Self-as-an-End
SAE Love Theory · Paper 4

No Substitute
换不掉

Han Qin (秦汉) · Independent Researcher · 2026
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23627776 · Full PDF on Zenodo · CC BY 4.0
Abstract

This paper reads love at the layer of purpose: she has become where I am going. In SAE's levels, this layer is written 14DD. Love at this layer is a direction: others also make sense, and I cannot exchange her; with purpose, this cannot-not persists. What persists is the direction, and it does not fill every moment: two directions can coexist, and there is much wavering at this layer, yet at any one moment, too, one loves only one; wavering is not yet being certain, it is not that anyone will do, and so long as no commitment is broken, it carries no direction of colonization. A direction is not a target: what is over once won, and is exchanged as soon as another that makes sense comes along, is a target; enthusiasm is not a direction either: a direction is there even when one is not burning. Conferring meaning for love is the business of this layer; pledging oneself in life and death, if it is taking on a direction for one's own action after becoming aware of finitude, can be read as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death, and is not the whole of this layer. Others' ruler and compulsion can both pass themselves off as direction; only what one still acknowledges once that ruler is taken away, and can also change on one's own, is one's own direction.

Commitment enters at this layer. A vow is where I stand today; it does not sign for tomorrow. Of the ways of breaking a promise, only dropping and falsity carry the direction of colonization. Where there is a commitment, quietly setting it down carries the potential of breaking the commitment: leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration that she can clearly understand; with such a declaration, it is leaving with the books kept; without one, it is dropping. This paper argues where the direction of dropping falls: not on the withdrawal itself, but on the promise left with her; once the promise has gone empty, it still acts, in the shape of my still standing there, as the premise on which she arranges what follows, and heads toward occupying her step of understanding anew and arranging anew in light of the change. Effect, direction and whether it took hold are read apart. The stretch between deciding to leave and letting her understand is read by what it is used to do, not by the number of days.

The direction of colonization read from this layer is taking my direction as her ruler. Threatening death hangs a consequence on her exit and raises the cost of exit outward; what structurally seals off her exit is, at the layer of basic rights, a violation. That she too confers meaning cannot be constructed out of my meaning-conferral. Love at this layer ends when the direction changes, or when it can no longer be taken up. This paper interfaces with Frankfurt, Sartre, de Rougemont, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Tang Xianzu and the Buddhist teaching that craving conditions grasping. This paper does not prove that love that cannot be exchanged is more genuine, nor that pledging oneself in life and death is the highest form of love.

Introduction

A Zhe and Jian Ning have known each other for seven years and have been together for four. A Zhe's family once introduced him to someone: well matched in circumstances, compatible in temperament. They met once, and he admitted that she was good in every way; it made sense. That evening he went home and could not get on with anything. At last he phoned Jian Ning, managed to say nothing much, and said only one sentence: I just can't exchange you.

This is not like the moment of Paper 1. The moment Paper 1 reads concerns only that moment: a voice pulls at a person, she walks away, and the moment passes. With A Zhe it is more than a moment. Another person is set before him, the reasons make sense too, and he cannot make the exchange; over these four years, where he is going has become bound up with her. At this layer love has a direction.

What this paper reads. This series divides its papers by layer; a layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage of love, and a layer records one operation, not a person.1 This paper reads the layer of purpose (14DD): how love becomes a person's direction. Aesthetics Ray 11, The Beauty of Purpose, writes of exactly this layer: "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."2 Ray 11 asks about the point that those who look cannot not acknowledge together; this paper asks how this one direction operates within a relation.

This layer brings in three things. The first is purpose: love has somewhere it is going. The second is commitment: once a person has promised her something, commitment has come in, and breach comes in with it. The third is the direction of colonization read from this layer. Colonization, in this series, names the direction of one effect: toward pouring in and occupying; the other direction is cultivation, toward making space. The two are not the two extremes of one scale: the same act can carry both directions, and it can also carry no direction at all. The direction of colonization at this layer is my direction becoming her ruler.

Shared words. Two words carry two senses each in this paper. The first is the word that gives both "purpose" and "end": purpose in Ray 11's sense of direction, "Purpose here is not a set goal; it is a direction that has come and that one cannot not follow";3 and end in the sense of "a person is an end." The two are kept apart where each first appears; in English they are two words. "Direction" also has two senses: the direction Ray 11 speaks of, that is, where a person is going; and the two directions Relation Theory speaks of, cultivation and colonization, read on one effect.4 The former is love at this layer itself; the latter is where love at this layer is headed as it lands on her.

Method. As in Paper 1: the conclusions of upstream papers are said in plain words; sources, the proposition numbers of other papers and the places where upstream words are carried beyond their original place all go in the notes, and where something is extended, this series takes it on as its own undertaking. What has already been said at the relational layer is used here directly, not rewritten. One couple, A Zhe and Jian Ning, runs through the whole paper. Both are within scope: A Zhe can say that he cannot exchange her, and that is his own cannot-not; Jian Ning wants to go back to her hometown and open a bookshop, and that is a place of her own to go to, which A Zhe knows of and acknowledges as hers; Jian Ning, for her part, sees that A Zhe has places to go that she cannot choose for him.

§1 Direction: Cannot-Exchange

L24 Love at this layer is a direction: others also make sense, and I cannot exchange her; with purpose, this cannot-not persists

Ray 11 writes of this layer that here his own cannot-not has come and has taken up this direction. Of where the direction comes from, Ray 11 lists several places, and one of them is that the direction "can also come from what he loves."5 What this paper reads is the kind in which the direction comes from this one person who is loved.

Cannot exchange does not mean there is no other road. The person A Zhe's family introduced him to is, he admits, good in every way; the reasons make sense, and he cannot refute a single one. Ray 11 has described the same shape: he can give some of his reasons, not all of them.6 With the reasons weighed out even, he still cannot make the exchange.

Cannot exchange is not cannot change, either. Ray 11 says it plainly: 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".7 His family cannot push A Zhe's direction, and the person introduced to him cannot be exchanged for it; but if one day he himself sees otherwise, it will change accordingly. So love at this layer is not a chain; it is a person and a direction going together.

With purpose, this cannot-not persists. The cannot-not of Paper 1 concerns only that moment; the cannot-not of this layer is there when she is not before me, and when one is not burning. Upstream says that up to the layer of the self, where a person is going, the direction is not yet his own; at the layer of purpose, the direction has become his own.8 The cannot-not of one moment and the cannot-not that persists are both called irreplaceable.9

Purpose here is taken in Ray 11's sense of direction: not a destination that has been set, but that which has come and which one cannot not follow. A Zhe cannot say where these four years with Jian Ning are meant to take them; he knows only that with someone else in her place, it would no longer be the road he has walked to get here.

L25 What persists is the direction, and it does not fill every moment: two directions can coexist, and there is much wavering at this layer, but at any one moment, too, one loves only one. Wavering is not yet being certain; it is not that anyone will do; that those moments do not operate at 15DD does not say that she is a means; so long as no commitment is broken, it carries no direction of colonization

What persists is the direction, not every moment. At work A Zhe thinks about the loads on bridges, not about Jian Ning; in those hours there is not one moment of love, and the direction is there all the same.

Two directions can coexist. In Zhang Ailing's "Red Rose, White Rose," Zhenbao goes back and forth between two women, one passionate, one quiet; while he is thinking of the one, the other has not withdrawn from where he is going. Only the outline of the story is given here, and only the structure of two directions coexisting is borrowed. At any one moment, too, he loves only one: each moment of love has only one person in it;10 two directions coexisting means that the moments of love take turns between two people.

