The Relevant Scope of Ethics as a Neo-Positive Discipline

(The paper was read in the Phenomenology Conference of Paris 1994, organized by Tymieniecka; it was first published in Ethik und Politik aus Interkultureller Sicht, edited byR.A. Mall & N. Schneider, 1996) 

   No other dimension in the human condition is more  significant than the ethical one. But ethics as a discipline has become less effective and less influential in our times. Certainly, there are  ethical aspects in various academic fields as well as in social life. However, the ethical dimension, whether in existentialist philosophy or in  ordinary linguistic philosophy, cannot provide us with a newly established ethical discipline which can be comparable, in its cognitive and practical efficacy, to the ancient and modern classical ones with respect to its academic participation and social applicability. Academically speaking, we can offer many reasons to explain the unfavorable situation. From a practical point of view, it is precisely the ethical dimension in our reality which remains of paramount importance today. If this is so, then why do we have no more need of a special discipline to treat it more effectively ‑ particularly as it is one of the oldest subjects in both Western and Oriental intellectual history? Among the entire humanities, ethics is the only field historically and culturally shared by all types of societies. All historical societies can be basically said to share the same ethical situations, which have been defined by the common interpersonally relational patterns, regardless of the actual divergence in their cultural typology and historical contents.

   It is true that ethical elements are still included in various disciplines or fields,  like philosophy, religion, law, politics, psychology, sociology, literature, history, arts and others. Especially philosophy and religious studies are still the main fields guiding  ethical discussions. So the first question here is whether a genuinely ethical discipline can be properly reduced to or included in these two fields without losing or distorting something important. And is it desirable to reorganize a special field of ethical analysis separately from other speculative and positive disciplines, so as to make it fit more relevantly into academically and societal-ethical  realities? Such an ethics should be positive and empirical in character, because, as distinguished from other disciplines in the humanities, ethics is essentially bound up with the real human social conditions historically and culturally shared by both East and West. Of course, such a positively reorganized field of research should  eventually be further articulated in connection with the interdisciplinary socio-human sciences in our new intellectual world.

1. The Original Mixture of Discursive Subjects in Ancient Ethics

   It is manifest that Greek ethics covers two main topics, namely good/evil and life/death, or, precisely, the social problem of good/evil and the individual problem of life/death. One is about interpersonal relations, the other about the meaning and value of individual life. This is the basic dichotomy in human existence. Still, from a biophysical point of view, two kinds of problems must practically exist for a single person, they have different cognitive criteria and objectives. Certainly two heterogeneous problematics can be encountered when they become the same valid candidates for an alternative choice at a certain spatio-temporal spot occupied by an individual. Thus we first have a conflict between two sets of criteria as such rather than between two items under the same set of criteria. [1] In human life such a conflict of choice is mainly practical in nature. For example, a philosophical nihilist can rationally choose to refuse the publicly accepted moral principle on the basis of an amoral reason. In ancient Chinese philosophy, a similar conflict emerged between the ethically centered Confucian and the existentially centered Taoist. But in essence we may say that the apparent contradiction is that between a morality-directed line against a morally irrelevant line. Therefore the intellectual conflict is not something between two different ethical views in terms of one set of logically commensurable standards, but that between one ethical view and one ethically neutral view. Thus, at the theoretical level, two kinds of problems possess their own respectively different epistemological zones. [2]   Accordingly, there seems to be a theoretical demarcation between the moral and the religious-philosophical arguments, particularly when the latter are based on speculatively directed ontological or metaphysical foundations. And, when ethics has been provided with a religious, an ontological or a metaphysical foundation, a cognitively operational incoherence would implicitly occur. In speaking in this way, we are attempting to retain a cognitive distinction between the two kinds of ethical subjects mentioned above, which have been, however, traditionally treated together by  the Eastern and Western philosophies.

    From an academically logical point of view, we might say that ethically theoretical choice is still subordinate to philosophical, for the latter can influence or determine the former within the traditionally established disciplines. But in the empirical human world, an independent ethical scope can indeed be operatively segregated. In other words, most of our ethical problems can be operatively or pragmatically defined without a logically or empirically necessary link to the Eastern and Western ontology-metaphysical traditions. [3]

2. The Empiric-Positive Trait of Ethical Themes

  According to the epistemologically minimalist position that we are suggesting, there is indeed an ethical dimension which can be empirically and positively defined. Without denying the academic justification of other ethical involvements, we only wish to emphasize, the empirical existence of a socially and subjectively operational autonomy called "ethics 1", which can be separated from other ethical alternatives called "ethics 2", including metaphysical, ontological, religious and others. Then our question can be focused on whether we can be justified in distinguishing an ethics 1 from an ethics 2. According to our definition, the genuinely or centrally ethical is merely about interpersonal relations, whereas social justice can be defined at the empiric-positive level just like the case in the political, legal, economical and social fields. If ethics 1 offers values or norms as empirically widely accepted presuppositions, politics and other categories can offer means to realize these values. Even a subjectively directed ethics can be empiric-positively designed.

      History proves that, many different civilized cultures share quite similar values about the basic justice and fairness of interpersonal relations, such as the precepts of "mutual love is good" and "harming others is bad". That democracy has been universally advocated by a majority of people in the world can prove the empirically most widespread agreement about the basic socially ethical values. In human historical life, there have certainly existed a lot of universally accepted moral values based on human empirical nature. These values are not the result of a theory but of the naturally existing facts. Why do we then have to step out of the positive-empirical scope to search for more sophisticated justifications of ethical problems? And what is the actual result of a non-empiric-positive ethical discourse of this kind? We should be aware that crises in connection with human ethical conditions frequently occur in the practical or operative stages rather than in the theoretical foundations. For our human life has been first empirically constituted with the interpersonal relations as the empirically constant center.

