Conflict and Harmony in Comparative Philosophy : Selected Works from the 2013 Joint Meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy [1 ed.] 9781443881258, 9781443877954

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Conflict and Harmony in Comparative Philosophy

Conflict and Harmony in Comparative Philosophy: Selected Works from the 2013 Joint Meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Edited by

Aaron B. Creller

Conflict and Harmony in Comparative Philosophy: Selected Works from the 2013 Joint Meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Edited by Aaron B. Creller This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Aaron B. Creller and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7795-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7795-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................... vii Aaron B. Creller Part I: Harmony and the Past Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony: Parity between Microcosm (Pi۬‫ڲ‬a) and Macrocosm (BrahmƗ۬‫ڲ‬a) Shashi Prabha Kumar Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 13 Polemos and Dao: Conflict and Harmony in Heidegger and Zhuangzi Steven Burik Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 29 “Interrogating” Comparative Philosophy: The Prevalence of the Combat Metaphor Sarah Mattice Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 39 Musicality in Ritual: Lessons from Music in the Zhongyong Chow Lee Tat Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 55 Harmonizing Knowledge: Using Resources from Classical Chinese Philosophy to Reintegrate TechnƝ and EpistƝmƝ Aaron B. Creller Part II: Harmony and Conflict Embodied Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 66 Embodied Emotions and Embodied Mind: The Chan Notion of Freedom Ellen Zhang

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Table of Contents

Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 83 Reflections on Robert Solomon’s Ideation of Emotion and Mencius’ Moral Cultivation of “Embodied Emotion” Eva Kit Wah Man Chapter Eight ............................................................................................. 97 Whistling to Summon Spirits: Daoist attempts to Whistle what “Cannot be Said” Marthe Chandler Part III: Harmony in Politics Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 112 “Confucian Cultural Fallacy” in the 20th Century Chinese Enlightenment Movement WEN Haiming Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 127 Between Chaos and Vagueness: The Extremes that Threaten a Harmonious Society Joshua Mason Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 139 Do Economic Rights Conflict with Political Rights? An East and West Cultural Debate Benedict S. B. Chan Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 148 Nichiren and War Tony See Notes........................................................................................................ 157 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 177 List of Contributors ................................................................................. 191

INTRODUCTION

The theme of harmony and conflict is representative of the allure of comparative philosophy. On the one hand, these two concepts appear to cross many, if not all, cultural boundaries. From the perspective of a “western” tradition steeped in Greek-derived meaning, these terms suggest universal conditions of struggle and balance. A commonality such as this might be naively taken as more important than any differences, thus contributing to one’s assumption that harmony and conflict are necessary categories. On the other hand, the differences between approaches to harmony, conflict, or their relationship to one another reveal broader differences between philosophical traditions. These differences often take the form of evoking contrasting sets of conceptual frameworks, standards of good thinking, and metaphorical associations. However, taken to an extreme, focusing on differences to the exclusion of any similarity leads to problems of incommensurability, which undermines comparative methodology itself. Operating between—or perhaps simultaneously in—these two modes is what makes comparative philosophy so special. This collection of papers from the 2013 Joint Meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy is a sampling of this process. Representing only a portion of the papers delivered at this conference, the selections in this volume range across a variety of time periods, traditions, and philosophical methodologies. To organize such a variety, the selections have been arranged into three parts. In the first part, “Harmony and the Past,” the selections articulate basic historical and cultural approaches to harmony and conflict. The first two chapters examine Vedic, Greek-Heideggerian, and Zhuangzian approaches to harmony. In “Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony,” Shashi Prabha Kumar examines the connection between the embodied and the cosmic senses of harmony and conflict within the context of the Veda. Steven Burik’s essay, “Polemos and Dao,” explores the similarities and differences between Heidegger’s approach to harmony and conflict through Greek sources and the Zhuangzi. The third and fourth essays discuss conflict and classical Chinese philosophy. Sarah Mattice explores the conflicts within philosophy related to the metaphors that philosophers

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Introduction

make use of in “‘Interrogating’ Comparative Philosophy,” where she argues that the classical Chinese philosophical context did not make use of such combat-oriented metaphors, unlike the early Greeks. Chow Lee Tat’s essay, “Musicality in Ritual,” looks to interpretations of music in the Zhongyong, examining the problems associated with reading the text through a theistic lens. Lastly, in the fifth chapter, Aaron B. Creller examines the political implications of the tensions between Aristotle’s epistƝmƝ and technƝ, while trying to find a possible way of harmonizing the hierarchical tension between the two with resources from the Zhuangzi, in the essay “Harmonizing Knowledge.” In the second part, “Harmony and Conflict Embodied,” all of the selections touch on the embodiment of harmony and conflict, especially in the form of emotions and physicality. In “Embodied Emotions of Embodied Mind: The Chan Notion of Freedom,” Ellen Zhang examines the tension in Buddhist approaches to non-attachment as the cutting off of thinking and feeling, while at the same time incorporating emotion as part of enlightenment. She resolves this tension by examining Chan Buddhism’s non-dualistic approach to feeling and thinking as embodiedemotions, comparing such an approach with similar trends in phenomenology and existentialism. Eva Kit Wah Man examines the complexity of emotion through a comparison of Robert Solomon’s work and the Mencius in “Reflections on Robert Solomon’s Ideation of Emotion and Mencius’ Moral Cultivation of ‘Embodied Emotion’.” The eighth essay, “Whistling to Summon Spirits: Daoist Attempts to Whistle What ‘Cannot be Said’” by Marthe Chandler, involves the connection between the Daoist practice of whistling and embodiment within a qi cosmology. In the final part, “Harmony in Politics,” each selection considers the importance of harmony and conflict in the political realm. In Chapter Nine, “‘Confucian Cultural Fallacy’ in the 20th Century Chinese Enlightenment Movement,” WEN Haiming examines the connection between culture and historical determination, especially as it relates to the political sphere in contemporary China. Joshua Mason continues the consideration of Chinese politics in his examination of the conditions that create harmony and strife in society in his piece, “Between Chaos and Vagueness: The Extremes that Threaten Harmonious Society.” Chapter Eleven examines the tensions surrounding rights in Benedict S. B. Chan’s “Do Economic Rights Conflict with Political Rights? An East West Cultural Debate.” In the final chapter, Tony See discusses the connection between the politics of World War II Japan and the philosophical stance of Buddhism in “Nichiren and War.”

PART I: HARMONY AND THE PAST

CHAPTER ONE VEDIC VIEW OF COSMIC HARMONY: PARITY BETWEEN MICROCOSM (PI۫‫ڱ‬A) AND MACROCOSM (BRAHMƖ۫‫ڱ‬A) SHASHI PRABHA KUMAR

Mankind today is passing through a critical phase where all aspects of the universe seem to be in a mode of conflict and the quest for harmony is greater than ever. It is in this background that the profound Vedic vision can offer fresh insights into future possibilities. This exposition is a modest attempt in the same direction.

I The present paper intends to explore and expound the Vedic idea of inherent synergy between the gross (embodied) and subtle (disembodied) levels of existence. The scope of this exposition is mainly restricted to the original Vedic sources, i.e. the four Vedic SaীhitƗs, BrƗhma৆as, Ɩra৆yakas and the Upaniৢads.1

II The Veda is the most ancient available literary document of mankind and it proclaims that life is a divine opportunity.2 It exhorts all human beings as the sons of immortality and enunciates that there is complete coordination among all aspects of existence in the universe.3 The Vedic principle of ‫܀‬ta4 represents the sublime inviolable moral regularity of the cosmos as also being the inner harmony and order of a man’s conduct.5 Accordingly, it signifies that there is a parallelism between the embodied human being and the disembodied cosmic existence. The same is suggested by an oft-quoted (but anonymous) dictum of Vedic interpretation, that the human body is a micro model of the macrocosm: yat pi۬‫ڲ‬e tat brahmƗ۬‫ڲ‬e.

Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony

3

It needs to be noted here that the word “pi۬‫ڲ‬a” means “body” and “brahmƗ۬‫ڲ‬a” stands for “the cosmos”: “In Sanskrit religio-philosophical literature, pi۬‫ڲ‬a and brahmƗ۬‫ڲ‬a are used as a pair to speak of everything from an individual to all the creation around him.”6 It means that just as the human body is an abode of the individual self, similarly the entire cosmos is the abode of the Supreme Self. The earth is whose base (foot or prama), the midspace whose belly, and who has made the sky his head, to him, the Eldest Lord supreme, let our homage be.7

From this point of view, anyone who aims to resolve all sorts of conflicts and attain harmony has to begin with the immediate rather than the mediate, the proximate rather than the remote, and the visible rather than the invisible.8 There is no doubt about the fact that the most immediate reality for everyone is one’s own personal experience, and the real conflict is also not with others, but with oneself. This is so because the seeds of conflict or amity are actually rooted in the mind of the individual and if the mind is attuned in such a manner that there is no intra-personal disturbance then inter-personal disputes will automatically be dissolved. Consequently, a harmonious complementarity between bipolar opposites such as untruth and truth, darkness and light, mortality and immortality will also be accomplished. In other words, if we aspire to achieve global peace, then first we have to be at peace within ourselves.

III It is in this background that the Vedic view propounds a complete, cohesive philosophy of life in which the body, mind and sense organs of a person are all working in complete cooperation for healthy and happy living. Vedic Saীhitas abound in such prayers where not only physical health is aspired toward, but mental strength and spiritual power is also sought as follows: Whatever distressing lacuna I have in my vision, in my heart or in my thought, may the Lord Supreme remove that. May gracious to us be He, who is the Lord of the whole universe.9

It must be reiterated that to accomplish this goal of perfect harmony, one has to begin with oneself, i.e. to control and contain negative emotions such as anger, greed, hate and jealousy, as is manifested in the following Vedic prayers:

Chapter One

4

May I never be swayed by (my weak impulses like) aversion.10 Let no one so ever hate us.11

On the other hand, positive feelings such as universal empathy, global concord and cosmic goodwill need to be strengthened, as is expressed in the following Vedic verses: May there be proper understanding with our own people, proper understanding with strangers; O twins divine (AĞvinau), may both of you develop proper understanding among us here.12 I hereby bring about unity of your hearts and unity of minds, free from malice. May each one of you love the other as a cow loves its new-born calf.13 Let my mind be always enlivened by noble and righteous resolves.14

It is also noteworthy here that the Vedic view is not prescriptive; it does not enjoin one to act in a certain way, rather it directs one towards self-motivation and exhorts to first elevate oneself through autosuggestions like the following, and then to seek divine help for the same: O evil thought, go far away, why do you suggest abominable things. Get away!15 Whoever, our hostile kin or an outsider, wants to destroy us, May all the Devas discomfit him!16

IV There is no denying the fact that universal conflict between evil and good, ignoble and noble is eternal. There are several depictions of this constant struggle17 in the Vedic literature which narrates it in the form of a battle between divine and demonic forces (devasura-sa۪grƗma).18 But actually this struggle is only metaphorical in the sense that there is an inner essence to the literal depiction; it emphasises the supremacy of right over wrong, light over darkness and immortal spirit over mortal physicality.19 More importantly, this tussle is not only in the outer physical world, but also in the inner mental space of every human being, so the Vedas propose an optimistic outlook according to which truth always prevails

Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony

5

over falsity and light over darkness; that is why an alert human being crosses over from untruth towards truth20 and there is always a transition from darkness to light: Darkness is replaced with the luster of light.21

It is this positive message of the Vedic sources which can guide humanity in its search for holistic development and also provide an everlasting link between both realms: personal as well as global. Therefore, the well-known Vedic prayer for cosmic peace actually culminates in an explorative journey of self-enrichment: May the sky be peaceful; may the mid-space be peaceful; may the earth be peaceful; may the waters be peaceful; may the annual plants be peaceful; may the forests be peaceful; may all the bounties of Nature be peaceful; may the knowledge be peaceful; may all the things be peaceful; may there be peace and peace only; may such a peace come to me!22

The ultimate phrase of this prayer, “may that peace come to me which is pervading the whole cosmos,” is actually the clue for the resolution of all inner conflicts. It means that there can be peace throughout the external world, provided that there is peace within one’s own heart, since no idea of harmony can be actualized if one is mentally disturbed. According to the Vedic view, a human is the most fortunate of beings, who, in spite of possessing several animal instincts, can overcome all of these and transform himself totally, so much so that his ascent and upliftment can take him to the level of divinity.23 In a gvedic verse, it is desirable for six such embodied animal instincts to be thwarted: O Lord of resplendence, destroy the evil feelings, whether these come in the fiendish garb of an owl, or of an owlet, or of a dog, or of a wolf, or of a falcon or of a vulture.24

These six negative attitudes respectively symbolize six creatures other than human beings as follows: darkness anger jealousy lust

ĸĺ ĸĺ ĸĺ ĸĺ

owl owlet dog wolf

Chapter One

6

pride greed

ĸĺ ĸĺ

falcon vulture

Significantly, it is implied herein that such degrading inner instincts are more harmful than external enemies, because these endanger the saner aspect of humanity. At the same time, it is only given to human beings that they can first distinguish between good and evil, and then overcome the latter by strengthening the former. So, it is envisaged in Vedic sources that the finest formula for resolving a conflict between vice and virtue begins within each one of us; those who know their immortal inner being, they are truly the knowledgeable ones, because only they are capable of realising the essence of Supreme global power: They who recognize the Lord Supreme in Puruৢa (the embodied man), they know the Parameৢ৬hi (the Lord of the highest abode). He, who knows the Parameৢ৬hi and he who knows the creator (PrajƗpati); Those who know the eldest Lord Supreme (Jyeৢ৬ha Brahma), they come to know the Skambha (the support of the universe).25

V As already mentioned, the human body is held to be the microcosm and is said to be the sacred substratum of the immortal spirit in the Vedic view. It is said to be the most coveted creation of the divine: Having fused the mortal man complete, the divine forces entered the human form.26 For all deities are dwelling within (the human body), as cows stay in a cow-stall.27

The human body is ordained first and foremost as the means for fulfilling one’s obligations28 to oneself, to one’s family and to society at large; it is held to be the most superior model of complementarity and coordination among its different parts. It is therefore held to be a sacred dwelling for different divine faculties: With eight circles and nine gates or portals impregnable is the castle of the enlightened ones. Therein lies the golden chest, conductor to the world of bliss-encompassed by brilliant light.29

Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony

7

In another Vedic verse, it is stated that thirty-three gods have entered the human body, just as these divine forces have formed the cosmic abode of the Supreme Self.30 Therefore, he who knows this body (pi۬‫ڲ‬a), verily knows the cosmos (brahmƗ۬‫ڲ‬a). The significance of the human body in the Vedic tradition is beautifully delineated in a narrative of the Aitareya Upaniৢad, as follows: When the creator was requested by the gods to provide them with an abode through which they could enjoy food, etc., he first brought a cow’s body before the divine forces to inhabit, and they disapproved of it. Thereafter, he brought the body of a horse, but the divinities did not like it [either]. Finally the lord brought [a] human body and they all shouted happily: This is perfect, this is good. Then he asked all the divine forces to enter different parts of the human body. Fire, becoming speech, entered the mouth. Air, becoming breath, entered the nostrils. Sun, becoming sight, entered the eyes. Directions, becoming sound, entered the hearing organ. Herbs and plants, becoming hair, entered the skin. Moon, becoming mind, entered the heart. Death, becoming exhalation (apƗna), entered the navel. Water, becoming semen, entered the generative organ.31

Therefore, the human body represents the whole cosmos; it needs to be respected and cared for, but only as a means to the ultimate goal of selfrealization and not only as an end in itself. The value of the mortal human body lies in the fact that it is an abode of the immortal self. The same is succinctly stated in the Ka৬ha Upaniৢad as follows: Know this Self to be the rider, the body to be the chariot, the intellect to be the charioteer and the mind to be reins. The senses are the horses, and the sense objects are the path on which they run. One who is united with the self, the sense and the mind is called the enjoyer.32

The Veda proclaims that human life is a rare gift, wherein all of the three regions of the cosmos are represented: the highest or uppermost part of human body is in fact the parallel of the celestial sphere; the middle portion symbolizes the midspace, while the lower part indicates the terrestrial earth. Anyone who realizes the spiritual secret of this splendor bestowed upon him in the form of the human body will not only be enabled to live a life of harmony amongst all the parts of it, but will also

8

Chapter One

experience amity amidst the variety of existence within oneself; this sentiment is echoed in the following proclamation of the Yajurveda: O Man! I lay heaven and earth within you, I lay midspace in you. Live the life of amity and harmony amidst the bounties of Nature. Help the needy, show cordiality even to those who envy you.33

VI In accordance with the above, the Vedic view propounds that once the individual is at peace with himself, he can proceed on the path of happiness for others around him. The first significant outcome of this positive attitude is genuine gender equality; the seemingly eternal conflict between male and female is not real in the Vedic view, because both male and female are considered to be twin aspects of the same reality. As per Vedic cosmogony, the Supreme Being divided himself in two equal halves at the beginning of creation.34 Needless to say, one of the most disturbing problems of human existence today is the widely prevalent gender conflict. So, the Vedic idea of perfect parity between male and female is an important source in the direction of cosmic harmony.35 According to Vedic delineation, there is complete equality between both the sexes; neither is the better or worse half—they are just two equal halves of the same substance.36 This is more eloquently expressed in the Vedic marriage ceremony wherein a perfect companionship between the husband and wife is solicited, so much so that they are said to act like a single unit; that is why both of them are designated as dampatƯ37 (two owners of the house) after marriage. In fact, marriage in the Vedic view is said to be an inseparable bond which is undertaken to accomplish all the religious duties together for the welfare of the family and society, and ultimately for the fulfillment of a higher goal in life, i.e. dharma (obligation). It is not without reason, then, that the wife is stated to be dharmapatnƯ (lawful partner in sacred rituals, since she occupies a more exalted status in the familial role), while the husband is held to be merely a g‫܀‬hapati (householder).38

VII This brings us to the point of pleasure and good, desired and the desirable, i.e. preyas and Ğreyas, to use the Vedic terms. The Vedic view does not deplore enjoying the physical pleasures of life, but exhorts

Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony

9

humanity to practice restraint in every field of life; this restrained and regulated conduct at both micro and macro levels is expressed through the terms ‫܀‬ta and satya in Vedic philosophy. Accordingly, ‫܀‬ta represents cosmic order at the global level while satya suggests moral strength at the individual level; both of these principles are stated as originating from the blazing tapas39 (spiritual fire, purifying and refining human nature40) of the Supreme. It is re-affirmed in the Atharvaveda that ‫܀‬ta, satya, tapas and many more such values are lodged in the different limbs of the Supreme Being (skambha): In which part of him the austerities (tapas) abide; in which part of him the eternal law (‫܀‬ta) is laid; where the vow (vrata); in which part of him resides the faith (ĞraddhƗ); in which part of him is the truth (satya) well established.41

There is no doubt about the fact that the contemporary consumeristic attitude has taken us to an alarming level of ecological imbalance while the Vedic view propounds a balance between indulgence (bhoga) and abstinence (tyƗga)42 so that there is harmony between the external Nature as well as the internal nature: Enjoy it, knowing full well that it will have to be renounced. Do not be greedy. To whom do the riches belong?