This is called wavering. Wavering is not yet being certain: he is still choosing which one, and the question of choosing asks which one suits him and becomes his direction; it is still within the frame of this layer. Wavering is not "anyone will do." Where anyone at all will do, what is loved is "being in love" itself, and who comes does not matter; that is treating a person as a means, and it is read in Paper 3. For the one who wavers, each of the two is the concrete one who cannot be exchanged; it is only that there are two such people.

So what wavering says is that in those moments there is no operation at the layer of recognizing her as an end too (15DD); it does not say that in those moments she is a means. Wavering in itself carries no direction of colonization. The direction of colonization appears only where it breaks a commitment: having promised one person, then quietly setting it down (L29); or, to keep both, making a promise where one does not stand, which is falsity. If there is some further outward act within the wavering, such as taking my direction as her ruler, it is read by that proposition (L30), and not because it is wavering.

A woman is courted by two men at once; she is still thinking, still choosing. Only if she has already had moments of love for both is it the wavering read here; if she is only weighing them, and has had no moment of love yet, it is choosing, not wavering. Neither carries a direction of colonization, so long as no commitment is broken.

Nor is wavering succession. To love someone else after one love has ended is succession; but one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old one has already ended, or else wavering would be defined out of existence.

Only structure is read here. To speak of wavering and of succession is to read how directions coexist and how moments take turns; it does not say which is better, and passes no judgment on the one who wavers.

L26 A direction is not a target: treat a person as a target to be won, and once she is won it is over, and offered another who makes sense, she is exchanged. Enthusiasm is not a direction either: a direction is there even when one is not burning

Ray 11 separates the target, which it calls a set goal, from the direction; the Introduction has already quoted the sentence. With a target that has been set, a person first thinks out a destination and then looks for a road to it; exchange it for a better target, and it is exchanged; reach it, and it is over.

To treat a person as a target to be won has the same shape. In Mozart and Da Ponte's Don Giovanni, the servant Leporello opens a catalogue before a woman who has been abandoned: the women Don Giovanni has pursued, recorded country by country, a number for each country. The look of the catalogue is the look of a target: won, entered, on to the next; each one is a line in the catalogue, and there is not one that cannot be exchanged.

Enthusiasm is not a direction either. Ray 11 says: "Enthusiasm can throw itself at anything, this today, that tomorrow; a direction is there even when one is not burning".11 In four years A Zhe and Jian Ning have had very cold days: one of them was away on work for three months, and after the return the two said very little to each other. Whether the direction is there must be looked at on days like these: on the days when things have cooled, does he still go toward her?

§2 Meaning-Conferral and Counterfeits

L27 Conferring meaning for love is the business of this layer. Pledging oneself in life and death, if it is taking on a direction for one's own action after becoming aware of finitude, can be read as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death; it is not the whole of this layer, the layer is not judged by this phrase, and love is not ranked by it

Upstream writes the layer of purpose as meaning-conferral: self-awareness constructing reasons for its own actions; "Meaning-conferral can have any reason — for descendants, for knowledge, for love, for justice, for beauty."12 Conferring meaning for love is the business of this layer: for many of the things A Zhe does, moving to the city where she lives, changing jobs, the reason is her.

Upstream places conferring meaning in the face of death between the layer of the self and the layer of purpose: living toward death is not a single construct, but the transition after self-awareness sees death, at the point where meaning-conferral begins to operate.13 What upstream speaks of there is one's own death.

Yuan Haowen wrote of a pair of wild geese. On his way to the examinations he met a goose catcher, who said that he had caught one that day and killed it; the other had slipped the net, but cried out in grief and would not leave, and at last dashed itself to death on the ground. Yuan Haowen bought the geese, buried them above the Fen River, piled up stones as a marker, called the place the Wild Goose Mound, and wrote a song lyric that begins: "I ask the world: what is this thing, love, that it brings two straight to pledging themselves in life and death?"14 This is literature, and it serves here only as an example. The one that died for love was a goose, which is not within this series' scope; what is borrowed is the poet's question: what he asks about is love in the world, and what his question reaches is people who say "pledging oneself in life and death."

Pledging oneself in life and death, if it is a person taking on a direction for his own action after becoming aware of finitude, can be read as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death.15 It is not the whole of this layer: A Zhe's moving house and changing jobs for Jian Ning are just as much meaning-conferral at this layer, and have nothing to do with death. Nor is the layer judged by the phrase "pledging oneself in life and death": a sentence like "I'd die for you" can be meaning-conferral at the layer of purpose, and it can also be only words of enthusiasm; that one operation must be checked. Still less is love ranked by it.

L28 Others' ruler and compulsion can both pass themselves off as direction: what one still acknowledges once that ruler is taken away, and can also change on one's own, is one's own direction; what one does not acknowledge, or acknowledges and cannot change, is not. Only the difference that can be seen is spoken of; no judgment is passed on being ill or not

This layer has its counterfeits, which Ray 11 has listed: others' ruler, addiction and compulsion. The method is still that one test: "take the ruler away; if he still acknowledges it, and can change it himself, it is his".16

Others' ruler. A man between two people at last chooses the one his family and friends both approve of, and says this is his own direction. Take away everyone's eyes and try: with no one watching, would he still choose this one? If, as everyone's eyes withdraw, the choice withdraws with them, then the direction belonged to that ruler all along.

Compulsion. A person's being unable to let go of someone can also be compulsion: he himself does not acknowledge this inability to let go, or he acknowledges it and cannot change it; it does not listen to his own seeing. Tell them apart by the two halves of that test: if he does not acknowledge it, or acknowledges it and cannot change it, it is not the direction spoken of here.

Only the difference that can be seen is spoken of here, and no judgment is passed on being ill or not, in the same terms as Ray 11.17 This test, too, is a fallible look back after the fact, not a criterion.

§3 Vows and Breach

L29 A vow is where I stand today; it does not sign for tomorrow. Of the ways of breaking a promise, only dropping and falsity carry the direction of colonization. Falsity is when what was put in was empty from the start. Whether it is dropping turns on whether there is a commitment in the relation, an implicit commitment included: where there is none, quietly setting down is exit, and carries no direction of colonization; where there is one, quietly setting down carries the potential of breaking the commitment, and leaving must be entered on the books and must also come with an exit declaration that she can clearly understand; with such a declaration, it is leaving with the books kept; quietly setting down without such a declaration is dropping; what is read is the declaration and the structural effect of that promise on her, not whether I owned the change in my heart. The direction of dropping falls not on the withdrawal itself but on the promise I left with her; effect, direction and whether it took hold are read apart

This proposition is the longest in this paper. What it has to answer is this: at this layer love has a direction; once one has promised her something, commitment has come in. After promising, people still leave. When they leave, what carries the direction of colonization, and what does not?

A Vow Is Where I Stand Today

A Zhe and Jian Ning have said that once the two of them have saved enough, they will go back to her hometown and open a small bookshop. For this Jian Ning has given up her job in the city, gone back ahead of him and rented a shopfront. This is a promise: what was said can be checked, and she has made arrangements by it.

Relation Theory's paper on commitment, Paper 3, has laid down how commitment binds a person: it does not bind exit, and it does not sign for tomorrow; it binds a person in two places, and neither rests on locking tomorrow: on my side, it rests on where I stand; on the other party's side, on the effects already left. Leaving is entered on the books, and revising keeps the books on the change; a commitment already made to others is not cleared from the books by one act of leaving.18 Where one stands means that today I stand where I promised: "It rests on where one stands"; it binds the person who stands here today and does not sign for the person of tomorrow; tomorrow he may revise.19

A vow is like this too. The Han yuefu song "Heaven Above": "Heaven above! I would be your beloved, and let it never fade or fail as long as life lasts. When the mountains have no peaks, when the rivers run dry, when thunder rolls in winter and snow falls in summer, when heaven and earth come together: only then would I dare to part from you."20 Only the shape of this vow is borrowed here; who the speaker is, is not read. Relation Theory Paper 3 reads vows such as "Faithful unto death" and "I will never leave you" as expression and as where one stands; they do not sign for tomorrow.21 The one who says such a sentence stands here today, and that he stands here is real; it does not sign for the person of tomorrow. Nietzsche has said half of the same thing; see §6.