3. The Basic Construction of a Discipline

   The position outlined above could be criticized as a simplification of the human ethical situation, which seems to cover richer and more complicated contents. This is to be conceded. But maybe nowadays we need just such a rational simplification or purification of our ethically discursive production. There are many aspects of human life that are purely empirically constituted. We cannot and do not need to render them more speculative, for one result would be simply to make our ethical field less operationally effective. Thus we need to consider what kind of theoretical foundation is required by a discipline or a scholarly field. Let us use an extreme example: we do not need to provide criminology with a metaphysical foundation, although the criminal material can be used that way. For a discipline, there are both necessary and unnecessary constitutive elements. The latter can cover a variety of contents with different degrees of irrelevancy or distance. But theoretical discourses are habitually formed in a rather synthetic way. The habitually formed cognitive heterogeneity of the elements of a historically formed discipline may challenge the theoretical coherence and the explanative unifications organized at the generic level. Such phenomena can be more clearly discerned today mainly because of the specialization of modern sciences. Accordingly, the ancient, more synthetically formed, disciplines have been widely specialized and diversified and presented their more complicated constitutions in modern times. The evident change of the constitutions of the academic objects shaped in modern times must be in conflict with the old methodology created in antiquity, when disciplines were still more simply, even if more synthetically, constituted.

      A discipline is an intelligently operative system consisting of object, criteria, objective, procedure and epistemological presuppositions. In reality, a discipline covers the central/necessary and peripheral/unnecessary parts according to an intellectually operational framework. The constituent parts of a discipline can be included in the operational system on theoretical/necessary, historical/occasional and practical/utilitarian grounds. For a theoretical analysis of basic problems in such a cognitively heterogeneous compound, the prerequisites are two kinds of intellectual reorganization, namely, that for the discipline itself and that for the approach. For the first task, we need to exclude the unnecessary or irrelevant parts of the discipline according to a set of definite theoretical limitations. Or, simply, we should first  make a distinction between the relevant and irrelevant parts originally contained in the historically formed discipline. Certainly, an irrelevant part in one discipline can be the relevant part in another. The academic world consists of a network of thousands of disciplinary groups which multiply overlap with each other, added to which are the myriads of respectively mutually overlapping areas. Whether for a part of the topic within a discipline or for the entire discipline, there is always the task of regulating the relevant scope of the objects and methods chosen for a certain scientific or theoretical operation.

      The same can be said about the ethical problems adumbrated above. According to our opinion, between ethics 1 and ethics 2 there can be also possibly different ties concerning  the theoretical, historical and practical dimensions. And the theoretical tie between ethics 1 and ethics 2 can be reduced to a minimum, owing to the reason given above, so as to more relevantly and more effectively organize our problematic and our methodology.

      A simple example can be illustrated by the strategies of the novels of two Russian literary masters, Tolstoi and Dostoevski. As we know, the first tends to be more concerned with the moral problematic and the second with that of life/death, although both use similar materials in their intellectual operations within the same novelistic world: social, religious, subjective, philosophical and others. Yet their theoretical attentions and strategic orientations are very heterogeneously divergent, despite the same shared empirical world used as the material. The essence of their aesthetics lies in the chosen "epistemological attitudes" or objectives and related artistic procedures, rather than in the imaginary materials used by them. That's why people have difficulties answering the question of "who is greater". For the answer depends first and foremost on the different sets of criteria, each of which can have the same spiritual value in human life. (Therefore  Russian formalism also neglects another axiological aspect). [4] The same  can be said about our differentiation between an ethical positivism (ethics 1) and an ethical metaphysics (ethics 2).If we cannot use the same criteria and approach to measure consistently the two aesthetics of Tolstoi and Dostoevski within one theoretical framework, then neither can we treat ethics 1 and  ethics 2 on the basis of the same discipline. 

4. Ethics Has The Serious Task of Confronting the Real Social Crisis

   An ethics should keep the socially and subjectively empirical domain as the basic or central object. No one can evade or make de-tours around this moral reality and ethical situation in real social life. An ethics should be able to explain, to interpret and to try to solve ethical problems arising from real human life. At least, it should provide people with an operational procedure for judging human ethical situations, including the immediately urgent politico-ethical ones. At least, ethics should keep  real situations or ethical reality as the reference points of its discursive signification. Whether intersubjectivity or Being, the philosophical concept should contain an ethical facet, for Being can only be a socially tied Being, even when a Dasein is alone faced with its own death. Heideggerian Being first lies in excluding any social aspect. [5]  But life or death of an individual must be an experience tied with other individuals, if the individual exists linguistically and culturally. Therefore human existence is first a problem of one's relations to others. Any kind of reflection occurring in a single mind can only emerge within this existential mode. An idea can be formed in a psychologically egoistic way, but its significative constitution must be intersubjectively determined. This does not mean that we can or should try to exclude the non-moral aspects of human existence. We are only emphasizing that the existence of the non-moral aspects cannot be used to dismiss the existence of the moral aspects.

