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Introduction |
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It was also Han Yu who set the canon for
the daoxue. He selected the Four
Classics as being the distillation of the true teaching. They are
The
‘Analects’ (论语, Lún Yǔ,) By the year 1241 these Four Books and Zhu Xi's commentary on them had become standard requirements of study for students attempting to pass the civil service examinations.[1]
[1]
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Anne Walthall, James B. Palais (2006). |
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Daoxue: Cosmological Beginnings |
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Significantly, the
same generative story holds true of Man and the Five Constant Virtues
proper to him (love (仁,
rén,) righteousness (义, yì,) propriety (礼, lǐ,) wisdom (知,
zhi,) and faithfulness
(xin,
信,))
so that these cosmologies had direct consequences for the way that humans
were supposed to behave. And that, of course, is the whole point of the
philosophy. The Neoconfucians did not abandon the fundamental ethical
concerns of the Confucians of previous times; rather they approached these
concerns through a much more complete philosophy of the world.
The various early
cosmologists chose to expand this common story in different ways. We shall
consider three of the most important, each of whom contributed to the
later and more sophisticated metaphysical and ethical teachings of the
daoxue.
Zhou Dunyi:
Diagramming the Supreme Ultimate
The first of our
cosmologists is
Zhōu Dūnyí (周敦頤,
1017-1073.) Taking his inspiration from a model that
probably originated amongst the Daoists, Zhou diagrammed his cosmology in
the
taijitu, ‘The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate.’
To this he appended his ‘Explanation,’ (太极图说, tài jí tú shuō) in which he states[1]:
The Ultimateless
(wuji)!
And yet the Supreme Ultimate (taiji)! The Supreme Ultimate
through Movement produces the yang.
This Movement having reached its limit, is followed by Quiescence, and by
this Quiescence, it produces the yin.
When Quiescence has reached its limit, there is a return to Movement. Thus
Movement and Quiescence, in alternation, become each the source of the
other.
The wuji
(无极)
with which he identified taiji
can be understood as a kind of reification of potentiality, as the
taiji is of actuality. In
combination they are the source of all things either real or possible;
but, as the quote indicates, they do not act directly. Zhou goes on to
describes how the yang and
yin produce the 5 elements, and result in change and transformation
without cease. And then he talks of Man:
… who receives these in their highest excellence and hence is the most
intelligent. His bodily form thereupon is produced and his spirit develops
intelligence and consciousness. The five principles of his nature
[the five constant virtues] react, so that the distinction between good and
evil emerges and the myriad phenomena of conduct appear. The sage
regulates himself by means of the mean, correctness, human-heartedness,
and righteousness, and takes Quiescence as the essential.
This Quiescence he
recommends also using the term wuyu
(无欲,) meaning ‘having no desires,’ in which the desires
that he speaks of are really just the ‘selfish’ desires. The implication
is clearly that Man’s default state, the state that is the result of
embracing Quiescence, is one in which our impulses are for the morally
good. In this respect Zhou Dunyi follows the teaching of Mencius, who
claimed that human nature was innately good, and in his championing of
passivity and inaction he is apparently influenced by the Daoists. For
Zhou, then, the way of the sage had to involve the renunciation of worldly
ambitions – even scholarly ambitions, finding contentment in less, and
achieving harmony with nature. As the
Yijīng says, ‘[the sage’s]
course is in harmony with the four seasons.’
The same book also
says that Sincerity is the
foundation of the sage. It is the foundation of the Five Constant Virtues,
and the source of all activities
and indeed, Zhou
was well known to take Sincerity (诚,
cheng)
as the touchstone for the sage’s character. It is ‘honesty, earnestness,
being true to oneself, being true to the nature of all things in the
universe;’ and it is the original and default character of
Shao Yong:
Interpreting the Hexagrams
Shào Yōng (邵雍,
1011-1073) was inspired by the hexagrams of the
Yijing, and in his ‘Book of Supreme World
Ordering Principles’
(皇极经世,
Huangji Jingshi)
used them to illustrate a theory of the processes that continually create
the world. These hexagrams are combinations of 6 lines, each of which is
either broken (- -) and represents
yin, or solid (– ) and represents
yang. He begins with an
interpretation of the statement from the
Yijing that in the
Yi there is the Supreme
Ultimate, which produces the Two Forms, which produce the Four Emblems,
which produce the eight trigrams (八卦,
bā guà.)
