The Beauty of Purpose
目的之美
The day before a translated book goes to press, the editor smooths out a word on the last page, saying both renderings are correct and readers will not be able to tell the difference; the translator says fine, puts down the phone, cannot get on with his work, and in the evening calls back to change the word back. He cannot refute a single one of the editor's reasons, yet not changing it back is something he cannot do. A subject who has seen this cannot not acknowledge: a person is going somewhere, not pushed by others and not set on a whim; other paths also make sense, but he cannot exchange his; the direction has come, and he has taken it up; not going is something he cannot do. That sentence is the beauty of purpose. Purpose here is not a set goal; it is a direction that has come and that one cannot not follow. The paper's two words: taking up is: the direction has come, and he cannot not follow it and is also willing to follow, the two together in this one moment; cannot exchange is that others cannot push it, and it cannot be exchanged for other roads that make just as much sense either, yet when he himself sees otherwise, it will change accordingly. The beauty has two faces: completive beauty is direction and going no longer contending: Cook Ding's knife follows the grain of the ox, he no longer asks whether this is his, and yet he stops to look when a difficulty comes; generative beauty is the direction coming, not yet taken up. The paper says what purpose is and is not (not a set goal, not a wish, a plan or enthusiasm, not what a role hands him, and not something he made); uses Confucius's "at seventy I followed what my heart desired without overstepping the square" to show that a square from outside can grow into one's own; says what can pass for the beauty of purpose (the set goal, enthusiasm, success, others' ruler, addiction and compulsion, self-design, taking one's own direction as a ruler for others), treating at length the colonization of a personal aesthetic and how cultivation is told from colonization; and what is left to each person. It traces where the question comes from, from Aristotle, the Bhagavad Gita, Yan Ying and the Zhuangzi, through Augustine, Tao Yuanming, Luther, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche and Heidegger, to Harry Frankfurt, Bourdieu and aesthetic testimony. It ends by handing on to the beauty of non dubito the question: my cannot-not is not your must; do others have their cannot-not too?
Keywords: beauty of purpose, taking up, cannot exchange, direction, one's own law, cultivation, colonization, completive beauty, generative beauty, overlap, 14DD
1. One Word Before Printing
On the afternoon of the day before a translated book goes to press, the editor calls the translator. There is a word on the last page of the book that she has changed for him: the original word is a little unusual, the new one reads a little more smoothly. She says both renderings are correct, and readers will not be able to tell the difference. He listens, thinks everything she says is right, and says: fine.
He puts down the phone and turns to other work, and cannot get on with it. In three years he has read this book from beginning to end more times than he can count, and every time he reaches the last page, he pauses.
In the evening he calls her back: that word, let's change it back after all. The editor asks why. He says a couple of things, not very clearly; of the reasons she gave in the afternoon, he cannot refute a single one, and the smoother word makes sense too. But not changing it back is something he cannot do. He adds: I didn't pick it; when I read to that point, it is there.
The word was not something he settled on at one go. He revised that page many times, and each time it was he himself who, in reading, found what was wrong; by the end of the revising, it was this word. He has followed this book for three years, and this word is one step on that road.
The editor did not press him. She still thinks the smoother word is better; only, he is the one who translated this book. Nor was the word picked on a whim: had it been picked on a whim, the "fine" of the afternoon would have been the end of it, and there would have been no call that evening. The editor put down the phone and thought for a while. She said later that she could hear it that evening, that it was not stubbornness: "He wasn't trying to win; he couldn't let it go."
What can be seen is one thing. The direction came, not pushed by the editor, and not set by him on a whim; the other word makes sense, and he cannot exchange his for it; he has taken it up, and not changing it back is something he cannot do. Those who see this point include himself, and also the person at the other end of the line.
That point is what this paper is about.
This paper follows the reading set out in the general outline.[^1] A personal aesthetic is each person's own and comes from his own cannot-not; aesthetics is the part that subjects with judgment cannot not acknowledge together, here called the overlap. The overlap is large; what does not overlap is larger. The overlap is not everyone being obliged to agree: whoever looks cannot not see, and whoever has seen cannot not acknowledge. When someone says "it is beautiful," he is claiming that this time he has landed on the overlap, and that claim can be right or wrong. What settles out of an act of drawing a boundary is called a construct; what it cannot contain is called the remainder. The remainder gives a place where one can go on, and a direction; it pushes no one; whether to go depends on a person's own cannot-not.[^2] A beauty has two faces: when the construct has come into place, it is completive beauty, quiet; when the construct is being chiseled out, it is generative beauty, tense. The beauty of purpose has both faces. Purpose here is not a set goal; it is a direction that has come and that one cannot not follow. A ray is a direction of judgment, not a classification of objects: the same person can also be looked at from the direction of the self, or from the direction of cognition. This paper asks about one thing only: when a person goes somewhere, how the direction in which he goes became his own; and what the power of judgment sees in this question.
2. What Purpose Is and Is Not
What SAE: The First Critique wrote at this station is: not acting without reason. It also recorded that if this station is overdone, or closes on itself alone, it is the most refined form of colonization.[^3] This paper keeps the first way of putting it, and leaves the second for Section 5.
With an I, judgment has an owner; where this I is going has not yet been said. What the construct of a human being cannot contain has already given a direction, where he can grow; but before this, there was not yet a cannot-not of his own to take it up. At this level his own cannot-not has come, and has taken up this direction. This paper calls this moment taking up.
The direction is not something he made. It can come from something he has been looking at all along: that book, that page; it can come from his origin: a language, a teacher, a stretch of life he never chose; it can also come from what he loves. The object can move first: that page makes him pause every time he reads it. Yet other readers read the same page and simply turn the page; the moving happens inside him. So one says the direction came, not that he set it; one says he took it up, not that the direction pushes him along.
Taking up is two things at once in the same moment: the direction has come, and he cannot not follow; he acknowledges it, and is also willing to follow. The cannot alone, without acknowledging, is being dragged along; the willing alone, without the cannot, can still be exchanged. This willingness comes along with the acknowledging; it can be seen, but it is not the evidence; the evidence is that once others' ruler is taken away he still acknowledges it, and that when he himself sees otherwise, it will change accordingly.
This direction he cannot exchange. Cannot exchange does not mean there is no other road: another road lies before him, and the reasons for it make sense too; of the editor's reasons he cannot refute a single one. He can give some of his reasons, not all of them; those he can give, others can dispute too. But when the reasons have been weighed out even, he still cannot make the exchange. The "not without reason" of the First Critique looks like this here: it is not that there are no reasons, nor that the reasons made the decision for him.
Cannot exchange is not cannot change, either. Others push, and it does not move; offer something that makes as much sense in exchange, and the exchange does not go through. What can make it change is his own seeing: he revised that page many times, and that word was brought to where it is by his own revising, time after time; if one day he himself sees that it is wrong, he will change it again, without anyone having to persuade him. Others can point things out to him; the one who sees has to be himself.