Breach in the Narrow Sense

This series says that breaking a promise carries, in a relation, the direction of colonization, and not only in love; it takes the narrow sense: the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity; leaving with the books kept, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement carry none.

Relation Theory Paper 3 enters breach of faith apart, as dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement; dropping and falsity are first-person matters, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces.22

Falsity is never having stood there at the time of promising: what was put in was empty from the start.23 If A Zhe had said "back to your hometown" only to keep Jian Ning with him, never in his heart meaning to go, that sentence would be falsity. Whether it is falsity needs the first person.

Dropping, by the upstream definition: "Dropping is quietly setting it down when it suits, with no account kept."24

First, Is There a Commitment?

For dropping, the first thing to look at is whether there is a commitment in the relation. Where there is none, quietly setting down is withdrawing one's own side; it is exit, and carries no direction of colonization;25 an expectation the other party has grown on her own side does not bind me: expectation can also grow without passing through me.26

Implicit commitment counts too. Two people may never have said a single "I promise you," and a commitment may long have been there all the same. Yet it is still avowal on my side and where I stand, not decided on my behalf by duration, habit or her expectation: an implicit commitment cannot be inferred from duration or habit alone, nor decided on my behalf by someone else.27

The commitment read here is the kind that has been made to her, or has entered her conditions of occurrence as a promise to her.28 A vow that concerns only oneself is entered apart: a person tells himself he will quit smoking; if tomorrow he changes his mind with the books kept on the change, he has completed a revision.29 The sentence about going back to her hometown to open a bookshop was said to Jian Ning, and she has already given up her job and rented a shopfront by it; it is of the latter kind: it has entered her conditions of occurrence as a promise to her.

Entering on the Books and Declaring Are Two Things

Where there is a commitment, quietly setting down carries the potential of breaking the commitment. Two things are then needed.

The first is entering on the books. Leaving must be entered on the books: that matter is entered in his own books and cannot be treated as though he had never stood there. Upstream says in the same place: "Keeping the books means being able to say it plainly oneself, not reporting to anyone."30 Entering on the books is on my side.

The second is the exit declaration. The promise was made to her, so leaving must also let her know that things have changed. The declaration need not be said in so many words, but it must be something she can clearly understand. With such a declaration, it is leaving with the books kept; quietly setting down without such a declaration is dropping.

The two do not stand in for each other. That I have owned the change in my heart does not amount to her knowing; that I have told her does not finish entering the books for me either.

Whether a declaration counts as one she can clearly understand is checked by the words and deeds directed at her, and by the context available to her. A Zhe need not say the words "I'm not going back": he has stopped all his preparations for the bookshop, handed back the things she asked him to see to, and when she asks, he says, "About the bookshop, don't wait for me any more"; she understands; this is a declaration. If he says only, "Things have changed at work lately; let's see how it goes," and she takes it for a mere postponement and goes on paying the rent on the shopfront, that sentence has not been something she could clearly understand.

Being understandable does not require that she agree to the exit, nor is her refusing to admit it taken as counter-evidence. She can refuse to accept it, be angry, say "You can't just leave like this"; none of this makes the declaration fail. Conversely, where no channel of expression actually reached her, my claiming to have made it clear does not make it a declaration. From outside, only a grounded, fallible judgment is made here.31

A declaration lets her know that things have changed; it does not say for her what this exit amounts to. Saying on exit, "Nothing is lost by walking away like this," says for the other party what this exit amounts to and moves to occupy her own step of understanding; that sentence in itself slides in the direction of colonization.32

Her knowing of the exit, her agreeing to the exit and my having owned the change are three things.

What Is Read Is the Declaration and the Structure, Not Whether the Change Was Owned in the Heart

Dropping and falsity are first-person matters.33 This stands as before, in two layers. One is the division: dropping, falsity and a change made with the books kept are entered apart. The other is the upper bound: from outside, only a grounded, fallible registration is made, and it is not certified that a given person has dropped anything.

Dropping is a first-person matter because of where one stands: whether I still stand where I promised, and whether there was that implicit promise, cannot be seen from outside.34 What is seen from outside, "he didn't show up again," looks the same for non-fulfillment, obstruction and dropping. So from outside, only non-fulfillment (he did not show up again), whether there is a declaration to be found and what its effects were are registered, together with traces; whether it is dropping is not reported from outside.

Whether one has owned the change in one's heart is often hard to tell, and not necessarily clear even to the person himself. In reading the effect and direction of this structure, this series looks at the declaration and at the structural effect of that promise on her; it does not take as a premise that whether I owned the change in my heart must first be judged. This does not delete "with no account kept" from Relation Theory's division of breaches of faith; nor does the presence or absence of a declaration complete, on the person's behalf, the judgment of whether he has owned the change; nor does his having owned it clear away the effect that still bears on her. The declaration, the person's own owning of the change and the effects left in the relation are registered apart. Leaving with the books kept, and dropping, are here names used to read this structure, not reports from outside about any given person,35 and they do not say for him whether he owned the change in his heart.

Where the Direction of Dropping Falls

This is the step this proposition has to argue.

The direction does not fall on the withdrawal itself. Withdrawing one's own side is exit and does not carry the direction of colonization, even if the other party's cost rises as a result.36 A Zhe is not going back: Jian Ning will have to carry the bookshop alone, or not open it at all, and the job she gave up will not come back either; these costs are real, but the direction is not judged from them.

Nor does the direction fall on the setting down in my heart. Thoughts not expressed in word or deed do not enter her conditions of occurrence.37 One evening A Zhe decides in his heart not to go; that instant is only on his side.

The direction falls on the promise I left with her. What must be made clear is how that promise still acts after I no longer stand there, and where it is headed.

First, how it still acts. Once a promise has been spoken and has entered her conditions of occurrence, it is no longer merely something that happened in the past. It acts on her in the shape of something currently in force: she arranges what follows by it, and has no need to ask him every day, "Does it still count?" Relation Theory Paper 3 has said that a promise is not read as "a commitment lapsing every day and being made over every day"; "Being asleep, having not thought of it for a while, having made no fresh declaration this time: none of these by itself cancels what was undertaken before."38 This is the structure of a promise: while the content and conditions of the original promise still apply, and no change has been made toward her in a way she can understand, it goes on signifying to her "I stand here," without needing to be made anew every day.39 This much belongs to what a promise is; it is no one's fault.

Then, after the promise has gone empty. A Zhe no longer stands there, but he has not made this known in a way she can clearly understand. Not standing there any more means here that he has determined not to go; it is not that he has for the moment not thought of it, nor a passing moment of faltering. The promise goes on acting on her as before, and goes on signifying "I stand here"; but no one is standing behind the sentence it signifies. Jian Ning goes on paying the rent on the shopfront by it, turns down other opportunities, and tells her family that he will come next year. At this point the effect is still the same effect, but what it signifies has become empty.

Where this emptied promise is headed can now be read. When something has changed, it would be hers to understand it anew and to arrange things anew: he is not coming; is the bookshop still to open, how is the money to be reckoned, where is she going? This step is her own. The emptied promise heads toward occupying this step: it goes on pouring "he is still there" into her arrangements as a premise, and heads in the direction of keeping her from understanding anew and arranging anew in light of the change that has happened; whether it actually occupies anything is seen separately, in her later course. Relation Theory says that colonization goes "toward pouring in and occupying";40 what the emptied promise pours in is a premise behind which no one stands, and what it heads toward occupying is her step of understanding anew and arranging anew in light of the change.

