Category Archives: Chinese philosophy – 中國哲學 – 中国哲学

Xunzi and Mencius Meld

Some while ago (1999) I tried to argue that Mencius didn’t really believe in proactive moral cultivation because he thought of human nature as already possessing the directional force toward goodness. The only thing a ruler need do is to provide minimally stable political and economic conditions. Then, if people do not interfere with their own development or with the development of others, then everything will turn out fine, with mulberry trees growing in their seasons, the elderly not having to sweat in the fields, children being filial, etc. That puts Mencius more in line with the Daodejing’s political stance than people usually think, though of course he isn’t entirely for the rustic utopia the latter suggests.

Let me suggest here that if that isn’t Mencius’s view, then it is actually very difficult to justify Xunzi’s vehement opposition to Mencius. The view that most of us were taught to believe is that Mencius thinks humans have nascent capacity for goodness that then needs to be cultivated through education and moral training; then at the end of that process they may end up as good subjects, advisors, or the ruler. For convenience, let’s call that the “moral-training” reading of Mencius. The thing that strikes me as problematic here is that if this is indeed Mencius’s view, then there’s really no difference between it and Xunzi’s views of the matter. Or, perhaps I should say instead, either Mencius has a view that is different from Xunzi’s or Xunzi didn’t realize that his view doesn’t really differ from Mencius’s.

Here’s what I have in mind regarding Xunzi on capacities and cultivation. In the “Human Nature is Detestable” (xing e 性惡) chapter, Xunzi argues that anyone could (ke 可) become a sage like the sage-ruler Yu. But not everyone has the possessed ability (neng 能) to be a sage. As it turns out, everyone has the capacities to be ren 仁 and yi 義, benevolent and upright, but not everyone applies himself to the task of accumulating the effort and training to be good. Why is that any different from the view attributed to Mencius by the moral-training reading of him? If it isn’t different, then what is Xunzi’s beef with Mencius since they seem to hold the very same view?

Here’s some of the relevant Xunzi text (I’ve numbered the text so it’s convenient for us to talk about it; and I’ve typed in Watson’s translation):

  1. “塗之人可以為禹。”曷謂也？曰：凡禹之所以為禹者，以其為仁義法正也。然則仁義法正有可知可能之理。然而塗之人也，皆有可以知仁義法正之質，皆有可以能 仁義法正之具，然則其可以為禹 明矣。The man in the street can become a Yu. What does this mean? What made the sage emperor Yu a Yu, I would reply, was the fact that he practiced benevolence and righteousness and abided by the proper rules and standards. If this is so, then benevolence, righteousness, and proper standards must be based upon principles which can be known and practiced. Any man in the street has the essential faculties needed to understand benevolence, righteousness, and proper standards, and the potential ability to put them into practice. Therefore it is clear that he can become a Yu.
  2. 今以仁義法正為固無可知可能之理邪？然則唯禹不知仁義法正，不能仁義法正也。Would you maintain that benevolence, righteousness, and proper standards are not based upon any principles that can be known and practiced? If so, then even a Yu could not have understood or practiced them.
  3. 將使塗之人固無可以知仁義法正之質，而固無可以能仁義法正之具邪？然則 塗之人也，且內不可以知父子之義，外不可以知君臣之正。今不然。Or would you maintain that the man in the street does not have the essential faculties needed to understand them or the potential ability to put them into practice? If so, then you are saying that the man in the street in his family life cannot understand the duties required of a father or a son and in public life cannot comprehend the correct relationship between ruler and subject. But in fact this is not true.
  4. 塗之人者，皆內可以知父子之義，外可以知君臣之正，然則其可以知之質，可以能之具，其在塗 之人明矣。今使塗之人者，以其可以知之質，可以能之具，本夫仁義法正之可知可能之理，可能之具，然則其可以為禹明矣。Any man in the street can understand the duties required of a father or a son and can comprehend the correct relationship between ruler and subject. Therefore, it is obvious that the essential faculties needed to understand such ethical principles and the potential ability to put them into practice must be a part of his make-up. Now if he takes these faculties and abilities and applies them to the principles of benevolence and righteousness, which we have already shown to be knowable and practicable, then it is obvious that he can become a Yu.
  5. 今使塗之人伏術為學，專心一志，思索 孰察，加日縣久，積善而不息，則通於神明，參於天地矣。故聖人者，人之所積而致矣。If the man in the street applies himself to training and study, concentrates his mind and will, and considers and examines things carefully, continuing his efforts over a long period of time and accumulating good acts without stop, then he can achieve a godlike understanding and form a triad with Heaven and earth. The sage is a man who has arrived where he has through the accumulation of good acts.