This cannot-not is first a negation: not doing so is something he cannot do. He may not be able to say where he is going, nor need he first have a set goal: he cannot say where following this book for three years is taking him; he knows only that if that word were exchanged, that page would no longer be the page he had read his way to. A direction is not an end point.
So this level has only one construct: a person and a direction going together. The direction has come, he has taken it up, and it has become his own; others cannot push it, and his own seeing can change it. When this construct has come into place, direction and going no longer contend; when the direction is coming and has not yet been taken up, the construct is being chiseled out.
So purpose is not a set goal. A set goal is when a person first thinks out an end point and then looks for a road to it; exchange it for a better goal, and it is exchanged; reach it, and it is over. The direction here does not give an end point first; wherever one has got to, one is still going. Nor is purpose a wish: a wish can be only wanting. Nor a plan: a plan is steps arranged for a set goal. Nor enthusiasm: enthusiasm is a feeling; Section 5 comes back to it. Nor is it what a role or a job hands him: someone is assigned to do something and does it well, and what measures him is others' ruler; that thing may be his as well, or it may not.
Nor is purpose something he made. "His own" means that others' ruler has not taken its place, not that it came from his making. That word was not made by him: that sentence of the original and his three years of reading brought it there.
Nor is purpose the purposiveness Kant speaks of. He says that beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, insofar as it is perceived in it without the representation of an end.[^4] That speaks of an object appearing purposive before someone's eyes, not of where a person is going. Nor is purpose a theory of will or motive. This paper does not write how a cannot-not comes about in a person's mind, only how it looks when seen.
3. The Beauty of Purpose
Once a subject has seen a person follow a direction of his own, he cannot not acknowledge:
A person is going somewhere: not pushed by others, and not set on a whim; other paths also make sense, but he cannot exchange his. The direction has come, and he has taken it up; not going is something he cannot do.
That sentence is the beauty of purpose. "Taking up" and "cannot exchange" are this paper's two words, already explained. "Not pushed by others" and "not set on a whim" say that two things that pass for it have been taken away; Section 5 goes into them. "On a whim" does not mean without care; it means that it can be exchanged for something else that makes sense: whatever is set, however carefully set, is exchanged as soon as the blueprint is exchanged; all such are set on a whim. "Not going is something he cannot do" is how this cannot-not looks: a negation, not requiring an end point first.
The seeing at this level is first in the one who goes. In those few hours after putting down the phone when he could not get on with things, he felt out of sorts; but feeling out of sorts is only a clue: a person can fail to get on with things for other reasons too, and at that time he was not looking at it; he was thinking about which pages he still had to proofread the next day. If he stops, and does not use this moment to argue about winning or losing, nor to reckon whether it is worth it, he cannot not see: he cannot refute the editor's reasons, and he cannot exchange that word; no one is making him do this, and it is not something he has just thought up. Having seen, he cannot not acknowledge.
What is seen can also be another person. The editor, at the other end of the line, sees the same point: he is not trying to win; he cannot exchange it. What is seen is itself looking too: she is listening to him, and he knows she is listening; she can also hear that what he cannot exchange is not aimed at her.
Why is it overlap and not preference? People's directions differ: some follow a book all their lives, some a patch of land, a kind of sound, a craft. The overlap is in two places. One: those who stop, each in his own cannot-exchange, can see the same point: the direction came, not pushed, not set on a whim, and he took it up. Each follows his own direction, and what each sees is the same point. The other is closer: several people facing the same person and the same taking up see the same point; the editor saw it, and had someone been with him that evening, watching him put the phone down and pick it up again, what that person saw would also have been this point. This does not depend on which direction is better, nor on whether one has arrived.
Take away goodness and see. The direction a person cannot exchange may fall on some small, inconspicuous thing: a word, a way of planing wood; it may also go wrong. A good person can go through life doing good by others' ruler without ever having a direction of his own. Whether a direction is right, whether it is good, is another matter. Beauty is not correctness.
Take away success too, and see. After the book came out, few people read it; readers really cannot tell the difference over that word. The moment he took it up can still be seen. Someone who follows others' ruler and succeeds all the way may never once have had that moment. Beauty is not usefulness.
This seeing is also a different thing from pleasure or displeasure. Following one's own direction is often unpleasant: making the second call that evening, he was embarrassed. Someone who reaches a goal given by others step by step can find it very satisfying, and yet not have the point spoken of here. The ground of acknowledgment lies in the point that is seen, not in feeling.
Understanding is not seeing either. A researcher of motivation has lectured for many years on how to tell motives that come from oneself from motives that come from outside; he could say it all with his eyes closed. In all this he was not looking; he was only using. One day a student comes to see him and says he is going to drop out to learn carpentry. The researcher sets out reasons one by one, and the student cannot answer a single one, only says: I just can't let it go. About motivation he learns nothing new, yet for the first time he stops to look at it: this student cannot exchange it. His understanding has not changed; what has changed is that this time he is looking.
Seeing can also go wrong. One can take stubbornness for a direction, take a passing enthusiasm for a direction, take what a ruler has occupied for one's own; one can also take one's own habits, one's own fears, for a direction one cannot exchange. The editor could hear that it was not stubbornness; this too may have been a mishearing. To say "it is beautiful" is to claim that this time one really has seen, and the claim can be wrong.
Completive beauty: direction and going no longer contend. Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. Wherever his hand touched, wherever his shoulder leaned, wherever his foot stepped, wherever his knee pressed, the sound of hide parting from bone, the sound of the blade going in, nothing was out of rhythm; it matched the dance of the Mulberry Grove and kept time with the Jingshou music. Lord Wenhui said: "Ah, excellent! That skill can reach such heights!" Cook Ding put down his knife and answered: "What your servant loves is the Way, which goes beyond skill." He said that at first all he saw was the ox; after three years he no longer saw the whole ox; now he meets it with his spirit and does not look with his eyes; the senses stop, and the spirit goes where it will, "following the heavenly grain, striking into the great gaps, guiding the blade through the great hollows, going by what is so of itself." His knife has been in use for nineteen years and has cut up several thousand oxen, and "its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone."[^5] Nowhere here is there a question of "is this mine?": where the knife goes, the grain of the ox says; the knife is moved by him; the two no longer contend. Nor does completeness mean no longer looking: each time he comes to a place where sinew and bone are knotted, "he sees the difficulty, takes heed and is wary, his gaze stops, his movement slows"; he moves the knife very lightly, and the ox falls apart at once, like earth crumbling to the ground; he stands up with the knife, looks all around, is content, and wipes the knife and puts it away.
A person occupied by a ruler does not ask whether this is his either; but that is because the ruler has taken the place of his looking; take that ruler away, and he no longer knows where to go. Cook Ding does not ask because direction and going have come together. Take away Lord Wenhui's "excellent!" and see: what Cook Ding answered was "What your servant loves is the Way"; what he loves is the Way, not the applause; when he meets a difficulty, his own eyes are still there; he stops, he slows down. This example cannot show that everything well practiced is reliable: habit can also ingrain a prejudice; still stopping to look when a difficulty comes, that is where the line is. The contentment at the end comes along with it; it is not the beauty here. Completive beauty is quiet: the direction has come and has been taken up, and he is going, no longer asking whether this is his.