This fine formula for enjoying the bounties of Nature without harming or exploiting the ecosphere is another aspect of the Vedic view, complementary to cosmic harmony which is expressed in Vedic prayers such as the following one addressed to mother earth: Whatever I dig from thee, O Mother Earth, May it have quick growth again; Purifier, May we not injure thy vitals or thy heart!43

Here earth is depicted as a personified form of all the natural resources which actually symbolize cosmic existence. But the emotional bond between a human being and the earth is worth emulating. The Vedic view propounds a complete communion between man and Nature; the external as well as the internal space have to work in unison because all forms of existence are intertwined in an integral relationship. It means that human beings across cultures should not only strive for the conservation of natural resources, but should also have a genuine concern and practice a sense of respect towards them. In fact, the totality

10

Chapter One

of an inclusive view is much more relevant for cosmic harmony than the fragmented approach being adopted today. The traditional Vedic view in this regard is that the management of natural resources has to be based on inter-generational equity which is inherent in the Indian notion of three debts, i.e. ‫۬܀‬atraya.44 The same is very beautifully described by a contemporary thinker in the following words: “We have not inherited the land from our ancestors, we have borrowed it from our children.”45 It is noteworthy that empathy for fellow beings is the cornerstone of cosmic harmony, so the Vedic view aspires that: May one person protect the other.46

According to Vedic philosophy, this type of feeling has to be inculcated by one and all, since the whole universe is just a single dwelling for all its inhabitants: All this world is in fact the common nest.47

Therefore, Vedic prayers like the following ones for a disease-free and healthy existence of all the residents of this universe are only natural: All beings around us are nourished and become exempt from disease.48 May all the living beings of this world be free from diseases and be hale and hearty.49

The Veda in fact even goes beyond empathy among human beings and envisages sympathy and friendship for each and every being of the cosmos: May all the beings look at me with [a] friendly eye. Thus may we all be looked at with a friendly eye.50 Among those, whom I see and those, whom I do not see, may you cultivate friendship for me.51

It is in this background that the welfare of bipeds as well as quadrupeds is desired in several places in the Vedas: Be the bringer of prosperity to our bipeds and quadrupeds.52 May you grant happiness to our progeny and safety to our cattle.53

Vedic View of Cosmic Harmony

11

VIII What follows from the above is that the Vedic view emphasizes an underlying unity of the entire cosmos; all the living and non-living beings are in fact various reflections of the same Supreme Reality which has manifested itself in many forms: One is that which manifests in all.54 In every figure of his creation, the resplendent Lord has been a model.55

Therefore, he who sees divinity in all the manifested forms of the cosmos has to respect each and every entity thereof. Another aspect of mutual care and concern in the Vedic view is expressed through the principle of sacrifice (yajña) which is a key concept for cosmic harmony. The principle of yajña also operates at both levels: the individual as well as the global. The individual yajña is an internal process wherein the human body itself is the altar, while speed, sight, vitality and mind are the various priests.56 At the cosmic level, yajña is being performed by several forces of Nature like the Sun, fire, air, water, earth and sky, etc. A sense of genuine gratitude towards all of these natural forces impels one to offer his best for them, so that they too shower their choicest blessings on mankind in return. This reciprocal gesture known as “yajña” in the Vedic tradition is the secret to ecological balance and spiritual satisfaction. The universe is created, sustained and destroyed through the cosmic principle of yajña. That is why the Vedas proclaim “yajña” to be the best of actions57 which is said to be the fulfiller of all desires. Accordingly, each householder is supposed to observe five types of daily yajñas through which the supreme knowledge (brahmayajña), divine forces (devayajña), ancestors including one’s parents (pit‫܀‬yajña), fellow human beings and guests (n‫܀‬yajña or atithiyajña) as well as all other living beings (bhnjtayajña) are propitiated.58

IX Another significant concept of Vedic philosophy is the triple interpretation of all its verses, namely spiritual (ƗdhyƗtmika), atmospheric (Ɨdhidaivika) and material (Ɨdhibhautika). It implies that there is an inherent amity amongst the grossly physical, the supra-physical or the middle, and last but not least, the subtle spiritual level. Accordingly, whatever takes place within oneself is known as adhyƗtama,59 i.e. the self, mind, sense organs and vital air, etc., which dwell within the body, are

12

Chapter One

included in this category. But the same divine forces, which are earlier interpreted as adhyƗtma, can also be explained as adhidaivata when they are pervading the external physical world. So the Sun, moon, air, planets, sky, etc., are all adhidaivata in nature.60 The third term, adhibhnjta, denotes all other living beings, who represent these divine forces at the gross material level.61 For example, fire can be interpreted in the three ways as follows: (i) from the adhyƗtma point of view, it is speech within the body (ii) at the adhidaivata level, it is the subtle, deified fire as well as the physical and visible fire which burns (iii) from the adhibhnjta aspect, it represents the embodied speaker62 This provides an integral insight into the comprehensive vision of the Vedas and also paves a path for a broader understanding of the text within its proper context.

X To sum up, it may be said that the Vedic philosophy presents a holistic vision of the universe in which the individual as well as global realms are held to be two ends of the same single thread. From this point of view, there is an essential unity between the two levels of existence, since an embodied individual being is held to be the micro model of the disembodied macro-cosmic universe. Accordingly, whatever takes place at the personal level does definitely affect universal existence. Therefore each one of us is potentially capable as well as morally responsible for our own individual state of being and also for the world around us. Let us conclude, then, by the following the Vedic verse wherein universal goodness is sought: O Gods! May we listen with our ears to what is good, and, O Holy Ones! See with our eyes what is good; and may we, with firm limbs and bodies, offering praise-songs to you, enjoy the divinely ordained term of life.63

CHAPTER TWO POLEMOS AND DAO: CONFLICT AND HARMONY IN HEIDEGGER AND ZHUANGZI STEVEN BURIK

Introduction Using Heidegger’s reinterpretation of Heraclitus and the philosophical Daoism of Zhuangzi, this article argues for a reinterpretation of notions of conflict and harmony in the two thinkers. I start with an exposition of how Heidegger understands ideas of strife and confrontation in ways fundamentally different from the usual, giving such notions a new interpretation. Accordingly, Heidegger also understands the ancient Greek notions of logos and polemos in radically different ways from their “normal” or “traditional” meanings, attaching great importance to both terms in a rereading of Heraclitus. I then proceed to analyse Zhuangzi’s ideas connected to harmony and tie those to his understanding of the world in terms of opposing yet complementary forces, and argue how a comparison of both thinkers can show us a new understanding of the ideas of difference, conflict, and harmony. It will be shown that harmony in Zhuangzi is not to be understood as a dialectical resolution to conflict, but more as a way of situating oneself within the different forces, entailing a certain form of response to conflict and diversity. As such, this article should also be seen as an attempt to reread the notion of harmony with a view to its place in the wider correlative or relational focus that is a feature of Daoist thought. Heidegger’s thoughts will be employed to show an approach to difference that is opposed to a Hegelian resolution or sublimation of the difference. Instead, Heidegger shows how difference is not to be overcome, but to be acknowledged as fundamental to being. This reading is then compared to Zhuangzi’s thoughts about harmony. Although the

14

Chapter Two

focus is on Zhuangzi, I will at certain points illustrate my interpretation by pointing to relevant passages from the Daodejing. I shall counter the idea that conflict and harmony are opposites, but will present them as being the same. This “sameness” translates Heidegger’s das Selbe, and should not be seen as identity, but rather in terms of difference, and of logos as the gathering of what is originary the same. I will argue in my interpretation of Heidegger and Zhuangzi that both thinkers seek to engage diversity, struggle, harmony, and conflict in a most rigorous manner.

Heidegger on Strife and the In-Between Heidegger has throughout his work insisted on giving difference due recognition, for example, through his notion of Auseinandersetzung and his claims that relation is more originary than any derived relata. Notions of relationality or interdependence are frequently employed in comparative philosophy, but often sound somewhat idealistic in the sense that interdependence is supposed to help to make every interdependent thing flourish. But such an interpretation of interdependence does not tie well with the usual understanding of conflict, and here, it is the ever conflicting forces in the universe that are my focus. A normal way of understanding harmony is usually thought of as having to do with certain times or instances where such forces are in balance, meaning that neither of the forces is gaining ascendancy, and this is admittedly a useful way of seeing harmony. But it seems a rather static view of what harmony is. Harmony then would be when all things are quiet, and it would seem to preclude discord or conflict. I would rather understand harmony here as a responsiveness to such conflicting forces. As such, harmony is not about balancing differences, nor about making things equal or identical; it is not the undoing of difference or even the minimisation of difference, but in my view it is about a realisation of and responding to, or dealing with difference, and preferably thereby making difference productive. The processes that constitute the world are typified by conflictual dynamics, forces struggling for assertion and always alternating. The traditional Western dualist approach to such dynamics has usually been to see such forces in a hierarchical fashion, to value one side of the dynamics over the other, and perhaps to seek harmony in one side at the expense of the other. For example, the conflict between reason and desire is commonly resolved by emphasizing the harmonious and logical structures and benefits of the rational person’s way of life over the fickle and destructive nature of our desires. Heidegger does not agree to such an

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approach. As a phenomenologist, he rather sees such dynamics as the reality of the world as it appears to us. As such, Heidegger is intent on showing that supposed opposites are really not as incompatible as we might think. For example, in the volume on Heraclitus, he says: “Life and death are the counterposed (Gegenwendige). Indeed. But in its ultimate countering, what counterposes turns itself most intimately towards the other. Where this holds sway, is the struggle, eris.”1 Struggle is usually seen as taking place between two or more intrinsically opposite entities, but Heidegger thinks it should rather be seen as intimately connecting two ends of a spectrum. In The Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger puts it in the following way: We would go wrong, he says, if we were to confound striving (Streit) with discord and dispute, and thus see it only as disorder and destruction. In essential striving, rather, the opponents raise each other into the self-assertion of their natures. Selfassertion or nature, however, is never a rigid insistence upon some contingent state, but surrender to the concealed originality of the source of one’s own being. In the struggle (Streit), each opponent carries the other beyond itself.2

And a few lines further down, Heidegger reaffirms this ultimate value of the dynamics of struggle: In setting up a world and setting forth the earth, the work is an instigating of this striving. This does not happen so that the work should at the same time settle and put an end to the conflict (Streit) in an insipid agreement, but so that the strife (Streit) may remain a strife.3

And lastly, the rift that the notion of “conflict” seems to suggest is also not something that should be seen in a purely negative fashion: “The conflict is not a rift (Riss) as a mere cleft is ripped open; rather, it is the intimacy with which opponents belong to each other. This rift carries the opponents into the source of their unity by virtue of their common ground.”4 Yet of course, but this is aside from my point here, for Heidegger this common ground is the “abyss.” The common ground in Heidegger is not some metaphysical principle outside of the interplay of the “opponents.” As Heidegger puts it in the Contributions to Philosophy: “Strife (Streit) is essential being (Wesung) of the ‘in-between’ (Zwischen).”5 The common ground is nothing other than the “in-between.” The point of these quotes is to show that Heidegger is not interested in overcoming conflicts, but in reconsidering the idea of conflict as giving differences their due recognition, in channelling them and in making them productive. In this context, the impossibility of a final victory of one of the

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sides of the spectrum over the other must be highlighted. It is the constant interplay, where even if one side seems to be gaining, the other is still there and will bounce back at some point, which is important to Heidegger. Both Lichtung and Verbergung, or clearing and concealing, belong to the structure of unconcealment, aletheia, or Heidegger’s version of what truth is. Or in Heidegger’s own words: “truth happens as the primal conflict between clearing and concealing.”6 In short, the interpretation I am about to give is not a regular form of dialectics, but more a realisation of the impossibility of dialectical sublimation. Such an interpretation, in my opinion, has relevance in political thought, where too much focus is still on some form of idealistic conflict solution, whereas my take is that it would be better to speak of conflict management, or resolution. Strangely enough, the term “conflict resolution” is more often than not taken to mean a solution to conflict, whereas conflict resolution, based on the actual meaning of the term “resolution”, seems to entail an embrace of conflict, a declaration of conflict, a decision to conflict. Now that may sound negative, but I hope to persuade the reader that instead of shunning the conflictual nature of our world and our existence in it, and instead of seeking some idealistic solution to conflict, Heidegger and Zhuangzi intend to make this conflictual nature productive in a different way of thinking, one that recognises conflict as part and parcel of our existence. Related to the interplay of unconcealing and concealing, the notions of Auseinandersetzung, or con-frontation, and polemos, will play an important part in my arguments, especially when we read these notions in their intercultural sense. And we must therefore first turn to Heidegger’s interpretation of Heraclitus.

Heidegger’s Heraclitus Heraclitus is well known for having allegedly said in fragment 53 that “war is the father of all things.” Heidegger thinks that this translation is mistaken, or at least one-sided. There is a more originary way of looking at the fragment, which starts with ʌȩȜİȝȠȢ ʌȐȞIJȦȞ ȝ੻Ȟ ʌĮIJȒȡ İѴıIJȚ. Heidegger translates: “Confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) is indeed for all (that comes to presence) the sire (who lets emerge)…”7 This is already vastly different from standard translations, but even more important is the continuing sentence which is usually left out: …ʌȐȞIJȦȞ į੻ ȕĮıȚȜİȪȢ, which Heidegger translates as “…but (also) for all the preserver that holds sway.”8 Read in this way, far from trying to say that war is the father of all things, Heidegger states that con-frontation, as Auseinandersetzung, is the

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begetter and keeper of all things. What Heidegger is looking for is another way of seeing polemos, which he identifies as Auseinandersetzung. This German word is hard to translate adequately. It means a variety of things, including “argument”, “debate”, “analysis”, “engagement”, “examination”, “involvement”, and “contention.” What Heidegger means by this is usually translated as “con-frontation.” Although often thought of as a negative term in the sense of a clash between two identities unwilling to change, if we read this word more carefully, we find the implication that we expose ourselves to the Other, and vice versa, which to Heidegger means that we enter any engagement as much as possible without prejudice, or at least aware of our prejudices and open to different ways of thinking, and we create an atmosphere of mutual coming together in difference (Heidegger stresses the “con-” in con-frontation), in which things can show themselves as they are. At the same time, “con-frontation” means that we position ourselves as different from the Other. The Auseinandersetzung is an encounter between the Self and the Other, yet we must let go of the assertively polemic connotations which often accompany the word “confrontation”, or rather, read them in a different way. Heidegger argues that polemos is not just polemic, it is really “clearing” (Lichtung),9 one of the key terms of his later thinking, which is the opening that provides for the unconcealment of things. The starting point and the end point of an Auseinandersetzung must be the openness to difference. But we should also think of con-frontation as our con-frontation with the world, our way of being in the world. Our Auseinandersetzung through language gives meaning to us, and in that sense, we should be asking how we con-front the world. Heidegger’s answer in this case, of course, has to do with letting things be and letting things show themselves: Gelassenheit or releasement, of which more will be said later. In short, an Auseinandersetzung does not presuppose two different identities; it is more that the identities are side-effects of the more primordial or more originary Auseinandersetzung or Polemos. Auseinander setzen means to set apart, to dis-sect what is primordially a unity. This coincides with the etymology of the word “conflict” somewhat: Conflict derives its meaning from “striking together” (confligere). But things striking together need not always be seen as something negative. At the very minimum, it means that at least there is a mutual interest that overlaps. In terms of music, striking two things together creates a sound. Striking two notes (hopefully) creates a harmony, or rather symphony. This is how we can begin to see the Auseinandersetzung as polemos, or as conflict, to really consist in a

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coming together in difference, as harmony. Let us continue the exploration of Heidegger’s Heraclitus. In fragment 8, Heraclitus says: IJઁ ਕȞIJ઀ȟȠȣȞ ıȣȝij੼ȡȠȞ țĮ੿ ਥț IJ૵Ȟ įȚĮijİȡંȞIJȦȞ țĮȜȜ઀ıIJȘȞ ਖȡȝȠȞ઀ĮȞ țĮ੿ ʌ੺ȞIJĮ țĮIJ' ਩ȡȚȞ Ȗ઀ȞİıșĮȚ, or in one common translation: “What opposes unites, and the finest attunement (harmonia) stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife.” Another simpler translation reads: “Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.” Heidegger’s German translation of this fragment is the following: “Das Gegen-fahren ein Zusammenbringen und aus dem Auseinanderbringen die eine erstrahlende Fügung.”10 As many of us know, the translation of Heideggerian jargon can be notoriously difficult and this is no exception: “The reciprocal play a bringing together, and from the distinction the one shining jointure” would be my loose translation. Heidegger understands Gegen-fahren as the play of differences, which is at the same time a bringing together of differences as well as a distinguishing of differences, understood from the idea of “jointure”—harmony for Heidegger—which is nothing other than the space between things filled up by their necessary interaction, in other words, Auseinandersetzung. Difference and jointure belong together; they make each other possible, and this must be thought of in a non-hierarchical way. As we shall later see, this way of thinking is also found in Zhuangzi. The title of the second chapter of the Zhuangzi (Qiwulun 啺⢙䄆) explains how sorting out can be seen as both differentiating and equalising, which we can then read in comparison to Auseinandersetzung or Das Selbe (the “same”). Heidegger employs a variety of terms or concepts when discussing this play of differences, this Auseinandersetzung, this confrontation: he uses terms such as logos, gathering, polemos, and physis, and connects these terms to show that eventually they all point to the same process. In the work on Heraclitus, he says for example that logos, physis and harmonia “say the same.”11 And in the Introduction to Metaphysics, he ties them together in the following way: “Confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) does not divide unity, much less destroy it. It builds unity; it is the gathering (logos). Polemos and logos are the same.”12 But we should be careful how we read this “sameness” and this “unity.” Heidegger makes it quite clear that this is not to be understood in terms of identity or of an undoing of differences. As he says: “But the same is not the merely identical. In the merely identical, the difference disappears. In the same the difference appears...”13 In other words, Heidegger is opposed to reducing sameness to identity or equality:

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The same never coincides with the equal, not even in the empty indifferent oneness of what is merely identical. The equal or identical always moves toward the absence of difference, so that everything may be reduced to a common denominator. The same, by contrast, is the belonging together of what differs, through a gathering by way of the difference. We can only say ‘the same’ if we think difference. It is in the carrying out and settling of differences that the gathering nature of sameness comes to light.14

I now want to turn to one of these terms, physis, to explain the relation of logos, polemos, and harmony. Heidegger understands the concept of physis as Fuge, Fügung in the sense of Harmonia.15 Heidegger’s interpretation of physis as Aufgehen and Untergehen—to come up and to go down, to ascend and to descend, or unconcealing and concealing— culminates in him saying that harmony, harmonia, is the Fügung, Fuge. Fuge concurrently means “joint”, “seam”, and “gap.” Interestingly, Heidegger also translates harmonia with the closely related word Fug later in this work, and takes it to mean “enjoining”, “order”, and “fittingness.” Incidentally, Heidegger also uses Fug as a translation for dike, normally “justice.” Fügung, according to Heidegger, means “jointure” and also “compliance.” Heidegger can then say, employing the metaphor of the tightening and untightening of a bow and arrow, that, [J]ointure (Fügung) in itself is particularly the turning-away-from-eachother in the relaxed un-tightening and the turning-back in the sense of the tightening of that, which turns itself in the un-tightening. So harmony does not consist solely in tightening together, in which case the striving apart in the untightening would stay distinguished from it and count at most as an addition to it, but to harmony belongs letting diverge in the untightening.16

In short, harmony is both coming together and moving apart. “Physis is the way there and the way back, the going and coming: harmos—the reciprocally playing joining—harmonia—‘jointure’.”17 If we were to do injustice to Heidegger’s painstaking retranslations, but conform to more common sense language, it would not be implausible to state quite plainly that Heidegger tries to establish that harmony is found not in spite of, but in the conflicting yet gathered forces of difference. To be in harmony with the world is, then, not to take a standpoint outside of it in the detachment from the world, but to stand inside it and embrace its constant changes. Another important term that Heidegger uses in this connection is logos. Logos usually stands for constancy, permanence, rationality and eternal principles, but we have now seen that Heidegger understands logos as polemos. This means that in Heidegger’s view, difference and the interplay of differences is constitutive of any constancy, which would be relative to

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this more originary play. Con-frontation or Auseinandersetzung is the more originary “begetter” of things. In my view, this is what Heraclitus was also trying to point out, for example in fragment 10: “The bones connected by joints are at once a unitary whole and not a unitary whole. To be in agreement is to differ; the concordant is the discordant.” Or in fragment 80: “It should be understood that war (polemos) is the common condition, that strife is justice, and that all things come to pass through the compulsion of strife.” It should be clear by now that any “easy” understanding of harmony does not convey what Heidegger is after. In connection to this, he says in the Introduction to Metaphysics: Thus Being, logos, as the gathered harmony, is not easily available for everyone at the same price, but is concealed, as opposed to that harmony which is always a mere equalizing, the elimination of tension, levelling.18

Harmony for Heidegger is not about eliminating differences, but about celebrating or embracing them. Being happens only in the interplay of differences, and logos and polemos are exactly that kind of “gathering” of differences. We must now see whether a similar mode of thought is present in Zhuangzi.

A Polemic Reading of the Zhuangzi It is an important feature of Daoism in general to be sensitive to this interplay of differences, or to the belonging together of seeming opposites. For example, in the DaoDeJing, the first chapter talks about the interplay (togetherness) of the nameless and the named; chapter two describes the belonging together of oppositional concepts such as beautiful and ugly, and determinacy (you ᴹ) and indeterminacy (wu ❑); while other chapters such as 28, 36, and 40 all talk about dao 䚃 as the natural vacillation between different ends of a spectrum. In the Zhuangzi, we can find a similar understanding that can be related to the Heideggerian focus on the con-frontational or the Auseinandersetzung. In chapter 6 of the Zhuangzi, one of the provisional names for dao is offered as “Peace-in-Strife”19 in Burton Watson’s translation. Angus Graham translates these Chinese characters as “[a]t home where it intrudes.”20 And Wing-tsit Chan translates: “tranquillity in disturbance.”21 The general idea behind this seems to be of the “unity in diversity” kind, so that only within and through the process of change can there be found a relative stability or harmony, so that this harmony is only to be understood as a function of the

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more originary play of differences. It is worth noticing that according to David Hall and Roger Ames, the notion of “tranquillity,” jing 䶌, is “an ongoing, dynamic achievement of equilibrium. We must recall that all correlative pairs entail their opposites in the sense that jing is ‘tranquilitybecoming-agitated,’ or ‘tranquility-within-agitation.’”22 Zhuangzi argues against the division of opposites into separate entities. His arguments against “chop logic”, or the making of such artificial distinctions, suggest that he sees the world in a relational way, where everything has implications and relations with other things, and things and processes cannot easily be separated from each other. Indeed, the only way to talk about opposites or about different forces is when, on a “deeper” level, we understand that these belong together essentially, yet we do not deny their differences. In what follows, I will not be talking about a utopian vision of harmony, where “Yin and Yang were harmonious and peaceful”23, the days of the Yellow Emperor or some other nostalgically viewed era, because I don’t think this was Zhuangzi’s concern. Rather, we will look at how Zhuangzi perceives harmony in the world he lived in, which I think is more applicable to the world we live in. So instead of a harmony which dialectically subsumes differences into an overall sublimatory stance, I will argue that Heidegger and Zhuangzi see harmony as the non-dialectical appreciation of the interplay of differences, whereby the differences are not hierarchically ordered. The Zhuangzi shows a reluctance to follow one of the extreme sides of the spectrum, without thereby denying the relevance of these opposites, and here it is helpful to consider the relation between tian ཙ and man. Zhuangzi’s frequent exaltations of tian would make us think that he prefers tian above man, but in a later miscellaneous chapter, Zhuangzi says that the perfect man (beyond the sage) hates tian and hates even more the question “is it in me from Heaven or from man?”24 Ultimately, even this hierarchy must be seen as artificial. Or as the Autumn Floods dialogue has it: If we then say ‘Why not take the right as our authority and do without the wrong, take the ordered as our authority and do away with the unruly’, this is failing to understand the pattern of heaven and earth, and the myriad things as they essentially are. It is as though you were to take heaven as your authority and do without earth, take the Yin as your authority and do without the Yang; that it is impracticable is plain enough.25

In Chapter 6, Zhuangzi puts this thought in the following way: “Someone in whom neither Heaven (tian) nor man is victor over the other, this is

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what is meant by the True Man.”26 In this instance, Zhuangzi argues for a kind of harmony between tian ཙ and man, in the way of a realisation that in the end a full-fledged dichotomy between the two is untenable. Elsewhere, Zhuangzi says: “For the sage there has never begun to be Heaven, never begun to be man.”27 Although on the surface this might seem to indicate that Zhuangzi seems to be against opposites, what he is actually arguing against is seeing such opposites as final, and against attaching values to the opposites rather than to the overall process that generates them in the first place. Zhuangzi in that sense acknowledges the differential structures of tian and man, and says that we should not go with one of them at the expense of the other. Instead, we should be sometimes of tian’s party, sometimes of man’s party. Zhuangzi seems to be Hegelian in the sense that he first sets the dichotomy of tian and man up, and then seeks to overcome it. But this overcoming is nothing like a sublimation; it is rather an acknowledgement of the dynamics as having arisen out of a gathering of different forces, and a matched responding to these conflicting forces. Zhuangzi is fond of setting up dichotomies with a seeming hierarchy, or a seeming preference for one side, but then later returns to the dichotomy in order to overthrow or complicate the hierarchy. For example, consider Chapter 1 and the views of the little birds with regards to Peng. There seems to be a definite preference for the ‘bigger picture’ of the bird Peng. But later on in the work, all such views, including Peng’s, are discredited because they remain at a certain level of seeing the world, the level of discriminations. This level of discrimination and artificial distinction is constantly attacked by Zhuangzi. At one point, when he is caught up in a web of creatures spying or preying on each other, Zhuangzi proclaims: “it is inherent in things that they are tied to each other, that one kind calls up another.”28 This translation by Graham makes it clear that he understands Zhuangzi to be saying that things are ties, and not that they are separate first, and then have ties. Such an interpretation is obviously conducive to notions of interdependence and relationality. Another story from the Inner Chapters, about storing the boat in the ravine or storing it in the world (again in Chapter 6), shows that we are mistaken if we look for safety and harmony in a dialectical, but ultimately very shallow and artificial way by trying to avoid one aspect of the world. When we realise that real harmony only lies in acceptance of how the entire world works, then harmony and conflict ultimately belong together. For the reading I propose, Chapter 2 of the Zhuangzi is also of tremendous importance. Zhuangzi talks about things being one, especially in this chapter, but observes that we cannot say they are one, since then we

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already create two, the one and our saying about it, and so on and so forth.29 In full awareness of this aporia, Zhuangzi is trying to warn us that artificial discriminations such as we tend to make should be abandoned, and that we should focus on making greater distinctions. That he at some point says, “The greatest discrimination is unspoken”30 is another telling sign that for Zhuangzi, harmony lies not in overcoming differences completely in a false sense of unity, but in giving the “real” differences a place in their unity. This is why Zhuangzi can say that the “smoothing things out” is not a matter of eliminating differences, but proceeds by “[l]etting both alternatives proceed.”31 In other chapters, the earlier mentioned tranquillity or quietude associated with the harmony of the Daoist sage is associated with the metaphor of the mirror. Harmony is best achieved when one mirrors everything. “The utmost man uses the heart like a mirror; he does not escort things as they go or welcome them as they come, he responds and does not store.”32 In this context, Hall and Ames argue that the experience of dao is of something without borders. There is no sense of the unity of the world, no feeling that “all things are one.” The fundamental sense of things is of “this” and “that.” Only thises and thats exist as discriminable items. Where a Daoist celebrates her oneness with all things, the meaning of “oneness” is “continuity” with other things, not “identity.”33

The same obviously goes for the title of the second chapter: the “Sorting which Evens Things Out.” (Or in other words, the Auseinandersetzung.) Here as well, the idea of harmony is intimately connected with difference and the recognition that difference is not to be sublimated into some kind of dialectic unity, but that this harmony or unity should be the expression of the original belonging together, or in the terminology of Hall and Ames, the continuity, of what is considered different, without thereby undoing the difference. As Zhuangzi puts it: Where neither It nor Other finds its opposite is called the axis of the Way. When once the axis is found at the centre of the circle there is no limit to responding with either, on the one hand no limit to what is it, on the other no limit to what is not.34

In short, harmony is about responding to difference, and we have seen now that in both Heidegger and Zhuangzi, this difference is not to be overcome, but that harmony lies exactly in mirroring differences, or in coming to terms with difference on its own terms.

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We are now at a junction where we can claim that the “oneness” or “unity” of things lies only in their continuity, in their continuous interaction, or in other words, things are one in that all of them constantly change and interact. In Zhuangzi’s words: “Their dividing is formation, their formation is dissolution; all things whether forming or dissolving in reverting interchange and are deemed to be one.”35 The fact that things interchange makes them one, not that they merge into something bigger or something constant or still and unchanging. In a note to a miscellaneous chapter that adds on to this, Graham observes that “the habit of analysing puts us in the middle of an illusory universe of rigid, static things which persists like a dead man’s ghost as the process of transformation continues.”36 For this reason, Zhuangzi says it is wrong “To wear out the daemonic-and-illuminated in you deeming them to be one without knowing that they are the same...”37 Here, I find a striking resemblance to Heidegger’s earlier assertion that the “same” and the “identical” are two very different things. We deem things to be one, but instead we should be realising they are the same. Whereas for others the world of change seems in need of overcoming in order to realise or achieve a sense of harmony, Zhuangzi finds in the world of change that altered sense of harmony in difference. Or in the words of Hall and Ames, “Zhuangzi’s mystical intuition must be one of the processes of transformation (wuhua ⢙ॆ) without any sense of overall unity or coherence.”38 That this world is a world of constant change and transformation should not disturb us, but rather inform our way of living and thinking: “The torch of chaos and doubt—this is what the sage steers by.”39 Zhuangzi sees harmony in how things are, and that at least includes the struggles of different forces as they develop. As a Daoist, one should reflect how things are. And this is in line with how dao is usually understood. As the Book of Changes tells us, “The successive movement of yin and yang constitutes the Way (Tao).”40 Similarly, in chapter 62 of the DaoDeJing, we hear: “Way-making is the flowing together of all things (wanwu).”41 The way the world unfolds is as a continuous cycle of processes generated by conflicting forces. Yet seeing these forces purely as opposite is inherently flawed, as they eventually belong together in dao, and can only function because of this togetherness. And seeing such dynamics as something we should oppose is also counterproductive. Rather than go against this processual nature of the world, the Zhuangzi argues we should: Go side by side with the sun and moon, Do the rounds of Space and Time. Act out their neat conjunctions,

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Stay aloof from their convulsions. Dependents each on each, let us honour one another.42

Achieving Harmony or the Resolution to Conflict The appropriate disposition or attitude then becomes one of wuwei ❑ ⛪ , “non-assertive action,” and ziran 㠚 ❦ , “spontaneity,” or in Heidegger’s words, Gelassenheit or “releasement.” Releasement involves keeping an open attitude towards the transformational nature of the world and of our existence in it. It is aimed at creating the space in which things can “be” what they are; it is a letting-things-be as they are. For Heidegger, releasement is in no way a matter of weakly allowing things to slide and drift along. [...] Perhaps a higher acting is concealed in releasement than is found in all the actions within the world and in the machinations of all mankind [...] which higher acting is yet no activity.43

Similarly, wuwei, translated as “non-assertive action” does not point to the idea that the Daoists do nothing, but that they do things differently; that is, without imposing on the natural inclinations of things. And ziran, “spontaneity,” also has the same connotations. According to Hall and Ames, Spontaneous action is a mirroring response. As such, it is action that accommodates the other to whom one is responding. It takes the other on its own terms. Such spontaneity involves recognizing the continuity between oneself and the other, and responding in such a way that one’s own actions promote the well-being both of oneself [and] of the other.44

These dispositions, if one could even call them that, are definitely not ones of detachment or passiveness. Instead, they depict a responsible way of being in the world that seeks to attune or mirror itself to the inevitable processes of this world. As an example, consider the stories in chapter 6 of the Zhuangzi of the men finding harmony in adversity or sickness.45 These show that real harmony lies in the acceptance of change, the acceptance of the conflictual nature of the world, and a general reluctance to stick to one way of seeing things. So if dao can be read as consisting of both sides of the spectrum, then having dao would mean that we have developed an awareness of the interplay of these forces, and subsequently we may revamp our way of life to reflect the ever changing world. So wuwei and Gelassenheit are not about the harmony one finds in detaching from the

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conflictual nature of the world, but about the harmony one finds in going along with this conflictual nature, and not opposing its inevitable workings and ways. As mentioned in an earlier quote, Zhuangzi thinks we should mirror and respond, but not store.46 And in the “Below in the Empire” chapter, Zhuangzi has Kuan Yin formulate a description of the attitude required of the Daoist sage: Within yourself, no fixed positions: Things as they take shape disclose themselves. Moving, be like water, Still, be like a mirror, Respond like an echo. Blank! As though absent: Quiescent! As though transparent. Be assimilated to them and you harmonise, Take hold of any of them and you lose.47

Assimilation to the process character of the world means harmony, whereas insisting on a fixed position means you lose out on something. Elsewhere in the Zhuangzi, it is said that one should “transform together with the times. And never consent to be one thing alone. Now up, now down, you take as your measure the degree which is in harmony.”48 Related to this is a passage from the Daodejing, chapter 42, which goes: “Everything carries yin on its shoulders and yang in its arms [a]nd blends these vital energies (qi) together to make them harmonious (he).”49 Hall and Ames have described such harmony in culinary terms as the coming together of ingredients without losing their distinctive features. In this context, it is also important to remember that they observed that the Shuowen defines “harmony”, he ઼ , as xiang ying ⴨ ៹ , “mutual responsiveness” or “responsiveness to one another.”50 Such a responsiveness finds its articulation in going along with the changes in the world, and in seeking to use this processuality as an imperative for responsive action, or rather, non-assertive action. In a later Chapter of the Zhuangzi, Confucius, after having consulted Laozi, expresses this in the following way: “I have grasped it. Crows and Magpies hatch, the fish blow out foam, the tiny-waisted metamorphose, when a younger brother is born the elder wails. Too long have I failed to be a man fellow to things in their transformations, and if one fails to be that how can one transform men?”51 Zhuangzi has his imaginary Confucius realising that harmony lies in harmonising with everything the way it is, and not in trying to change how things inherently are. The only

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possible exception to this would be humans themselves, who constantly seem to stray from this insight, and therefore are in need of transforming. We can now come back to our notions of conflict and harmony. Heidegger and Zhuangzi suggest that harmony lies in a different form of conflict resolution, where it is more the resolution to accept and take conflict and difference seriously, without this acceptance degenerating into an anything-goes attitude. The responsiveness or resolution that Heidegger and Zhuangzi proclaim is not devoid of meaning, but is ultimately a form of responsibility, to follow the injunction to let things be as they inherently are. As such, dao can be understood as the workings of different forces and that is the sense in which dao is transformation, and in which logos necessarily entails polemos. Seeing conflict and harmony in this way does not preclude taking a stance in real life. In fact, it promotes the stance that seeks to optimise the outcome of any real-life conflict. Taking sides in such a real-life conflict would only be possible if that side were the one to take responsibility to promote such imperatives of letting be, including tolerance and promotion of well-being for all involved. And it is in this sense that the notion of interdependence or relationality should be understood not purely as descriptive, but more importantly as a prescriptive value that nevertheless takes its ultimate cues from “the way things are.” Such a stance seeks to resolutely reject anything that would compromise the integrity of the “other.” Yet of course, this only works when applied mutually. Interdependence from one side is not really interdependence.