As always, let me know what you think.

Wuwei (無為) – What does it mean?

Let me restart the conversation Hagop and I started on the Velleman post, but focus on more on wuwei 無為 just by itself. Here’s what Hagop had to say and how I responded:

Hagop:

I’m teaching the Zhuangzi right now in my Chinese philosophy class, and will be discussing Czikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow along with the stories of the skilled exemplars during our meeting today. Velleman mentions others having made the connection before. I, too, was pointed in the direction of Czikszentmihalyi (by David Wong), but can’t recall at the moment who has written of them together.

As for whether ‘flow’ is a good interpretation of wu-wei, I think there is room to quibble. The phrase ‘wu-wei’ appears two or three times in the inner chapters, and none in relation to Cook Ding. There’s a lot more talk about wu-wei in the outer chapters.

What’s more, the inner chapters seem to include many exemplars who literally ‘do nothing’ (as opposed to acting in a skilled-yet-spontaneous fashion). Think of Zhuangzi’s advice to sit in a gourd or lounge under a tree, or the big yak that is the foil for the weasel (aka Hui Zi), or Zi Qi of South Wall sitting still, or the trees Zhuangzi likes to talk about. All these exemplars are literally doing nothing, and not engaged in flow-like skill activity.

In fact, Butcher Ding is alone as a “skilled” exemplar in the inner chapters (am I foregetting anyone?). Other skilled individuals are mocked. Consider this passage (Watson 2003, 37):

“There is such a thing as completion and injury–Mr. Zhao playing the lute is an example. There is such a thing as no completion and no inury–Mr. Zhao not playing the lute is an example.”

This makes me think that the Butcher is not so central to Zhuangzi’s philosophy and, by extension, that flow is not so central to it either.

(If we are talking about the text as a whole, though, there is more support for the interpretation of wu-wei as flow. In fact, since wu-wei occurs far more often in the outer chapters, along with other stories of skilled exemplars, then perhaps wu-wei as something like ‘flow’ is a later development of the Zhuangist school.)

Me:

Hagop, I agree with you about the “flow” interpretation of Zhuangzi, and I think it’s not merely a quibble. What always struck me were the power of the unintuitive examples in the De Chong Fu (”Sign of Virtue Complete” in Watson): People who’ve had their feet, hands, or noses lopped off for offenses against the kingdom, who aren’t skilled in much if anything, and who, like the useless tree, get along in life precisely by being *unskilled*, i.e. useless. Most noteworthy is Ai Tai Tuo who is both ugly and stupid, yet is someone who can be described as complete in talents 才 and power 德. I’ve never been sure that those examples were even compatible with a “flow” reading, particularly when paired with excellence in skill.

*************************

Despite the title of this post, I think it’s clear what wuwei means at a base level: “non-doing.” But the problem is how further to understand it — non-intentional doing? non-purposive doing? non-forced, effortless, doing? some other thing? Each of those understandings of it implies very different things, suggests very different examples and images, and seems to commit people to very different readings of Daoism. My own thought about the Zhuangzi is that there is more emphasis on something like “non-learned action” in both of senses of “learned”–picked up through training and picked up through advanced education or acculturation.

Another point is how much the concept of wuwei is particular to Daoism. There seems to be really one Confucian instance of it–the two-character phrase itself, at any rate–with the “non-doing” meaning, in Analects 15.5:

子曰：“無為而治者，其舜也與？夫何為哉，恭己正南面而已矣。”

The Master said, “May not Shun be instanced as having governed efficiently without exertion? What did he do? He did nothing but gravely and reverently occupy his royal seat.” [Legge]

But is the concept more generally influential in Chinese philosophical temperament? If so, in which sense or senses, and why?

The Good: Good For, Good At (shan 善), and Benefit (li 利)

Let’s see; I’m trying to figure out how to think about the ancient Chinese term shan 善, roughly “good,” in relation to the various senses of “good” that we as philosophers try to distinguish these days. This has a bearing on, among other things, what to make of the pre-Qin positions on human-nature-is-good (ren xing shan ye), bad (e 惡), neither, or both. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that shan means something more like “good at” (“competent”?), but I can’t recall exactly where–Graham? Nivison? Anyway, here are some senses of good that I’m used to hearing philosophers distinguish from among:

  1. “Good for” – this seems to be the primary “non-moral” sense of “good” that is used in discussing goods that can be indexed to individuals, groups, or things. X can be good for Y in the sense that X is of value to some end or interest of Y. We often speak of something good in this sense as a good or as goods. Such goods seem always quantifiable in this way.
  2. “Good at” – this seems to be a sense of “good” that tracks something like the Greek term for “excellence,” arete (αρετη–sorry for leaving out diacriticals; can’t seem to do them right now). X is good in this sense if X is capable or competent at doing or being something. Example: “As a golfer, Woods is really good.”
  3. “Morally or aesthetically good” – this seems to be a sense of “good” that has something to do with worth that “has no price” (to use a Kantian expression). X is good in this sense if it/he/she is praiseworthy for its/his/her own sake, not for its/his/her value to something else or at doing or being some particular thing. Examples: “That painting is good.” “She wasn’t good but she had good intentions.”

