Social Sciences in China, 2025

Vol. 46, No. 1, 2025

Silence/Sound and Black/White: The Phenomenological Ontology of the World of Sound and Color

(Abstract)

Sun Zhouxing

The world is a world of sound and color; sound and color are this world’s basic elements. In the classical era, natural man initially contemplated both in metaphysical terms, but thereafter modern Europe conducted scientific-physical reductionist treatments which concealed other non-scientific possibilities of color appearances and perceptions. Since the 19th century, the sound industry and the electro-optical industry have been technologizing the world of sound and color, resulting in what this article calls “the nihilism of sound and color”; but the question of sound and color remains a mystery. This article seeks to explore the phenomena of sound and color from the perspective of phenomenology to establish a kind of ontology of sound and color. The fundamental element of sound is “silence/ sound,” and the fundamental element of color is “black/white.” The absence of sound and color is nothingness, while the presence of sound and color is being. From the perspective of the embodied existence of natural man, we need to maintain or rekindle the primordial sensibility of “hearing the silence” and “seeing the darkness.”

Keywords: sound and color, nihilism, silence/sound and black/white, phenomenological ontology