      Here we might once again encounter a difficulty caused by the original ambiguity of ancient ethical interests. This basic interpersonal focus could be replaced by an individual attention directed toward the supernatural being or toward the purely egoistic concern about his own existence. It is true that we should also recognize the justification of any other non-ethical concerns in our intellectual activities. But as regards our basic ethical concern, the point is: how much is it justified when ethics 2 attempts to further interfere in ethics 1? Or, simply, can and should we theoretically derive ethics 1 from ethics 2 ? More directly, is an ethical ontology or an ontological ethics helpful in making more explicit our basic ethical problems, particularly the most pressing problems in politically ethical situations? In other words, has an ontology-metaphysical turn in ethical discourse helped to deepen the theoretical mechanism of ethics or just to blur its relevant focus? Or, in other words, is there seemingly an ontological escapism in our ethical discourses when it makes our related reasoning fuzzier and far-fetched? [6] The most intensively condensed ethical dimension is embodied in socio-political conditions, and for a majority in society both benefits and evils are produced in this field. On the other hand, the ontology-metaphysical turn, including its political philosophy, seems to be less productive in dealing with this crucial area, which remains to be empirically constituted. [7]

      Generally speaking, it is a great pity that modern ethical thinkers are not so good in dealing with the connection between ethics 1 and ethics 2. Serious consequences would ensue if ethics 2 tries to interfere in ethics 1. We can enumerate many well-known examples with which we can indicate how some of modern intellectual scholars use their ethics 2 to do wrongs with ethics 1. Consequently, as the most qualified interpreters of the meaning of human life, some distinguished Western philosophers made seriously wrong judgments about the socio-politically ethical situations of mankind.

      Here we do not need to discuss too much those dishonest philosophers who made mistakes mainly because of a weak personality. But let us just give a case of this type offered by the distinguished Chinese philosopher Fung Yu-Lan, who has become famous in the West with his book about Chinese philosophical history. This case can at least point that there is no logical tie between an ethical metaphysics and an ethical practice. As an former believer in Confucian ethics, Fung spontaneously, and not because of being forced, participated and assisted in the Maoists' political criticism movement against "Confucianism" during the Cultural Revolution. And that movement was proved to have been only a political farce played out by some political rascals. The so-called "Confucianism" in that game was merely taken as a representative of the classically defined "benevolent" or humanist political line, which was taken by the Maoists as the opposite of the currently adopted "Legalist" (despotic) revolutionary line. After the Cultural Revolution, the deeply depressed philosopher was able to get temporary relief due to the Western reaffirmation of his contribution to the pedagogical study about Chinese philosophy in the West. But at home everybody knew that he was a member of the extremely leftist faction led by Mao's wife. For the sake of explaining himself, he had to make a delicate choice about a correct excuse in the dilemma. If he said that he had behaved that way because of his fear in the face of the currently predominant terror, then he would have proved his cowardice. (In fact, the excuse does not work, for the situation concerning himself would not have been so severe as to lead to his personal endangerment, if he had not actively served the power). If he chose a "lust for fame" during a period when no intellectuals were allowed to show themselves in public unless acknowledging the extremely leftist path, then he would have further degraded his own image. Eventually, lacking the courage to face the truth, he invented an explanation to the effect that, because he loved and believed in chairman Mao too much then, thus he could have taken leave of his senses. This excuse could also be taken as an indirect and self-protective confession that he had been deceived by Maoists. (But he could not be regarded as so ignorant about reality as in the case of some Western leftist liberals.) As a result, being deceived becomes an acceptable reason for moral mistakes everywhere. Of course, this famous modern metaphysical Confucianist has now also been pardoned by many contemporary Chinese Neo-Confucianist philosophers because of his special contribution of internationally spreading Confucianism via his translated textbook. Although, according to Neo-Confucianist principle, one's personality is of the same importance as one's learning.

      Regardless of problems about personality (like the well-known charges leveled by Jaspers and Habermas at Heideggar's dishonesty during the Nazi and Post-Nazi periods), we would like to pay attention to the connection between ethics 1 and ethics 2 among some Western philosophers. And our present concern is focused on why some distinguished modern Western philosophers or intellectuals could have made seriously wrong judgments about human ethical situations. Is there something wrong in their philosophy or in the scientific connection between their philosophy and ethics? In this respect, we will take two leading figures, namely Heidegger and Sartre of the existentialist movement, as the explanatory examples. Both take an ontological detour, instead of a direct ethical approach, to deal with human ethical situations. As we know, despite a similar philosophical line, both took the opposite attitudes to the same political reality. One was inclined to the left, the other to the right. Regardless of their respectively different involvements in their shared contemporary political realities, we would like to focus on their same wrong ethical judgments based on the different political positions in reference to the similar ethical situations. Quite simply, how could Heidegger's passion be aroused by the early Nazist movement? Why could he not perceive the evident mistakes and lies in the Nazis' shallow and  wicked words, which many other less intelligent common people could? [8] Concerning Sartre, in addition to many of his leftist deeds, he could have even been inspired by the very stupid Oriental lies and nonsense ‑ together with many other famous persons of French intellectual elite. If they now say that they were then deceived, why were many other less intelligent people not? [9] There could be two different questions involved in this important phenomenon. One concerns the quality of their thought about the ethical with respect to both socially causal and ethically axiological rationality. The other concerns the possible link between motive and scholarship. Still, it is a pity that the ontology-metaphyisical  style helps blur the positive inquiry into the crucially relevant aspects.

      Meanwhile we may be reminded of the many Western literati who were once fascinated by the hypocritic Soviet propaganda during the long Cold War period. We would like to point out that the very fact of being intellectually deceived or misled should be made connected with one's scholarly structure as well. It cannot be interpreted as some occasional and careless accident without connection to their intellectual backgrounds. Liability to be deceived is not an acceptable excuse to be pardoned. How much time and how much of the lives of the misguided young readers has been wasted by the morally misguiding modern sages who had attained so much in their intellectually rhetoric art and been accepted so widely in our modern scientifically-trained society!

      It is really a pity that in our post-Cold-War period the extremely radical political ideologies of both the left and the right have been further developed, continuously in combination with highly biased ethical thoughts, many of which are organized in a pseudo-metaphysical form. Particularly in the politico-ethical field, the scientific quality of the merely rhetorically effected texts, without keeping social truth as their reference, is both doubtful and dangerous. The hatred for the word "truth" now becomes a reason for committing ethical mistakes and for engaging in inefficiency. But there could be dozens of possible senses of the word like other hated words such as "reason" or "rationality". Can we not be allowed to keep a relevant sense of them in our discussion, to refer to a "social reality"? If there is a physical reality or an economic reality operationally "outside" our subjective mind, there must also be a political one apart from the involved more complicated axiological factors.

