the sake of calculation and manipulation (1992: 236–237). When distinguishing between the thing [das Ding] and the object of representation [die Gegenstand der Vorstellung], Heidegger (2012: 8) noted that “science only ever encounters that which its manner of representation has previously admitted as a possible object for itself.” The emphasis was on “possible”: the knowing subject’s faculty of representation has pre-delineated what can possibly come forth and be encountered as an object. What does not fit into the pre-delineated possibilities is not thematized in science at all.

Here, we observe the critical appropriation of a Kantian theme. For Kant, the categories (i.e., the pure concepts of understanding) determine what the “objects of possible experience” are like. For Heidegger, this amounts to filtering the world of things with the sift of concepts, so that only objects of representation get through. The problem consists in the identification of the thing with the conceptual determination thereof. An example of this identification, which is prevalent in techno-science, is Putnam’s discussion of the famous twin-earth argument. While it was under debate what the intension of the word, “water,” is, Putnam had no issue pointing out that the extension of the word is H₂O on earth and XYZ on twin-earth. (Putnam 1975) This implies (for instance) that the thing we call “water” on earth is identical to H₂O, which in turn is a determination of the thing with scientific (in this case chemical) concepts.

Only when the thing is reduced to the representation or conceptual determination thereof can calculative thinking order and manipulate it. For thought can operate directly on concepts alone, not on the thing in all its richness and depth. However, the ordering and manipulation of things do not constitute an end in itself. Techno-science would not take every chance to manipulate them—to “boss them around,” as it were. Rather, calculative thinking exhibits “an aggressive challenging of the world to produce that which can be stored up and manipulated.” (Buckley 1992: 244) Ordering [Bestellen] and manipulation serve to turn everything into a “standing-reserve” [Bestand]: “everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.” (Heidegger 2000: 17) In other words, what calculative thinking seeks to achieve is the “instant and complete availability” of everything. (Buckley 1992: 244) Such an availability is unilateral in the subject-object relation: while the object should ideally be available for the subject, i.e., always ready whenever the subject needs it, the opposite is not the case. The subject has no responsibility for the object; rather than respecting the mysteries and inner rhythms of the thing, the subject turns the thing into an object so as to impose its own rhythms on the latter.

In this section, the fusibility of science and technology is traced, in light of Heidegger’s critique, to calculative thinking. The essence of calculative thinking, then, consists not so much in ordering and manipulation (though it certainly makes use of them) than in bringing about the complete, instant, and unilateral availability of the object for the subject. We shall dwell on the notion of availability when analyzing the temporal structure of calculative thinking, which is characteristic of techno-science.

3. “The Mathematical” and the Pre-delineation of Things

The notion of availability has temporal connotations. If something is made available for us, it means that we can take it up and use it whenever we want or need to. In other words, the processes in which the thing participates with us are initiated, maintained, and (if needed) terminated according to our will, not according to the thing. A perfectly available car is a car that proceeds and stops whenever the driver wants it to. What happen with the car itself, e.g., the consumption of fuel, the wearing of the cogs, etc., should not disturb the utilization of the car. When they do obtrude, e.g., when the car runs out of fuel or when there is a mechanical breakdown, the car becomes un-available. The moment of unavailability is that of the intrusion of the car’s own rhythm. From this we know that the availability of things for us is based on a disregard for their own rhythms and contingencies, so that we withdraw from the real encounter with them (in which our rhythms would have to negotiate with theirs) and are thereby able to determine them in advance.

To examine what this “determining in advance” means, we shall now follow Heidegger’s discussion of “the mathematical” in The Question Concerning the Thing.