One more thing must be kept apart. In the stretch when the promise was first spoken, he stood there, and the effect of that stretch is not judged over again. The "this one effect" read here is the stretch of effect that the promise goes on having after he no longer stands there. The direction is read on this stretch.

So the direction of dropping is not inferred from "there is a commitment." Where there is a commitment and he leaves, if he has made it known in a way she can clearly understand, the promise no longer signifies that he stands there, her own step returns to her hands, and this carries no direction of colonization; only if he leaves the emptied promise there, still signifying that he stands there, does it head toward occupying her step (for the stretch just after deciding, while he is preparing to say it, see below).41

Effect, Direction and Whether It Took Hold

The three are read apart.42

Effect: the promise goes on acting on her, and she arranges things by it. This is a fact, and its traces can be seen.

Direction: this stretch of effect heads toward occupying her step. The direction is read on this effect.

Whether it took hold: how she afterward understands, and what she does. If she learns from elsewhere that he is not coming, the share that was pressing on her arrangements is gone from that moment; if she saw through it long ago, that share occupied nothing of hers either. These belong to whether it took hold, and are not determined in advance by "there was no declaration." The entry for quietly setting down without a declaration records its structure under this proposition; her having already seen through it does not strike that entry off after the fact. The first-person division and the upper bound on judgment from outside stand as before.43

The costs, the reliance and the unsettled accounts that a past commitment leaves do not in themselves add a judgment of direction, nor are they cleared from the books by exit.44 The job Jian Ning gave up for the bookshop is an effect the promise left; where A Zhe has left with the books kept, this item still stays on the books, and his leaving does not clear the books on her side.45

The Stretch from Deciding to Saying It

There is one more stretch to speak of: he has decided not to go, and has not yet let her understand. Say he decided only last night, and means to tell her in person next week. In these few days, Jian Ning goes on paying the rent.

This stretch is not read by the number of days. To say that within so many days it counts as preparing, and beyond so many it counts as dropping: wherever that line is drawn, it has no ground. The stretch is read by what it is used to do.

If the stretch is spent preparing to let her understand, finding a time when it can be said clearly face to face, thinking through how to say it so as not to fix for her what this exit amounts to, then it is the stretch in which the declaration is coming out, not a quiet setting down. If it is used to stall when it suits, letting the emptied promise go on holding things up for him on her side so that he can go on enjoying the arrangements she makes by it, or if he simply keeps not saying it so as not to have to face the moment of saying it, then this stretch is the quiet setting down itself: the upstream definition of dropping already contains the words "when it suits."46

The effects in this stretch are entered as usual. The extra rent she pays in these days by the promise is real, and does not vanish because he tells her next week; it is an effect the promise left, which does not in itself add a judgment of direction, nor is it cleared from the books because he has spoken (see the last paragraph of the previous subsection). Merely intending in his heart to tell her next week, and thinking through how to say it, does not mean that what is signified on her side has already been withdrawn: at this point the promise still signifies that he stands there. Where it is headed is read by what the stretch is used to do: if it is the stretch in which the declaration is coming out, it belongs to the course of leaving with the books kept, not to quiet setting down, and by this proposition no direction of colonization is read; if it is used to stall, this stretch is the quiet setting down itself, the direction of the promise is read as in the subsection "Where the Direction of Dropping Falls," and effect, direction and whether it took hold are entered apart as in the previous subsection. How the preparation enters her conditions of occurrence has to be checked against words and deeds already directed at her; only once the change can be clearly understood by her does one say that the promise no longer signifies that he still stands there.

What the stretch is used to do is half a first-person matter; what can be seen from outside are traces: whether in these days he still accepts the arrangements she makes by the promise, and whether he is doing anything toward saying it. Here only a grounded, fallible registration is made.47

Interfacing at the Relational Layer

At the relational layer, commitment and breach of faith have already been interfaced by Relation Theory with Hume, Kant, Scanlon and Confucius and Mencius on good faith, and it is written there that quietly setting down a promise when it suits, without keeping the books, is registered as dropping.48 That sentence, in the scene on Confucius and Mencius on good faith, criticizes one use, which borrows "he goes only where rightness lies" to set a promise down in this way; it does not read Mencius's sentence itself as a doctrine of dropping; in pointing back to it, this restriction comes along. Here it is pointed back to, not rewritten.

§4 The Direction of Colonization Read from This Layer

L30 The direction of colonization read from this layer, which Ray 11 calls the most refined colonization: taking my direction as her ruler. For me there is no one but you, so for you there should be no one but me; I will never change in all my life, so you may not change your heart either. My cannot-not is not your must

Among the things Ray 11 lists that pass themselves off as direction, the last is taking one's own direction as a ruler for others: "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 SAE: The First Critique recorded at this station is this one thing: "overdone, or closed on oneself alone, it is the most refined colonization".49

In love, this ruler has a familiar look. One year Jian Ning was hesitating over whether to go away for two years of further study. A Zhe said: in four years I haven't changed once; what right do you have to hesitate? For me there is no one but you, so for you there should be no one but me; I will never change in all my life, so you may not change your heart either. His direction is real, and it is his; this sentence turns it round and measures her with it.

Direction is read on this one effect. "No one but you," on my side, is my direction, and carries no direction toward her; what is not expressed in word or deed does not enter her conditions of occurrence.50 Said out loud, "I hope I'm the only one for you too," it is saying an expectation out loud, and saying an expectation out loud is a form of questioning. Once a qualifying condition is hung on it, things are different. "If you really loved me, you'd be like me: you couldn't exchange me either": this hangs my direction, as a criterion, on who she is and what she cares about, fixes for her what this matter means to her, and slides in the direction of colonization.51 Whether it took hold is seen in her later course: if from then on she measures herself with my ruler and no longer asks herself where she is going, that direction has taken hold; if she hears it and goes on thinking for herself, that direction has not occupied her.

There is one more thing often borrowed as a ruler: love itself. Laughter III says: "'Sooner or later you'll understand how much I love you' can also become a reason for not allowing the other to disagree". The same section, citing Psychoanalysis IV, distinguishes two postures: "I do things for you" belongs to investment at the layer of purpose; "I confirm you are an independent end" belongs to the layer that recognizes the other as an end too; and it adds that this determination must check the operation of that one laugh, and not rely on the name "love."52 A Zhe's moving house and changing jobs for Jian Ning is doing things for her, an investment of his direction, and this in itself carries no direction of colonization. For it to turn into a ruler, only the second half of a sentence is missing: "I've done so much for you, so you should..." The other posture is read in Paper 5.

My cannot-not is not your must.53

L31 Threatening death hangs a consequence on her exit; it raises the cost of exit outward and carries the direction of colonization; what structurally seals off her exit violates the exit right (its basic component), and at the layer of basic rights is a violation

This proposition reads only structure: what effect a sentence, or a deed, has on her exit. What situation the person saying it is himself in is another matter, which is not read here, and no judgment is passed on being ill or not; if he really is in danger, he must be looked after separately, and this proposition's reading does not take its place.

Turn it around: this time it is Jian Ning who wants to leave. A Zhe says: if you leave, I won't go on living.