Generative beauty: the direction is coming. That afternoon, the few hours between putting down the phone and picking it up again are the other face. The word is still as the editor changed it; he has not yet called back; he turns to other work and cannot get on with it. The direction is coming, and he has not yet taken it up. The tension is here: he may take it up, or he may not, in which case the word will be printed as it is; when he later reads that page, perhaps he will pause, perhaps not. When a person is young and dimly feels that there is one thing, that everything else can be put down but this one cannot, yet he cannot say what it is, and does not know whether to follow it: that too is the direction coming. The completive face is direction and going having come together; the generative face is the direction coming, not yet taken up.
4. Confucius at Seventy
Confucius said: "At fifteen I set my heart on learning; at thirty I stood; at forty I was free of doubts; at fifty I knew the mandate of Heaven; at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed what my heart desired without overstepping the square."[^6] He is speaking of how he learned over his life, and does not call it beauty.
Three things can be seen in this passage.
First, "setting his heart on learning" at fifteen is a direction, not an end point: he does not say how far he means to learn. The fifty-odd years that follow are the following of it. The direction of setting his heart on learning was not exchanged in fifty-odd years; what it grew into changed with what he saw each decade: standing, freedom from doubt, knowing the mandate, the attuned ear.
Second, the square was at first outside: ritual, teachers, rules handed down by those before. At seventy, what his heart desired and the square no longer contend. Zhu Xi comments on this sentence: "He followed what his heart desired, and of itself it did not go beyond the proper measure; he acted at ease, and hit the mark without effort."[^7] The words "hit the mark without effort" come from the Doctrine of the Mean: "One who is sincere hits the mark without effort, attains without thinking, and is at ease in the middle of the Way: this is the sage."[^8] Hitting the mark with no need to force it: this is the completive face: direction and going no longer contend.
Third, this passage presses on this paper, on how cultivation is told from colonization. If they were told apart by whether the source is inside or outside, "following his heart" at seventy would be judged the most thorough colonization: a square that came from outside, grown in until even what the heart desires follows it. This paper's answer: having a history is not the same as being colonized; it may also be cultivation. The difference lies not in where the square came from, but in what has been made. Take the ruler away and see: ritual, teachers, the rules of those before are none of them before his eyes, and what he desires at seventy is still this; "following what his heart desired" says precisely that he no longer needs to look at the square. The half about being able to change it can be seen in this passage in the first fifty-odd years: every ten years he saw it differently. Whether it could still be changed after seventy cannot be seen in this passage, and this paper does not say for him. Nor can this paper see into his heart; what can be seen is what he says, as he says it. This passage can show that what comes from outside can grow into one's own; it cannot show that every well-internalized rule is cultivation.
This paper meets him here: what comes from outside can grow into one's own; what is one's own, in the end, needs no forcing. It parts from him here: his square is prior and shared, something every generation must grow into, with oneness with it as the end point; this paper sets no square for people to grow into; each person's direction is his own.
5. What Can Pass for It
The method is still the same: take it away and see. This level has something peculiar to it: what passes for it comes not only from outside, but also from inside.
The set goal. Someone sets himself the goal of reading a hundred books this year and keeps a record every day. Take away the number and see: exchange it for eighty, for fifty, and he can record just the same, just as satisfied. A set goal, offered another that makes sense, is exchanged; the direction spoken of here cannot be exchanged. A goal can follow a direction; that is another matter.
Enthusiasm. Something makes a person think of it day and night, full of energy. Take away the enthusiasm and see: on the days when it has cooled, does he still go? Enthusiasm can throw itself at anything, this today, that tomorrow; a direction is there even when one is not burning. The translator who made that call that evening was not burning at all, only embarrassed.
Success. Section 3 has already taken success away. Whether a direction succeeds is another matter; but success can turn round and pass for a direction: someone succeeds at something and takes it to be his direction. Take away success and see: if it had not succeeded, would he still follow it? If he would drop it at once, that was a direction given by success, not his own.
Others' ruler. This is the place this paper writes about at length: the colonization of a personal aesthetic. It belongs here because a person's personal aesthetic is also one of his directions: where he stops, what moves him, where he looks. The colonization of a personal aesthetic is a ruler that is not his own taking the place of his own law. Fame says what is good, price says what is valuable, authority says what is lofty, the textbook says what is classic; a climate of opinion, a circle, a stream of things pushed before one's eyes every day can all hold the ruler. When a ruler has occupied it, it looks as if he is following his own direction, and onlookers will take it for the beauty here; and the "beautiful" he himself says in following along, the same sentence as others', does not enter the overlap. Both mistakes lie here.
The difficulty is that the most successful ruler does not stand outside the door; it is inside, in the shape of "this is simply how I feel." So one cannot tell by asking him "is this what you yourself feel?"; he will honestly say yes. Nor can one tell by source: what comes from outside can be cultivation, as with Confucius in Section 4; what grew inside may long since have been measured by a ruler.
It is still that one test: take the ruler away; if he still acknowledges it, and can change it himself, it is his; if he acknowledges it only because the ruler is there, it is not. A person says he likes a certain painter. That painter's exhibitions have long queues; bookstores are full of albums of his work. Take away the fame and see: the same picture, hung on the wall of a small restaurant, unsigned: does the man still stop as he walks past? If he stops, and if one day he himself sees something not good in the picture and his liking changes accordingly, that is his. If the liking retreats as the fame retreats, the liking belonged to the fame.
Two things must be made clear here. First, taking away the ruler is not peeling off layers to reach a true self. Peel to the very end, and there is no self untouched by language, teachers, tradition; nor need there be; what is taken away is only that one ruler, and one looks at whether what remains still acknowledges. Second, this test is a looking back after the fact, and can be wrong; it is not a criterion. He may think he has taken it away when he has not; onlookers may think they have seen through it when they have seen wrongly. Judgment can be wrong in the first place, and so can this test.
The half about being able to change it does not require naming the ruler first. Some rulers can be named: fame, price, authority. Some cannot: what kind of house a person grew up in, what kind of talk he got used to hearing, what sense of measure he carries in his body; he himself cannot say. With a ruler that cannot be named, one can still test the second half: when he himself sees otherwise, can it change or not? If it can, that cannot-not listens to his own seeing; if it cannot, whatever it is, it no longer listens to him.
Addiction and compulsion. They too make a person honestly say: I can't do otherwise. Someone cannot give up a certain thing; a certain act has to be repeated many times before he feels at ease. They are not pushed by others, not set on a whim, and cannot be exchanged. Tell them apart by the two halves of that test: he does not acknowledge it, or acknowledges it and cannot change it; it does not listen to his own seeing; then it is not the direction spoken of here. One's own cannot-not, others cannot push; when he himself sees otherwise, it will change accordingly. This paper speaks only of this difference, which can be seen, and passes no judgment on anyone's being ill or not.