The first thing to note is that “the mathematical” is not found exclusively in the discipline of mathematics; nor does the notion of “the mathematical” describe thoroughly the practices in mathematics. Heidegger made a clear distinction between (a) “the mathematical” [das Mathematische] and (b) mathematics [die Mathematik] as a discipline. The latter refers to activities of measuring, calculating, and reasoning with the help of numbers, symbol for variants, formulas, and geometrical figures. The former, by contrast, is the ontological precondition of these activities, a specific “understanding of being” [Seinsverständnis]. It is the “projection” in advance of beings according to “the mathematical” which turns beings into measurable and calculable mathematical objects. In other words, “the mathematical” describes a fundamental way of formulating things, while the employment of numbers in mathematics is possible and relevant only because numbers do especially well in delineating things according to “the mathematical.” In Heidegger’s words, “mathematics is itself only a determinate formation of the mathematical.” (Heidegger 2018: 46) Clearly, the mathematical, rather than mathematics, is directly connected to the foregoing discussion of calculativethinking.[5]

To clarify what “the mathematical” means, Heidegger focused first on the notion of τὰ μαθήματα in ancient Greek thought. The notion referred to one of the ways to determine a thing. Here’s Heidegger’s list:

• τὰ φυσικά: things insofar as they originate and come forth from themselves;
• τὰ ποιούμενα: things insofar as they are produced [hergestellt] by the human hand, in craftsmanship, and stand there as such;
• τὰ χρήματα: things insofar as they are in use and stand thereby at constant disposal;
• τὰ πράγματα: things insofar as we have to do with them as such, whether we work on them, use and transform them, or merely observe, contemplate, and investigate them;
• τὰ μαθήματα. (2018: 47)

The last one, τὰ μαθήματα, named things insofar as they can be grasped before actually encountered, so that this grasping is learnable and teachable. Every being can be referred to in different aspects, and the “mathematical” aspect refers to what is graspable in advance about the being. Concerning how a grasping of τὰ μαθήματα precedes the actual encounter with the thing, Heidegger (2018: 49–50) said,

This authentic learning [of τὰ μαθήματα] is therefore an extremely remarkable taking, a taking whereby the taker only takes what he or she at bottom already has. […] He or she [the student] first comes to learn when he or she experiences what he or she takes as what he himself or she herself actually already has.[6]

When we see things as τὰ μαθήματα, what we “take” from them is not something we otherwise lack but rather something we already have. What we already have in this case is a set of conceptual schemes. We “do not first have to fetch from things” these conceptual schemes (2018: 50). When we have our ways with a thing, we only ask how it “fits” into the schemes; the schemes themselves are not “refreshed” in light of the thing. Put otherwise, we already have a set of conceptual schemes prior to encountering the thing, and we can observe from the thing only what can fit into the schemes. This mechanism of filtering and reducing makes possible our grasping of the thing prior to encountering it. This “pre-graspable” character of things is what Heidegger called “the mathematical.”

Heidegger (2018: 61–62) then traced how “the mathematical” in the above, Greek sense was embodied in Galileo’s “mathematical projection” [mathematische Entwurf]. The determination of a physical body [Körper] implied in Galileo’s notion of “mente concipere” “is not derived by way of experience from the thing itself.” What is determined in advance is rather corporeality [Körperhaftigkeit] as such: for a physical body to exist as a physical body, it must have quantifiable extension, motion, etc. This ontological determination of things via mathematizing concepts makes sure that whatever comes forth under this determination is already homogenized, measurable, and calculable:

All determinations of body are delineated in one blueprint [Grundriß], according to which the natural process is nothing but the spatiotemporal determination of the motion of points of mass. This blueprint of nature simultaneously circumscribes its domain as everywhere uniform [überall gleichmäßigen]. (2018: 62)

As it seeks to fix the “blueprint” of the thing prior to encountering it, this kind of determination is bound to yield what is “everywhere uniform” or homogenized. The things which come forth under this determination are qualitatively uniform; their mutual difference can thus only be quantitative.

In attending to “the mathematical” (i.e., what is formally pre-delineable) in things, calculative thinking is indeed able to determine things before encountering them. In techno-science, this determination-in-advance may exhibit itself either as knowing (scientific prediction) or as manipulating (technological design). Science can tell us where exactly the moon will be in the sky at a given time, because it attends to the aspect of locomotion of the moon, an aspect which is “mathematical” in the sense that it can be encountered without actually encountering the moon in its phenomenological richness: its luminance, voluminosity, texture, rhythms of occlusion and revealing, etc. Similarly, technology can design a bridge that will stand for two hundred years, even though the designer will not likely live long enough to check, two hundred years later, whether it still stands—in fact, they would not have to, for the very ideal of design is to order the “mathematical” aspect of the bridge (the structure, the distribution of mechanic forces) so that we no longer need to be attentive to what the bridge becomes in the future. In these examples, we observe both the strengths and the limits of techno-science following calculative thinking, both of which are rooted in the fact that calculative thinking, in achieving the unilateral availability of things for us, attends only to what is formally pre-delineable in things.