Withdrawing one's own side is exit and does not carry the direction of colonization.54 Threatening death is not withdrawing one's own side. It is directed at her exit, and hangs a consequence on her going. Relation Theory Paper 3 reads what is done to exit at the layer of running as three kinds, divided by structure, not by means.55 The first is a characterization spoken aloud, "You promised, so you're not allowed to leave," "Leaving is betrayal": it slides in the direction of colonization. The second is raising the cost of exit outward while the way is still passable, which carries the direction of colonization; as for words that announce consequences, "once spoken they are already the second kind, without waiting to be carried out." The third is sealing off exit itself, by whatever means, which at the layer of basic rights is a violation, and also carries the direction of colonization.56

What threatening death announces is a consequence, and it falls under the second kind: once spoken, it carries the direction of colonization, without waiting on whether he does it. The same sentence often carries a characterization as well, "If you leave, you're taking my life," which characterizes this exit for her; that layer is read separately, under the first kind. When one party exits, the other party's acting outward to add consequences, or using the occasion to apply pressure, carries the direction of colonization.57 It also often draws on asymmetry: he knows she is soft-hearted. Asymmetry in itself is not crossing the line; where it is used outward to seal the other party's channels, or to make them hard to travel, it carries the direction of colonization.58

Where the way can still be traveled, it is the second kind. If threatening death comes together with other deeds, holding back her papers, cutting off her contact with the outside, so that her exit has already been structurally sealed off, it falls under the third kind: what is violated is the exit right (its basic component), and at the layer of basic rights it is a violation.59 Relation Theory Paper 3 cites Rights Theory here: "a constraint may set the conditions of a standing bond, but it may not seal exit, refusal, and revocation themselves".60 The third kind looks only at structure: at whether the consequences can be carried out and how great they are, not at how afraid she is; "Fear by itself does not show that exit has been sealed off."61

A vow can be put to this use too. Suppose Jian Ning had once said to him words like those of "Heaven Above," that only when heaven and earth come together would she dare to part from him; to use them to say "You swore, so you're not allowed to leave" slides in the direction of colonization; to use them to raise outward the cost of her leaving carries the direction of colonization; where exit has been sealed off, by whatever means, it is a violation at the layer of basic rights.62 A vow is where the one who speaks it stands today (L29), not a lock in the other party's hands.

L32 That she too confers meaning cannot be constructed out of my meaning-conferral: from there being no one but her for me, it does not follow that there is no one but me for her

Where the ruler of L30 comes from, upstream has said in the remainder of this layer: "The existence of others as meaning-conferring subjects cannot be constructed out of my meaning-conferral."63 The vocabulary of this layer has only my conferring meaning, not her conferring meaning too. Ray 11 speaks of another face of the same point: he sees only his own direction; others', he does not see, or does not take seriously.64

For A Zhe there is no one but Jian Ning; this is his direction, and it is real. From it, it does not follow that for Jian Ning there is no one but A Zhe, nor does it follow where she is going. Jian Ning wants to go back to her hometown and open a bookshop; that is a place of her own to go to; whether it is there is not decided by A Zhe's being unable to exchange her. If each of the two cannot exchange the other, two directions have met, each its own; the one has not been inferred from the other.

The ruler of L30 is precisely the taking of this inference as valid. That she too confers meaning, this layer cannot construct; how one comes to recognize her as an end too is the business of the next layer, and is read in Paper 5.

§5 How Love at This Layer Ends

This series divides ending into four kinds, which can fall out of step with one another: an appearance passes; my love ends; the shared dealings terminate; commitments and effects remain unsettled.65 What belongs to this layer is how the second kind looks at this layer: the direction changes, or can no longer be taken up. Commitment enters at this layer, so the fourth kind is met here as well.

Suppose that, some years on, A Zhe spends a winter on a construction site far from home, comes back, and finds that where he is going is no longer bound up with her. It was not his family who pushed it, nor did he meet someone more suitable.

The direction changed. Cannot exchange is not cannot change: what can make it change is his own seeing.66 When love at this layer ends at this layer, it is his own seeing that has changed it. Where it was pushed away by others, or exchanged as soon as another that made sense came along, what is read is this: the share in that operation was not, after all, a direction of this layer, but others' ruler, or a target (L26, L28). This reading too is a fallible look back after the fact; it passes no judgment on the person.

It can no longer be taken up. Ray 11 says that 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."67 When the two come apart, it can no longer be taken up: the direction is still coming, he no longer acknowledges it, and only being dragged along is left; or he is still willing, but it can already be exchanged.

Wavering is not ending (L25). That the moment of love has come round to another person does not say that the direction toward her is gone; that a new love has appeared does not mean, read backward, that the old one has already ended.

His love has ended; commitments and effects are not settled along with it. The sentence about going back to her hometown to open a bookshop is read by L29: if he owns the change and also makes it known in a way she can clearly understand, it is leaving with the books kept; quietly setting it down is dropping; never having meant to go when he first said it is falsity. Leaving with the books kept does not clear the books on her side either: the job she gave up and the shopfront she rented stay on the books.68 Whether the shared dealings terminate is yet another matter; after the two part, they can still have dealings. Relation Theory says that unilateral exit does not settle the accounts.69

Threatening death is refusing to let the other party end it (L31). Whether her love ends, whether she leaves, is hers; it is precisely this step that the threat is directed at.

§6 Interfacing with Tradition

Several have asked about this layer, one after another. For each, this paper writes faithfully what he sees and why he looks, where he presses on this paper, where they meet and where they part; other traditions appear in their own words.70

The reasons of love. In The Reasons of Love, Frankfurt says: "love is, most centrally, a disinterested concern for the existence of what is loved, and for what is good for it".71 As the review reports it, such love is not necessarily a response to a value perceived in the beloved, yet the beloved, because loved, necessarily comes to have value for us; romantic and sexual relations are not paradigms of this love; the paradigm is parents' concern for their small children. He wrote to answer how one should live and what is worth caring about.72 What he sees: love does not first recognize a value and then love; love binds the will, and that necessity comes from the person's own will, not from a force outside. He presses on this paper at two points. First, if the core of love is the other's good, and romantic love is mixed with other things, then romantic love is not a paradigm of love, and this layer's "no one but you" is also mixed with what is for my own sake. Second, who decides what her good is? Her good as the lover determines it is exactly where the ruler of L30 is most easily borrowed. They meet in: love is not derived from reasons; one can give some reasons, not all of them (L24); doing things for her need not be treating her as a means. They part at three points. First, he sorts love into pure and impure by the paradigm; this paper sets up no paradigm and sorts by no purity, but reads structure by one operation. Second, he explains how the beloved comes to have value for the lover; L32 asks instead whether my meaning-conferral can construct that she too confers meaning. These are two questions, and this paper does not infer from her value to me what she is on her own side. Third, when concern for her good lands on her, the direction is read on one effect (L30): whether it leaves space for her own judgment, or fixes for her what her good is. Whether love is a response to a person's value, Velleman's question, is taken up in Paper 5.

To possess a freedom. In Part Three of Being and Nothingness, Sartre writes of being-for-others, and comes to the lover: "He wants to possess a freedom as freedom"; "He wants to be loved by a freedom but demands that this freedom as freedom should no longer be free".73 He looks in order to show how concrete relations with others come down to conflict. What he sees: what the lover wants is the other's freedom itself; he wants her to choose him freely, and wants this freedom from then on to be free no more. He presses on this paper: if love by its structure must capture the other's freedom, then the ruler of L30 is not a sliding in that direction but love itself, and every love at this layer carries the direction of colonization. They meet in: what he writes is exactly the look of what Ray 11 calls the most refined colonization: for me there is no one but you, so for you there should be no one but me. They part at: he reads the structure of love, and concludes that it necessarily falls through; this paper reads direction on one effect; a direction is not a label; the same love can carry it this time and not the next, and can also carry no direction at all; whether it took hold is seen in her later course.74 The layer of being-for-others and conflict Relation Theory has already interfaced, and there it left the divergence over objectification in place, not written up as refuted; it is pointed back to here, and that restriction comes along.75

What is loved is love itself. In Love in the Western World, de Rougemont traces Western passionate love from the legend of Tristan and Iseult. What follows relies on Singer's review of his two later books, which also looks back on Love in the Western World:76 he holds that passionate love loves love itself, not the person loved; that all passionate love, courtly or romantic, loves at bottom death, not the person loved; and that opposed to it is Christian agape, in which those who love do not seek to merge into one, but form a living communion. He looks in order to trace where passionate love came from, and also to point to the possibility of Christian redemption. What he sees: passion can be indifferent to who comes, and can also take death as its fulfillment. He presses on this paper: if the form of Western love is from the start to be in love with love and in love with death, then pledging oneself in life and death in L27 is not conferring meaning for her, but being in love with death; and what cannot be exchanged is not she, but that passion. They meet in: being in love with "being in love" itself, where it does not matter who comes, this paper recognizes too; it is read in Paper 3, and is not the wavering this paper speaks of (L25);77 enthusiasm is not a direction (L26). They part at: he judges a historical form of love; this paper judges no form and reads by one operation; whether pledging oneself in life and death is being in love with death must be checked in that one operation, not decided by the phrase (L27). The division between agape and passion this paper does not take up.