Self-design. A person designs himself as a work: what style, what look, made step by step. Take away the blueprint and see: exchange the blueprint for another, and he exchanges along with it; however carefully it was set, it is still set on a whim. The direction spoken of here comes from his cannot-not.
Taking one's own direction as a ruler for others. This one is the most refined. The direction is real and his own; he cannot exchange it; but he turns round and uses it to measure others: I live like this, so should you; what I cannot exchange, you may not exchange either. At that moment his own direction has become a ruler and taken the place of others' own law. What passes for it is the "so should you": it borrows his real direction and passes itself off as part of the direction. What the First Critique recorded at this station is exactly this: overdone, or closed on oneself alone, it is the most refined colonization. Take this person away and see: those he measured, once away from him, do they still acknowledge the direction they were following? There is one more layer: he sees only his own direction; others', he does not see, or does not take seriously. My cannot-not is not your must. Section 8 comes back to this.
Neighboring rays. The beauty of biology looks at a living thing keeping itself while exchanging its material; there too there is a "for the sake of," but it is the purposiveness of a living thing, not purpose here. The beauty of cognition looks at anticipating: what is anticipated is what will come, not where one is going. The beauty of the self looks at how judgment comes to have an owner; where this owner is going was left unasked there. The beauty of non dubito looks at others having their cannot-not too. This paper looks only at how the direction came and was taken up.
One last sentence, which this aesthetics says of every ray: beauty is not correctness, not usefulness, not importance, not understanding. Now that feeling has come in, one more must be added: beauty is not pleasure, and pleasure is not beauty. On this ray, correctness and usefulness matter most: whether a direction is right, and whether it can be carried through, are not the beauty here.
6. What Is Left to Each Person
Where to go is each person's own. Some follow one thing all their lives; some switch to a new direction every few years; some cannot say what direction they have, and live well all the same. This paper does not say that everyone must have a direction he cannot exchange, nor that any kind of direction is higher.
Where the direction comes from differs too. For some it was reading a page of a book, for some meeting a person, for some bending over a patch of land for many years. The overlap is not in these places, but in the same point that can be seen in each person's moment of cannot-exchange.
A person's direction has a history. In the history there is cultivation, and there may be colonization. Cultivation is helping a person grow his own eyes; colonization is a ruler that is not his own taking the place of his own law. What helps him and what holds the ruler can be a person, or it can be a construct: the things he has been looking at all along, the institutions that taught him, the academy he belongs to, a climate of opinion, a record of past success. The same academy can cultivate this person and colonize that one. The difference lies not in who does it, but in what has been made.
The Record of Learning speaks of how to teach: "So the gentleman in his teaching leads and does not drag, urges and does not press down, opens and does not take them all the way."[^9] Leading, not dragging; urging, not pressing down, where Zheng Xuan's commentary glosses "press down" as "like pushing": that is, not pushing; opening the way, not saying it all for him. It speaks for those who teach, of what the teacher does; this paper speaks of what has been made. Yet the phrase "opens and does not take them all the way" says exactly the stretch that cultivation leaves to a person: the road has been opened; the last step is his to reach himself.
A teacher taught a student calligraphy for ten years. The student's later hand can be seen at a glance to have been taught by this teacher; but the student himself saw that one of the teacher's strokes was not good, and changed it; whether the teacher nods or not, that stroke is now his. This is cultivation. Another student, once the teacher is gone, does not know how to put brush to paper; when others say his hand is like the teacher's, he is pleased; when they say it is not, he panics. That ruler is still there, occupying his place. The same teacher, two outcomes.
A colonized personal aesthetic is not a person being wrong; it is that this time he did not look; the ruler looked for him. It does not enter the overlap; but it is not a sin, and not for life. Take the ruler away, and he can go and look for himself.
To say "he is following himself more now than he did then" is a judgment of beauty, and it can be discussed: is what he cannot exchange more genuine, is what he has taken up more steady? Discussion may find that each has a shape of its own, and then each keeps its own.
Aesthetics says only this: whoever has seen cannot not acknowledge that it is beautiful; aesthetics decides for no one where to go.
7. Where the Question Comes From
How a person comes to have a direction of his own was looked at very early, mostly not under the name of beauty, and often for the sake of something else: for action, for liberation, for salvation, for nurturing life, for giving students a lesson. The sources run in several directions: the end lies within the activity; one's own law is better than another's; an echo is not harmony; the knife follows the grain. Later, someone said that love is weight; someone said that going against oneself is a sickness; someone said that his conscience was captive and he could not and would not recant; someone said that people think themselves free and think they act for ends because they do not know the causes; someone said that common sense comes before reflection; someone said that a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same; someone, borrowing a line from an ancient ode, said: become what you are; someone said: find the daemon who holds the threads of your life; someone said that the call comes from me and yet from beyond me. Today, someone says that the necessities of love are also freedom; someone says that taste is made by society, and that what we think we chose was made for us long ago; and some ask whether, when others tell me something is beautiful, that counts as my judgment. Confucius is already in Section 4 and Cook Ding in Section 3; here only why the Zhuangzi looked is added. What follows runs in this order. For each figure, the paper reports faithfully what he discerned, why he looked, where he presses on this paper, and where this paper parts from him; other traditions appear in their own words.
The end within the activity. Aristotle says that of the actions that have a limit, none is itself an end; all concern the end, like slimming: while one is slimming, the body is in motion, and that for the sake of which the motion occurs is not yet there; such a thing is not practice, or at least not complete practice. That in which the end is present is practice: one is thinking and has thought; one is living well and at the same time has lived well; but it is not the case that one is learning and at the same time has learned. The same person at the same time sees and has seen. The latter kind he calls actuality, the former motion.[^10] Whether this passage belonged to the Metaphysics from the start is disputed among scholars.[^11] In the Nicomachean Ethics he says that the human good is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and in a complete life besides.[^12] In the Physics he says that a poet who called death "the end point for the sake of which he was born" spoke absurdly: not every last thing counts as an end, only the best.[^13] He looked in order to make clear what actuality is and what the human good is. He discerned that some ends lie not after the doing is done but in the doing; the last is not the same as the end. He presses on this paper: if the end lies within the activity, the direction is not wholly in the person's heart, but also in how the thing is to be done if it is to count as done. This paper's answer: the direction is in the object, the drive is in the person; the knife follows the grain of the ox, and the knife is moved by Cook Ding. This paper meets him here: a direction is not an end point. It parts from him here: his end is given by the human function, the same for everyone; this paper's direction is each person's own.