The limits of calculative thinking are becoming painfully evident nowadays. The most relevant one in the current context concerns the impoverishment of experience: if, in our engagement with things, we encounter only what we have imposed on them, there is a sense in which we miss them rather than encounter them. Heidegger (2018: 62–63) described the problem with the notion of “leaping over”:

As mente concipere, the mathematical is a projection of the thingness of things that, as it were, leaps over [hinwegspringen] things. […] Modern science is experimental on the basis of mathematical projection. The experimental urge toward the facts is a necessary consequence of the prior mathematical leap over [Überspringen] all facts.

4. Patience and Availability for the Rhythms of Things

The question, then, is how we imagine an alternative. An alternative to leaping over is patience. While asking for and ordering the unilateral availability of things for us, we disrespect their rhythms, expecting them to fit into our own plans at any moment. It is for this reason that we attend to “the mathematical” in them, thus missing their richness and depths of meaning. By contrast, to be patient for things means to respect their intrinsic rhythms, to be available for them in the sense of being receptive and responsive to them, as if we were participating in their growth. This is a mode of bilateral rather than unilateral availability, in which the rhythms of our action are hospitable and are ready to negotiate with those of the thing, rather than seeking to overwhelm the latter by precluding their relevance.

The talk of rhythms may be reminiscent of the theme of temporality in phenomenology. For example, Husserl (2001: 48) said that perception “constantly pretends to accomplish more than it can accomplish,” suggesting that the temporal unfolding of things in perception involves an interplay of completeness and incompleteness. However, there is a long-standing tradition in phenomenology to interpret temporality in terms of how experience is temporal for us.[7] In other words, the concept of temporality seems to be based on that of transcendental subjectivity; it is an aspect of transcendental subjectivity which explains the fact that we can and do experience things and events as temporal. This was even the case for the early Heidegger, though supposedly there was a shift from the transcendental to the ontological problematic (de Warren 2021: 404). Heidegger (1967: 234–235) said in Being and Time that the meaning of Dasein is temporality. Temporality remained to be defined in terms of Dasein’s “ecstatic” projection [Entwurf] into the dimensions of future, past, and present. In this way, however, there is a risk that we locate in our own subjectivity the origin of the rhythms of things. In other words, there is a risk that such rhythms lose their autonomy and alterity in the transcendental-phenomenological interpretation of temporality. To do justice to the rhythms of things, phenomenological discussions on temporality must be taken up and transformed.

We find some clues in the later thought of Heidegger. In his 1949 lecture on “The Thing,” Heidegger (2012: 15) introduced the idea that, in a genuine encounter, the thing “things” [das Ding dingt]. His direct elaboration of this was that, by “thinging,” the thing “lets the united four, earth and sky, divinities and mortals, abide in the single fold of their fourfold.” (2012: 16) Without delving into the complex topic of the fourfold [das Geviert], what is already clear here is that the thing, rather than the subject, serves as the locus or nexus of the “fold.” Instead of a temporal synthesis which is brought about by the subject, we have here a gathering (folding) which the thing enables by un-folding what is always united.

Accordingly, time is no longer understood as the temporality of the transcendental subject, not even that of Dasein, but rather as a self-extending which measures the presencing of being (Heidegger 1972: 10–16). The role of Dasein, then, is only “to respond to what comes from afar [i.e., from being itself via things] and to assume the care for that which we can never master” (Buckley 1992: 256). Such is a notion of time which is based on the mutual availability of the thing and us.