What can be promised is action. In the first volume of Human, All Too Human, in the chapter "On the History of the Moral Sensations," Nietzsche says: "One can promise actions, but not feelings; for feelings are involuntary."78 To promise to love someone forever means: for as long as I love you, I will give you the actions of love; if I no longer love you, you will still receive the same actions from me, from other motives, so that in the minds of others a semblance remains that the love is unchanged. His conclusion: "So whoever vows everlasting love to someone without deceiving himself promises the continuance of the semblance of love."79 He looks in order to trace the moral sensations back to their origins. What he sees: a vow cannot sign for tomorrow's feelings. He presses on this paper: if all a vow can honestly promise is the semblance, then the emptied promise of L29, which still signifies that I stand there, is not dropping, but just what a vow promised in the first place. They meet in: a vow does not sign for tomorrow (L29); what can be promised is not tomorrow's love. They part at: he has the vow promise actions and a semblance; this paper reads a vow as where one stands today, together with the effects already left,80 not as a promise of a semblance. The person he speaks of, whose love is gone while the actions go on being given, is read as: my love has ended, the commitment is still there, and the two are out of step (§5). If a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets that semblance go on holding up her arrangements in his place, this paper reads it by L29: that is exactly the structure of dropping, not what a vow promises. What it does to her when love is gone and the actions of love go on being given, this paper does not judge; it registers it as a question left open.

Don Giovanni is not an individual. In the first volume of Kierkegaard's Either/Or, the aesthete A, in "The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical-Erotic," writes on Mozart's Don Giovanni. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports it,81 Don Giovanni desires only the sensuous itself, not the features that make a woman a unique individual; nor is Don Giovanni himself an individual, since to be an individual is to be determined by spirit; he is a force of the sensuous that can find expression only in music, and once he is thought of as an individual, he becomes a comic figure. A looks in order to show that the immediate sensuous can find its expression only in music. What he sees: the man of the catalogue does not want this one. He presses on this paper: if Don Giovanni is not an individual but only a force, then there is no question of his setting targets; the look of the catalogue is closer to "anyone will do" than to the target of L26. They meet in: in the catalogue there is not one that cannot be exchanged. They part at: what this paper reads is the structure of the catalogue: won, entered, on to the next; whether inside Don Giovanni there is a force or a man who sets targets, this paper does not judge. The reading of "anyone will do" is in Paper 3; the sensuous itself this series acknowledges but does not judge.

The living can die for it, and the dead can live again. In his Preface to The Peony Pavilion, Tang Xianzu says: "The living can die for it, and the dead can live again. Where the living could not die for it, or the dead could not come back to life, none of this is qing at its utmost"; and the preface closes: "One speaks only of what cannot exist according to li; how can one know what must exist according to qing?"82 In the late-Ming debate over qing and li, feeling and principle, he argued for qing, as Paper 1 has already said.83 What he sees: qing can cross life and death; what li says surely does not exist, qing does not necessarily lack. He presses on this paper: he takes whether qing can cross life and death as the measure of qing at its utmost; by his account, pledging oneself in life and death is the extreme of love at this layer. When L27 says that love is not ranked by this, it is precisely in order to part from him here. They meet in: conferring meaning for love can face death (L27). They part at: he determines by life and death whether qing is at its utmost; this paper does not rank love by depth, or by life and death, and reads pledging oneself in life and death only as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death. "The dead can live again" is the power of qing within the play, and this paper does not read it. Qing and li in the late Ming are interfaced as a whole in Paper 0.

Craving conditions grasping. In sutra 298 of fascicle 12 of the Saṃyuktāgama (Za ahan jing), the Buddha explains dependent arising to the monks link by link, and says: "'With feeling as condition, craving': what is craving? The three cravings: craving for sensual pleasures, craving for form, craving for the formless. 'With craving as condition, grasping': what is grasping? The four graspings: grasping at sensual pleasures, grasping at views, grasping at precepts, grasping at a self."84 First, the source must be read on its own terms: the word rendered "craving" here, ai, is the word that also means love, and in the sutra it means thirst-like craving; "grasping," qu, means clinging; both are technical terms in the chain of dependent arising, and do not mean what this series means by love. The sutra speaks in order to explain how this whole great mass of suffering comes to be. What it sees: craving conditions grasping, and grasping in turn leads on to becoming, birth, and aging and death. It presses on this paper: if cannot-exchange at this layer is itself craving conditioning grasping, then the direction is grasping, and the ruler of L30 is not a sliding in that direction but what the direction always was. They meet in: the pull can turn into seizing hold. They part at: of the four graspings the sutra lists, not one is said of a person in particular; how the pull turns, by way of word and deed, into seizing hold of her and prescribing for her is what this paper uses the sutra to question, not what the sutra originally meant. This questioning lands as follows: inner grasping is on my side, and what is not expressed in word or deed does not enter her conditions of occurrence;85 what lands on her is read for direction on one effect (L30); what seals off her exit outward is read by L31. Nor does this paper make cessation its aim; it does not say that what cannot be exchanged ought to be let go; it reads only structure.

§7 Drawing Together and Downstream

This paper has laid down nine propositions. Taken together, they say: love at this layer is a direction; others also make sense, and I cannot exchange her; with purpose, this cannot-not persists. What persists is the direction, and it does not fill every moment; two directions can coexist; wavering is not yet being certain, it is not that anyone will do. A direction is not a target, and enthusiasm is not a direction either. Conferring meaning for love is the business of this layer; pledging oneself in life and death can be read as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death, and is not the whole of this layer. Others' ruler and compulsion can pass themselves off as direction, and the two halves of the test of taking the ruler away tell them apart. Commitment enters at this layer: a vow is where I stand today, and does not sign for tomorrow; of the ways of breaking a promise, only dropping and falsity carry the direction of colonization; where there is a commitment, leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration she can clearly understand; an emptied promise still acts in the shape of my still standing there, and heads toward occupying her step of understanding anew and arranging anew; effect, direction and whether it took hold are read apart. The direction of colonization read from this layer is taking my direction as her ruler; threatening death raises outward the cost of her exit, and what has sealed it off is a violation. That she too confers meaning cannot be constructed out of my meaning-conferral.

This paper does not prove that love that cannot be exchanged is more genuine, nor that pledging oneself in life and death is the highest form of love. Ray 11 leaves to each person's discussion the question "is what he cannot exchange more genuine, is what he has taken up more steady?"86

The question left open. A Zhe cannot exchange Jian Ning. Jian Ning wants to go back to her hometown and open a bookshop; that is hers; where she is going, she cannot exchange either. At its close Ray 11 says: "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."87 This layer cannot contain it: this layer can see its own direction, and cannot construct that she too confers meaning (L32). To recognize her as an end too, without asking of her that for her too there be no one but me: that is Paper 5, Without Waiting for You. The question Nietzsche's passage leaves, what it does to her when love is gone and the actions of love go on being given, does not lie on this line; it is registered among the remainders in Paper 0.