I’m pretty sure these are significantly distinct, non-overlapping senses of “good,” although something, or someone, might be good in all three senses. So, let me say or ask a few things.

First, are there more senses of “good” than this that are significantly different from any of them?

Second, it seems to me like we need to figure out which sense or senses of “good” shan overlaps with or else say what other sense it has; otherwise, obviously, we don’t have a handle on what the ren xing debate is about.

Third, it seems to me like li, “benefit,” is closely allied to the first sense, “good for.”

Some initial thoughts that I have: Shan never struck me as meaning “good at” mainly because I haven’t really seen uniformly in the contexts of its use that there is an indication of what something is “shan at.” If so, then it seems like we have to settle on either 1 (good for), 3 (morally/aesthetically good), or some overlap between them. But “good for” suffers from the same contextual problem as “good at”–e.g. it isn’t uniformly clear that there is something a shan thing is “shan for.” Could shan mean something more like morally or aesthetically good? Here is a reason not to go that way too quickly, though we might end up there eventually:

It seems to me like Xunzi, in his discussion of ren xing could be understood as investigating whether it is good at producing order and harmony (which seem themselves on the other had to be li 利, goods in the good for (humans) sense); Xunzi finds that ren xing is not at all good at producing them. However, that moves Xunzi to conclude that ren xing is e 惡, which seems pretty clearly to mean that it is unseemly or ugly. But that suggests either (a) that shan overlaps in meaning between “good at” and “morally/aesthetically good” and Xunzi is equivocating between his criticism of Mencius and his conclusion about ren xing; or (b) Xunzi’s criticism isn’t really about the incompetence of innate disposition to produce order and harmony. I think I prefer (a), but could it really be that shan is so much like the contemporary English term “good” that it has that much similarity in equivocation potential? My instinct here is to be suspicious about that. Any suggestions, comments, critical remarks, interlocutory agreement?

Velleman, Frankfurt, and Zhuangzi

I just ran across a fascinating paper by David Velleman, “The Way of the Wanton,” which he lists as a work in progress. It’s available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), for download, here. Anyone interested in Zhuangzi should find this very interesting. In the paper, Velleman gives a non-standard reading of Frankfurt’s early work (“Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68, (1971)) on second-order desiring, the idea of the self, “identification” with first-order desire, and Frankfurt’s idea of “wantonness.” It strikes me as an excellent example, not of comparative philosophy, but just plain philosophy that takes something “transportable” (?) in Chinese philosophy seriously.

To give a very brief synopsis of Velleman’s reading: Contrary to Frankfurt’s own conclusions, Velleman argues that a reflexive self–one that has second-order attitudes toward one’s own first order attitudes–doesn’t contribute to identification, but to something phenomenologically opposite, what he calls “dis-identification” (p. 14). Here’s the example Velleman gives:

“Being the subject of a desire usually entails being the subject of various thoughts symptomatic or expressive of the desire. Being thirsty, for example, entails thinking thirsty thoughts: looking around for quantities of liquid, wondering if they are potable, considering ways of reaching them, avidly imagining their taste, and so on. All of these thoughts are framed from the perspective of a potential drinker, but none explicitly represents the occupant of that perspective. They are framed from the point-of-view of a potential drinker who remains out of the picture, at the unrepresented origin of that point-of-view. Of course, the thoughts symptomatic of thirst may include the first-personal thought “I’m thirsty,” but that thought is in the first instance an atomic expression of thirst, like smacking one’s lips or crying ‘Water!’, rather than a compositionally analyzable attribution of thirst to oneself.

The difference between that expression of thirst and the attribution of thirst to oneself defines a continuum of possible thoughts that include awareness of one’s thirst in various degrees of explicitness. Sometimes one looks for a drink without yet knowing that one is thirsty; sometimes one looks for a drink while knowing about one’s thirst but not attending to it at all; sometimes one attends equally to the possible drink and the dryness of one’s throat or the urgency of one’s craving; sometimes one focuses on the thirst to the exclusion of the prospects for slaking it.