One's own law. At the opening of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna stands between the two armies and sees on both sides his own kin and teachers. He says that the bow Gāṇḍīva slips from his hand, his skin burns, he cannot stand, his mind seems to whirl;[^14] having spoken, he puts down his bow and arrows and sits down in the chariot, his mind overwhelmed by sorrow.[^15] Krishna later tells him: "Better one's own law, though imperfect, than another's law performed perfectly; better death in one's own law; another's law brings fear" (śreyān svadharmo viguṇaḥ paradharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt / svadharme nidhanaṃ śreyaḥ paradharmo bhayāvahaḥ).[^16] Near the end he says again: you are bound by your own action, born of your own nature; what, out of delusion, you do not wish to do, you will do even against your will.[^17] It speaks to teach Arjuna how to act and how to be liberated, and does not call this beauty. It discerned that "one's own" is not picked at will; one's own cannot-not may at first be something one is most unwilling to do and yet cannot escape; it need not look like enthusiasm. There is a shared name here: the "own law" this paper keeps is, in English, "one's own law," the title of the SAE ethics paper One's Own Law; and some English translations render svadharma as exactly "one's own law." What they share: one's own is better than another's, even if done less well than another would do it. They differ in two places. The Gita's "own" is given by a person's role and nature: Arjuna is a warrior, and for a warrior there is nothing better than a righteous battle; a warrior's action is born of his nature.[^18] This paper's "own" is not given by a role; it means that others' ruler has not taken its place. The Gita says that one will do it even against one's will; that is being bound; this paper speaks of taking up: he acknowledges it and is also willing to follow, and when he himself sees otherwise, it will change accordingly. It presses on this paper: one's own law need not be made by oneself. This paper's answer: this paper never said the direction is made by him; the direction came, and he took it up.
An echo is not harmony. Duke Jing of Qi came back from hunting, and Yanzi was attending him at the Chuan terrace when Ziyou came driving up. Ziyou was Liangqiu Ju. The duke said: only Ju is in harmony with me. Yanzi said: Ju is merely the same as you; how can that count as harmony? Harmony is like making a broth: water, fire, vinegar, sauce, salt and plums, used to cook fish and meat; the cook blends them, making up what is lacking and drawing off what is excessive. So too between lord and minister: when the lord says something is acceptable and there is something unacceptable in it, the minister points out the unacceptable so that the acceptable can be completed. "Now Ju is not like this. What my lord calls acceptable, Ju also calls acceptable; what my lord calls unacceptable, Ju also calls unacceptable. If you add water to water, who could eat it? If the zither and the lute played a single note, who could listen? That is why sameness will not do."[^19] He spoke about how lord and minister deal with each other. He discerned that an echo is not harmony. This paper takes only the half about the echo. He presses on this paper: when Liangqiu Ju says "acceptable," it may be flattery, or he may really think so; if the echo is sincere, how can it be told apart? This paper's answer: take away the duke and see: with the duke absent, does Ju still say this "acceptable"? When he himself sees otherwise, can it change or not? The "acceptable" said in following the lord, though the sentence is the same, does not enter the overlap. This example cannot show that agreement is an echo: agreeing because each has seen for himself is exactly overlap. It parts from him here: he spoke for the way of lord and minister, and what he wanted was harmony; this paper looks at whether a person's direction is his own.
Following the heavenly grain. Cook Ding has already been written about in Section 3. This passage of the Zhuangzi is told for the sake of nurturing life: having heard him out, Lord Wenhui says, "I have heard the words of Cook Ding and learned how to nurture life."[^20] It speaks of the Way, not of "one's own," and does not call it beauty. It discerned that at the far end of skill, deliberateness and effort both withdraw, and the knife follows the grain the ox already has. It presses on this paper: where the knife goes is not decided by the person; whose, then, is the direction? This paper's answer: the direction is in the ox, the drive is in the person; the knife is moved by Cook Ding, and the eye with which he sees the ox grew in him over nineteen years. The grain of the ox is not someone else's ruler: it does not measure him, nor see for him. He follows the ox, not Lord Wenhui's applause; so the direction is in the ox, and this going is still his. "Following the heavenly grain" cannot be read as following one's heart. This paper meets it here: in completeness, one no longer asks whether it is mine. It parts from it here: it speaks for nurturing life; this paper does not take nurturing life as the beauty here.
My weight is my love. Augustine says: a body tends by its weight toward its place. Weight does not only go downward, but toward its own place: fire goes up, a stone down; oil poured under water rises to the top, water poured on oil sinks below; they are moved by their weights and seek their places. Things not in order are restless; set in order, they are at rest. "Pondus meum amor meus; eo feror, quocumque feror": my weight is my love; wherever I am carried, it is love that carries me there.[^21] He wrote to confess and to praise God. He discerned that a person is drawn by what he loves; the question turns from "what do I choose" into "what has already become my weight." He presses on this paper: love can be disordered; a love one cannot turn one's back on can also love wrongly; a cannot-not does not by itself prove that a direction is worth following. This paper's answer: this paper agrees; beauty is not correctness, and a direction a person has taken up can go wrong. It parts from him here: his measure is in the end with God; this paper does not say that a cannot-not proves a direction right, nor does it find a final place for the direction.
Going against oneself is a sickness. When Tao Yuanming resigned his office and went home, he said in the preface to "Returning Home": "My nature is so of itself; it is not something forcing and whetting can get. Hunger and cold press hard, but going against myself makes me sick in body and mind. When I once went into the service of men, it was always to make myself a servant of mouth and belly."[^22] The preface also says that he had meant to wait another year, to take in one season's grain before leaving; soon his sister died in Wuchang, and, eager to hurry to the funeral, he resigned of his own accord. He wrote to explain why he resigned. He discerned that other roads make sense, hunger and cold are real, but going against oneself is a sickness. He presses on this paper: "my nature is so of itself"; if the direction is given by nature, can one still speak of taking it up? This paper's answer: nature is an origin, and the origin gave a direction; wanting to go yet saying he would wait another year is the direction coming; when his sister's death came, he went: that is taking it up. This paper meets him here: other roads make sense, and he cannot exchange his. It parts from him here: what he wanted was to return to his fields; this paper decides for no one where to go.
Cannot and will not. In 1521 at Worms, Luther was required to recant his books. According to the Latin record, he answered: unless he was convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason (for he did not trust either the pope or councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), he was overcome by the Scriptures he had cited, and his conscience was captive to the word of God (capta conscientia in verbis dei); he could not and would not recant anything (revocare neque possum nec volo quicquam), since to act against conscience is neither safe nor right.[^23] Whether he actually said the line "Here I stand," found in later printings, is disputed, and it is not used here. He spoke for the sake of faith. He discerned that conscience can close off retreat before power; the words of recantation he could have said, but he could not do it. He presses on this paper: this "cannot" comes from a truth beyond him; it was the word of God that took him captive, not something of his own. This paper's answer: in the same sentence he said two things, cannot and will not, and the two are one and the same moment: exactly what this paper calls taking up; that the emperor and the empire could not push him is cannot-exchange. He could also say what could make him change: the testimony of Scripture, or clear reason, that is, what he himself could see; power was not among them. This paper meets him here: others cannot push it; when he himself sees otherwise, he will change. It parts from him here: his "cannot" is anchored in the word of God; this paper sets no such anchor.