Downstream. What this paper has laid down is used by the papers that follow as follows. The difference between wavering and persistent exclusivity, the moments of falling back to this layer within the love read in Paper 5, the one of the two postures that recognizes you as an independent end, and whether love is a response to a person's value, are in Paper 5. This paper's commitment, exit declaration and dropping (L29) are invoked by later papers wherever they meet commitment and exit; the part where there is both commitment and institutional protection belongs to Marriage Theory. The four kinds of ending taken together, qing and li in the late Ming, and the question left by Nietzsche's passage, are in Paper 0.

Acknowledgments

This paper is signed by Han Qin alone; the author decided every argument and choice and bears sole responsibility for the text. Models from Anthropic and OpenAI assisted with drafting and review; the author thanks them.

Notes

  1. The Introduction to Paper 1; Second Critique, Rules of the House, Eleven: "A level records one operation, by moment and by domain; it does not record a person." ↩︎
  2. Aesthetics Ray 11 §3. ↩︎
  3. Aesthetics Ray 11 §1. ↩︎
  4. Relation Theory Paper 1, H8: cultivation and colonization are two directions, cultivation going toward making space and colonization toward pouring in and occupying; the direction is read on this one effect, and whether it took hold is seen in the other party's later understanding and action. ↩︎
  5. Both sentences are in Aesthetics Ray 11 §2: "At this level his own cannot-not has come, and has taken up this direction"; the direction "can also come from what he loves." ↩︎
  6. "He can give some of his reasons, not all of them" (Aesthetics Ray 11 §2). ↩︎
  7. Aesthetics Ray 11 §2. ↩︎
  8. "where it is going, the direction is not yet its own" (Aesthetics Ray 10 §2). The layer of the self is 13DD; the layer of purpose is 14DD. ↩︎
  9. Paper 1, L7. ↩︎
  10. Paper 1, L2. ↩︎
  11. Aesthetics Ray 11 §5. ↩︎
  12. From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito §2.5. There upstream writes 14DD as the law of meaning: self-awareness constructing reasons for its own actions. ↩︎
  13. "living-toward-death is not a single construct but the transitional phenomenon between 13DD self-awareness's seeing-death and 14DD law of meaning's beginning-to-operate" (From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito §2.5). ↩︎
  14. Yuan Haowen, "Moyu'er" [Groping for Fish], the short preface and the first line; in the Cizong [Anthology of Song Lyrics] the poem is titled "Maibeitang" [Passing the Pond]. The line: 问世间，情是何物，直教生死相许 (English rendering this paper's own). ↩︎
  15. This takes one's own death in From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito §2.5 and carries it to her death and to the death of both; this is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
  16. Aesthetics Ray 11 §5. ↩︎
  17. Ray 11's own words are that it speaks only of this difference, which can be seen, and "passes no judgment on anyone's being ill or not" (Aesthetics Ray 11 §5). ↩︎
  18. Relation Theory Paper 3, H23: "Commitment does not bind exit, and it does not sign for tomorrow. It binds a person in two places, and neither rests on locking tomorrow: on my side, it rests on where I stand; on the other party's side, on the effects already left. Leaving is entered on the books, and revising keeps the books on the change; a commitment already made to others is not cleared from the books by one act of leaving". Relation Theory's paper on commitment is Relation Theory Paper 3, Commitment. ↩︎
  19. Where one stands is taken from the Second Critique, Chapter Five §2: "It rests on where one stands." It also says there: "The law binds the person who stands here today; it does not sign for the person of tomorrow — tomorrow he may revise." ↩︎
  20. "Shang xie" [Heaven Above], in Guo Maoqian, ed., Yuefu shiji [Collection of Yuefu Poems], juan 16: 上邪！我欲与君相知，长命无绝衰。山无陵，江水为竭，冬雷震震，夏雨雪，天地合，乃敢与君绝。 (English rendering this paper's own) ↩︎
  21. Relation Theory Paper 3, §7: "Vows such as 'Faithful unto death' or 'I will never leave you' are read as expression and as where one stands; they do not sign for tomorrow." ↩︎
  22. Relation Theory H28: "Breach of faith is entered apart, as dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement; dropping and falsity are first-person matters, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces". ↩︎
  23. Relation Theory H24. ↩︎
  24. Second Critique, Chapter Five §2. ↩︎
  25. Relation Theory Paper 6, H56. ↩︎
  26. "expectation can also grow without passing through me" (Relation Theory H29). ↩︎
  27. Relation Theory H29: an implicit commitment "cannot be inferred from duration or habit alone, nor decided on my behalf by someone else". ↩︎
  28. "Conditions of occurrence" is Relation Theory's term: an act of one party, or what it leaves behind, identifiably and actually enters the conditions of occurrence of the other party, that is, the conditions on which whatever afterward occurs on that party's side depends: what can be seen, what can be thought, what can be done, what is run into (Relation Theory Paper 1, H1). ↩︎
  29. Relation Theory H25. ↩︎
  30. Entering on the books, and "Keeping the books means being able to say it plainly oneself, not reporting to anyone," are both in the Second Critique, Chapter Five §2. ↩︎
  31. Paper 1, L1; the third person speaks only of direction, position and signature (Relation Theory Paper 4, §6). ↩︎
  32. Relation Theory H57. ↩︎
  33. Relation Theory H28. ↩︎
  34. The entry "where one stands, and revising" in Relation Theory H24; H29. ↩︎
  35. Relation Theory H28. ↩︎
  36. Relation Theory H56. ↩︎
  37. Relation Theory H57. ↩︎
  38. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H29. ↩︎
  39. This sentence borrows from two places: one is the sentence under H29 just cited, which speaks of my side; the other is Relation Theory Paper 3's saying that on the other party's side the binding rests "on the effects already left" (Relation Theory H23). To read the former onto the promise she has received on her side is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
  40. Relation Theory H8. ↩︎
  41. This step is this series' own extension of Relation Theory H1 (the construct an act leaves behind enters the conditions of occurrence of the other side) and H8 (direction is read on this one effect) (own undertaking). ↩︎
  42. Relation Theory H8. ↩︎
  43. Relation Theory H28. ↩︎
  44. Relation Theory H25, H56. ↩︎
  45. Relation Theory H23, H25. ↩︎
  46. Second Critique, Chapter Five §2. ↩︎
  47. The reading of this stretch is this series' own extension, between the upstream definition and Relation Theory H8 (own undertaking). ↩︎
  48. Relation Theory Paper 0, §11, has interfaced with Hume, Kant, Scanlon and Confucius and Mencius on good faith; the second scene of §11 (§11.2) writes: "... to set down a promise quietly when it suits, without keeping the books on it, this series would register it as dropping". ↩︎
  49. All of the above: Aesthetics Ray 11 §5. ↩︎
  50. Direction is read on this one effect, as in Relation Theory H8; what is not expressed in word or deed does not enter her conditions of occurrence (Relation Theory H57). ↩︎
  51. Relation Theory H37: saying an expectation out loud is a form of questioning; attaching a qualifying condition to an expectation, fixing for the other party what something means to him, for instance by hanging it as a criterion on who he is or what he cares about, slides in the direction of colonization. ↩︎
  52. Laughter III §5.3. What the same section, citing Psychoanalysis IV §2.3, says in its own words is: "'I do things for you' is 14DD investment; 'I confirm you are an independent end' is 15DD"; and "This determination must check the operation of the laugh in question, and not rely on the name 'love'". ↩︎
  53. Aesthetics Ray 11 §5. ↩︎
  54. Relation Theory H56. ↩︎
  55. Relation Theory H26. The division between the layer of running and the layer of qualification is also in this proposition: commitment cannot lock tomorrow; that it cannot lock lies in the layer of qualification, and is necessary; locking lies in the layer of running, and is possible. ↩︎
  56. All of the above: Relation Theory H26; H9. "Violation" Relation Theory uses only at the layer of basic rights: violation is judged separately, and only at the layer of basic rights; it and the direction of colonization are two lines (Relation Theory Paper 1, H9). ↩︎
  57. Relation Theory H56. ↩︎
  58. "used outward to seal the other party's channels, or to make them hard to travel, carries the direction of colonization" (Relation Theory Paper 6, H53). ↩︎
  59. Relation Theory H9, H26. ↩︎
  60. Rights Theory P5 F21, as quoted in Relation Theory H26. The sentence is given as it stands in the original. ↩︎
  61. Relation Theory H26. ↩︎
  62. Relation Theory Paper 3, §7. ↩︎
  63. From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito §2.7. ↩︎
  64. "he sees only his own direction; others', he does not see, or does not take seriously" (Aesthetics Ray 11 §5). ↩︎
  65. Paper 1, §4. ↩︎
  66. "What can make it change is his own seeing" (Aesthetics Ray 11 §2). ↩︎
  67. Aesthetics Ray 11 §2. ↩︎
  68. Relation Theory H23, H25. ↩︎
  69. "unilateral exit does not settle the accounts" (Relation Theory Paper 6, H55). ↩︎
  70. Aristotle, the Bhagavad Gita, Yan Ying, the Zhuangzi, Augustine, Tao Yuanming, Luther, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Frankfurt on the necessities of the will, Bourdieu and others, with whom Ray 11 has already interfaced, ask about the beauty of purpose; they are invoked here, not rewritten. The interfacing at the relational layer has been done in Relation Theory Paper 0: Sartre's being-for-others and conflict in §9, commitment and breach of faith in §11; where they are met, they are pointed back to. ↩︎
  71. The Reasons of Love, p. 42, as quoted in Quinn's review. ↩︎
  72. Aesthetics Ray 11 §7. ↩︎
  73. Barnes translation, pp. 366–367, as quoted by Holmes and Daniel. ↩︎
  74. Relation Theory H8. ↩︎
  75. Relation Theory Paper 0, §9. ↩︎
  76. Singer's review of Dramatic Personages and Love Declared (The New York Review of Books, January 28, 1965), which looks back on Love in the Western World. ↩︎
  77. Paper 3, L23. ↩︎
  78. „Man kann Handlungen versprechen, aber keine Empfindungen; denn diese sind unwillkürlich“ (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, §58). ↩︎
  79. „Man verspricht also die Andauer des Anscheines der Liebe, wenn man ohne Selbstverblendung jemandem immerwährende Liebe gelobt“ (same section). ↩︎
  80. Relation Theory H23. ↩︎
  81. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Søren Kierkegaard," §3.1. ↩︎
  82. Tang Xianzu, Mudanting tici [Preface to The Peony Pavilion], Daizhige text, collated with the Project Gutenberg #23849 text: 生者可以死，死可以生。生而不可与死，死而不可复生者，皆非情之至也 … 第云理之所必无，安知情之所必有邪 (English rendering this paper's own). ↩︎
  83. Paper 1, §5. ↩︎
  84. Za ahan jing [Saṃyuktāgama], fascicle 12, sutra 298, Taishō T02n0099: 缘受爱者，彼云何为爱？谓三爱——欲爱、色爱、无色爱。缘爱取者，云何为取？四取——欲取、见取、戒取、我取。 (English rendering this paper's own) ↩︎
  85. Relation Theory H57. ↩︎
  86. Aesthetics Ray 11 §6. ↩︎
  87. Aesthetics Ray 11 §8. ↩︎