Across this continuum, one becomes progressively less engrossed in the activities motivated by thirst. At the former end are the cases in which one ‘loses oneself’ in gazing at the cool drink being served at the next table, or in peeling an orange, or in assaulting the shell of a cocoanut. In the middle of the continuum are the cases in which one undertakes such activities with cool self-possession. At the latter end are cases in which one is distracted by one’s thirst from the very activities that it would motivate. Cases of the first kind can end with the thought ‘Oh, I must be thirsty’: noticing that one’s attention has become engrossed in the pitcher of water carried by a waiter, one belatedly becomes aware of one’s thirst. Cases of the last kind can end with the thought ‘Stop thinking about how thirsty you are and get a drink!’

This last thought is naturally couched in the reflexive second-person, because it occurs when one has put a distance between oneself and one’s thirst—that is, between one’s reflecting self and one’s thirsting self. Attentively reflecting on one’s thirst entails standing back from it, for several reasons. First, the content of one’s reflective thoughts is not especially expressive of the motive on which one is reflecting: ‘I am thirsty’ is not an especially thirsty thought, not necessarily the thought of someone thinking thirstily. Second, attentive reflection is itself an activity—a mental activity—and as such it requires a motive, which of course is not thirst. Reflecting on one’s thirst is therefore a distraction from acting on one’s thirst, and in that respect it is even a distraction from being thirsty. Most importantly, though, consciousness just seems to open a gulf between subject and object, even when its object is the subject himself. Consciousness seems to have the structure of vision, requiring its object to stand across from the viewer—to occupy the position of Gegenstand.” (pp. 14-16)

Velleman thinks his reading of Frankfurt has some good news for Franfurtians (pp. 17-19) but also some bad news. I’ll skip to the bad news because it is relevant to Velleman’s discussion of Daoism in Zhuangzi. Frankfurt’s idea of identification as Velleman sees it, can’t really be an account of “the self”:

“But I have now interpreted higher-order volitions as identifying the agent with his motives, not in the normative sense of authorizing them to act as his proxies, but in the phenomenological sense of putting him ‘in touch’ with them, by bridging the reflective gap. Under my interpretation, Frankfurt’s theory becomes a theory of how to stay engaged or even engrossed in one’s activities, despite the distancing effects of reflexive consciousness. As such, it may no longer pick out a proper part of the psyche that (in Davidson’ words) ‘can execute the decision and take the rap’….

…[I]f Frankfurt’s theory is intended to solve the problem of reflexive awareness, as I suggest, then it may turn out to be a half measure, stopping short of a complete solution. Although we can bridge the reflexive gap and get “in touch” with our motives by means of higher-order volitions, we can eliminate the gap entirely by becoming so engrossed in an activity that we stop reflecting and lose ourselves. There is at least one philosophical tradition that recommends transcending reflexive awareness in this manner. It is the
Daoist tradition, especially as represented in the Zhuangzi. In my interpretation of Frankfurt, his theory of agency becomes a prolegomenon to that work.” (pp. 20-21)

Did you catch that last part? Velleman thinks of Frankfurt’s theory of agency as a kind of prolegomenon to the spontaneity (wuwei) views in the Zhuangzi. I’ll quote some snippets of his discussion of Zhuangzi and let you read the rest:

“The spiritual ideal expressed in the Zhuangzi is one of effortless action, as described by the phrase wu wei. The word wei means ‘action’, and wu wei is its negation — literally ‘non-action’. But ‘non-action’ does not mean doing nothing at all; it means acting without deliberate intention or effort — spontaneous activity….” (p. 21)

“The performance of artisans like Butcher Ding and Woodworker Qing is guided by an inexpressible knack. Wheelwright Pien says: ‘You can’t put it into words, and yet there’s a knack to it somehow. I can’t teach it to my son, and he can’t learn it from me’. The way to exercise such a knack is not to keep one’s eye on an ultimate goal, or to follow the precepts of a method, or even to focus on one’s actions themselves. On the contrary, Woodworker Qing must forget external goals (‘congratulations and rewards, titles or stipends’), forget evaluative judgment (‘blame or praise … skill or clumsiness’), and indeed forget himself: ‘I forget I have four limbs and a form and body’.” (pp. 22-23)

“Zhuangzi’s conception of spontaneous activity has been compared to the ‘flow’ experience described by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1990). Csikszentmihalyi
conducted research in which subjects were prompted to record their activities, and their feelings about them, at regular intervals during the day. He then identified a category of “optimal experiences” that occur in the course of highly challenging activities in which
the subject exercises appropriate skills.