Concluding Remarks Although admittedly there is an overemphasis on both Heidegger’s part and in Zhuangzi on one side of the supposed dichotomies they were dealing with, it is in the end both sides that are seen as continuous with each other. Heidegger does indeed overemphasise the different, the other, yet not in order to merely inverse the hierarchy set up by metaphysics between opposite terms and concepts, but precisely to question that hierarchy and dualism itself. Zhuangzi does so too in order to seek some sort of ever shifting equilibrium that acknowledges the necessity of both opposites. Harmony, or the reconciliation of opposites or differences, then takes a different form. Heidegger acknowledges that the interplay between two sides of a spectrum is interminable. In the case of Zhuangzi, we have to tread carefully, as some parts of the Zhuangzi seem to advocate some kind of dialectic third position, at least for the sage or ruler, whereas other parts

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of these works, and for example the commentary by Guo Xiang, advocate the process of differentiation purely as itself. In what I have presented, my view is that this latter side is more prominent. What both thinkers share is a concern not to let difference be subsumed under identity. This translates to the understanding that both Heidegger and Zhuangzi develop of harmony and conflict. Both thinkers are concerned with a different understanding of harmony and conflict, where these terms are ultimately intimately connected and part of the same process. As such, our understanding of conflict and harmony should change to recognise that these are not opposites, but that they can only ever function in unison, where harmony is a response to conflict that does not deny conflict its place.

CHAPTER THREE “INTERROGATING” COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY: THE PREVALENCE OF THE COMBAT METAPHOR1 SARAH MATTICE

Conflict in philosophy is very easy to find. Without looking too deeply, we can find conflicting interpretations, philosophies of conflict, conflicts in metaphysics, and conflicting assumptions. My project here is to think about yet another kind of conflict in philosophy—the prevalence of conflict (or what I call combat metaphors) in comparative metaphilosophy, the sub-field concerned with what it means to do comparative philosophy. This is a behind-the-scenes conflict, one that shows itself in the very ways in which we understand and discuss philosophical activity. In this essay, I argue that comparative philosophers need to be especially concerned with and careful about the metaphors we use. As philosophers who regularly navigate between different traditions, we are in a unique metaphilosophical position, able to see through certain assumptions that might remain opaque to non-comparativists, and also able to shape the future direction of philosophical inquiry, as the discipline of philosophy becomes increasingly pluralistic and diverse. We should not unknowingly import metaphilosophical assumptions into our comparative projects, and we should not assume that metaphilosophical practices that come out of western traditions are necessarily the only or the best ways to do philosophy. In the article “No (More) Philosophy Without Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” Karsten Struhl argues that what he calls cross-cultural (or comparative philosophy) is a necessary element of the field and practice of philosophy. If a key part of philosophical activity is the identification, articulation, and examination of assumptions, then Struhl concludes that

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we need the ability to engage distinct traditions in order to raise internal philosophical assumptions to the level of inquiry. He writes, “Philosophy is a radical inquiry whose task is to interrogate the fundamental assumptions of a given activity, discipline, or set of beliefs... [it] must be able to examine not only the object of its inquiry but also its own method of interrogation.”2 If one of the defining tasks of philosophical inquiry is to examine assumptions, then Struhl argues that at least some philosophers must be in a position to put their own assumptions up for examination— not only their personal assumptions, but the assumptions at play in their own philosophical “culture.” Thus, cross-cultural or comparative philosophy3 is necessary for philosophy as such to proceed beyond certain limits, as it enables philosophers to identify and critically engage assumptions that would otherwise be unavailable. While we may not have access to all of the philosophical assumptions at play in our home culture, we are often able to see the assumptions underlying other cultures more readily. Given that a central task of philosophy is enhanced by crosscultural work, at least some philosophers should do comparative work, and more philosophers should value it. This in itself is a point that could generate significant conflict in the profession at large. Struhl discusses the fact that many professional philosophers study only one tradition, and most philosophy majors (B.A.) do not encounter non-western philosophical material in their courses: [I]t is still generally the case that comparative philosophers find themselves on the defensive, as they attempt to insert elements of non-western philosophical thinking into an essentially western philosophical curriculum. The point of this study is to urge comparative philosophers to go on the offensive, to challenge those who know only one philosophical tradition, and to insist that a philosophy curriculum that is not crosscultural is fundamentally defective.4

Here, Struhl is encouraging a kind of philosophical activism at the level of curricula development. We cannot expect the wider field of philosophy to change without instituting change for students of philosophy. When we construct curriculum maps and decide which courses are necessary for majors and which are merely elective (when they are present at all), we are directly shaping the future of our field. However, in giving a careful account of one reason why comparative philosophy is important to philosophy at large, he (unintentionally, I suspect) provides a clear example of why comparative philosophy is especially important for thinking about metaphilosophy. Note some of his language from the above quotations: philosophy’s major task is

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interrogation and we need to examine our methods of interrogation; comparative philosophers find themselves on the defensive; the point of the article is to urge comparativists to go on the offensive.5 The language here is quite familiar—this is a combat metaphor, and combat metaphors pervade western philosophical discourse. They are so common as to be almost trite. Struhl may not have even consciously chosen this metaphor to organize his argument—the metaphor is that ubiquitous. One of the things that a serious engagement with other philosophical traditions demonstrates is the very real difference in these kinds of operant metaphilosophical metaphors—for example, in general the Chinese philosophical tradition did not use combat metaphors to structure philosophical activity. Comparative philosophers are in a unique position not only to engage in productive dialogue between traditions on first-order philosophical issues (Struhl’s example in the article is a comparison between Indian Buddhist and Humean conceptions of the self), but also to be able to see some of these second-order metaphilosophical issues that may not be visible or seem remarkable from within a given landscape. After all, in making sense of distinct philosophical traditions, having a sense of the metaphilosophical landscape—what does that tradition take to be philosophical and why? How does it tend to suggest philosophy should proceed, and toward what kinds of ends?—is crucial for making sense of first order content. When I refer here to metaphor, I am drawing upon the cognitive linguistics work of Mark Johnson and George Lakoff, and using the term “metaphor” in the conceptual sense as the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another. In this view, metaphor is not mere linguistic ornamentation, but is in fact the way in which most of our thinking proceeds. In Lakoff and Johnson’s terminology, what they call conceptual metaphor “systematically links the literal meanings of...expressions about [the source domain] to corresponding meanings in the [target] domain.”6 This is in many ways a reversal of common conceptions of metaphor that suggest that metaphors are a kind of improper naming, and operate only on the level of language, not thought. On this account, most of our abstract concepts are structured metaphorically. Consider “interrogation.” The definition of interrogation is to question, or to question formally. Questioning can be fairly abstract, but here it is made more concrete through the association with interrogation— not only formal but forceful retrieval of information, by one who is in power or authority from one who is not. In contemporary discourse, interrogation may suggest images that range from television police dramas and getting the bad guy to confess, to enemy combatants and enhanced

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interrogation techniques. Interrogation is something one does when one it in a combative situation, in order to help to resolve the fight. The issue here is not just word choice: interrogation, defense, and offense are all part of a larger, metaphorical network of explanatory vocabulary connecting philosophical activity with combat. And, on Lakoff and Johnson’s account, this metaphorical network is a network that structures not only our languaging about philosophy, but how we think and understand philosophy.

I The metaphor of philosophers as soldiers or combatants waging war against one another is one that stretches deep into many western and some non-western philosophical narratives. This metaphor is not a metaphor from nowhere or one just from the contemporary world—it has clear ties to ancient Greece. In the ancient Greek world, a convergence of social, historical, and philosophical factors led to the prominence of this way of understanding philosophy. In a city-state such as Athens, there was no separate class of citizens concerned with waging war—military service was compulsory. Greek society was in many ways built around the practice of war and the honor given to those who acquitted themselves well in battle. The central place of Greek philosophy in western philosophical narratives helps us to understand why philosophical and metaphilosophical language is so strongly tied to combat. The general adversariality of philosophical discourse is socially and historically located—historians Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin argue that “No one who has a philosophical or scientific idea to propose in any culture can fail to want to make the most of it. But a distinctive Greek feature was the need to win, against all comers, even in science, a zerosum game in which your winning entails the opposition losing.”7 This prevalence of adversariality made sense to the Greeks, not only because of their socio-historical situation but also because they saw combative reason as leading to the realm of certainty, a highly desirable goal for philosophy and one of the reasons this metaphor is so appealing. After all, in a combat situation the person left standing at the end should clearly be the victor, and should be victorious because she is better than the opponent. The idea that the truth will win out in the end, that the success of the victor is due to her being better than the defeated, translates in the context of the combat metaphor to the idea that a philosopher who can best another in philosophical combat is better than her opponent, and has the truth or a grasp on the truth in a way her opponent did not. The philosopher who

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could defeat all her opponents, then, would be certain she had the truth. They further argue that “the way Greek philosophers and scientists formulated their focal problems reflected their perception of what would secure victory in that competition.”8 That is, the mapping of combat onto philosophy not only alters the languaging around philosophical activities, but also alters the very structures and strategies of the activity to correspond with combative strategies for victory. When philosophical activity is understood as a kind of combat, the relationships between participants and the nature and structure of the activity takes on features of combat. Whatever their relationship might have been, in a combat metaphor, participants are pitted against one another, adversaries or soldiers for different camps. They seek to think strategically, to outwit or outmaneuver their opponent(s), with the ultimate aim of securing victory. Winning the battle and defeating one’s enemy is the point of engaging in the activity; philosophy, in this metaphor, is about victory for one’s own position.

II As natural as combat metaphors may sound in English, however, engagement with other philosophical traditions can illustrate that this “natural” conception of argument as war and philosophy as combat is not, in fact, a necessary feature of understanding either argument or philosophical activity. As mentioned above, early Chinese philosophers generally did not use combative metaphors for philosophical activity. Angus Graham, in discussing the origins of Chinese philosophy in the Warring States period, notes that Chinese philosophy arose as “a response to the breakdown of the moral and political order...and the crucial question for all of them [Chinese philosophers] is not the Western philosopher’s ‘What is the truth?’ but ‘Where is the Way?’, the way to order the state and conduct personal life.”9 That is, the early Chinese thinkers were not particularly concerned with Truth or argument for its own sake, or issues that split theoretical from practical concerns. Rather, their focus centered on finding, traveling along, and extending the dao 㐨, for their own time and place, finding optimal patterns and rhythms of conduct and experience to lead oneself and one’s community to harmony. The descriptions of this activity—philosophy—gather around metaphors of finding and building roads or paths, channeling rivers, artistic creation and appreciation, musical composition and engagement, agricultural cultivation and biological metaphors such as birth and growth, and common activities of the noble persons of the time such as archery and charioteering. The early

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Confucians, Daoists, and strategists such as Sun Bin all generally agreed that whatever one was supposed to be doing, one should be bu zheng ୙∑, or non-contentious. The Dao De Jing ends with this statement: “Thus, the way of tian is to benefit without harming; the way of the sages is to do without contending.”10 Combat metaphors for philosophical activity were not common in classical China—in fact, only the Mohists really used combat metaphors at all, and their methods of philosophizing did not become mainstream. However, in seeking a level of necessity and logic in their thinking, the Mohists did influence other thinkers such as Mengzi, who was especially concerned that certain Mohist tenets and practices undermined the importance of family and the stability of basic social hierarchies. In D.C. Lau’s “Introduction” to his translation of the Mengzi, he writes, “In upholding the teachings of the Confucian tradition, Mencius was vigorous in combating what he considered heretical views. In particular, he was untiring in his attacks on the Schools of Yang Chu and Mo Ti.”11 This raises an interesting question. In what sense was Mengzi “combating” the heretical views of Yang Zhu and Mozi, and how do we know that Mengzi was “attacking” these schools? In other words, although we know that Mengzi not only disagreed with but was also greatly concerned by the Yangists and the Mohists, is it a modern, western reading that turns disagreement and critique into combat? Just as we are now concerned to not let the Christian assumptions of early translators color our contemporary interpretations of these classical texts, do we not also need to be aware of the ways in which our metaphilosophical metaphors may be imposed on and so alter the text and our interpretation of it? As with the above discussion of Struhl’s language, I do not mean to suggest that Lau was intentionally importing a combat metaphor into his discussion of the Mengzi. However, given his British philosophical pedigree, he was likely well-versed in combative philosophical language. In one of the passages that inspired Lau’s above commentary, Mengzi states, The teachings current in the Empire are those of the school of Yang or the school of Mo. Yang advocates everyone for himself, which amounts to a denial of one’s prince; Mo advocates love without discrimination, which amounts to a denial of one’s father. To ignore one’s father on the one hand, and one’s prince on the other, is to be no different from the beasts... I wish to safeguard the way of the former sages against the onslaughts of Yang and Mo and to banish excessive views. Then there will be no way for advocates of heresies to arise. For what arises in the mind will interfere with policy, and what shows itself in policy will interfere with practice... I

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am not fond of disputation, but I have no alternative. Whoever can, with words, combat Yang and Mo is a true disciple of the sages.12

In Lau’s translation here he chooses “combat” for the Chinese term ju ㊥, which means both the act of distancing/distance and the spur on a chicken’s leg.13 It is easy to see why “combat” makes sense as a translation, if the underlying assumption is that critical philosophizing is a kind of combat; yet, it is not at all clear that the implication of this passage (or the text at large) is that Mengzi is setting out to go to war, philosophically, against the Yangists and the Mohists. Pushing away something dangerous (the function of the spur) is not the same thing as entering into combat against it. The Mohists repeatedly use the term sheng ຾, meaning to win a battle, be victorious, or to dominate an enemy, when they are talking about disputation. Mengzi is talking about disputation (bian ㎭ , but does not use the combative language of the Mohists. This is the point at which comparative metaphilosophy becomes crucial—how do we understand what Mengzi thought philosophy is and how he thought it should be practiced?14 We look at the many examples of him doing philosophy in his own text, and we look at the larger Confucian context, we look carefully at his language, at the metaphors he does choose—natural metaphors such as water, agricultural cultivation metaphors, and metaphors from the activities of the nobility—and we notice that combat metaphors are consistently absent. Mengzi was familiar enough with the Mohists to be deeply concerned about their doctrines, and yet even in acknowledging that he must reluctantly engage in disputation, he does not choose their combative vocabulary. In commenting on this passage, Zhu Xi notes that being able to distance oneself (ju) from the teachings of Yang Zhu and Mo Di, while not itself sufficient for understanding the way (dao 㐨), is enough to be a disciple of the sages—the differences in metaphilosophy here vary dramatically if we read this piece of commentary as combating or as pushing away from, distancing oneself from.15 If we look to classical texts like the Mengzi on their own terms, without assuming a set of metaphilosophical metaphors centered around combat, what we find is that combat metaphors are generally not prominent in classical Chinese philosophy. However, if we are not aware of the need to attend to metaphors in this way, we can unwittingly impose metaphors from one tradition onto another.

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III So what does this mean? There is (at least) one philosophical tradition that generally did not conceptualize philosophical activity in terms of combat. This suggests at least three things. First, it calls into question the “naturalness” of thinking of reason/thinking/argument as combative. If the combat metaphor is not necessarily how thinking “naturally” proceeds, then we need good reasons for using it, and we need to be prepared to respond philosophically to any problems it may have. Elsewhere, I identify several potential critiques of the combat metaphor.16 I argue that understanding philosophy as combat privileges combat by any means, and encourages combative behavior, implying that one who is victorious is necessarily so because of superior philosophical acumen. It also encourages a tolerance for violence and an aggressive response to problems; if we have a concern for anything that generates potentially unnecessarily violence, be it violence of thought or violence of action, we should be concerned to reduce or eliminate the source of that violence, in order to live together more harmoniously. In addition, when philosophical activity is a form of combat, participants become soldiers, problems become fights, and the purpose becomes victory. Everyone we encounter begins to look like an opponent, and every problem seems solvable through combative means. What this means is that the many possibilities for inquiry tend to be constrained until they fit well into a combative situation. Finally, philosophers who are striving for victory choose means that are appropriate to this end—victory. This means that the structure of the activity is first and foremost determined by what is expedient in gaining victory and defeating the opponent, not by what means might be most appropriate to the subject of the inquiry. Valuable paths of thought may be ignored because they do not lead to victory, and controversial positions taken because they lend themselves well to a combative structure. What is worthy of attention in terms of philosophical questions and what kind of answers are acceptable to these questions is shaped and limited by the combat metaphor. Second, it opens up the possibility of challenging the assumption that philosophy should be understood as combat—might we find other metaphors more suited to our contemporary, pluralistic world? As mentioned earlier, Chinese traditions often drew on metaphors from the natural world such as the flow of water, birth, and growth, in addition to metaphors of agricultural cultivation and activities of the noblepersons of the time, as well as finding, traveling on, and building roads. Western philosophical traditions also have metaphors other than combat such as

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midwifery, spelunking, treasure hunting, architecture and construction, and mining. Additional metaphors include play, therapy, medicine, and art or aesthetic experience, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. Philosophical traditions from different times and places have a rich variety of metaphors we can actively explore for understanding comparative philosophical activity. And third, it raises the specter of the “philosophical double bind” wherein we are prompted to ask after the standards by which we judge philosophical activity.17 If philosophical activity is understood as combat, then the history of philosophy is read through a combative lens, turning thinkers into combatants whether or not that is how they would have understood their own projects. In addition, other traditions are read through that combative lens, and in some sense their status as philosophy is dependent on their ability to be retranslated as combative. Cultures whose philosophical activity is not primarily combative are forced by those who understand philosophy as combat to account for why their traditions should count as philosophy. In a combat metaphor, the structure of combat and the goal of victory are standards by which philosophy is understood, and so judged. This is seen in what I call the philosophical double bind, wherein philosophical standards originating in Greece are used to judge the philosophy of others, often resulting in one of two reductive positions: either the other philosophy is so similar as to be trivial, or so different as to not count at all. Recognizing the contingency of the combat metaphor gives us an opportunity to avoid or reduce the philosophical double bind in comparative work.