These prepare us for an ontological account of the inner rhythm pertaining to the unfolding of things, in which the primordial sense of time is the productive resistance which allows the intricacies or “folds” of things to gradually and alternately “un-fold.” The basic assumption is that things do not “have at hand” all their details. On the contrary, these details or “intricacies,” as possible, latent being, are “folded” in the “folds” of things. Only time lets these folds un-fold.

This means that things do not exist “in themselves” in a non-temporal or supra-temporal mode, only requiring time to become manifest to finite subjects like us. Instead, being as such is not independent of possible manifestation, while manifestation necessarily takes time, regardless of whom this manifestation is to. Each thing’s process of unfolding has its own rhythm; the human being, as a kind of “to whom,” is first and foremost a witness, not a master, of this process. While being witnessed is necessary for unfolding, the witness cannot alter at will the inner rhythm of unfolding.

The assumption above may be called the “finitude of being as such.” It says that, for any being (thing or event), to be is to finitely unfold, i.e., to have its possible moments become manifest piecemeal. This stands in disparity with traditional metaphysics, which, to borrow Henry Allison’s words, is “theocentric” (Allison 2004: 27–34). Theocentric thought views things from the perspective of the infinite intellect, even though strictly speaking no human being is capable of this infinitude. Thus, it ascribes the temporal finitude in the manifestation of things (i.e., that it takes time) to us, to certain flaws in the human being. Finitude is defined from the outside and compartmentalized within the human being.

By contrast, I propose to generalize the notion of temporal finitude, so that it applies, not just to the way things manifest themselves to us, but more profoundly to the way things manifest themselves tout court. This means that we dispense with the view from the divine intellect (Leibniz’s scientia Dei, see Heidegger 1978: 53–54). However, we do not thereby turn to an “anthropocentric” view. The human being is seen, not as the foundation for the representations of things (for in that way things would indeed converge with our conceptual determination thereof), but as finite loci which must become translucent as things “happen” via it. This view is perhaps better characterized as a “thing-centric” view, respecting the singularity and irreplaceability of every being without substituting them for general conceptual schemes, either in the divine intellect or in the human mind.

Time, then, offers a horizon in which each moment of a thing may be differentiated from others while remaining embedded with the latter in an originary unity. Structurally, time undergirds the finite field of presence; dynamically, it identifies the being (persistence) of each moment with their perishing (expiration). To be is to expire—while taking time to do so. Constant expiration calls for constant renewal, which is the opportunity of the influx of the new. This is how time is both a resistance and a productivity.

Sartre (2003: 156) once said that, if time is not just an illusion coming from human finitude but captures the mode of being [Seinsweise] for beings in general, then “even God will have to wait for the sugar to dissolve.” No power can overwhelm the inner pace at which the sugar dissolves; nor can it actualize, once and for all, the stages which sugar should undergo one by one in time. Similarly, we must wait for the season to change, for the crop to grow, for a relationship to develop, for the football game to conclude, for one’s life to turn, for social events to ferment, even for scientific truths to emerge. In all these, time both resists the “instantaneous” actualization of all the consecutive stages and brings them forth piecemeal in a nascent productivity.

5. An Invitation to Waiting

Upon clarifying what it means for a thing to unfold according to its own rhythm, we are now in a position to imagine what an alternative to calculative thinking may be. Once we see the alternative, we can decide to what extent contemporary technoscience remains within the loop of calculative thinking.

While interpreting the later Heidegger, Buckley (1992: 235) opposes calculative thinking to “contemplative thinking” [besinnliches Denken]:

Contemplative thought[8] is hence marked by a fundamental “passivity,” it consists of a certain “letting-go” of all “attitudes,” of any “picturing” of the world. Put in terms which are even more expressive of passivity, contemplative thought is a “releasement” from the dominating style of calculative thought. (1992: 240)

Elsewhere, when characterizing an alternative to the ordering and manipulation of modern technology, Buckley suggests a gesture of “letting the world approach us in its mystery” (1992: 244). These seem to be a kind of quietism or even mysticism. However, Buckley also makes it clear that contemplative thinking is not an attitude in competition with calculative thinking but a letting-go of all attitudes. Otherwise, the account would fall prey to Ihde’s critique of the phenomenological privilege accorded to technology-free experience which are “fundamental,” “more original,” or “more natural” (Ihde 1990: 34-38; Ihde 1995: 75).