According to Czikszentmihalyi, ‘flow’ begins as follows:

When all of a person’s relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity. There is no excess psychic energy left over to process any information but what the activity offers. All the attention is concentrated on the relevant stimuli. [53]

As in the ‘knack’ stories of the Zhuangzi, evaluative judgment is suspended

In normal life, we keep interrupting what we do with doubts and questions. ‘Why am I doing this? Should I perhaps be doing something else?’ Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions, and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic. [54]

Also as in the ‘knack’ stories, awareness of the self disappears:

[O]ne of the most universal and distinctive features of optimal experience [is that] people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing. [53]

Czikszentmihalyi goes on to explain that this loss of self-consciousness ‘does not involve a loss of self, and certainly not a loss of consciousness, but rather, only a loss of consciousness of the self’ (64).

As we have seen, Frankfurt regards reflexive awareness as the distinctive characteristic of humanity. A spiritual ideal of transcending reflexive awareness would thus be, in Frankfurt’s terms, an ideal of transcending what makes us human. But transcending what
makes us human is just what the Zhuangzi and Czikszentmihalyi recommend.” (pp. 24-25)

What do you think of this, as a reading of Zhuangzi or Frankfurt? Comments open…

Confucius and Aristotle – book review

With much thanks to Patrick for the heads up, here is the link to Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews‘ review of Jiyuan Yu’s The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue, a book that is on our Shamelessly Brief Book Review list.

While I’m thinking of it, here’s something that occurred to me while I was at the APA meetings last week, listening to Stephen Angle and Michael Slote talking about Bryan van Norden’s book, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy (also reviewed on Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews here). I wondered how things would look if instead of trying to read Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Xunzi, or other Chinese philosophers as virtue ethicists, Aristotelians, Humeans, Kantians, or consequentialists someone did a close comparative exegesis from the other direction: try to read Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Mill, Hursthouse, Slote, or some other Western philosopher as a Confucian, a ritualist, a Mohist, or Daoist. That’s probably a bit of the crank in me being tired of the philosophical taxonomy game that seems only concerned with assimilating Chinese philosophy into Western ethical theory.

On the other hand, I’m on record (comment #23) saying that “philosophy” is really a Western concept. So, maybe it’s really that I’m tired of the taxonomy game in either direction when it’s not clear what that gets us. So what if Mencius is more like Aristotle than Hume, or vice versa? Why not just try to understand Mencius as Mencian and just leave it at that? Am I just being cranky or missing something of value in the taxonomy enterprise?

By the way, this shouldn’t be construed as being about Jiyuan Yu’s book; I haven’t read it (nor have I formed any opinions about it yet!). Comments about Yu’s book or the review of it are, of course, welcome as well.

Value of Family in Confucianism

(Posting from Chicago O’Hare, while waiting to see if I can fly standby…Get me home!)

I’ve been wandering through the airport thinking about the supposed Confucian emphasis on the value of community and family – are these really properly, or particularly Confucian values? Three hypotheses for your consideration:

1) The character of the junzi seems pretty important as an individualistic ideal

  • the character of the junzi isn’t further specified according to its embodiment in family roles
  • the junzi’s character is really an expression of an individualistic ideal, even if it becomes applicable to ends of family and community
  • this is not unlike reasonable Western ideals of moral agency—they aren’t meant to have value apart from social ends; moral agency is primarily directed toward reasonability in social interactions

2) The family is a model, emblematic of the sorts of social interactions that are present in community as a whole, but does not have value-primacy of any sort

3) Community, in Confucian conceptions, is not in principle different from broad notions of civil society in the West

Well, these are meandering thoughts of a tired traveler, but I wonder what you think of the initial formulations…

Comparative Philosophy Metadiscussion

I’m at the Pacific Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association, in Pasadena CA this year. I just presented a paper last night on rectification of terms (zhengming 正名) and on “term-guidance” in general. Also heard a very interesting argument about Zhang Zai, the neo-Confucian by Jung-yeup Kim; Kim gives a non-monistic reading of Zhang’s views on qi. On the same panel, Wei-min Sun gave an interesting argument addressing Joseph Needham’s puzzle about why science didn’t develop, in particular the “theoretical” sciences, in China–short answer: no system of deductive logic developed in China. I’ll post some stuff about these things next week after I get back home.

Right now I’m off to hear an “author-meets-critics” panel on David Wong’s book Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (Oxford University Press, 2006). Here is a nice, detailed Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews review of it by Christopher Gowans. Enjoy, and feel free to comment on Wong’s project! I’ll try to take some notes during the session.