IV What does this tell us about comparative metaphilosophy? It tells us that we cannot afford to ignore metaphor, especially metaphors for philosophical activity, and those metaphors that structure our metaphilosophical assumptions. It does not tell us that we need to abandon all the metaphors of western philosophy, but rather that we need to give careful and detailed attention to how comparative philosophy should proceed, what its goals and purposes are, and what kinds of inquiry are most suited to its goals—given both where traditions might have come from and where they might be headed. It also tells us to be very careful in how we construct the metaphilosophical backgrounds (and metaphors) from non-western traditions; we need to be careful not to import metaphors. It may also point us to some of the serious and engaged conversation Struhl endorses.

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On a final note, in thinking about contemporary possibilities for metaphilosophical metaphors, from the Chinese tradition, we might gain a greater emphasis on the importance of growing and maintaining relationships as part and parcel of philosophical activity, among other things. After all, while Aristotle said that “perhaps it would appear desirable, and indeed it would seem to be obligatory, especially for a philosopher, to sacrifice even one’s closest personal ties in defense of the truth,”18 perhaps without the dominance of the combat metaphor prodding us to victory over others through methods of war and interrogation, we might more seriously consider Analects 5.26, where Confucius responds to Zilu’s question of what it is that he would most like to do by saying: “I would like to bring peace and contentment to the aged, to share relationships of trust and confidence with my friends, and to love and protect the young.”19

CHAPTER FOUR MUSICALITY IN RITUAL: LESSONS FROM MUSIC IN THE ZHONGYONG CHOW LEE TAT

In The Ethical and Political Works of Mozi, Mozi condemned activities which involved the playing of music due to the socially unbeneficial consequences it entailed; aside from the heavy costs incurred in the production of instruments and fine clothing required for dancers, manpower which might otherwise be directed to more economically fruitful duties were diverted for people to perform in musical ceremonies.1 Music, according to Mozi, should be prohibited. It is apparent that Mozi’s rejection of music is accompanied by a theistic conception of an ideal social order determined from the top-down, or as Fraser suggests in his article on Mohism from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: At the pinnacle of the cosmic sociopolitical hierarchy stands Tian... All people are its subjects and owe it veneration and gratitude... It reigns virtuously over the human emperor — the “Son of Tian” — as a kind of cosmic sovereign and all-seeing, all-powerful policeman... it embodies correct moral norms and thus serves as a role model by which to judge the morality of practices and actions.2

Mozi’s rejection of music was thus founded on its detraction from an affixed social standard; this social standard was arbitrarily affixed by a transcendent order, revealed to the emperor and dictated to the populace. A similar flavor of theism can be said to be found in the opening passage of the Zhongyong: What tian ཙ commands (ming ભ) is called natural tendencies (xing ᙗ); drawing out these natural tendencies is called the proper way (dao 䚃), improving upon this way is called education (jiao ᮉ). As for this proper way, we cannot quit even for an instant. Were it possible to quit it, it would

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Chapter Four not be the proper way. It is for this reason that exemplary persons (junzi ੋ ᆀ) are so concerned about what is not seen, and so anxious about what is not heard.3

The opening line of the Zhongyong ѝᓨ smacks of theism on first impact, redolent with suggestions of a transcendent Big Daddy or super-force (tian ཙ) who dictates (ming ભ) a predetermined order or essence (xing ᙗ), from which an inevitable progression ensues (dao 䚃) whereby “we cannot quit even for an instant.” Under such an order, exemplary persons (junzi ੋ ᆀ ) charge themselves with attempting to understand this divine knowledge, and alongside their faithful flock, seek to perpetuate their revelations through education (jiao ᮉ). Is it evident then, that this opening statement sets the tone for everything else that follows in the Zhongyong, leaving it as yet another iteration of the theistic narrative similar to the Mohists’ discourse? I think not, for the subsequent passages in the Zhongyong employ the curious analogy of music—something the Mohists so adamantly resisted—to illustrate these apparently “theistic” concepts. Music, an art which is conceivably spontaneous, creative and fluid, was used analogously in making sense of the concepts sketched in the Zhongyong’s opening passage, concepts which we have speculated as theistic, that is, as a predetermined, dictated and static order of things; the contrast here is glaring. Our main concern in this paper is an attempt to make sense of that contrast between the analogies of music and the apparently “theistic” concepts of tian ཙ (“heaven”), ming ભ (“decree”, “command”), xing ᙗ (“natural tendencies”) and dao 䚃 (“the proper way”), all of which lay down the context for the conceptions of jiao ᮉ (“education”) and junzi ੋᆀ (“the exemplary individual”). At base, we would argue that these concepts are not theistic in light of the explanatory role given to music, and attempt to articulate the lessons one could draw from the Zhongyong’s rendition of music. Our approach here would involve a selective discussion of the passages from the Zhongyong which are conceivably related to music. Direct references to music in the Zhongyong might be found in passages fifteen, nineteen and twenty-eight; in what follows, we will discuss these three passages and then turn to passage thirty-three, which concludes the Zhonyong. However, before we begin looking at the Zhongyong, it would be beneficial for us to look at what might have constituted an understanding of and an appreciation for “music” in ancient Chinese

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thought. Hopefully from this we might extract an interpretive context relevant to our discussion. “Music,” as it was practiced then, was never exclusive to the playing of instruments, but involved an “audio-visual performance” which included dance and the handling of various props, often executed during feasts and other official ceremonies.4 More importantly, “music” never fulfilled, or at least was not supposed to only fulfill, the role of “entertainment” as one might encounter in popular conceptions of “music” today; rather, “music” was tied intimately to the practice of ritual (li ⽬) and served as a heuristic in strengthening the mutuality of relationships within the community. This is evident when Ruan Ji, in his Essay on Music, claims: Chariots, apparel, banners, flags, palaces, rooms, food, and drink are tools of ritual. Bells, chimes, drums, lutes, zithers, song, and dance are instruments of music. When ritual goes beyond what has been fixed, the honorable and the lowly become confused; when the order of music is lost, close and distant relations become indistinguishable. Ritual fixes appearance, and music calms the heart. Ritual regulates the exterior, while music alters the interior. When ritual and music are correctly set, the world is at peace... When regulating music, the former sage kings did not seek to indulge in pleasures of ear and eye or for greater enjoyment in their inner chambers. Their purpose was resolutely to transmit the vital energy of heaven and earth, pacify the spirit of all things, solidify the positions of rank, and fix the true essence of life.5

Music then, worked hand in hand with ritual to invoke, sustain and reflect the base of communal relations that were constitutive of ideal behavior, whereby one might say that the practice of proper music was a ritual, and the practice of ritual was almost musical. However, it was not the case that any practice of music guaranteed a flourishing community. In fact, Ruan Ji laments of certain practices of music which, because they were not properly regulated, accompanied “corrupted” communities, where: Those who sang shed tears, those who listened let out a sigh... Everyone was filled with emotion for the day’s pleasures, and stayed wrapped up in sighs all night long... With disregard for the intimacy between father and son, disrespect for the institutions of ruler and servant, an absence of ritual in the home...they no longer sought lifelong happiness, but rather to exalt habits of licentiousness and indulgence.6

Thus, it was music which regulated or laid emphasis on the relations within a community through ritual that was resonant of a successful community; music thus held a tight connection with ritual, such that

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focusing on one entailed focusing on the other, and disregarding one bore the consequence of disregarding the other. Another useful point to assist us in forming an understanding of music, is that the character signifying music (yue ᷸) in the Chinese language shares the same graph and phonetic root with the character for joy (le ᷸). The differences in meaning between the two depend on and only surface through the variety of deployments in their semantic contexts. The meaning of le is more accurately described as “to please” or “to make happy”, that is, it is always pleasing to someone or making someone happy; joy is always relationally situated rather than an independent state of experience. Of related import is the relation between the characters for music, harmony (he ␴) and equilibrium (zhong ᷕ). In Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary, Ames explores the musical connotations found in the characters of he and zhong. The character for he found on the oracle bones and bronzes were composed of a wind instrument—a musical instrument—constructed out of reed pipes (i.e. a collection of pipes with distinct tones gathered to form an instrument), where the “harmony” referenced by the character he ␴ , “is not simply the mutual accommodation of difference that attenuates discord, but more importantly, the creative and productive outcome when such differences are coordinated to optimum effect.” As for zhong, its character references the use of a drum for rallying troops or a banner as a visual marker to gather people (on the battlefield or in a marketplace).7 These references suggest that music was integral to the conceptions of harmony and equilibrium immersed in a communal context, envisioned as exemplary ideals which were arguably reflected in the Zhongyong’s composition. With these points in mind, we now have some idea of the significance that music played in ancient Chinese thought; music was intimately conceived with conceptions of social order and exemplary behavior, derived from the relational structure of immediate kin and laid heavy emphasis on the various unfolding relationships (self to family, family to community, community to state, etc.). Having said that, let us proceed with our reading of the Zhongyong. Passage fifteen: In travelling a long way, one must set off from what is near at hand, and in climbing to a high place, one must begin from low ground: such is the proper way (dao 䚃) of exemplary persons (junzi ੋᆀ). The Book of Songs says: “The loving relationship with wife and children, Is like the strumming of the zither and the lute;

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In the harmonious relationship between older and younger brothers There is an abundance of enjoyment and pleasure. Be appropriate in your house and home And bring joy to your wife and progeny.” The Master said, “And how happy the parents will be.”8

Passage fifteen emphasizes the attainment of a consummate role—“a long way” or “a high place”—by exemplary persons through the contrasted mundane—“what is near at hand” or the “low ground.” Supplementing this contrast, the passage quoted the Book of Songs, whereby the loving relationship between wives and their children was compared to the “strumming of the zither and the lute.” Immediately after, the harmonious relationship between siblings was mentioned, followed by one’s house and home, and finally culminating in the happiness of one’s parents. It is more than likely that what were taken to be “the mundane,” which were crucial to the consummate role, were the relationships that one was situated within, and the musical reference is significant to the extent that it brings out an important aspect of music, relevant to a conception of exemplary persons (junzi ੋᆀ) and their relations. There are three points that we may draw from the musical reference. First, the zither and the lute are both string instruments and thereby share certain affinities with each other. Second, although the zither and the lute are similar, they are not identical. Third, the zither and lute, though pleasant as they are, produce newer and richer textures of sound when played in tandem (this can be said of any musical instrument in general, depending on how creative one gets); this new arrangement does not overwhelm the two instruments in a superlative third order, rather this new arrangement while preserving the qualities of the two instruments, serves to enhance their respective qualities. Notice then, how the passage begins with a discussion about the proper way (dao 䚃) of an exemplary person (junzi ੋᆀ) and immediately defers to talking about the relations between kin—the relation of the exemplary person to his kin, and among the exemplary person’s kin—that is, instead of bluntly reciting the “virtues”, “laws” and “commands” that the ideal person adopts as the proper way (thereby having himself distinguished as an individual above everyone else), appraising the outstanding qualities of exemplary persons in the Zhongyong entails an appraisal of their relations in and with the community, the family being the most immediate in any community.

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Utilizing the reference to music, exemplary persons, in bringing their relations to fruition, do not overwhelm or dominate these relations with their “exemplariness”, as a conduit of justice might (where the model of justice is the locus to which everything lives up to), but rather, exemplary persons become exemplars when the other people involved in these relations become exemplary with them, or to put it another way, exemplary persons become exemplars when their relations are exemplary; in a similar manner when two instruments perform an inspiring duet, they do not outdo each other, but rather mutually enrich the qualities of each other. The proper way (dao 䚃) which exemplary persons adopt, therefore, does not denote a transcendent ready-made notion of “the good” for one to abide by, but rather involves a creative process of “making good” through making excellent one’s relations. Furthermore, in the manner that each instrument in an ensemble carries with it a potential affinity for another instrument that is only realized in a creative performance, human beings exude natural tendencies (xing ᙗ) that involve affiliations with each other through communal relations. This does not mean, however, that these natural tendencies are pre-packaged goods to be unraveled, but rather they involve producing that which is meaningful within and from the grounds of one’s relations; human intervention is an essential ingredient in nourishing xing ᙗ. The idea of giving due attention to one’s relations is further explicated in passage nineteen of the Zhongyong: The Master said, ‘King Wu and the Duke of Zhou—there indeed were two thoroughly filial exemplars (xiao ᆍ)! Filial piety means being good at continuing the purposes of one’s predecessors and at maintaining their ways. In the proper season, they made repairs to the ancestral temple, laid out the sacrificial vessels of their ancestors, exhibited the roles used to funerary observances, and sacrificed from the newly harvested crops. They used ritual proprieties (li ⽬) in the ancestral temple as their way of arranging the tablets of the departed generations appropriately on the left and right sides of the temple; they deferred to the titles of office as their ways of recognizing degrees of nobility; they used the sequence of the services as their way of distinguishing those most worthy; they used the drinking pledges in which inferiors toast superiors as their way of reaching down to include the lowliest, and they took into consideration the color of the hair as their way of seating participants according to their seniority. Taking up the places of their forbearers, carrying out their ritual observances (li), playing their music (yue ᷸), showing respect to those whom they esteemed, extending their affections to those of whom they

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were fond, serving their dead as though they were living, and serving those who are long departed as though they were still here—this then is filial piety at its utmost. The sacrificial observances to tian at the winter solstice in the southern suburbs of the capital and to the earth (di ൠ) at the summer solstice in the northern suburbs are ways of serving the high ancestors. Ritual observances performed in the ancestral temple are ways of making sacrifices to one’s forbearers. For one who has a clear understanding of the sacrificial observances to tian and the earth, and the various ceremonies such as the Grand di sacrifice and the autumnal chang sacrifice performed in the ancestral temple, the governing of the empire is as easy as placing something in the palm of one’s hand.’9

Passage nineteen offers a bustling portrayal of a tripartite relation between filial piety, ritual propriety and music, adopting an almost festive tune in relaying the intricacies constituting a grand orchestrated climax. From the laying down of sacrificial vessels and positioning the tablets, to the conducting of ceremonies, paying respects to one’s immediate superiors, seniors, forbearers, the forbearers’ kin, one’s ancestral lineage, culminating in tian ཙ and di ൠ with the sweeping seasons; this dynamic progression from the minute to the majestic can itself be seen as a musical rendition. An ensemble bears just this relational structure, consisting of a diverse selection of instruments, together producing a magnificent performance: one flute to another flute, two flutes to a third flute, the flutes to the strings, the flutes and strings to the drums, and so on, conceivably expanding in richness through the process of accommodating more and more details. Applying the musical reference, the point of this analogy and the main interest in this passage lies in the repeated image of the small proceeding into the grand; beginning with the refinement of one’s immediate relations, one cannot help but watch it expand to the limits of one’s cosmos. In taking the place of one’s forbearers (in observing the rituals and playing their music), one is not simply establishing a relation with one’s forbearers simpliciter, but one also establishes a connection with the relations belonging to one’s forbearers, and one’s web of relations indefinitely expands when one progressively excels in one’s immediate relations; this was probably what the opening passage of the Zhongyong meant when it declared of the proper way, that “we cannot quit even for an instant” where the extensiveness of relations is entailed in one’s immediate relations. Stretching the point further, improvisational music best captures this scenario, where the making of music is not merely making up a catchy

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tune and imposing it on an existing piece, but is a “making with” which first involves listening, then responding. This “making with” is masterfully demonstrated in Analects 7.32, “When the Master was singing in the company of others and liked someone else’s song, he always asked to hear it again before joining in.”1 Likewise, though one might say that exemplary persons are active in optimizing their relations between themselves and the community, the activity on the exemplars’ part also involves a degree of passivity, a receptiveness or sensitivity to those around them, a giving and a taking. Returning to passage nineteen, the notion of filial piety (xiao ᆍ), if read in its own terms, gives one the impression of absolute obedience, where a filial exemplar mindlessly follows commands from the past. However, I would suggest that in the broader context of our discussion on music, filial piety in the Zhongyong bears a subtle difference, that is, the delicate balance between activity and passivity is achieved, I think, in these exemplary notions of filial piety (xiao ᆍ); filial exemplars do not blindly obey past orders, nor do they simply rumble off into the world once they reach the “age of independence,” instead, they give their relations in the community due sensitivity, which in this case immediately involves their parents, avoiding the extremities of overhauling or stagnating the “purposes of one’s predecessors and... their ways.” Knapp’s essay, Ru Interpretation of Xiao, traces a variety of meanings attributed to xiao as it developed through the phases of Chinese thought; among the diverse interpretations presented, two emphases laid on xiao by the Western Zhou best demonstrates the Zhongyong’s message. The first comes from a double-pronged conception of xiao as a reciprocal relation between the child and his parent, where “a son must revere and carry out the affairs of his father, and a father must love his son.” This notion of xiao is accompanied closely by the familial concept of you ৻ that is resonant of a complementary relationship where “a younger brother must respect his elder brother, while an elder brother must pity his younger brother” (perhaps “empathize” might be a better substitute for “pity”). Xiao here involves more than simply children being good toward their parents, but essentially involves the parents’ responsiveness to their children, just as a younger brother is not you if the relationship with his elder brother is not reciprocal.11 The second conception of xiao lays emphasis on its expansiveness, that is, xiao is not limited in practice to children and their parents (or grandparents) nor to the living, but also “to one’s uncle, brothers, the lineage (dazong བྷᇇ), lineage elders (zonglao ᇇ㘱), the sub-lineage (zongshi ᇇᇔ), the lineage temple (zongmiao ᇇ⹁), friends (pengyou ᭸