      Ethical philosophers also have a scientific obligation to gather their objective data concerning real social realities. They should have a non-subjective object for their studies. Texts themselves cannot be the independent objects of our spiritual life. Their wrong judgments and behavior first indicate a lack of the objectively or empiric-positively identified objects in their knowledge systems; and they seem to have no sense of the duty to base themselves on the empirically objective facts. If they are only content with the rhetorically objects rather than empirical ones (which they despise as a "fabricated fact"), then they have already shifted to a field other than the ethic-scientific. Because they have confused different kinds of "fact" in their discourse.

      This is also the right time to review Western Marxism in general and the Frankfurt School in particular with reference to their respective social ethics. Compared with other contemporary philosophical schools, they are more socially centered. It is true that nobody can anticipate historical progress and that nobody could have foreseen the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. But the huge historical turmoil theoretically indicate too many things involved in disharmony with the socio-ethical theories of the critical school. The social focus of the critical school should have resulted in more positive-empirical sociological inferences about social causation and explanation, but philosophically they are deeply involved in modern metaphysical and ontological themes as well, particularly some earlier members like Marcuse and Adorno. They have also attempted to search for a theoretical and historical "depth" derived from ontology-metaphysical grounds. But there exists a general tension between the philosophical and the scientific factors existing in their systems.

      Even for the most rational school among them  represented by Habermas' rational philosophy we can still feel a basic disharmony between his German Hegelian historicism and American behaviorism. Can we therefore ascribe some of his too abstractly formulated social and political criticism, which looks further doubtful since the Nineties, to an epistemological ambiguity implicated in his eclectically constructed theoretical system? Therefore we can see that correct social criticism about actual flaws and fuzzy philosophical explanations are frequently mixed in the most rational type of philosophy in our times. [10]

   Post-structuralism and deconstruction on the whole belong, as we indicate above, more to literary poetics or the rhetoric of modernism than to scientific argumentation. They are also definitely disconnected from the general scientific tradition, ranging from Greek, enlightenment, Kantian, Husserlian and structuralist. But there are two senses of poetics: rational argumentation (Aristotle, Paul Ricoeur, etc.) and irrational poetization (the works of literary modernism). The same empirically perceived narrative can be used in organizing both rational and irrational discourses. For example, the same imaginary sequences can be used in  both rational and irrational processes, in the normal, and in the Avant-Garde film, respectively. The same verbal words and sentences,and even the entire contents of an existent discipline, can be used in the poetical and the scientific processes of textual creation with their different referential and significative organization. Poetical association can, of course, bring about texts with changed or distorted signifying structures, producing multiply articulated referential, volitional, emotional and symbolic effects. Because of the loss of the normal referential framework directed to social reality, these fictive texts eventually become no longer justified in describing and explaining our real problems, particularly the politico-ethical reality (which is directly linked with human welfare). In this sense, the interference of the poetical ethics 2 in the positive ethics 1 really can influence human conditions. [11]

      Both the poetical and scientific textualities are justified in their respective fields and objectives, but they are not to be blended. Formalist poetry should be different from  formalist poetics as a science in the Aristotelian sense. When the normal philosophical discourses are used to create modernist literary works, the material remains the philosophical, but the procedure  turns into a modernist apparatus. Nowadays we are undergoing a  disorderly mixture of heterogeneous discursive functions. For our academic business, however, the procedure is more essential than the material. The intellectual activities should be reclassified according to the main elements of objective, function and procedure in a discipline rather than by the materials employed. Alternatively, the criteria of intellectual classification should be based on functions rather than media. Therefore Avant-Garde film belongs to the category of "modernist art", rather than to that of "film". [12]

      Understood in a positive sense, ethics must draw closer and closer to the socio-human sciences. The strategic link between ethics and the human sciences will lead to a relaxation of the traditional linkage between ethics and philosophy. We do not need any ontological "deeper" concept of humanity within the scope of ethics. And the human being can, of course, keep its positive-empirical senses of various kinds. Therefore our philosophers should continue paying attention to the great success of modern interdisciplinary socio-human sciences, among which philosophy remains one of the main branches, in promoting our total knowledge about humanity and human life. [13]

      In fact, the interdisciplinary attitude will help make each philosophy more communicable and commensuarable with other philosophies and social/human sciences. The new academic hierarchy, with the readjusted theoretical and practical constitutions, will be reorganized along the more dynamically promoted interdisciplinary orientation. For the future socio-humanist academic world there must be a reorganized, roughly self adjusting theoretical foundation, in which the traditionally philosophical is only one part among others. There are already many non-philosophically theoretical achievements within structuralism, semiotics and hermeneutics; the new theoretical mode will be further enriched and multiplied along more synthetic line.

    How can we deny the existence of the human sciences in this broadly positive sense? The title of the scientific disciplines do not need to be blended with the so called essence of the human being. We do not need any ontologically "deeper" concept of humanity. And the human being can of course keep its positive-empirical senses of various kinds. Therefore how can our philosophers attempt to neglect the great success of socio-human sciences in promoting our total knowledge about humanity and human life yet without succumbing to any ontological aspect? Based on the initial stage of the development of socio-human sciences we'd better to avoid any a priori/transcendental/ontological dogmatism about human limited capability to know themselves and their history. Compared with natural sciences socio-human sciences are largely immature in all aspects. In fact they can even not successfully and universally organize or share the precise descriptions of their objects, most of which had been originally created by the pre-scientific ancient mind. Without definitely and universally defined and accepted objects how can we consistently reflect on our problems and effectively argue with others? The traditionally formed semantic ambiguity in socio-human sciences should be continuously overcome at first  before the organization of the more intelligible scientific discourses. In this respect I think, despite their scholarly divergence, phenomenology, structuralism, semiotics, analytic philosophy , hermeneutics and even pragmatism share the same effort at renovating and elaborating our represented and signified object world, including both the subjective and objective ones. For those philosophical trends implicative of more interdisciplinary tendency seem to contain more epistemological and methodological interests and possibility. They could be part of the natural foundation for theoretical development of our interdisciplinary humanities. In fact the interdisciplinary attitude will help make each philosophy more communicable and commensurable with other philosophies and socio-human sciences. The new academic hierarchy with the readjusted theoretical and practical constitutions will be reorganized along the more dynamic interdisciplinary orientation. For the future socio-humanist academic world there must be a reorganized, roundly self-adjusting theoretical foundation, in which the traditionally philosophical is only one part among others. There are already many non-philosophically theoretical parts within structuralism, semiotics and hermeneutics; the new theoretical mode will be further enriched and multiplied along the more synthetic line.

      It is the time now to reexamine the precise roles played by the speculative-styled metaphysics and ontology in the entire world of human knowledge. Beside the scholarly problems involved in our discussion, a practical one seriously emerges in connection with the weak or even wrong role played by the ontology-metaphysical tradition, including its theological variant, in explaining and solving the socio-ethical problems. In the first place, all of them are digressed from the central object of human ethics: the empirical and social evils and their origins.

5. The Desirability of A Revised And Expanded Positivism: Epistemological Direction Toward The Interdisciplinary Reorganization of Socio-Human Sciences

    Our problem can now be reduced to the relevant relations of ethics 2 to ethics 1 or to the relevant relations of ontology-metaphysical ethics to empiric-positive ethics. Philosophy has grown out of the original encyclopedia of human knowledge, once covering everything within its governing scope. Since sciences have progressed, philosophy has naturally retreated to such an extent that metaphysics and ontology seem to be the final heroic stronghold, which cannot be further replaced by sciences. Meanwhile, philosophy has found its right position in the new institutional arrangements at universities in our industrial era . Therefore the philosophical discipline now also enjoys institutional protection in our technological societies, thus achieving a professional and intellectual autonomy. Its academic and intellectual efficiency and qualification therefore can be professionally protected in the current, pedagogically compartmentalized system, enjoying institutional privileges. It is just this institutional segregation which makes the university-campus philosophy largely relax its attention to and concern with social and political reality. The humanities, with philosophy as the central branch, should continue to pay attention to the real "referent" besides the "signified" in order to render precise our semantic description before our pragmatic programs.

    The semantic difficulty first caused by the referential complication is widely felt in social and human sciences today. This only means that the modernization of the traditional humanities has entered into a new stage. Instead of glancing back, we should look forward and acknowledge that we humanist scholars need to modernize our knowledge on the basis of the newly developed intellectual conditions. How can we think that our ancient sages had already prepared everything important for their offspring over so many subsequent centuries? Technically speaking, there should be a progressive momentum in the humanities, which is, in fact, only on its initial stage in the short human civilization.

      The referential complication and pluralized manifestation in the humanities can also indicate the constitutive weakness in their disciplinary organization. There should be a reorganization and rearrangement about objects, objectives, methods, criteria and the institutional framework in various traditionally formed and historically developed disciplines. The first goal of the interdisciplinary strategy lies in rendering more precise the correspondence between the disciplinary parameters mentioned above; the blurring and overlapping of disciplinary borders is, accordingly, a necessary step. Here. the function of philosophy, especially of ontology-metaphysical philosophy, should be reexamined in the interdisciplinary framework, and this includes its relation to ethics. [14]

      The classical positivism in sociology and psychology of the last century oand the modern positivism along the lines of the Vienna circle are limited by the model based on natural science fixated on the perceptive facts as the only valid objects. We have to get rid of this narrowly interpreted positivism and rationally expand the empirical and positive conceptions to include the axiological, subjective and interpersonally relational domains. Even some  metaphysical and ontological subjects can be treated in positive or quasi-positive terms. The positively revised ontology and metaphysics will be part of a new general epistemology for the socio-human sciences. As a result, in the new socio-human sciences, the logical, psychological, physical and societal items can coexist on equal terms in our expanded empirical world. Similarly, a subjective ethics can be also based on an expanded positivism. Both objective and subjective experiences should be unified into the synthetically commensurable field by an operationally practical reason. In opposition to what is maintained by  modern extreme irrationalism, the human being cannot give up a both subjectively and objectively operational rationality, namely a rational coherence of both internal and external practices of a subject. A rational agent has to keep its own inner and outer activities in an inferential and pragmatic consistency. By  purposely avoiding an operational consistency, he or she turns out to be an intuitive artist rather than an intelligent thinker.

      Therefore there is a necessity to make an operational distinction between the scientific scholar, in an expanded positive sense, and the ontologically rhetoric modernist who searches for some ontological truth at the cost of giving up the definite reference to reality. It is true that we will not attempt a verbally intelligible communication with an abstract painter or absurdly modernist poet despite our aesthetically accessibility to his work. The urgent necessity of re-classification of philosophical discourses is due to that we are indeed in hurry to reconstruct the more effective and more rational socio-human sciences.

      The traditionally shaped philosophy should still play a leading role in reconstructing the epistemological and methodological system generally valid and operational in various branches of the socio-human sciences. For the purpose it should first get rid of its institutional and customary bondage, paying sufficient attention to progress in other areas, including both natural and social ones. The new theoretical efforts have nothing to do with an old systematic philosophy or the simplistic systems theory. The so called "theoretical system" here only refers to a set of the rationally and operationally established criteria, presuppositions and procedures about operation with the object and objective for a theoretical project, which is based on a flexibly chosen network of the related disciplines. But the progress of the interdisciplinary movement, also covering the cross-cultural one, depends on the improvement of the generally valid theoretical epistemology in a positive and operational term. The traditional philosophy will be therefore pragmatically divided into two parts: that joining in the interdisciplinary development and that clinging to the traditional autonomy.

      Once again, both intellectual fields can be justified in their choice for orientation. But they should not interfere in each other's business. The scientific and ontological parts can co-occur in philosophy in general and in ethics in particular. If physics and biology could be separated from the classical philosophical compound long time ago, similarly, modern historiographic, aesthetic and ethical theories can be separated from philosophy of history, philosophical aesthetics and philosophical ethics now as well. Philosophy contributed a lot to the formation of natural sciences and then decided to withdraw from the well established world of natural science. A similar process has happened and will be continued in the world of socio-human sciences today. But this time the traditionally innate philosophical core will continue playing a specially structural role in sharing in creating the universally applicable epistemological and methodological foundations of our new big humanist family.

      Therefore there can be two fields of the philosophical reflections: the epistemological-methodological and the ontological-metaphysical ones defined in terms of the functional rather than the historically systematic divisions. The latter should be more and more closer to the poetical and the former to the scientific. But it is desirable to maintain or sharpen rather than to blur the functional demarcation .The poetical inaccessibility of the ontological-metaphysical discourses should not be rhetorically interpreted as some theoretical "depth" in a philosophic-scientific logic, as say a Hegelian logic. As a result, an intelligible clarity beyond the clarity of natural science, rather than the poetical ambiguity, should be continuously  pursuited in a human rational program. Differently from an absolute relativism based on the misinterpreted Nietzsche, humanity nowadays terribly requires a more operational reason.

6. The Relevantly Expanded Concept of Reason and towards a new Positive Ethics

    Socio-human sciences should learn from natural sciences in its capability to effectively organize causal explanation and social applicability, even if at a much less exact level. The two possibilities are innately rooted in the identity of the science itself, although the task is more complicated because of the existence of the axiological, motivational, historical and social involvements. But why we should give up our effort towards the reasonable goal when socio-human sciences are only at their initial stage of the development. They should be more effectively and more systematically promoted in the next new century, particularly when our cultural world has been enlarged to include non-western traditions.

      In other words, why we don't recognize that lots of individual and social troubles arising in this century have been partly due to the cognitive weakness of the present philosophy and  socio-human sciences which have offered so much misleading information about history, society and culture. Many political and social catastrophe were directly caused by the false or deceptive politico-ideological knowledge. Once again, why intellectuals equipped with  modern socio-human knowledge can be misguided or deceived by the wrong theories until today, whether in respect to a utopian historical genealogy or to a misleading ethical rhetoric? It is highly undesirable to decrease our effort at a knowledge about humanity itself on the basis of a nihilist or extremely relativist epistemology at the very beginning of our academic  history. We are not too old; instead, we are still too young. We should organize our intellectual adventure for another hundred years and then review our potential and possibility for knowing and improving humankind. The "scientific" approach in its expanded sense could be more important than the philosophical today. If not through structural linguistics, can we expect the same level of knowledge about human language could be derived merely from the philosophical reflections on language and symbols? The same thing should happen in all other fields of socio-human sciences, including ethics which is directly related to human welfare.

      Concerning our ethical situations and ethics, the major political disasters during this century have been seriously caused by the ethical ambiguity concerning racial, social, cultural justice as well as by the ambiguous relations of ethics to other neighboring areas. In the same sense we can suggest to use a positively organized political ethics to replace the ontologically organized political philosophy which is evidently less operational in both intellectual and social dimensions. In a deep sense we can say the progress of the socio-human sciences is more relevant and important to human conditions than that of natural sciences. Ethics as a discipline directly related to human conditions can only realize its goals in its internal and external practices in combination with other disciplines. There should thus be a more relevant and more rational articulation among various related disciplines in terms of the structural redefinition of each academic area in the new intellectual topography. In the next new era human beings should become more rational, rather than irrational, in organizing their theory and practice in a much wider perspective. Differently from the point of view of nihilist dogmatism, rationality is innate in the civilized human existence. In fact, today we need a more reasonable, more expanded and more operational or practicable rationality. It is meaningless to give up reason as such. For human being, in distinction with other animals, is first an animal of rationality which is part of human nature.

                       NOTES

1. The Greek ethical dualism is in fact due to a logical monism attempting to unify the two dimensions of human existence: the individual and the social. The Aristotelian original topic about "good" is a logical effort at the unification: how to deduce a collective good from an individual good.(see Aristotle: NIKOMACHISCHE ETHIK, Reclam, 1987, Buch 1; especially p.15 on "the highest good" and p. 19 on "the spiritual good") And as Bergson points out, Socrate "even establishes a science of morality only out of virtue."(Bergson: DIE BEIDEN QUELLEN DER MORAL UND DER RELIGION, Walter Verlag, 1980, p. 57) In fact, both known as the father of ethics, Socrates and Aristotle emphatically use an ethics of virtue to indicate a logically unifying tendency about the two aspects of human life. The original empirical orientation of the Greek ethics covers two empirical aspects: the individual and collective happiness. The logical tie between the two is in fact practically treated then. Thus we see an original tension between the two empirical fields out of which have been derived several theoretical dimensions such as metaphysical truth, freedom, God, law and politics.

2. In a less sophisticated way, Confucian doctrine and Taoist philosophy represent the same basic dichotomy in intellectual orientation about the meaning of life. Although the Confucian is so concentrated on the socially ethical problems, its intensive topics concerning a practical subjectivity already imply an original choice between good/evil and life/death. Without a deeper inquiry into the metaphysical dimension about human existence, Taoism effectively presents another kind of the "ethical", namely the meaning of life. The original separation between two fields have brought about a practical convenience for both sides. The Taoist logical challenge to the Confucian dogmas is just a presentation of the basic split of human ethical situation.

3. In discussing the "dialectic relation between metaphysics and morality" Paul Ricoeur points out that Hume remains the most eloquent advocat of a "deliaison" point of view that maintains the logical split between "is" and "ought". According to Ricoeur, whether Neo-Kantian division between value and fact and the modern positivist division about facts and the observable are similar to the Humean. "le fosse entre prescrire et decrire s'avere une fois de plus infranchissable". (P. Ricoeur: "De la metaphysique a la morale", in REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE, Nr. 4/1993) The observation is completely true and important. The basic ethical situation remains like what Hume already defined in empiricist terms. The Western ethical tradition expresses a continuous effort to overcome the basic epistemological split in logical terms, including its theological variant. The intellectual direction itself contains an inner difficulty. On the other hand, there exists an undeniable autonomy of the ethically empirical practices which can be treated in a positively operational way.

4. M.Bachtin's contrast between Dostoevski and Tolstoi is highly instructive for understanding the two ethical inclinations in expressing moral problems in literature. (See his PROBLEME DER POETIK DOSTOEVSKIJS, Ullstein Materialien, 1985.) Stressing a more pertinent relativism against rationality in the Enlightenment (p.91) he even appeals to Einstein's physical relativism as a reason (p.305). But, as in the case of many earlier Russian modernist aestheticians, the appeal to new science only reflects a nihilist subjectivity at the turn of the century. By praising Dostoevski's dialogic polyphony in novelist aesthetics, Bachtin devalues Tolstoi's "monologically naive position" (p.64) and "solipsism" (p.112) organized by the author's individual subjectivity. Then there is a contrast between Tolstoi's coherent, therefore "simplistic", view of the world and Dostoevski's incoherent, pluralist view of the world. "In Dostoevski's novels, everything exists in dialogue, wherein dialogical opposition is the center. Everything is only means, dialogue alone is end. A single voice finishes nothing and decides nothing. Two voices are the minimum of life,the minimum of existence." (p.285) For Bachtin there is a problem about whose view contains more "truth". For him, it is Dostoevski's. It seems that the latter is able to disclose more "objective" truth about human existence. While Tolstoi's can only show his own subjective world. But as a matter of fact, they are two different approaches to the problem about the "meaning of life".We can describe them in terms of our dichotomical division of ethics.If Tolstoi's is ethics 1, then Dostoevski's is ethics 2.Nevertheless, both attitudes are subjective. Tolstoi attempts to organize his own attitude to the world in terms of a subjective praxis. His coherent view of the world just reflects a consistent effort at harmonizing his socially ethical praxis. On the other hand, Dostoevski in his artistic practice tends to give up the subjective effort. His pluralist view of the world just reflects a disorganized subjectivity.

5. Heideggerian ontology is implicitly anti-ethical in character. The priority of Sein over Seiende tends to dismiss the logical validity of an empirical individual as the independent subject of ethical judgment and decision. He says, "Der apriorische Charakter des Seins und aller Seinsstrukturen fordert demgemäß eine besti-mmte Zugangsart und Erfassungsweise des Seins:die apriorische Erkenntnis." (Heidegger: DIE GRUNDPROBLEME DER PHÄNOMENOLOGIE, Klos-termann, 1989, p. 27) The apriori knowledge about Being is both theoretically and practically in opposition to an empirical experience of ethical praxis of individual. On the other hand, his deni-al of a Neo-Kantian or a Husserlian ego amounts to a denial of Husserlian phenomenology.(ibid.,182-5)

6. The Heideggerian approach to Nietzsche is deeply inspired by the ethical nihilism of the latter.He cites Nietzsche that "`Was bedeutet Nihilism?'...,`Daß die obersten Werte sich entwerten',... `Es fehlt das Ziel;es fehlt die Antwort auf das Warum'". (Heidegger:   HOLZWEGE, Klosetermann,1980,p.218) In fact, Heidegger uses his ontological nihilism to interpret Nietzsche's empirical nihilism. Sein as a "necessary value" becomes therefore the theoretical foundation for the destruction of ethical value. He says, "... Nietzsches Nihilismus nicht nur den Nihilismus nicht überwindet, sondern ihn auch nie überwinden kann."(Heidegger: NIETZSCHE, B. 2, Neske, p.340) Simply, "Nietzsches Metaphysik ist demnach keine Überwindung des Nihilismus." (ibid.) From here we can read a basic tone of the Heideggerian school in connection with an ontological program to destroy an "ethics 1". Consequently the good/evil binarism is replaced by a life/death binarism.

7. The relation of philosophical praxis to ethico-political reality can be seen in H.Arendt's thought.Her ontological freedom is directed toward a politically active praxis. But epistemologically her philosophical focus would decrease an interest in understanding the mechanism of the ethico-political reality. Canovan points out that "To her, politics is the realm of freedom, and the defence of politics against sociologism is a defence of human freedom and dignity against determinism and abject submission to fate". (M. Canovan:THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF HANNAH ARENDT, Methuen ,1977) There are always two ethical realms:the "objective" ethical situation or mechanism and the subjective praxis. Political philosophy (Arendt's `thought') in general should strengthen its attention to the related empirical facts(Arendt's `cognition').

8. The relationship between Heideggerian ontology and his moral-political judgment about the Nazi movement can be in different ways considered. Academically we should value an examination of the logical tie between his ontologically directed ethical nihilism and his recognition of the related political facts implicative of moral value. This nihilism is definitely useless for a politico-ethics; while we should further ask about the negative impact of the former on the latter. As Hugo Ott points out, Heidegger's philosophy, his ideas of what Being means after the death of God, are not foreign to his publicly stated admiration for Hitler.

9. As J. Simont points out, Sartre was continuously concerned with ethics but always delayed its related solution. "...the ethical question has not as yet found a fixed and well-defined place within his work." (J.Simont, in: THE CAMBRIDGE CAMPANION TO SARTRE, Cambridge Press, 1992, p. 178) As an activist for moral-political movement and an extremely influential philosopher, Sartre had been uncertain about his ethical theory. Then what were the related social effects? It is not ethically irrelevant to read his statement in L. Fretz's article that "It is the war and Heidegger who have put me on the right path; Heidegger by showing me that there was nothing beyond the project through which human reality realized itself." (ibid., p.78)

10. Just like Ricoeur attemts to keep a balance between the ontological and hermeneutical, Habermas attempts to keep a balance between the metaphysical and pragmatic. His discursive reason is a result of the related reconciliation. But in general the discourse-ethics of Apel/Habermas has given up many traditional aspects and concentrates on a norm-directed "instrumental rationality" which must be put into the entire socio-political field. Habermas points out that "Die Diskursethik gibt keine inhaltlichen Orientierungen an,sondern eine voraussetzungsvolle Prozedur, die Unparteilichkeit der Urteilsbildung garantieren soll." (J.Habermas: MORAlBEWUßTSEIN UND KOMMUNIKATIVES HANDELN, Suhrkamp, 1983, p. 132) In their ethics the ethical subject is replaced by a behavioral agent so as to dismiss the subjective dimension of the ethical situation by dint of an intersubjective operator with social norms. (Habermas: REKONSTRUKTION DES HISTORISCHEN MATERIALISMUS, 1982, Suhrkamp, p. 14, 20; also in: DER PHILOSOPHISCHE DISKURS DER MODERNE, 1991, 41) "In der modernen Gesellschaft konnte diese Ich-Identität von der individualistischen Berufsrolle getragen werden." (ibid., 24) And this new Ich-identity is further transformed to a historically-collective identity. This seemingly more ethically relevant critical theory is always split by its insufficient and elusive socio-political investigations and its abstract, metaphysical framework derived from Marxism.

11. In  discussing the classification of film studies I have already pointed out the basic confusion between film as media and film as content. (You-Zheng Li, "Metz's Theory and Classificatory Attitude toward Film Studies",in CHRISTIAN METZ ET LA THEORIE DU CINEMA, Meridiens Klincksieck, 1990, p. 173) But the practical confusion in categories of human artistic praxis can disclose the origin of a confusion in typology of human discourse production. To be more precise, even the theoretical mode itself (for example the philosophical and political), with the title of its academic profession, can be used as the aesthetic praxis. They follow different codes and goals. Now we know much more clearly that Avant-Garde films have nothing to do with the film in its customary usage, although both use the same media. There are two meanings of use: that of material and that of procedure employed to material.

12. Habermas says, "Derrida will die Souveränitat der Rhetorik über das Gebiet des Logischen ausdehnen, um jenes Problem zu losen, vor dem die totalisierende Vernunftkritik steht. "(Habermas: DER PHILOSOPHISCHE DISKURS DER MODERNE, Suhrkamp, 1991, p. 221)And this literary rhetoric also  implies a meaning of social mission."...dient ihm die Literarturkritik als Volbild für ein Verfahren, das, mit der Überwindung  des präsenzmetaphysischen Denkens und des logozentrischen Zeitalters, ein geradezu weltgeschichtliche Mission übernimmt." (ibid., 226)

13.A semiotic-hermeneutic positivism and a neo-positive-directed ethics must be connected with the epistemological justification of human sciences which have nothing to do with a historical bias of the human being or with a special concept of man. Philosophical criticism of identity of human sciences is a refusal of the positive and feasible approach to human problems. For this purpose, a philosophical deconstruction paradoxically requires the philosophical discipline against "une dispersion pseudo-scientifique". (see Derrida: DU DROIT A LA PHILOSOPHIE, Galilee, 1990, pp. 176, 507)

14. In the debate about the relation of ontological-metaphysics to ethics Ricouer's ontology of action should be given a special treatment which is not considered here. Similar to what we pointed out already, with a phenomenological background which is foreign to Habermas, Ricouer attempts a comparable balance between the metaphysical and the empirical. Therefore both choose a pragmatic focus in solving ethical problems. Ricoeur's ontologically classificatory distinction between substance and action aims to solve the logical problem of an ethical praxis for a phenomenological ego. But there remains still the similar ontological dilemma. He says that Nietzsche's concept of power is desubstantialized; "C'est de la que procedent des expressions qui me sont cheres depuis longtemps, celle de notre desir d'etre et de notre effort pour exister, expressions qui donnent a l'ethique son intention premiere. "(J.Greisch & R.Kearney(ed): PAUL RICOEUR, CERF,1991, p. 398) But, besides the implicit link with Heideggerian hermeneutics, his subjectively positive (if I can say so) "attestation" based on an altruist phenomenological ego is still weak because of  his distantiation from "verification". (What is the empirically reliable tie between his "le respect de soi" and "le respect de L'autre qui compte sur moi"?) (see: REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE, Nr. 4/1993, p. 475) Then he is still content in universally treating ethics 1 and ethics 2 by stressing "the original combinations between life and death, love and hatred, pleasure and sorrow, innocence and culpability, and good and evils." (ibid.) But, generally speaking, no contemporary philosopher has made more successful efforts than paul Ricouer toward the basic problem of the epistemological tension in our time.

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