Thinking oneself free, thinking one acts for an end. Spinoza says: people are born ignorant of the causes of things, and all want to seek what is useful to them, and are conscious of this. From this it follows, first, that people think themselves free, because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, yet do not know the causes that dispose them to desire and to will, and do not even dream of them; second, that people do everything for an end, that is, for the useful thing they desire. In the same appendix he says that nature has set itself no end, and all final causes are nothing but human fictions; from here come the prejudices of good and bad, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness: if the motion the eyes receive from an object is conducive to health, people call the object that causes it beautiful.[^24] He wrote to clear away the prejudices that stand in the way of understanding his demonstrations. He discerned that feeling one cannot do otherwise does not prove that it is one's own; "for the sake of" is often people projecting their own shape onto the world. His pressure goes deepest: the feeling of cannot-exchange may be only ignorance of causes; purpose may be only fiction; beauty may be only comfort. This paper's answer: the purpose this paper speaks of is not an end the world has set itself, nor people projecting their own usefulness onto nature; it is a person going somewhere, a direction that came, which he took up. The beauty this paper speaks of is not pleasure, nor usefulness; it is not the kind he cleared away. Nor does this paper take feeling as evidence: the second half of the test of taking away the ruler asks whether, when he himself sees otherwise, it can change, not how he feels. This paper meets him here: at the opening of the book he says that that thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its own nature alone and is determined to act by itself alone;[^25] freedom lies not in having many options, but in coming from oneself. It parts from him here: he wants people to know causes; this paper speaks of seeing.
Common sense. Vico says: "Common sense is judgment without any reflection, commonly felt by an entire class, an entire people, an entire nation or the whole human race."[^26] He wrote to find a principle for the common nature of nations. He discerned that a community already has judgments before reflection. He presses on this paper: might each person's cannot-not be something the community grew into him from the start? This paper's answer: it might, and often is; having a history is not the same as being colonized; it may also be cultivation. What the community grew into him, if he still acknowledges it with that ruler taken away and can change it himself, is his. It parts from him here: he looks at how a nation already has judgments before reflection; this paper looks at how a person's direction became his own.
Autonomy. Kant says: autonomy of the will is the property of the will by which it is a law to itself, independently of any property of the objects of volition.[^27] He also says: the proposition "the will is in all its actions a law to itself" indicates only the principle of acting on no other maxim than one that can also have itself as a universal law for its object; this is precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and the principle of morality; hence a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.[^28] He wrote to find the supreme principle of morality. He discerned that giving law to oneself is not doing as one pleases; coming from within, with no one forcing, is not yet enough to be called self-governing. He presses on this paper: if "one's own cannot-not" cannot say clearly how it differs from inclination, then in his eyes it is heteronomy. This paper's answer: this paper does not take wanting or not wanting as evidence. There is willingness in taking up, but it comes along with the acknowledging; a passing want, once it cools, or once the ruler is taken away, disperses; Section 5 spoke of enthusiasm. That the direction comes from the object, he would call heteronomy; the "own" this paper speaks of lies not in where the law comes from, but in whether others' ruler has taken its place. This paper meets him here: one's own is not doing as one pleases. It parts from him here: what he wants is the form of possible universal legislation, and he speaks of ought; this paper does not speak of ought, and does not require one person's cannot-not to hold for everyone.
Become what you are. Pindar says in an ode: "γένοιʼ οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών": having learned, become such as you are.[^29] Nietzsche turned it into the words of conscience: "What does your conscience say? You shall become the person you are."[^30] Later he gave Ecce Homo the subtitle "How One Becomes What One Is."[^31] In The Gay Science he also says: to give "style" to one's character is a great and rare art. Those who do it survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason, and even weaknesses delight the eye; when the work is finished, it becomes evident that it was the constraint of a single taste that governed and formed everything large and small; whether this taste was good or bad matters less than one might think, if only it was a single taste.[^32] He wrote for how a person becomes himself, and also for taste. He discerned that one already "is," and must still "become"; who one is shows only through long practice and daily work. He presses on this paper: is a direction made, or does it come? For him, style is something a person gives himself. This paper's answer: for him, taste itself is a constraint, and that is close to what this paper calls cannot-not; what comes from a cannot-not is the beauty here; what is made according to a blueprint set on a whim is the self-design of Section 5. This paper meets him here: good or bad matters less than one might think; what matters is that it is one; beauty is not correctness. It parts from him in three places. His conscience says "you shall"; this paper does not say ought. He lets this taste govern his nature, fitting even the weaknesses into a plan; the direction this paper speaks of is one that came and was taken up, not a plan for governing one's nature. In the same section he also writes that strong and domineering natures enjoy their finest pleasure under such constraint and restraint, and even in building palaces and laying out gardens refuse to let nature be free; as soon as this taste reaches out to things beyond oneself, this paper has to ask the question raised by the last of the counterfeits in Section 5.
The daemon who holds the threads of one's life. In "Science as a Vocation," Weber says that science cannot choose ultimate values for people; the gods contend with one another, and each must decide for himself which to serve. At the end he tells the students to go to their work and meet the demands of the day, as human beings and in their vocations; and this is plain and simple, if each finds and obeys the daemon who holds the threads of his life.[^33] He spoke to students who meant to take the path of scholarship. He discerned that no science can fix ultimate values for anyone, yet this does not mean that whatever one chooses is all the same; once one has found it and obeys it, daily work becomes simple. He presses on this paper: a cannot-not that cannot stand up to years of discipline and daily work may be only an emotion. This paper's answer: agreed; enthusiasm is not a direction, as Section 5 said; cannot-exchange has to be looked at on the days when it has cooled. It parts from him here: "find and obey" is a demand he made of students from the lectern; this paper does not say ought, nor that everyone has a daemon to find.
The call. Heidegger says: the call is never something we ourselves have planned, prepared for, or voluntarily performed. "It" calls, against our expectations and even against our will. On the other hand, the call undoubtedly does not come from someone else who is with me in the world. The call comes from me and yet from beyond me (Der Ruf kommt aus mir und doch über mich).[^34] What is called is Dasein itself, summoned to its ownmost potentiality-for-being, called up out of its falling into the they.[^35] He looked in order to make clear what conscience is in the being of Dasein. He discerned that what is really mine is neither public opinion nor the preferences I can list at this moment; it can come unexpectedly, against my will. He presses on this paper: if the direction comes from me and yet from beyond me, does it still count as one's own? This paper's answer: this sentence is the closest to what this paper calls "the direction came": not planned, not given by others, but come; its being one's own does not lie in my having made it. It parts from him here: his call is bound up with guilt and death, calling a person back from the they to his ownmost self; this paper sets up no ownmost self waiting for a person to return to, and does not look at direction from death.