He then expands this idea to the hexagrams.
Shao Yong’s
interpretation of the statement was a bit different from Zhou Dunyi’s. For
Zhou the Two Forms just mentioned would have been yin and yang,
but for Shao Yong, they are Movement and Quiescence, represented by solid
or broken lines at the bottom of the trigram. Each additional line of the
hexagram may be either broken or solid, and Shao describes how these
represent in that position the actualization of a particular binary
possibility – hard or soft, greater or lesser, and so on. Taken as a
whole, each of the 64 hexagrams represents some aspect of the universe. In
his ‘Primeval Diagram’ Shao Yong arranged these figures in a circle with
the all-yang hexagram (干,
qián, ‘force’)
at the top and the all-yin one (坤, kūn,
‘field’) at
the bottom. The arrangement was supposed to be very significant,
representing the life cycle of things in the universe as they are born,
grow, reach maturity, decline, and die, but the details of this are not
important to us. What is important is the mechanism by which this process
is driven. In this system, since yin
and yang are dynamic, each of the binary possibilities that each line
represents will tend to move from one state to the other, and the thing
that the hexagram represents will change correspondingly. This is how the
universe is seen to be constantly in flux.
Zhang Zai:
Breathing
Qi
In his book the
‘The Correct Discipline for Beginners’ (正蒙,
cheng meng)
Zhāng Zǎi (张载, 1020-1077) made qi (气, qì) the central concept
of his system. Originally meaning no more than ‘breath’ or ‘air,’
qi came to mean Vital Spirit or
Material Force. When Zhang Zai read that “In the
Yi there is the Supreme Ultimate
which produces the Two Forms” he interpreted this quite differently again
from either Zhou Dunyi or Shao Yong. For Zhang Zai, the Supreme Ultimate
was to be identified with qi – by which he meant the material substance of the universe – and
the Two Forms it produces are, as for Zhou, the principles of
yin and
yang. The yin and the
yang in turn affect the
qi: when influenced by the
yang principle, the
qi takes on its properties of rising, floating, Movement, etc. When
affected by the yin principle,
qi has the properties of sinking
or Quiescence. Moreover, as the qi
is constantly in flux, it is constantly condensing and dissipating; and
when it condenses, that is the coming into being of some part of the
world; and when it dissipates, that is the going out of being of some
part. In the state of complete dissipation Zhang refers to
qi as the
Great Vacuity or the
Great Harmony; but even in that
state it is not nothing – it is, in fact, ultimate potentiality.
In a famous part of
the Cheng Meng called the
‘Western Inscription’ (ximing)
he notes that as people are part of the world, they are also composed of
qi. In fact, “That which fills
the Universe I regard as my body.” Thus we should respect Heaven and Earth
as we do our own parents, showing them the same filial loyalty; and we
should consider all men to be on a level with ourselves as children of
Heaven and Earth, and as our brothers. Loving them appropriately in this
way serves society and serves humanity. This is a great expansion of the
idea of proper brotherly love over that of the classic Confucians. It is
rather closer to the ideas of the Mohists, and is probably an attempt to
claim an admirable Buddhist ethic for
daoxue.
But Zhang’s idea of
human nature included more than just the essentially variable
qi nature of our physical stuff;
he also believed that there was an unvarying ‘original’ nature derived
somehow from the originating Great Harmony that constitutes our
real moral nature – and it is a good nature. Unfortunately the
working of the original nature is blocked by the working of the physical
nature – especially the desires that it generates – which prevents us
being normally good all the time. Although we cannot choose our initial
corrupting physical nature – it is essentially a matter of chance – it
is possible to work on it to bring it closer to the ‘original’
nature, or at least to make it less of a hindrance to the expression of
that original nature. Of course, accepting his idea that we are all parts
of one body (in qi) would assist
in our suppressing selfish desires.
Of more direct use,
however, was education – especially in ritual and the classics. Ritual,
the Confucians believed, was set up by the sages as a perfect model for
human action. It was, concluded Zhang Zai, a reflection of the original
nature of human beings. The study of ritual, if pursued with sincerity,
would be a guide to the uncovering of original nature, and could make one
a sage, which, of course, is the only goal worth pursuing.
[1]
Fung Yu-Lan (1964) A Short
History of Chinese Philosophy, |
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The Cheng Brothers |
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[1]
Philosophical
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Lixue: The Study of Principles |
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Cheng Yi’s contribution can be seen as the response to
a problem in the philosophies of Shao Yong and Zhang Zai. The
problem is that to say no more than that things come into being
through the movement of qi is not a sufficient explanation
for the coming into being of the infinitely various things of the
universe. Why does the condensation of
qi in one case produce
leaves and in another case produce flowers? A solution to problem
is, however, suggested by some features of those systems. In the
case of Shao Yong’s system, for example, it is clear that there is
a law or principle concerning the transformation of things – a
principle that is prior to the things themselves and that is not
produced by yin and
yang. This suggests that
other principles of the same sort are possible. Such principles
could then be used to explain that a leaf results from the
condensation of qi when it occurs according to the principle of leaves, and a flower
when it occurs according to the principle of flowers. Such is
Cheng Yi’s theory of principles or
li (理). Every thing in the world is the result of
material (qi) being
informed by a principle. These principles are eternal and
unvarying and independent of our knowledge of them.
Zhu Xi’s Theory
Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200) accepted this solution to the
problem,
but he
expanded it in order to fill gaps which are apparent. He
clarified, for example, the role of the Supreme Ultimate, the
taiji. The li of a thing,
as its principle, is also its standard,
ji (极),
of ultimate perfection. Considering the universe as a whole, it
too must have a ji. Thus he says Everything has an
ultimate, which is the ultimate
li. That which
unites and embraces the li
of heaven, earth, and all things is the Supreme Ultimate.[1]
Since the li
of everything is the principle of everything, it will be necessary
for each and every thing to be organized by the Supreme Ultimate.
In terms that Cheng Yi could appreciate: we can imagine a flower
being simultaneously organized by the principle of a flower, and
the principle of plants, and the principle of living things, and
the principle of things in general, and many other principles that
we can think of. These intermediate levels of organization did not
appear to impress Zhu Xi, but the idea of a principle applying to
a particular thing being subordinated to a universal principle in
the organizion of qi he
took to be of wide application. From this perspective, any thing
in the world is explicable in terms of: (1) the proper principle
for a thing, (2) its material power (qi), and (3) its norm,
tianming (天命,
tiānmìng), or ‘mandate
of heaven,’ which is also yet another term for the Supreme
Ultimate.
a.
Principle and the Person
The most significant application of this theory,
however, was to the concept of a person. It was taken to provide a
solution to a difficulty in the understanding of human nature that
had divided the Confucians of the classical period. The difficulty
was to understand the relationship that exists amongst the
mind-heart (心,
xin), the emotions (情,
qing), and the natural
human tendencies and dispositions (性,
xing) (what was often
meant by ‘human nature.’) These are all aspects of a human being
that seem to be independent, possibly non-physical, and often in
conflict. Zhu Xi’s solution was to analogize the
xin to the Supreme
Ultimate as the overall organizing principle that ‘unifies’ the
dispositions and the emotions.[2]
Dispositions, which may be considered as rules or
principles of behaviour, form a principle (li), and that principle together with the material power (qi)
organizes the emerging person. The dynamic and physical nature of
qi was what created a
corruption of the person, taking it away from the norm. One
characteristic form of corruption was to encourage emotions and
selfish desires. (Zhu Xi referred to this as the contrast between
daoxin (Mind of the Way) and
renxin (Mind of Humanity.))
To continue with the analogy of microcosm and macrocosm
for a moment: the mind-heart of a person on this understanding is
the basis of individual creativity and manifests the mandate of
heaven. It is a replication in the person of the cosmic
creativity. The four stages of creativity are correlated with the
four cardinal virtues, thus: origination/humanity (ren),
growth/propriety (yi),
flourishing/ritual conduct (li)
and firmness/discernment (zhi).
Humanity is thus part of the creative nature of the universe, and
as it assists in the creativity of others, it is thus primarily a
force for other-directedness.
In this way, then, Zhu Xi created a tripartite
perspective on the individual in terms of form (li),
dynamic (qi), and unity
(xin). The result of the
unification – i.e. if the person comes to be organized according
to the norm for persons – would be harmony and balance. This is a
desirable state, and Zhu Xi had something to say about achieving
it. He proposed that the trained
xin can recognise the
li in things – including
in itself, and it can make the distinctions between what is and
what ought to be that are required for ethical action and for
flourishing. Of those, the most important is the distinction
between principle as the form of human ethical action [what ought
to be done], and the dynamic human emotions tending to selfishness
[what is done.] Given this, all that is required now is to
recommend the proper ways to train the
xin.
b.
Investigating Things at Hand
Modes of praxis recommended by Zhu Xi included studying
the true meaning of the Confucian classics, and a form of
meditation known as quiet-sitting. Justified by the belief that
inner processes are mirrored in the outer processes, a more
characteristic mode was empirical research into the nature of the
external world in order to discover its principles. This was
called gewu (格物,
géwù,) the ‘investigation of things.’ One approached the study
with reverence (jing)
which helped one always to appreciate the need to act
appropriately (yi).
Cheng (sincerity) and ren (humanity) provide the
methods of cultivation of the various emotional dispositions.
Together with the knowledge
gained of principles, this should lead to appropriate actions. … the student must, for all the separate things in the world, by means of
the
li which he
already understands, proceed further to gain exhaustive knowledge
of those, thus striving to extend to the farthest point. When one
has exerted oneself for a long time, finally one morning a
complete understanding wil open before one. Thereupon there will
be a thorough comprehension of all the multitude of things,
external or internal, fine or coarse, and every exercise of the
mind will be marked by complete enlightenment.[3]
This vision of ‘Sudden Enlightenment’ must remind us of
the claims of the Buddhists; but, apart from that, the practice
recommended here has been seen as a prefiguring of the scientific
attitude.
[1]
Recorded Sayings,
juan 94. (Fung,
op. cit. p. 297.)
[2]
The similarity to Aristotle’s view of the psyche as the
second entelechy of body is remarkable – but beyond our
scope.
[3]
Commentary on the
‘Great Learning’, ch. 5. (Fung,
op. cit. p.
306.)
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Xinxue: The Study of Mind |
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Lu Jiuyuan’s
Critique
Lù Jiǔyuān (陆九渊, aka:
陆象山, Lù Xiàngshān, 1139-1192) disagreed with Zhu Xi
that empirical research should be at the same level as
inner discovery. He thought that inner knowledge was a
necessary guide to learning about the outer world. The
inner world presented the principle more clearly and with
less chance of misdirection than the outer world.
Bomin asked: How is one to investigate things?
And he drew a drastic
conclusion from such considerations: that ‘the universe is
my mind, and my mind is the universe.’ Given this, of
course, it is natural to say that anyone else’s mind is
also the universe, and so: ‘My mind, my friend’s mind,
the minds of the sages generations ago, and the minds of
the sages in generations to come are all one.’
Wang Yangming’s Critique
Wang Yangming (王阳明, aka: Wang Shouren,
守仁,
1472-1529) agreed with Lu’s initial critique. In part this was because he
had practised Zhu Xi’s recommended
gewu and had
seen that it could not succeed. He and
a few of his friends once tried for seven days to
‘contemplate’ their way to the principle of bamboo, but
eventually had to admit failure. He concluded that looking
to the outside world for the principle that was most
obviously accessible in oneself was a mistake. One needed,
rather, to look
within for principle.
“My own nature is, of course, sufficient for me to attain
sagehood. And I have been mistaken in searching for the
li [principle] in external things and affairs.” In
particular enlightenment could be found through the study
of xin – hence
the name of the school
Wang justified the emphasis
on the study of xin
on more than just epistemological grounds however. He also
made a metaphysical point by taking seriously Zhu Xi’s
analogy of xin
and taiji
mentioned above. The most obvious way in which this
analogy could be ‘cashed out’ would be to say that the
mind-heart was not a thing composed of
qi instantiating
the operation of consciousness as Zhu Xi had understood it
to be, but was exactly the
li that was the
norm for persons. It is
like the
superior principle because it
is that
principle. This is the claim that Wang makes in his famous
phrase ‘xin ji li,’
meaning ‘the mind is the principle.’ Naturally, if this is
the case, then the study of mind
is the study of
principle (and possibly
vice versa.)
a.
The Normative and the Actual Mind
There are, however, problems
that arise from taking this proposition seriously: chief
amongst them being one due to the philosopher Luo Qinshun.
Luo said that, if ‘the mind is the principle,’ and the
mind is thus identified with the norm for a person, then
it would seem that the mind as it is, as it actually
exists and in the things that it actually does,
is the ideal
that ought to be sought. If that were the case then (apart
from being an implausibly flattering picture of the mind)
it would obviously be rather destructive of the
possibility of justified moral criticisms of persons – and
there could be no
possibility of self-improvement or enlightenment. This
is not the case, however, because the
xin, as principle, has various possible states of realisation in the
world, and Wang was thereby able to make an important
distinction between two states – or rather between one
state and the class of all other states. One state of
xin he
identified as the ‘Mind-in-Itself’ (心之本体, xin zhi benti) which
may be thought of as the Original Mind – or the state of
mind that would have been realised from the beginning if
there were not obstructions to its perfect realisation.
The other states of
xin he called by the name ‘Human-Mind’ (renxin:) they are the Actual Mind – the states by which original
xin is realised
in the world, and they are all corrupted by particular
desires to various degrees. We can thus think of
Mind-in-Itself or Original Mind as the normative state of
the mind-heart-principle and Human-Mind or Actual Mind as
its actual state; and self-improvement in terms of moving
from one’s current Human-Mind towards Mind-in-Itself is a
possible, reasonable, and justifiable goal for the sage.
In fact that is exactly what Wang proposed.
b.
Innate Knowing
Note however, that Original
Mind is the same kind of thing as Actual Mind, and one can
realise the principle involved just by purifying the
actual states of the Human-Mind of their selfish desires.
But that purification doesn’t
add anything to
either the Original Mind or the Human-Mind – everything
true and good in any Human-Mind was always there in the
Mind-in-Itself; so that we would naturally claim that
anything in the world that
can be known is known in a
certain sense – and it is known by all of us. This claim
for knowledge is explicitly made by Wang in the case of
the knowledge involved in distinguishing the corruptions
of the mind from the original mind. This knowledge he
called ‘Innate Knowing’ (良知, liangzhi,) and it is a kind of knowing
that requires no learning (but only ‘unlearning’ the
corruptions by throwing off the selfish desires that
create them,) and therefore offers the opportunity of
enlightenment to those who are not suited to deep
intellectual thought. It is a doctrine to justify Wang’s
claim that “All the people filling the street are sages.”
c.
The Mind and the World
A further consequence that
Wang drew from his focus on the mind was that the world
iself should not be seen as separate from the mind. The
way that we should look at the world is as “that to which
the operation of the mind is directed.” The reasoning was
apparently similar to that of Bishop Berkeley: that our
knowledge of the world is only an activity in our mind
resulting from activity in our perceptions (also a part of
the mind) and therefore it is most plausibly supposed that
the world itself is entirely in our mind. Why propose
something other than the mind as the integrating cause of
our worldly experiences if it’s not necessary? But if that
is the case, then this is just another reason that direct
investigation of the ‘external’ world as a way to get at
the principle of our mind is misdirected: the external
world is just the object of our attention, and not a thing
that can be known independently of knowing the mind.
d.
Acting and Knowing
In contrast with the standard
view that one gains knowledge and is then prepared for
action, Wang Yangming promoted the doctrine of the ‘Unity
of Knowledge and Action’ (知行合一,
zhixing heyi). According to him
“Knowledge is the direction
for action and action is the effort for knowledge” and
“Knowledge is the beginning of action and action is the
completion of knowledge.” This would seem to be yet
another consequence of his metaphysical view. Since
Original Mind is the realisation of the principle of
humanity, and the principle of humanity is the norm for a
person, describing how a person ought to be and act, it
would seem to follow that Original Mind is the realisation
of moral action. So, in so far as a person’s Actual Mind
approaches to the Original Mind, moral knowledge and moral
action are equally realised. To understand a thing is at
the same time to act properly concerning it. Of course it
is possible for one to know that something is the right
thing to do and yet to fail to do it, but in cases such as
this Wang would have said that action
and knowledge were both obscured by selfish desires causing Actual
Mind to be different from Original Mind. Thus he said:
“There have never been people who know but do not act.
Those who are supposed to know but do not act simply do
not yet know.”[2]
[1]
Huang-Siu-chi. (1977) Lu Hsiang-shan: A Twelfth
Century Chinese Idealist Philosophy.
[2]
And the similarity of this claim to Socrates’s
claim is also remarkable.
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Conclusion |
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