When we say that the alternative to calculative thinking involves patience or waiting for the inner rhythms of things, “waiting” is meant differently than it usually is in daily language. It does not mean inaction or indifference within a known length of time so that a projected result would ensue—the typical kind of “waiting” at the airport or in the laboratory—but rather an expectation and attentiveness with patience, an activity in receptivity. We tend nowadays to think of waiting as itself meaningless, its meaning relying entirely on what it leads to. This is because we do not see waiting as a way of participation. To wait means to be attuned to and “synchronized with” the inner rhythms of things, to stand in awe before their mysteries which are reserved for the future. This does not imply that we detach ourselves from them or even mystify them; quite the contrary, we undergo the ups-and-downs of the rhythms as part of them, having in mind that the intricacies of things are inexhaustible, that there is always an excess to what is already given.

The surplus of the thing beyond the conceptual formalization of “the mathematical” is like an obscure inside of the thing: while it may be illuminated, it unfolds, at the same time, a yet deeper and darker interiority. The argument here does not involve a mystic assumption of an interiority which can never be manifest; it only draws consequences from the simple idea that things “take time” to unfold. As long as we are not standing at the “end of time” (if any), calculative thinking can never thoroughly flatten the “folds” of things. In this sense, waiting may be the only alternative to what Heidegger called “leaping over.”

Now that we have seen the risks of calculative thinking as well as of the complex of modern techno-science which is based on it, we are in a better position to evaluate what is happening in contemporary technoscience (without a hyphen), which is the deep intertwinement and fusion of science and technology.

On the one hand, it seems that technoscience continues on the path of operation and calculation (Hottois 2018: 134; Sebbah 2018: 162). Technological operation is so pervasive and fundamental in technoscientific research that the distance between the operator and what is operated upon begins to vanish (Bensaude Vincent and Loeve 2018: 174). In this sense, technoscience appears to be the consummation [Vollendung] of techno-science, in which manipulation and calculative thinking are elevated to an extreme, so that the essence of techno-science is actualized.

On the other hand, however, this consummation also makes possible a turning point. Philosophers who are closely observing the advancements of technoscience are beginning to develop a new ontology which views technoscience in its own terms, not in the terms of pre-modern or early-modern paradigms. Interestingly, this brings them closer to a respect for the inner rhythms of things, to the mutual availability of the thing and the researcher for each other.

To demonstrate the last point, I take as an example Bensaude Vincent and Loeve’s recent reflection; the aim is to point out a direction rather than to give a full exposition. They note that in contemporary technoscience the object of research (and design) “is no longer a sample representing general phenomena or a theoretical model embodied in matter. It is a thing with an intrinsic value, an end in itself rather than a means towards an end” (2018: 175). Rather being unilaterally available for the researcher, the object of research acquires autonomy and requires our availability for it. Moreover, the technoscientific program “results in disclosing nature’s capacities rather than increasing our technological control over natural phenomena” (2018: 176); this is possible through designing nature according to nature’s own texture, “a process of mutual learning between the object and the subject of investigation” (2018: 178). Clearly, it is no longer primarily about knowing or manipulating things before encountering them, covering them up with pre-delineated conceptual schemes; cognition and operation happen as part and parcel of our intertwinement with things. The objects of research are considered to have their own powers and rhythms, with which the technoscientist can only negotiate (2018: 179). Lastly, because the engagement with the powers of things necessitates our attentiveness and patience for them, nature is no longer homogeneous and universal as calculative thinking has made it be; instead, the ancient Greek sense of nature as phusis, i.e., the unfolding and welling-up of possibilities from things with intrinsic essences, is rehabilitated and even multiplied: technosciences deals with “a broad range of phuseis that are of local relevance” (2018: 180).