The necessities of love. Harry Frankfurt discussed for many years a kind of volitional necessity: what a person cares about and loves constitutes him; some things are unthinkable for him, and he cannot do otherwise; and this is not compulsion from outside. Late in life he said that the necessities with which love binds the will are themselves liberating; like the necessities of reason, they need not answer to a person's own inclinations and choices.[^36] He wrote to answer how one should live and what is worth caring about. He discerned that freedom does not lie in having as many options as possible; "cannot do otherwise" can be exactly where a person is most himself. He presses on this paper: if a caring in fact constitutes me, does it thereby count as mine? Compulsion and addiction also make a person honestly say he cannot do otherwise. This paper's answer: Section 5 has already separated them by the two halves of the test of taking away the ruler: if he does not acknowledge it, or cannot change it, it is not the direction here. This paper meets him here: he says that this necessity does not answer to a person's inclinations and choices; this paper's cannot-exchange also speaks of that half. It parts from him here: he separates them by the structure of the will, asking whether a person wholeheartedly identifies with it, which means going into a person's heart; this paper looks only at whether he still acknowledges it with the ruler taken away, and whether, when he himself sees otherwise, it can change; these two, onlookers can see too, and can also see wrongly.
Everything alike. At the opening of the chapter on "the culture industry," Horkheimer and Adorno say: culture today makes everything alike; film, radio and magazines form a system. They also say that individuality too can be mass-produced.[^37] They wrote to criticize the culture industry. They discerned that without direct compulsion, people can still grow the same wants; the desires that feel self-chosen were made long ago. They press on this paper: take away one ruler, but what if the whole culture is a ruler? This paper's answer: this is the deepest kind of colonization, and this paper agrees that it exists; but this paper does not judge a whole culture; it asks only, of the same person, the same time, whether he still acknowledges it once fame and price are taken away, and whether, when he himself sees otherwise, it can still change. If the whole culture is a ruler, this test will go wrong more often; Section 9 keeps a place for this. It parts from them here: they judge a whole culture; this paper looks at one person, one time.
Taste classifies. Bourdieu says: taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed.[^38] He used questionnaires and statistics to see how education, class trajectory, cultural capital and bodily habitus decide what is experienced as natural, distinguished, vulgar or dull. He looked for the sake of sociology, asking where taste comes from. He discerned that where taste is experienced as innate and natural is exactly where its social history is written deepest; introspection cannot tell the difference. For what this paper calls the colonized personal aesthetic, he is the hardest opponent. He presses on this paper: what a person thinks he himself has seen may be only what his position lets him see; that seeing itself has a history. This paper's answer has two layers. First, in asking where taste comes from, he did not prove that beauty does not exist; that seeing has a history, this paper agrees, nor need it be without one; taking away the ruler is not peeling off layers to reach a true self. Second, that test asks not whether seeing has a history, but whether this liking, at this moment, listens to his own seeing: habitus is a ruler carried by a construct, one that cannot be named, and the second half can be tested all the same. This paper meets him here: introspection cannot tell the difference, so this paper does not rely on asking people how they feel. It parts from him here: he looks at the group of people in a position; this paper looks at whether one person, this time, looked.
What is heard from others does not count. Wollheim says that judgments of aesthetic value, unlike judgments of moral knowledge, must be based on first-hand experience of their objects and, except within very narrow limits, cannot be passed from one person to another.[^39] C. Thi Nguyen says that we ought to use our own faculties and abilities to arrive at our own aesthetic judgments.[^40] They wrote on the problem of aesthetic testimony: when others tell me something is beautiful, even if I believe them, does it count as my judgment? They discerned that what is heard from others, even if true, is not yet one's own. They press on this paper: everyone says it is great; this may be the overlap of what each has seen, or it may be an agreement made by fame; how to tell? This paper's answer: take away the fame and see; it is still that test. It parts from them here: Nguyen says "ought"; this paper does not say ought, only that the share heard from others does not enter the overlap.
8. The Question Left Open
The book was printed. On the last page is the word he changed back. That evening, it was the editor who gave way. She too has things she cannot let go of: she wants the book to read smoothly, wants readers not to stumble when they reach the last page; this is not wholly a ruler given her by others.
He has a direction, has taken it up, and cannot exchange it. But his cannot-not is his; others have theirs. The editor's: did he see it? What he cannot exchange is not her must. A person who sees only his own direction easily uses it to measure others; Section 5 said that this is the most refined colonization. How others' cannot-nots are seen, this level cannot contain.
The world does not push anyone to ask this. A person can follow his own direction all his life without ever asking whether others have directions too; if he cannot not ask, that is another ray. This ray stops here.
The question left open is: my cannot-not is not your must; do others have their cannot-not too? That is the beauty of non dubito.
9. What Would Make This Paper Wrong
If any one of five things held, this paper would be wrong. First, the test of taking away the ruler cannot tell them apart: what is still acknowledged and can be changed once the ruler is taken away, and what is acknowledged only because the ruler is there, cannot be told apart in any instance; for every "still acknowledges," a ruler that was not taken away can be found after the fact. Then the direction of one's own that this paper speaks of could not be seen at all. Bourdieu, and Horkheimer and Adorno, are the most direct pressure on this item. Second, cannot-exchange is only habit, or only not knowing where it comes from: once the origin is known, it can be exchanged every time; what is seen is only a person refusing to budge, not a direction coming. Spinoza is the most direct pressure on this item. Third, seeing a person's direction is shown to be seeing his success: take away success, and no one sees the point any longer. Fourth, one's own cannot-not is shown to be only self-made: no direction ever comes; every so-called coming is a story found after the fact for one's own design; then taking up is only a pleasant name. Fifth, the half about being able to change is shown to be invisible: whether a person will change with his own seeing can only be inferred, and never shows itself in any single instance; then cannot-exchange cannot be told apart from addiction and compulsion. This paper does not think any of these will happen, but it writes them here, and leaves them to those who look to test.
Acknowledgments
This paper is the eleventh ray paper in the aesthetics branch of the SAE (Self-as-an-End) philosophical system and is published under the sole name of Han Qin. The author made the final decision on all philosophical arguments and choices, and alone is responsible for the final text.
Both drafting assistance and review were carried out with large language models. Drafting and internal precision audit were done by Claude (Anthropic); the structural gate and pre-publication sign-off were handled by ChatGPT (OpenAI). The material on the history of ideas used in Section 7, "Where the Question Comes From," was first gathered by ChatGPT's deep research, and its sources were then checked item by item. This paper, together with the second edition of the general outline and the other twelve ray papers, passed final review by both the internal precision audit and the structural gate, and passed a key-sentence acceptance check. The author thanks these systems and the research and engineering teams behind them. The author ruled on their comments one by one, and both acceptances and rejections are on record; the record of revisions and withdrawals across rounds is not reproduced here.
Notes
[^1]: Han Qin, SAE Judgment and Aesthetics, 2nd ed. (2026), §5.1, "How to Read the Rays," DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19296710.
[^2]: Han Qin, SAE: The First Critique (2026), DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21439120.
[^3]: Han Qin, SAE: The First Critique, chap. 5, §3, "The Road's Later Stretch: from Selection to Mutual Non Dubito," the fifteenth and sixteenth stations.
[^4]: Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), §17, 5:236.