References

All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. Quotations are checked item by item in the accompanying audit table.

I · SAE works directly cited in this paper

Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of the Self (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 10) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22990079

Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Purpose (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 11) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22991142

Qin, H. (2026). From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito: Completing Kant (9D–10D) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18808584

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Laughter · III: Purpose Enters the Construct Laughed At [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23287629

Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 0: The Place of Relation Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545115

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 1: What a Relation Is, and What It Is Not [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545047

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 3: Commitment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545023

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 4: Dealings and Expectation [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545057

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 6: Asymmetry, Divergence and Ending [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545087

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 0: The Place of Love Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627790

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 1: At First Sight [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627762

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 2: Longing [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627766

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 3: It Is I [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627774

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 5: Without Waiting for You [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627779

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 6: That Moment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627781

II · External works

Classical texts are given in simplified characters.

Frankfurt, Harry G. The Reasons of Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. (cited here as quoted in Quinn's review; original pages not checked)

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956. (cited here as quoted by Holmes and Daniel; original not checked)

de Rougemont, Denis. L'Amour et l'Occident. Paris: Plon, 1939. (English translation Love in the Western World; cited here from Singer's review of his two later books, which also looks back on this one; original not checked)

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Bd. I (1878), §58. (Project Gutenberg #7207 text)

Kierkegaard, Søren. Enten – Eller (1843), Første Deel: "De umiddelbare erotiske Stadier eller det Musikalsk-Erotiske". (cited here from the SEP account; original not checked)

Tang Xianzu 汤显祖. Mudanting tici 牡丹亭题词 [Preface to The Peony Pavilion] (Wanli 26, 1598). (Daizhige text, collated with the Project Gutenberg #23849 text; not checked against a standard annotated edition)

Za ahan jing 杂阿含经 [Saṃyuktāgama], fascicle 12, sutra 298. Trans. Guṇabhadra 求那跋陀罗. Taishō T02n0099, p. 85b. (Kanseki Repository KR6a0099 text)

"Shang xie" 上邪 [Heaven Above]. In Guo Maoqian 郭茂倩, ed., Yuefu shiji 乐府诗集 [Collection of Yuefu Poems], juan 16. (Kanseki Repository KR4h0034, Sibu congkan edition)

Yuan Haowen 元好问. "Moyu'er" 摸鱼儿 (Yanqiu ci 雁丘词) [Groping for Fish (The Wild Goose Mound)]. In Zhu Yizun 朱彝尊, ed., Cizong 词综, juan 26, titled "Maibeitang" 迈陂塘. (Kanseki Repository KR4j0075, Siku quanshu edition)

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, and Lorenzo Da Ponte. Don Giovanni (1787), Act I, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo". (only the structure of the catalogue is used; the libretto is not quoted)

Zhang Ailing 张爱玲. "Hong meigui yu bai meigui" 红玫瑰与白玫瑰 [Red Rose, White Rose] (1944). (only the outline is given)

III · Secondary literature

Holmes, R., & Daniel, M. (1991). The lover-beloved relation reconsidered. Auslegung, 17(2), 101–108.

Quinn, P. L. (2004). Review of Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2004.03.12.

Singer, I. (1965, January 28). Strangelove. The New York Review of Books.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Søren Kierkegaard", §3.1 The Aesthetic.

Interfaces

  • Main upstream: Aesthetics Ray 11, The Beauty of Purpose (§1, §2, §3, §5, §8); From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito §2.5, §2.7; Relation Theory Paper 3 (H23 to H26, H28, H29; §7).
  • Also used: Relation Theory Paper 1 (H1, H8, H9), Paper 4 (H37; §6), Paper 6 (H53, H55, H56, H57), Paper 0 (§9; §11.2); Ray 10 (§2); Ray 11 (§6, §7); Laughter III (§5.3); Second Critique (Chapter Five §2; Rules of the House, Eleven).
  • This series: continues from Paper 1's Introduction, L1, L2, L7, §4 and §5; Paper 3 takes up "anyone will do"; Paper 5 takes up L30, L32 and the question left open; Paper 0 lists the propositions together, the shared words and the four kinds of ending.