As our intertwinement with the things which we study and operate goes deeper and deeper, it has become more and more difficult to maintain the model of unilateral availability and prescience. Calculative thinking seems to be worn out or outgrown by the very things it studies, for the things transpire with their own rhythms of unfolding despite calculative thinking’s attempts of covering them up with pre-delineated conceptual schemes. Accordingly, the above reflection upon modern techno-science is not meant to raise a competitive way to determine things; it does not summon an “alternative world” so as to invalidate the world we access through technoscience. Instead, it reveals that the calculative, “mathematical” conception of the world suffers from a “myopia,” so that it sees only what is already known about things without acknowledging their depth, a depth which can only be fathomed in the fullness of time and at the pace of things themselves. Notwithstanding the attempts to “leap over” things, the intricacies of things have never really fled us; they, too, are waiting for us. They are waiting for someone who is capable of waiting.

In this paper, I have responded to the contemporary debates on technoscience in an indirect way. While acknowledging the thorough fusion of science and technology, I ask about the condition of their fusibility. This directs me to Heidegger’s critique of modern techno-science (hyphen added to distinguish it from the contemporary, overt practices of technoscience), in which the notion of calculative thinking comes to the fore. Calculative thinking is characteristic of modern technology and culminates in the scientific worldview; it turns things into objects of representation so that they may be ordered and manipulated. In analyzing the temporal structures at work in calculative thinking, I note that it seeks the unilateral availability of objects for the subject, and this is achieved by attending to what Heidegger called the “mathematical” in things, i.e., conceptual schemes which may be pre-delineated before or without encountering things. To imagine an alternative to calculative thinking, I transform the phenomenological account of temporality into a thing-centric account of the unfolding of things at their own rhythms. The alternative is to be patient for such rhythms, to enter a relation of mutual availability with things. Rather than suggesting a mysticism, I point out that this mutual availability is becoming the paradigm in contemporary practices of technoscience. Thus, the entire inquiry shows what is problematic (prescience) and what is promising (patience) in the technoscience that is still taking shape in our age.

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Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the Shui-Mu Postdoctoral Fellowship at Tsinghua University, China (2021SM092) and by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Research Grant (2023M732010).

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Notes

[1] Latour (2013: 31) argued that it is impossible to imagine clear-cut domains such as Science, Law, or Religion, that there is always “something scientific” as well as “something political” in what is called “Science.” However, he continued to develop different “modes of existence” for science and technology: science corresponded to the mode of “reference” [REF] (developing inscriptions to counter distance and dissemblance of forms), technology to “technology” [TEC] (developing “Zigzags of ingenuity and invention” to overcome obstacles and detours) (Latour 2013: 488).

[2] The word “technoscience” was introduced in English and French independently yet almost simultaneously. (Hottois 1976, 1978; Lambright 1976)

[3] I borrow this expression from Klein (2005). While Klein is concerned with historical cases in which what we would nowadays call “technoscience” was already in function before the invention of the term (for example, eighteenth-century carbon chemistry), I am concerned with philosophical discussions about the fusibility of science and technology, or better about their common root, in literature before the advent of the term “technoscience” in 1970s.

[4] Historians of science like Harrison (2007) and Gillespie (2008) have shown that modern science was developed partly in response to the belief in the Fall of the human being and the impossibility for us to acquire divine omniscience; modern science, with all its methods, was the “second best,” a finite and discursive remedy for the irremediable loss of godly and intuitive knowledge.

[5] Thus, the paper does not take a position on the relation between mathematics, science, and technology. The thesis is rather that “the mathematical” as an ontological formulation of beings underlies both mathematics and calculativethinking, while calculative thinking is characteristic of technology and finds its culminating embodiment in modern science. I do not hold that calculative thinking exhausts the explorations in mathematics.

[6] The emphases are mine.

[7] See, for example, Carr (1987: 197). Hopkins (2014: 133) also notes that, for Husserl, the perception of temporality is “immanent,” which must be corresponded to the adumbrated phases of the transcendent object.

[8] Buckley (1992) uses “calculative thinking” and “calculative thought” interchangeably. Both translate rechnendes Denken. To emphasize that Denken signifies not only the result of thinking but more importantly an ongoing pattern of thinking, I use “calculative thinking” consistently in this paper, but I have kept the term as is in the quotes from Buckley. The same applies for “contemplative thinking” and “contemplative thought.”