[^5]: Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋, "Yangsheng zhu" 養生主 (CHANT text, Kanripo KR5c0126), collated with Nanhua zhenjing 南華真經, juan 2, with the commentary of Guo Xiang 郭象, Sibu congkan edition.
[^6]: Lunyu 論語, "Weizheng" 為政, 2.4 (chapter numbering follows the CHANT text).
[^7]: Zhu Xi 朱熹, Lunyu jizhu 論語集注, juan 1, "Weizheng di er" 為政第二, in Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集注, Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
[^8]: Zhu Xi, Zhongyong zhangju 中庸章句, chap. 20, in Sishu zhangju jizhu, Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
[^9]: Liji 禮記, "Xueji" 學記 (TLS text, Kanripo KR1d0052); for Zheng Xuan's 鄭玄 commentary, see Liji zhushu 禮記注疏, juan 36, Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
[^10]: Aristotle, Metaphysics Θ.6, 1048b18–35, in Aristotle's Metaphysics, ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).
[^11]: M. F. Burnyeat, "Kinēsis vs. Energeia: A Much-Read Passage in (but not of) Aristotle's Metaphysics," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 34 (2008): 219–292.
[^12]: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.7, 1098a16–18, in Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894).
[^13]: Aristotle, Physics 2.2, 194a28–33, in Aristotelis Physica, ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950).
[^14]: Bhagavadgītā 1.26–30, vulgate text, in the Bhagavad Gita dataset of the gita/gita project, https://github.com/gita/gita.
[^15]: Bhagavadgītā 1.47.
[^16]: Bhagavadgītā 3.35.
[^17]: Bhagavadgītā 18.60.
[^18]: Bhagavadgītā 2.31, 18.43, 18.47.
[^19]: Chunqiu Zuozhuan 春秋左傳, Duke Zhao, year 20 (TLS text, Kanripo KR1e0001); see also Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 1419–1420.
[^20]: Guo Qingfan, Zhuangzi jishi, "Yangsheng zhu."
[^21]: Augustine, Confessions 13.9.10, in Augustine: Confessions, ed. James J. O'Donnell, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
[^22]: Tao Yuanming 陶淵明, "Guiqulaixi ci bing xu" 歸去來兮辭并序, in Tao Yuanming ji 陶淵明集, juan 5, Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
[^23]: Martin Luther, reply at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521, Latin text in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 7 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1897), 838; English in Luther's Works, vol. 32, ed. George W. Forell (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958), 112.
[^24]: Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethica, pars 1, appendix, in Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, vol. 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1925), 78ff.
[^25]: Spinoza, Ethica, pars 1, def. 7.
[^26]: Giambattista Vico, Principj di scienza nuova (Naples: Stamperia Muziana, 1744), §142.
[^27]: Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Riga: Hartknoch, 1785), in Kant's gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 4 (Berlin: Reimer, 1911), 440.
[^28]: Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 4:446–447.
[^29]: Pindar, Pythian 2.72, Greek text in the Perseus Digital Library, urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0033.tlg002.perseus-grc2.
[^30]: Friedrich Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, new ed. (Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1887), §270, 203; in Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, vol. 3 (Munich: dtv; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 519.
[^31]: Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist (written 1888; Leipzig: Insel, 1908).
[^32]: Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1887), §290, 215–216; KSA 3:530–531.
[^33]: Max Weber, "Wissenschaft als Beruf" (1919), in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Johannes Winckelmann, 6th ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1985), 582–613; the closing sentence at 613.
[^34]: Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Halle: Niemeyer, 1927), §57, 275.
[^35]: Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §57, 277.
[^36]: Harry G. Frankfurt, "The Importance of What We Care About" and "Rationality and the Unthinkable," in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 80–94, 177–190; Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), chap. 2, esp. 49, 64.
[^37]: Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "Kulturindustrie: Aufklärung als Massenbetrug," in Dialektik der Aufklärung (Amsterdam: Querido, 1947); English in Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 94.
[^38]: Pierre Bourdieu, La Distinction: Critique sociale du jugement (Paris: Minuit, 1979), vi; English in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 6–7.
[^39]: Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 233.
[^40]: C. Thi Nguyen, "Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement," Mind 129, no. 516 (2020): 1129, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzz054.
References
Works of the SAE system cited here are archived on Zenodo, with the Chinese and English versions in the same record. The DOIs cited are concept DOIs, which always resolve to the latest version, so version numbers and access dates are not given. All are single-authored (Han Qin). Drafting and review assistance is described in the Acknowledgments.
Aristotle. Aristotle's Metaphysics. Edited by W. D. Ross. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.
———. Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Edited by I. Bywater. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894.
———. Aristotelis Physica. Edited by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950.
Augustine. Augustine: Confessions. Edited by James J. O'Donnell. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Bhagavadgītā. Vulgate text. Bhagavad Gita dataset, gita/gita project. https://github.com/gita/gita.
Bourdieu, Pierre. La Distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Minuit, 1979.
———. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Burnyeat, M. F. "Kinēsis vs. Energeia: A Much-Read Passage in (but not of) Aristotle's Metaphysics." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 34 (2008): 219–292.
Chunqiu Zuozhuan 春秋左傳. TLS text (Kanripo KR1e0001).
Frankfurt, Harry G. The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
———. The Reasons of Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩. Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋. CHANT text (Kanripo KR5c0126).
Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. Halle: Niemeyer, 1927.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Amsterdam: Querido, 1947.
———. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. First published 1790.
———. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Riga: Hartknoch, 1785. In Kant's gesammelte Schriften, edited by Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 4. Berlin: Reimer, 1911.
Liji 禮記. TLS text (Kanripo KR1d0052).
Liji zhushu 禮記注疏. Commentary by Zheng Xuan 鄭玄, subcommentary by Kong Yingda 孔穎達. Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
Lunyu 論語. CHANT text (Kanripo KR1h0004).
Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Vol. 7. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1897.
———. Luther's Works. Vol. 32, Career of the Reformer II. Edited by George W. Forell. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958.
Nanhua zhenjing 南華真經. Commentary by Guo Xiang 郭象. Sibu congkan edition.
Nguyen, C. Thi. "Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement." Mind 129, no. 516 (2020): 1127–1156. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzz054.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft. New ed. Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1887.
———. Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist. Leipzig: Insel, 1908. Written 1888.
———. Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. 15 vols. Munich: dtv; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980.
Pindar. Pythian Odes. Greek text in the Perseus Digital Library. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0033.tlg002.perseus-grc2.
Qin, Han. SAE Judgment and Aesthetics. 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19296710.
———. SAE: The First Critique. 2026. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21439120.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. Spinoza Opera. Edited by Carl Gebhardt. 4 vols. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1925.
Tao Yuanming 陶淵明. Tao Yuanming ji 陶淵明集. Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.
Vico, Giambattista. Principj di scienza nuova. Naples: Stamperia Muziana, 1744.
Weber, Max. "Wissenschaft als Beruf." In Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, edited by Johannes Winckelmann, 582–613. 6th ed. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1985. First published 1919.
Wollheim, Richard. Art and Its Objects. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981.
Zhu Xi 朱熹. Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集注. Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition.