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“Walls” of Wax: Reply to Hoły-Łuczaj's Commentary, The “Other” Measure—the “Other” Technology? Heidegger and Far East Traditions

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Abstract

A piece of wax—typically of a spherical shape—has been evoked occasionally as an apt example of how our engagement with the commonest everyday object may constitute a “raw” yet unexpectedly rich (and taxing) experience, from the Aristotelian discourse of Περὶ Ψυχῆς (On the Soul) to the ancient Chinese historical treatises, where the technique of making lajuan (wax-embraced silk) became a practical metaphor for the low-key transmission of classified information. Using the semi-enclosed, “walled” space—specifically, made of the material of wax from Descartes’ often misread Meditationes—as a metaphor of an unlikely shape or structure for inducing the presence of the absent (e.g., memories of personal lives or ancient technology), the paper responds to Hoły-Łuczaj (Philosophy & Technology 36:19, 2023)’s favorable and subtle touches in the Commentary on the recent study of ancient Eastern measurement and measuring thinking (Philosophy & Technology 36:22, 2023; Philosophy & Technology 34(4):785–809, 2021) by relating to the childhood experience of living with measuring tools and measuring/measured person(s) (homō -mētiēns/-mēnsus; to be distinguished from the Pythagorean formula of homo-mensura or man as the measure [of everything]).

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Funding

The article is funded by the Fairbank Center and Harvard China Fund Grant (of Harvard University), Harvard Asia Center, and the Loeb Fellowship (granted by the Committee on the Study of Religion of Harvard University).

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  1. Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Shan Wu

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  1. Shan Wu
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Correspondence to Shan Wu.

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Wu, S. “Walls” of Wax: Reply to Hoły-Łuczaj's Commentary, The “Other” Measure—the “Other” Technology? Heidegger and Far East Traditions. Philos. Technol. 36, 26 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00630-x

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