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཭), in-laws (hungou ፧ᎏ), and spirits (wenshen ᩥ⚄)... xiao could be extended beyond one’s direct ancestors to one’s agnatic kin, and even to non-kinsmen.”12 Thus, exemplary filial behaviors exhibited by exemplary persons, presented in the Zhongyong and read in line with its musical analogies, cannot be sufficiently understood as mere “filial obedience” or “adequately providing for one’s parents”; filial piety here involves an intensive reciprocity of relations that extend indefinitely outwards from one’s family to relatives, from one’s kinsmen to non-kinsmen, from the living to the dead and beyond. Supplementing this idea on expansiveness, the hierarchical progression from one’s immediate relations up to the cosmic movements in passage nineteen indicates a continuity from the minute to the majestic. What this leads to in the Zhongyong is a conception of tian that does not go beyond its relation with di, that is, an understanding of tian does not call for one to transcend the bonds of community into heaven, but is understood within the context of the world, beginning with one’s immediate relations. Mastering one’s immediate relations leads structurally to a mastery involving the extent of the cosmos, where “the governing of the empire is as easy as placing something in the palm of one’s hand.” This rereading of tian also forces us to reconsider the conception of “command” (ming ભ); the “command” that is being executed here, perhaps, means something closer to a “responding to” (the masses) than it is a “commandment” choked down from up high. This expansive aspect of relationality is further explicated through the relation between the ruler and the ruled in the next segment. The Zhongyong, through its earlier passages, focused its attention on the exemplary persons’ immediate relations; from its beginning glance at the exemplary individual, it gradually expanded its reach to the wider community. Now, in passage twenty eight, the Zhongyong further expands its horizons from the community to the state, the relationship now establishing between the ruler and the ruled: The Master said, ‘Being foolish and yet insisting on depending upon themselves, being base and yet insisting on taking charge of themselves, being born into the present generation but returning to the ways of old— such people as these will bring down calamities on their own persons.’ No one but the Son of tian (tianzi ཙ ᆀ ) can preside over rites and ceremonies, make the laws, and determine the written script. Today in the empire our carriages have axles of the same width, in our writing we use a standard script, and in our conduct we accept the same norms. Even if one has ascended the throne, if he has not achieved the necessary excellence

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Chapter Four (de ᗧ), he dare not initiate the ceremonies and music (liyue ⽬᷸) for the court. If he has achieved excellence but does not occupy the throne, he also dare not initiate the ceremonies and music for the court. The Master said, ‘I can explain the ritual observance of the Xia dynasty, even though its descendent state, Qi, does not provide adequate evidence. I have studied the ritual observances of the Shang dynasty, and moreover, its descendent state, Song, has preserved them. I have studied the ritual observances of the Zhou dynasty that we presently use. I follow the Zhou.’13

To make a quick note: the beginning of passage twenty-eight offers testimony to the revised conception of filial piety that rejects a stagnation of practices, where among the types of behaviors that might wreak havoc upon people, those “being born into the present generation but returning to the ways of old” is considered to be one of them. In addition, the last paragraph of twenty-eight might—with a charitable reading—be seen as advocating the subtle balance found in exemplary filial behavior, whereby among the ritual observances practiced by the Xia, whose tradition was not preserved by its descendent state, the Shang, whose tradition had been (perhaps completely) preserved by its descendent state, and the Zhou, conceivably the middle point between the extremities; the Master advocates the ritual observances practiced by the Zhou. Our interest in passage twenty-eight is its mention of music in conjunction with ritual (liyue ⽬ ᷸ ): the pairing of ritual with music possibly clues us in to what ritual conceptually involves, and this I think, is intimately related to the Son of tian. I would suggest that what makes a good piece of music is not too far off from ritual properly practiced, in the sense that a center between the informal and the formal has to be maintained. If each instrument played as it pleased, then the performance would likely erupt in chaos. If every instrument played exactly the same note, in the same pitch and with the same beat, then the performance would result in blandness. However, were a variety of instruments to perform, through their distinctive qualities, alongside each other, paying attention to each other, playing with affinities for each other, then we have the makings of a masterpiece. Likewise, one may map out the ideal social conditions—the practice of proper ritual—presented by this passage in accord with music. A society without any rules (social norms, communal affinities), is completely informal and emerges in chaos. A society with strict uncompromising rules (e.g. a dictatorship or a slave community), is overly formal and stifles progress. A society, such as that presented in the Zhongyong,

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governed by ritual that is regulated by exemplary persons, strikes a balance between the formal and the informal; this idea is exemplified through the Son of tian. The Son of tian, i.e. the emperor, is commonly understood theistically by many today as the Son of Heaven. We encountered this theistic conception of an emperor at the beginning with Mozi, where the emperor’s authority was mandated by a divine command, that is, the emperor in this theistic sense, as long as he remained in possession of the throne, had the divine right to shape the world—from top-down—as he thinks Heaven sees fit; whether or not his rule considered the masses appeared secondary to that fact. Such a tyrannical reading of the Son of tian however, does not match the description sketched in passage twenty-eight. For any person to be the Son of tian, two conditions must be present: he must be in possession of the throne and he must exemplify excellence. Given these two conditions, it is possible to claim the following. Seen from the perspective of those who possesses the throne but not excellence, they dare not initiate liyue, which regulates the world, for the reason that they have yet to attain mastery over their relations. Seen from the perspective of those who possesses excellence but not the throne, they too dare not initiate liyue which regulates the world, for the reason that they are aware of the proper norms that must be observed in order for them to fruitfully initiate liyue; this means that those in excellence know that proper attention must be given to the relations within the community, which include engaging the proper channels spanning the community (or the larger community of the state, or even the world), and must not attempt any acts of despotic arbitration. Bringing the Son of tian back to music, one might conceive of the Son of tian as the lead player in an ensemble. The lead player, though in charge of the other instruments, is not “in charge” in the sense of authoritatively imposing his segment onto the others; instead, he maintains a responsive attitude towards the others, taking note of the subtle shifts, and serves as a guide to the respective segments as the situation calls for. In a manner of speaking, the lead player leads the ensemble through being led by the ensemble. In other words, the Son of tian (who ideally embodies an exemplary role) avoids the extremities of the formal and the informal, where his ruling—his decree (ming ભ)—remains ever responsive to those he rules and vice versa. Being overly formal in his ruling makes the relationship uni-directional and marginalizes the ruled; to be too informal, and the relations become non-directional and vegetate; both extremes stifle the progress of excellent relations. In other words, the Son of tian behaves

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towards his people as a father would towards his child in xiao, where the relationship is dialogical and bears an openness that is inclusive of the expanding ranks constituting the state (and by extension, the world). Here, we can make a connection between filial exemplariness (xiao ᆍ) and education (jiao ᮉ): because the character for xiao is embedded within the character for jiao, one might infer that ideal education bears a similar structure to filial exemplariness. Akin to xiao—maintaining the center point between the formal and the informal, activity and passivity, preservation and progress—the relationship between a teacher and student in jiao, entails neither a strict acquisition of knowledge nor an indiscriminate force-feeding of course material (a relation with a textbook can adequately cover these objectives). Instead, jiao involves an emulation of the teacher on the student’s part, acquiring not just knowledge, but becoming a more defined (not distinct) individual through the exemplariness of the teacher, the same way a filial child follows in the footsteps of his or her parents (without stagnating or overhauling the relationship). In response, the exemplary teacher returns a sensitivity to the student, engaging him or her at the appropriate levels and exercising delicate timing. Finally, we turn to passage thirty-three of the Zhongyong: The Book of Songs says: “Over her brocade skirts She wears a plain robe.” This means she hates to make a display of her refinement. Thus, the ways of exemplary persons (junzi ੋᆀ) while hidden, day by day become more conspicuous; the ways of petty persons while obvious, day by day disappear. The ways of exemplary persons are plain and not Wearisome Simple and refined, Amicable and coherent. Those who know the nearness of what is distant, The source of what is customary, And the conspicuousness of what is subtle— Such persons can enter the gates of excellence. The Book of Songs says: “Although having dived down to lie at the bottom,

Musicality in Ritual The fish is still highly visible.” Thus exemplary persons on introspection are not dissatisfied, and find no fault in their purposes. It is precisely what is truly exceptional about exemplary persons, which others cannot see. The Book of Songs says: “Being seen as you dwell in your own residence, Be without shame even in the most secluded corner.” Thus, exemplary persons are respected without lifting a hand, and are credible without having spoken a word. The Books of Songs says: “Approaching and presiding at the sacrifice in silence, At such a time there is no contention.” It is for this reason that exemplary persons offer no reward and yet have the best efforts of the common people; show no anger and yet the people stand in awe of their symbols of sovereignty, The Book of Songs says: “Without making a show of his excellence, The various vassals model themselves after him.” It is for this reason that exemplary persons are earnest and reverential, and the world is at peace. The Book of Songs says: “Harboring the highest excellence in your breast, You have no need of loud words of intimidating looks.” The Master said, ‘Loud words and intimidating looks are of little use in transforming the common people.’ The Book of Songs says: “The influence of excellence is as light as a feather.”

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But even a feather is too heavy in the comparison. The natural world around us goes about its work without using sound or scent. It is indeed superlative.14

Standing in contrast to the passages progressing up to this point, passage thirty-three bursts into song celebrating the behavior of an exemplary person. While passages fifteen, nineteen and twenty-eight debut the extensive relations constitutive of an exemplary individual, passage thirtythree intensifies its movement back to the exemplary person in its finale. The main musical theme in this passage, aside from its melodious rendition, lies in the complementary contrasts which it takes to be definitive of the exemplary person. These contrasts exemplify the exemplars’ masteries over their relations, which consequently distinguish them with (not from) their relations. Flitting between the exquisite and the plain, the simple and the refined, the near and the far, the low and the high, the hidden and the conspicuous, the behavior of the exemplary person is almost musical; or to put it another way, there is musicality in the conduct of the exemplary. Our conception of music need not be restricted only to musical instruments or dance steps, but the fruition of an excellent relation can also be said to be musical; just as a masterpiece strikes a center-point between distinctness and affiliation among the instruments, an excellent relationship maintains a balance between vigilance and receptivity. The balance between vigilance and receptivity has the implication that there will always be some “compromise” among the relations of the exemplary person; this can be observed in Mencius 7A35 when the actions of the emperor Shun—considered by his contemporaries to be an exemplary person—are not deemed to be morally reprehensible as he hypothetically abandons the empire and escapes the authorities with his criminal father on his back. Vigilantly upholding the law, the conduit of justice would have condemned Shun’s actions solely from the perspective of the law. The filial son would do all that was in his power to absolve his father, which for Shun, would have consisted in no more than a simple decree. However, the exemplary Shun did neither of these, since they dealt excessively and exclusively with only one of his relations; Shun’s decision to run away was driven by due consideration for both these relations, as a son and as an emperor, and worked out an optimum compromise relevant to the situation in its broadest sense. In the same way that a successful ensemble involves paying each instrument its respective attention without excessively favoring a particular instrument, an exemplary person does not

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concentrate his efforts solely on one relation, but takes in, as far as he is able, the widest range of relations that are involved in his conceivable scope. Passage thirty-three also explicitly distinguishes the exemplary person from a pretender. One might be tempted to ask: does not any person need only to pretend in tending to his relations so that he might be called an exemplary person? For instance, a husband may have an affair unbeknownst to his family; as long as he plays his role as a father—caring for his wife and children—and the secret remains undiscovered, would he still be considered an exemplary person, particularly to his family? I would suggest that given the passage’s sentiment on the exemplary person’s absence of shame even in solitude, the answer would be a soft “no.” The secretive father would not be considered exemplary because he neglects a social norm, or that an exemplary relation with the family does not consist only in providing for their welfare, but also in living up to one’s words, and being trustworthy. However, it is also possible to answer in the affirmative, for it might be the case that there is genuine affection involved in the affair; then in such a case, maybe keeping a secret might be the best compromise that an exemplary person would be able to find. The bottom line being, there is no absolute standard for one to apply; in fact, applying an absolute standard is unproductive given the premises of the Zhongyong. Creative solutions have to be crafted depending on the specificities of each case; in a similar manner that no two musical performances are identical, there always will remain tensions between activity and receptivity, from which either successful or failed results emerge. As Ames puts it, “when the expression of human feelings as the ultimate resource for achieving moral competence is orchestrated into a productive harmony, the Confucian vision of consummate life is advanced, and all things in the world flourish.”15 We have thus looked at the Zhongyong through the lens of music. Beginning with a theistic Mohist reading of the opening passage, we refused that narrative on the grounds of the musical references made in the Zhongyong which appeared incompatible with its apparent opening message. We then explored various significances that accompanied music in ancient China, setting a context for our reading of the Zhongyong. Following that, we visited the passages in the Zhongyong that made references to music, along with its concluding passage, and revised the central concepts articulated in the Zhongyong which appeared theistic. So what can we learn from music in the Zhongyong? Far from being a theistic narrative similar to the Mohists’ discourse, the Zhonyong grounds its ideals in the roots of community; exemplariness is not achieved through

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transcendence in the Zhongyong, but is achieved through a rootedness in relations, where these relations define the core of exemplary behavior. With rootedness comes expansiveness when exemplary persons continue to make exemplary the unfolding relations in an inclusive continuum; this continuum however, does not consist of totalitarian adherence, rather it admits difference. Difference, often proving to be an obstacle in theistic narratives, is skillfully orchestrated in the Zhongyong to creatively produce a harmonious equilibrium of meaningful tensions, or to put it as a slogan, “When Difference Makes a Difference”16; exemplary individuals devote their efforts to the tireless and unceasing pursuit of excellence, aiming to make an entire world of exemplars, or none at all.

CHAPTER FIVE HARMONIZING KNOWLEDGE: USING RESOURCES FROM CLASSICAL CHINESE PHILOSOPHY TO REINTEGRATE TECHNƜ AND EPISTƜMƜ AARON B. CRELLER

Virtue is so noble an end for Aristotle and Plato that the workings of a city should aim toward it in every way—the education of the children, the religious beliefs of the citizens, the punishment of the vicious, the status of craftspeople and laborers, and so on. Despite their differences, the projects of Plato’s Republic and Laws and Aristotle’s Politics are structured with some of the same assumptions about knowledge, assumptions that lead them to similar political stances on labor. This paper begins by picking out some key features of the metaphysics of Greek epistemology that lead to the devaluation of technƝ and craftwork and the ascent of epistƝmƝ in the politico-ethical life. Following the Platonic and Aristotelian accounts of labor, I complicate their concept of craftwork as merely vulgar by referencing two philosophically exemplary craftsmen from classical China’s Zhuangzi. I close the paper by concluding that comparative epistemology needs to comprehensively harmonize skillful approaches to knowledge with intellectual approaches to knowledge, especially given the relevance of epistemology to daily life.

The Metaphysical Priority of the Formal and the Abstract in Greek Epistemology The political consequences of Plato and Aristotle’s epistemology are easily found in their accounts of education and labor. Their accounts of knowledge are grounded in a metaphysics that prioritizes the formal and the abstract over the particular and the concrete. Examples are easy to find

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in the Republic. Take, for instance, the allegory of the cave. The epistemic value of being out of the cave and in the initially dizzying sunlight is that one can, over time, understand the source of the experience of the visible world—the sun. After being dragged out of the cave, one would “come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces changing seasons and years and controls everything in the visible world, and is in a sense responsible for everything that he and his fellow-prisoners used to see.”1 Carried over analogically, it is not a visible source that is responsible for understanding the visible realm, but rather the ascent out of the visible realm into the formal realm, where the philosopher comes to know the form of the Good and its role in establishing all that is right and valuable. Even though Plato seems more pragmatic in his later dialogue, the Laws, than in the Republic, both the more practical “second-best city” and the “perfect city” take as a starting assumption the priority of the formal. The pragmatic nature of the second-best city of Magnesia is that it better accounts for the difficulty of getting actual people to include adequate consideration of the formal and abstract in their methods. Aristotle’s metaphysics are similar, despite his critique of the forms. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he establishes the priority of the theoretical over the practical by their goals—the theoretical, associated with epistƝmƝ, is focused on knowing the Truth, while the practical, associated with technƝ, is focused on successful action. These two are both necessary for an effective political and ethical life, but the two are distinct. Since they have different objectives, they are different processes of the soul. Likewise, their distinction from one another gives epistƝmƝ higher priority; one must know the Truth in order to increase the successfulness of ones actions.

Citizens and Artisans in Plato’s Laws For the sake of charity and brevity, I will here consider Plato’s more practical project. In the Laws, the Athenian leads his two traveling companions in conversation, the subject of which is a blueprint of the proposed city of Magnesia. He mentions early on that the difficult part of political planning is “to make the political systems reflect in practice the trouble-free perfection of theory.”2 Within the context of this guideline, the Athenian dominates the conversation with occasional interruptions to make sure his traveling companions are in agreement.3 The citizens of this city will all have their own farms on which they can work while still having enough time to take part in festivals, make group political decisions, and fulfill duties of city positions. In broad terms, this is a citizen’s job,

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and the educational system is directed both towards providing a basis for carrying out this job and towards living a life of virtue. While it is possible to imagine a world where everyone sticks to his or her respective job and the citizens of the state direct themselves towards virtue, the Athenian has already acknowledged that getting the theory into a practicable form rather than an ideal form is important. When the three come to the topic of craftsmen, it is in the context of making rules governing the everyday affairs of the population—slaves, foreigners, and citizens alike. Having already addressed the duties of the citizens’ political occupation earlier in the discussion, the Athenian offers a law prohibiting citizens from engaging in craftwork, reasoning that the citizen’s vocation, which demands a great deal of practice and study, is to establish and maintain good order in the community, and this is not a job for part-timers. Following two trades or two callings efficiently—or even following one and supervising a worker in another—is almost always too difficult for human nature.4

Whether citizen or not, it is human nature that prevents one from pursuing more than a single trade. Those who take on too much are subject to penalties for their ambitions, but these penalties are designed to direct them back towards a life of virtue.5 The life of craftspersons prevents them from actually obtaining the lofty state of virtue towards which the citizens are directed. Their time is too limited to contemplate and participate effectively in the good of the city and simultaneously practice a trade.6

Aristotle on Craftwork In his Politics, Aristotle also raises the importance of citizens avoiding crafts, though his case is more aggressive. The devotion of the time and effort necessary for crafting will displace the time that could be spent on virtuous activities that require leisure. With this in mind, he writes, “in the city that is governed in the finest way and that possesses men who are absolutely just… the citizens must not live the life of a vulgar craftsman or a commercial life. For such a life is ignoble and contrary to virtue.”7 The issue of time and energy management is important for Aristotle: not only will a craftsperson be too tired after a day of work to contemplate virtue, but so too will the apprentices be sacrificing parts of their education for the pursuit of a craft rather than the pursuit of “higher” things.8 Similar to the worry of a drain on time and energy is the drain that labor can have on one’s health. If a job’s conditions destroy the body and mind through exposure, such as breathing in noxious chemicals from a

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furnace, then they will inevitably destroy the laborer’s ability to cultivate their mind. Even though such a person may have time at a future date to engage in the virtuous activities of thinking, the impacts of job conditions on his/her ability to think well cannot be undone. Beyond the time, energy, and health constraints, Aristotle introduces another problem for laboring as a crafter—freedom. It also makes a great difference for what purpose one does or learns something. What is for one’s own sake, or for friends, or done for virtue, is not unfree; but someone who does this same thing for others would in many cases seem to be acting like a hired hand or a slave.9

Pursuing work for others puts one in a position of service. The carpenter is building things to fill orders and in the process he has given up the freedom of his time by agreeing to have things built on another’s schedule. If it were not for the time requirements, it seems that craftwork could be free, providing one only did it for one’s self, one’s friends, or virtue.

Complicating the Greek Picture Plato and Aristotle by no means exhaust the Greek conception of labor and virtue.10 However, their critiques represent a stance on virtue which would ultimately affect how the state should educate the population. Occupations are a major factor in how far a given person could expect to develop his or her soul. If one is forced into a laboring class by inheriting a family occupation or being a foreigner of Plato’s Magnesia, then opportunity for the attainment of virtue is lost because of the effects such a vulgar enterprise has on one’s body and frame of mind. Tired and unwilling to contemplate, each day will be spent on plying a trade that works mostly with the mundane affairs of everyday life instead of with higher portions of human existence. Additionally, the skills developed in vulgar labor are those of action and not of understanding the true and the good, an understanding that is needed for attaining virtue and making progress towards being informed political participants.11 However, such a conception of the relationship between craftwork and virtue seems to be limited. A few stories out of the Zhuangzi12 reveal another conception of the possible relationship between virtue and labor.

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Cook Ding13 Cook Ding’s story is that of a man butchering an ox for a lord. As he butchers, the tempo and proficiency of his cleaving are described as resembling the rhythm of a dance. The lord exclaims at such a show of skill, to which the cook replies that what he cares for is “the Way, which goes beyond skill.”14 He proceeds to describe how he first perceived his activity of cutting up an ox and how it changed from an action of perception and understanding to a level of skill at which “spirit moves where it wants.” At this level of mastery, the knife moves into the empty spaces between bones and ligaments rather than hacking. In this way, he has not had to replace or sharpen his knife in nineteen years. With all of this in mind, however, not all situations are the same. Cook Ding expounds: However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until— flop! The whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.15

After hearing the cook’s explanation of his work, the lord replies, “I have heard the words of Cook Ding and learned how to care for life!” The cook in this story represents not only an amazing level of proficiency in a craft, but also the importance of the relationship between labor and understanding the world. The benefit of striving to improve beyond the level of skill to something more profound in one’s work is the first thing mentioned by Cook Ding. The activity of the craftsperson has a profoundness that relates it to the final part of the story. This comparison between how one approaches work or labor and how one lives provides guidelines that are useful for living out life in the best way. When difficult situations present themselves, the particular context contains the information for best resolving the situation. Craftspersons often use techniques localized to their professions to bring out important features of a context in order to maximize efficaciousness, such as an electrician sketching out the diagram of a circuit or a carpenter tracing many parts on the same piece of lumber. Taking advantage of the subtlety of a situation can make a person appear to have almost super human abilities, provided that she sizes up the situation and proceeds with care.

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Wheelwright Bian The second story is about a wheelwright named Bian. One day, he pauses while chiseling out a wooden wheel, lays down his tools and approaches the hall where Duke Huan is reading. Bian asks what is contained within the Duke’s book, to which Duke Huan replies, “The words of the sages.”16 The sages have long since passed away, however, and Bian says that what is in the duke’s hands is merely the “chaff and dregs of the men of old!” After the duke demands an explanation on pain of death, Bian uses his own experience to justify his claim. I look at it from the point of view of my own work. When I chisel a wheel, if the blows of the mallet are too gentle, the chisel slides and won’t take hold. But if they’re too hard, it bites in and won’t budge. Not too gentle, not too hard—you can get it in your hand and feel it in your mind. 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. So I’ve gone along for seventy years and at my age I’m still chiseling wheels. When the men of old died, they took with them the things that couldn’t be handed down. So what you are reading there must be nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old.17

The story ends on that note and the fate of Bian is not disclosed. It seems safe to assume that whether he died or not, Bian’s explanation contains the heart of the story.18 It is clear that the story of Bian contains a criticism of reading the words of the sages instead of trying to emulate them and seek what they sought. Their words are merely what are left over from the experiences that warrant their labels as sages. Bian justifies this criticism by drawing on the distinction between having the skill of chiseling a wheel and studying the skill of chiseling a wheel. He can describe the basics of the craft, but the heart of being a wheelwright is not something that can be transmitted, it must be acquired through cultivation of the skill and developing a “knack.” Developing knacks such as these are not transmitted through manuals, but instead through guiding relationships, such as apprenticeship.

Re-evaluating Vulgar Labor The word ‘virtue’ is completely absent from both of these stories, but that should not disqualify them from adding to the understanding of the relationship that virtue has with craftwork. Though lacking a definition like Plato’s “concord of reason and emotion”19 in the Laws, the stories

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allow for us to juxtapose “vulgar” labor and traditionally more “noble” pursuits. In both of these stories, the endeavors of the craftsmen provide an understanding that cannot be gained through description. Instead, the craftsmen moved from the skills involved in their work to an understanding that goes beyond the utility of their work and informs their interactions with the world. For Cook Ding, the skill has become internalized to the point that attention is not focused on the technical aspect of his perceptions and what he knows about oxen, but instead he pays attention to the specifics of the situation, taking care to note its subtle particularities. Thus, the lord who is listening exclaims that he has learned something about caring for life. Paying attention to the details of a situation rather than focusing only on rules to govern a task is not advice limited to the profession of the cook. Bian the wheelwright’s lesson is on the importance of what craftworks can teach about the place of past knowledge. It is easy to get stuck in quotations and the accounts of others. Rather than emulate people based on skill or status, it is more important to look beyond them to what they sought and then try to cultivate in oneself the skill or “knack” of living life towards similar ends. Even the words of sages cannot imbue in one the skills necessary for living life. Instead, the practices one engages in while living life help one develop the knack of discrimination, of knowing how much force to give the chisel. Finally, both of these examples point to the craftsperson’s ability to respond to the relevant details of the task at hand and the difficulty of teaching the details of this ability. Cook Ding’s description of his method cannot inform a future apprentice how to cut through a specific ligament. Instead, it serves as a reminder to anyone who seeks to learn from him that his goal is not a certain level of skill, but to pursue something greater, the Way, which is done through using the skill. Bian expresses similar qualities about his knowledge, where its value is not the mere technical language associated with the method of carving a wheel. Rather, it is a greater level of understanding that comes with a physicality that affects the way in which Bian thinks. These are both qualities of crafting that are outside of the parochial application of simple crafting “knacks.” Though such aspects of a skill cannot be taught, the stories convey their existence and their relationship to daily affairs, both of which are important for understanding the relationship between labor, knowledge, and virtue. What do these stories from the Zhuangzi illustrate about the relationship between theoretical knowledge and technical skill? In Chris Fraser’s “Knowledge and Error in Early Chinese Thought” he argues that

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the metaphysical assumption responsible for the prominence of the problem of illusion in the history of Western epistemology is the “conception of mind and knowledge that allows for the possibility of a comprehensive or persistent gap between reality and our perception of it.”20 One of the features of this approach to mind and knowledge in the Greek context is the division between action and understanding truth, a division that plays out conceptually in the separation of epistƝmƝ and technƝ. The influence of this division can be seen all the way up to present day approaches to epistemology as part of the analytic philosophical tradition, where introductions to the theory of knowledge commonly note the essential differences between knowing-that, knowing-how, and knowing-others. The Greek distinction between politics and labor, despite the love for skill-based analogies, is founded on a distinction between epistƝmƝ and technƝ then reinforced by arguments about human nature—humanity’s time, energy, health, and appropriate use of freedom all must be directed towards epistƝmƝ because it is the best way to know Good, Truth, and Beauty. However, the stories just mentioned from the Zhuangzi undermine the strength of Plato and Aristotle’s claims about labor being unable to contribute towards an understanding of politics and life. The interesting feature of these stories about labor is their integration of skillful action and accurate understanding of reality. Fraser points out how these features are important in the more philosophically rigorous pre-Han texts, such as the Mozi and the Xunzi. He concludes that “For pre-Han thinkers, the situation as a whole always provides sufficient features for the competent, conscientious agent to avoid perceptual error.”21 Similarly, the exemplary craftsperson stories are not advising the reader to begin apprenticing as a butcher or a wheelwright, but instead point out the wider applications that skills developed through a trade can have on the quality of one’s life. This paper is meant to motivate and promote a consideration of the contribution comparative philosophy can make to the intersection of knowledge and politics. Harmonizing skillful knack and theoretical knowledge is important because of the foundational role these knowledge categories have in the political realm. Plato and Aristotle argued against the involvement of craftspeople in politics because a life in the trades precluded the pursuit of virtue and virtue was essential for good political order. Trade knowledge did not prepare the soul for knowing the Good and the True. The philosophical approach that separates and hierarchizes knowing into these two aspects is the groundwork for our contemporary approach to vocations. The effects of how we conceive of knowledge extend to the dignity afforded those who work in particular trades, to a

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focus on the theoretical side of STEM rather than the technical as seen in the de-emphasis on courses like Woodworking or Shop Class while promoting mathematics, and even to the justification of the pay division between blue-collar workers and white-collar managers. Classical Chinese philosophy provides an argument that illustrates it is a mistake to assume that the separation of these aspects of knowing is a necessary one. If these social features of daily life are based on such a mistake, then there is an important motivation for comparative philosophers to engage in harmonizing our description of knowledge that accounts for understanding reality with our description of knowledge which focuses on developing the right technical skills involved in knowing. In other words, comparative epistemology should be engaged in harmonizing the cultural repercussions of epistƝmƝ and technƝ.

PART II: HARMONY AND CONFLICT EMBODIED

CHAPTER SIX EMBODIED EMOTIONS AND EMBODIED MIND: THE CHAN NOTION OF FREEDOM ELLEN ZHANG

I. Introduction At first glance, emotions, passions in particular, and Buddhism seems to be contradictory, for Buddhism (including Chan Buddhism) speaks of samƗdhi in terms of non-attachment and non-abiding, and advocates the idea of cutting off both thinking and feeling (linian quqing 㞳ᛕཤ᝟). Yet if we look at Buddhist teachings more closely, we can see that it is not true for most schools of the MƗhayƗnic tradition, including Chan Buddhism. Chan Buddhism, in its Sinicized form, does not deny the presence of emotions but makes emotions an integral part of the whole business of enlightenment. This paper will address the issue of emotions and mind in Chan, focusing on the Hongzhou Chan ὥᕞ⚮, part of the “Southern Chan” ༡᐀ represented by Mazu Daoyi 㤿♽㐨୍!(709-788), Huangbo Xiyuan 㯣⹇ᕼ㐠!(-d. ca. 850), and Linji Yixuan ⮫⃽⩏⋞ (-d. ca. 867).1 The paper will examine the Chan approach to the transformation of the mind, perceptions and feelings, with special attention given to the embodied-cognition account of self, emotions, and mind with their psycho-somatic dimensions. It aims at an understanding of the relation of freedom to emotions in Chan Buddhism, and explains why the Chan notion of freedom qua detachment should not be interpreted as something that is confined to a dichotomic scheme between feeling and thinking, passion and dispassion, body and mind. The paper will also look at the transformative functions of Chan meditative practices in light of Robert Solomon’s argument on the phenomenology and existentialism of emotions.

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II. Xin as Emotions and Mind “The mind is the Buddha” (jixin jifo ༶ᚰ༶ష) by Mazu is a wellknown statement in the Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism. Then what is the mind? As we know, the idea of “one mind” (yixin ୍ᚰ), along with “one vehicle” (yisheng ୍஍), was one of the most Sinicized Mahayana terms in the pre- and post-Chan traditions, but it was also a problematic one because of its kataphatic tone that may sound at odds with the fundamental Buddhist teaching of emptiness or non-substantiality. In her book The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth-through TenthCentury China, the Chinese Chan historian Jia Jinhua argues that the Hongzhou Chan was in fact founded on common MƗhayƗna Buddhist pretexts as well as on “a mixture of tathƗtagata-garbha thought and PrajñƗpƗramitƗ theory, with a salient emphasis on the kataphasis of the former.”2 This argument makes sense if we look at the language of “one mind” initiated by Mazu and maintained by Huangbo. To be more specific, the expression of “one mind,” contra the antinomian notion of “no mind” (wuxin ↓ᚰ) articulated later by Linji, is an affirmative way of looking at the mind as the primordial Buddha-nature (tathƗtagata-garbha). Linji, on the other hand, emphasizes that this very mind cannot be conceptualized as a fixed and solidified entity as held by the PrajñƗpƗramitƗ theory. I shall turn to this point later. From another perspective, however, one can contend that the very notion of the primordial Buddha-nature expressed by “one mind” can be understood as the result of the influence of Daoist philosophy in China. Huangbo, for instance, prefers to speak of “one” as an “identical wholeness” that is like “one container of element mercury. Although it separates and moves in all directions, it will reunite into an identical whole.”3 This idea of unity within differentiation is very similar to the notion of the dao understood by Laozi. Furthermore, “one mind” denotes the idea of the “root” or “primordiality,” which can be seen in metaphors employed by Huangbo such as “well-spring” and “womb,” a kind of expression similar to Laozi’s notion of “the spirit of valley,” or “the mystical female” that signifies the idea of a cosmic life-giver in the Daodejing. Yet this connection can be problematic since the idea of “one mind” in Buddhism does not suggest any cosmogonic beginning as it is perceived in Daoist philosophy. The Buddhist doctrine of dependentorigination (yuanqi ⦁㉳) would reject any idea of the primordial one, particularly if this primordial one refers to a stagnant a priori, not a continuously generative process that requires transformation.

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Nevertheless, Chan Buddhism has adopted the Chinese word xin (ᚰ) to refer to the term “one mind.” The common English translation for the word xin nowadays is heart-mind which suggests a psycho-somatic and affective-emotional dimension of the mind. In Thinking from Han, David Hall and Roger Ames have rightly pointed out that the word xin “refers indifferently to activities we would classify as thinking, judging, and feeling, and arguably reflects all the three modalities of the tripartite model in an un-dissected form…The translation of xin in classical Confucian and the Daoist texts exclusively as ‘mind’ would almost certainly misdirect the Western reader.”4 Prior to the entrance of Buddhism into China, the terms associated with “mind” from early Buddhism in India were quite complicated, and include terms such as mano/manas (mind), citta (a state of heart-mind) and VijñƗna (mind or consciousness). Among these three terms, citta emphasizes more the emotive side of mind as opposed to mano as the intellect and the rational side of what grasps mental objects (dharmas). The Chinese word xin (heart-mind) seems to entail all the three aspects of the terms: the rational mind, the emotional mind, and the consciousness related to the mind. This synthetic and holistic understanding of the mind reflects the Sinicized version of Buddhism characterized by Chan in that the distinctive line between the cognitive and affective side of the mind has been blurred. In addition, citta as a state of mind in early Buddhism is viewed as something that can be “contracted”, “distracted”, “grown great”, and “composed”, or the opposite of such qualities. When citta is dominated by certain emotions, it can be “terrified”, “astonished”, or “tranquil.” Meanwhile, citta can be “taken hold of” by pleasant or unpleasant impressions. A host of negative emotionally charged states can pertain to it, or it may be free of such states, so it is vital to develop or purify it: “For a long time this citta has been defiled by attachment, hatred, and delusion. By defilement of citta, beings are defiled; by purity of citta, beings are purified.”5 Accordingly, the transformation of the mind in the Buddhist meditative practice entails the notion of purification of certain emotions in the human mind. Attaining a purified citta corresponds to the attainment of an illuminating insight, that is, enlightenment. This indicates that a liberated one’s state of mind reflects no ignorance or defilement, the absence of which is also seen as “freedom” in Buddhism. Chan in China surely inherited this kind of teaching. This can be seen from a well-known statement given by Shenxiu (⚄ ⚽) in Chan historiography:

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The body is the Bodhi tree, The mind is like a clear mirror. At all times we must strive to polish it, And must not let the dust collect.6

Yet the notion of “one mind” in the Hongzhou Chan is a continuation of the spiritual heritage of Huineng’s (្⬟) understanding of the mind when the latter claims that: The mind is the Bodhi tree, The body is the mirror stand. The mirror is originally clean and pure; Where can it be stained by dust? 7

As indicated above, Huineng’s transformation of the mind is not set against the polarity between dust and purity, defilement and enlightenment. This is also exactly what Mazu attempts to teach when he claims that “the mind is the Buddha.” Because of this negation of dualistic appropriation, the idea of emotions, even passions, are not rejected. Therefore, Huineng makes the following claim: Good friends, it is precisely the passions that awaken…If you hold onto or are caught by a past moment or thinking of it and are then seduced into error—that is being a commoner. Awakening in the very next thought or moment is being a buddha. If past thinking has made horizons manifest, that is “passion.” If your next thought relinquishes all horizons, then that is “awakening.”8

Like Huineng, Huangbo also talks about the mind that does not cast out the sensory experiences including feeling: [Y]ou students of the dao…will realize your original mind only in the realm of seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing. Although the original mind does not belong to seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing, this mind cannot be separate from them. You should not simply start your cognitive maneuver from, nor allow them to give rise to any conceptual thought, nor should you seek the mind apart from them or abandon in your pursuit of the dharma. Do not let your mind be identical with them or separated from them…be free everywhere, and nowhere is a place where the dao cannot be practiced.9

Here, Huangbo’s idea of “neither be identical nor be separated from” (buji buli ୙ ༶ ୙ 㞳 ) well-illustrates a non-dualistic view of Chan, which denotes the position that mind is not something that should completely

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discard emotions and feelings. For Huangbo, enlightenment cannot be attained merely by rational and cognitive efforts, but by all dimensions of human experiences. This is why the Hongzhou Chan emphasizes the MƗhayƗnic dictum that “samsƗra is nirvƗna, and nirvƗna is samsƗra.”

III. Qing: Both Subjective and Objective The concept qing ( ᝟ ) was used quite often in Pre-Qin Chinese philosophy before the influence of Buddhism. The word has been translated as emotions, feelings, sentiments, or passions. Yet some scholars have questioned translations of this nature, pointing out that the classical Chinese word qing is distinct from the concept of emotion used in psychology today. For instance, A. C. Graham submits that qing should not be understood as emotions or passions in the Pre-Qin Chinese texts; instead, it means what is “essential” (metaphysically) or “genuine” (psychologically).10 Graham further connects qing to xing ( ᛶ human nature) in order to establish the correlation between the two in Chinese moral discourse (Mengzi’s Confucianism in particular). Chan Hansen, however, challenges this interpretation, arguing that it is dubious that qing has a meaning that ranges from metaphysical to psychological. He then proposes that the word should be understood as “reality input,” contending that qing refers to “reality-induced discrimination or distinction-making reactions.”11 These reactions include pleasure, anger, sadness, fear, love, hate, and desire—the so-called seven qings (qiqing Ύ௃)—and they refer to “reality input” or “reality feedback” rather than emotional states per se. In other words, the concept qing, for Hansen, goes beyond the realm of emotion in that it has a cognitive and discriminative function. It should be noted that both qing and xing have the “heart-mind radical” denoting the connection to the latter. Then it would not be surprising to see in Chan Buddhism that the heart-mind (xin) is viewed in terms of (Buddha-)nature (foxing షᛶ), which is a combination of Pre-Qin Chinese thought and the Indian Buddhist idea of tathƗtagata-garbha, the concept mentioned earlier. In the Chan tradition, the notion of seeing one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood is also associated to “direct pointing to one’s heart-mind,” as Huineng puts it in the Platform Sutra: Deluded, a Buddha is a sentient being; Awakened, a sentient being is a Buddha. Ignorant, a Buddha is a sentient being; With wisdom, a sentient being is a Buddha. …

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In our mind itself a Buddha exists, Our own Buddha is the true Buddha. If we do not have in ourselves the Buddha mind, Then where are we to seek the Buddha?12

The paradoxes given by Huineng here point to Chan’s efforts to eliminate absolutist transcendence. The identity between xin and xing corresponds to the fundamental MƗhayƗnic doctrine that all has Buddha-nature. Another Chinese word associated with qing is gan ឤ ! (feeling or sensibility). We find phrases like ganying ឤ ᠕ ! (feeling and correspondence) ganjue ឤ む ! (feeling and awareness), ganshou ឤ ཷ! (feeling and acceptance), and ganwu ឤᝅ!(feeling and realization), all of which suggest both emotional and mental dimensions. In this context, both qing and gan are terms with a positive meaning. As a matter of fact, gan is a word with polyvalent meanings throughout Chinese philosophy and religion. It indicates a mechanism that operates and generates cognitive, intuitive, and emotive reactions and responses towards the external world with its cognitive precondition that, in turn, produces an efficacy (such as aesthetic and ethical judgment). In other words, gan is two directional, it is both input and output. In Chinese Buddhism, qing is also used with regard to yu ៣!(desire). In this case, qing has a connotation of “basic human instincts,” yet with a more negative meaning. The two words can be combined into another term as qingyu ᝟ ៣ ! (desires), which is connected the nature of afflictive emotions and thus has a definitely derogative implication in contrast to the term qingan ᝟ឤ!(feeling), the meaning of which is positive and neutral. According to Hansen, the equivalence of qing with yu in the Chinese tradition after Buddhism is due to the influence of what he calls “an IndoEuropean psychology” based on emotions and passions that were, however, not emphasized in early Chinese tradition.13 Hansen correctly points out that the word qing adopted by the Chinese Buddhists has a stronger psychological implication than the one used in pre-Buddhist China. The Sanskrit term connected to emotive content used in Buddhism is vedanƗ, meaning “feeling” or “sensation,” but also entails the notion equivalent to the Chinese word “heart-mind” (xin ᚰ ). In Buddhism, the word vedanƗ is divided into three categories: the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations which occur when one’s internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness.14 In the pre-Chan MƗhayƗna, vedanƗ is also part of “the five universal mental factors,” namely, sense perception (or contacting awareness), feeling/sensation (vedanƗ), perception, volition, and attention.

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Quite obviously, these five mental factors have both cognitive and emotional dimensions. The Sanskrit word vedanƗ is translated in Chinese as shou ‫ ڙ‬but the word is not used as often in Chan as in YogƗcƗra. When the word qing is used, the psychological meaning implied in Buddhism remains in the Chan tradition, in the sense that the mind is a term with rational-emotional connotations. But at the same time, the word qing or xin in Chan has also lost original differentiations associated with the connection of mind and consciousness to the object during the effective mode in which an object is experienced.15 It is in this sense that qing is both internal and external, in that the experience of qing is subjective but is generated by the subject’s intentional contact with what is perceived as the external. If we borrow the language of phenomenology of emotion, the intentional content, the object that is perceived, recognized, and felt, is imbued with the phenomenology and is experienced as an indissoluble aspect of the content. The experiencing subject is not a mere “thinker” (cogito), but part of an integrated process. Involved in this process is a stratification of the psycho-somatic content: tensionality (add-tension, attention, engagement), de-tensionality (halting external perception, a focus on self and its integration with the body), and non-tensionality (the unity between the cognitive and the emotive, knowing and feeling).16 As for emotive conditions, Chan masters sometimes employ specific terms to express specific emotions that have a psycho-physiological dimension such as “Chan joy” (or “Chan pleasure”, chanyue ⚮ᜰ) and “Chan sickness” (chanbing ᕝੰ). Both of them refer to certain mental and emotive state in the process of meditation. Chan joy describes a physiosomatic state during which the practitioner experiences orgasm-like pleasure, whereas Chan sickness can occur during sitting meditation when the practitioner feels nausea, pain or uneasiness characterized by buzzing ears, dizziness, fast heart rate, etc. Chan sickness refers to both a physiological sickness and psychological affliction due to a practitioner’s over-attachment (an emotional obsession) to the goal of meditation, that is, to attain enlightenment.17 Obviously here, the Chan knowledge is not a mere intellectual and cognitive one based on the mind that is divorced from the body. The Chan thinking (xiang ᝿), as such, is different from Descartes’ res cogitans and res extensa distinction. When psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote the foreword to D. T. Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism, first published together in 1948, he highlighted the experience of Chan enlightenment as the “unsurpassed transformation to wholeness” for Chan practitioners which has a similar function for psychotherapy in the West in terms of “personal transformation” as the goal.18 Eric Fromm, another psychologist, makes

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the claims that “Zen [Chan] is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s being; it is a way from bondage to freedom; it liberates our natural energies; ... and it impels us to express our faculty for happiness and love… the knowledge of Zen [Chan], and a concern with it, can have a most fertile and clarifying influence on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis.”19 In fact, the techniques of “caning and shouting” (banghe Წ႑) as a unique teaching style initiated by Mazu and developed by Linji in the Hongzhou Chan, are called “caning and shouting therapy” today after they have been introduced to the West by Japanese Zen scholars. Recently, more psychologists in the West have done research concerning how the transformation of mind for meditative practitioners affects their biological activity during emotional episodes or increases their sensitivity to the emotions of other people, and how their interactive style influenced by their mental and emotive state may transform the nature of conflictual interaction.20 Robert C. Solomon, who is famous for his persistence with regard to the philosophical inquiry of emotions, argues that an emotion is “first and foremost a mode of experience.”21 He then continues, “This does not mean that it has to be acknowledged, named, and reported. This does not mean that subject knows better than anyone else what he or she is feeling. This does not mean that the subject of the emotion even knows ‘what is going on.’ What is does mean is that the subject must be conscious, must be experiencing something, and that something must be defined in part in terms of the emotion.”22 Solomon is particularly concerned with emotions as a personal experience rather than being treated merely as a “pattern of social behavior.”23 According to Solomon, traditional cognitivist accounts of mind in the West focus much attention on empirical investigations of the social construction behind emotions that can be studied, analyzed, and presented while ignoring the emotion itself as an experience. Solomon suggests that emotions have to be dealt with without the Western dichotomy of the distinction between the subjective and the objective. In fact, what Solomon intends to emphasize is the “subjectivity” of emotions as a personal experience without sacrificing their socio-cultural aspects. Along this line of thinking, the Chinese word qing should not be seen only as a one-directional “reality feedback” as Hansen has suggested, but as feedback with intentionality and immediacy. Unlike many post-Enlightenment thinkers who tend to downplay the role of human emotions in a philosophical or religious discourse, Solomon maintains that the relationship between emotion and spiritual transformation is intertwining and argues that spiritual life is “a life lived in accordance with the grand and thoughtful passions of life.”24 Even

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though passion would not be a key word for Buddhism, the role of emotions in the physiological and mental process of enlightenment has not been dismissed in Buddhism, either. As I mentioned earlier, Buddhism sees vedanƗ as part of mental factors that have both cognitive and emotional dimensions, as is the Chinese idea of gan with its distinctively affective dimension. Presenting a holistic concept of emotions, Buddhism has acknowledged “intentionality” (e.g., the notion of volition cetanƗ) embedded in the mind, whose capacity can be directed at something beyond itself. As such, the transformation of the mind via meditative practice or other means is not a purely cognitive or rational process, but is constitutively feeling-involved, in the sense that the “emotive body” is taking part in a world-directed activity.

IV. Emotions and Mind as an Embodied Whole The Chan tradition in China after Mazu is well-known for its introduction of physiological dynamism into the Chan practice, exemplified by caning and shouting, and what is known as “encounter dialogue” (jiyuan huida ᶵ⦁ၥ⟅) which refers to the questions and responses that take place between Chan masters and their students. Both these practices indicate that the emotions and mind are among the most significant somatically, in that they directly link and affect the body. Therefore, the embodied heart-mind practice in Chan can be examined threefold: first, the mind/body manifests itself through spontaneous actions and reactions; second, the mind/body manifests itself at the immediate present (i.e., the moment); third, the mind/body manifests itself in ordinariness. In fact, one of the areas of Hongzhou literature is the development of Chan “recorded sayings” (yulu ㄒ㗴) in terms of the encounter dialogue. These recorded sayings or dialogues are not meant to be historical records of what has actually happened; rather they function as a communicative means to engender efficacy. Encounter dialogue is a particular type of oral practice, one in which masters and students “interact in certain definable, if unpredictable, ways,”25 the purpose of which is not to provide explanations about Buddhist doctrine or the spiritual path in general, but to provoke the mind and emotions. The practice aims at a pragmatic effectiveness pointing to the dynamic of actual change through the breaking of logical and conventional ways of thinking and feeling. That is to say, the very personal communicative act between the master and his disciple is opened up in the spontaneous fluidity, in the play of both in the skillful, flexible, creative, and challenging uses of self-erasing “living

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words” (shengyu ⏕ㄒ). Here is a dialogue between Mazu and his disciple where we see the difference between knowledge-oriented and enlightenment-oriented discussion: Question: Why do you say that the mind is Buddha? Answer: To stop children’s crying. Question: What do you say when they stopped crying? Answer: It is neither mind nor Buddha. Question: When there comes someone who belongs to neither of those two kinds, how do you instruct then? Answer: I tell them it is not even a thing. Question: How about when you suddenly meet someone who has been on the Path? Answer: I reach him to experience and realize the great dao.26

The above dialogue, particularly on the part of the master, requires corresponsive spontaneity and lively immediacy exercised in an unstructured moment-to-moment manner. In an encounter dialogue, the living verbalization suggests a total situation with a spatiotemporal dimension, grounded in a face-to-face event with an emotional intensity in which verbal expression and physical transmission can be immediately experienced. This is why Chan speaks of “instantaneousness” (dangxia ␜ ୗ ), which requires a contextual and situational support instead of deciphering the meaning of a statement in an abstract fashion. It is important for one to realize Chan’s dependence on “speech-acts” that make the oral less amenable to linguistic contextualization. This “oral performance” requires an emphasis not only on the speaker but also on a receptive hearer (i.e., the Chan practitioner). The immediate environment, physical interaction, emotional exchanges, and social commonality shared by the speaker and the listener go beyond the linguistic confinement: flexibility or difference prevails in the process of delivery and response which, in fact, embodies an existentio-practical dimension of the Chan tradition. To know the dao at the right moment (rudao jiyuan ධ㐨ᶵ⦁) plays upon the very heart of the time flux, which indicates that the Chan masters do not abandon words altogether, but understand them in a different fashion in that they focus on “doing things” with words characterized by a concrete, this-worldly, and spontaneous teaching style. In a similar vein to Mazu, Linji also focuses on an engaged and lively experience of his listener whenever he speaks and acts, which intends to arouse the practitioner’s attention to the awareness of what is going on in the present. The emphasis on lively experience also explains why Linji

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refused to essentialize the idea of xin, aforementioned. For example, there is an account in which Linji asked a nun: “Welcome? Not welcome?” The nun gave a shout. The master held up his stick and said: “Speak, speak!” The nun shouted again. The master hit her.27

For Linji, the enlightened one, or the “authentic man” (zhenren ┿ே) in Linji’s term, is not to be sought in the past (Buddha and Patriarchs), nor in the future, but in the present. It is right here and right now. The encounter dialogue as such has disrupted a linear, teleological relation between the speaker and the listener, as well as between language and thought in the conventional cognitive and referential language. Responsiveness then became important in the Chan engagement of practice, as Huangbo has contended, “Each opportunity and each situation, each move of brows and each blink, if responding appropriately, all can be called [the moment of] the experience and the attainment of enlightenment or the verification and realization of the way of Chan”28 The idea of the “attainment of enlightenment” (qihui ዎ᭳ or qiwu ዎᝅ) here has suggested a notion of experience that is not merely conceptual or linguistic. Furthermore, the embodied mind is also expressed through the “ordinary mind” (pingchangxin shidao ᖹᖖᚰ᫝㐨*. Mazu’s emphasis on daily activities as the function of Buddha-nature and non-origination as the practice of indiscriminative wisdom precipitated a new kind of religious performance practice.! Ordinariness also suggests a Chan emphasis on social engagement that marks the unique teaching of the MƗhayƗnic tradition. Nevertheless, a question still remains: since the Chan discourse on enlightenment (or emptiness) is often centered on the possibility of emancipation via (emotional) non-attachment, does it suggest that Chan sees human feelings and emotions as problematic? In the essay “Zen, Emotion, and Social Engagement,” Robert Feleppa, inspired by the social engagement argument made by Peter Hershock in his book Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Chan Buddhism, has observed that “Some common conceptions of Buddhist meditative practice emphasize the elimination of emotion and desire in the interest of attaining tranquility and spiritual perfection. But to place too strong an emphasis on this is to miss an important social element emphasized by major figures in the MƗhayƗna and Chan-Zen Buddhist traditions who are sharply critical of these quietistic elements and who stress instead, as Peter Hershock puts it, ‘total immersion in the flux of daily life and never a private and

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necessarily transcendental retreat from it’.”29 The engagement argument can be applied to the Hongzhou Chan perfectly since Baizhang Huaihai ⓒ ୔ᠰᾏ!(720-840), the student of Mazu and the teacher of Huangbo, is well known in Chan history for establishing an early set of rules for Chan monastic disciplines, named the “Monastic Rules of Baizhang” ⓒ୔Ύつ, also known as “working meditation.” Baizhang insists that “A day without work is a day without food,” which reflects the Chan idea of engagement.30 Enlightenment, therefore, is not simply transcendent by rejecting this world, but it is imminent, actualized through daily activities.

V. Freedom via Non-Attachment The term “freedom” (ziyou ⮬⏤) became popular during the Tang Dynasty in China due to the influence of Chan Buddhism. Then, what is freedom for Chan Buddhism? If, like any other sects of Buddhism, Chan freedom is associated with its attempts to be free or liberated from dis-ease (dukkha) derived from the emotive attachment that leads to an individual’s existential anxiety in coping with impermanence and change, then how do we understand non-attachment (wuzhi ค୺) from the perspective of an embodied mind and emotions? In Pre-Chan Buddhism, attachment is alƗya, referring to a particular form of consciousness that “tends to get solidified into concepts of incorruptible and ultimately real objects every time it occurs.” This tendency is also applied to occasions of sense experience.31 AlƗya consciousness functions in two ways: (1) internally, it appears as the constituents of a self, and (2) externally, it becomes the consciousness of the object as “the other.” Vasubandhu (4th century, whose Chinese name is Shiqin ୡぶ), the Buddhist philosopher of the School of ConsciousnessOnly or YogƗcƗra (weishizong ၏㆑᐀) speaks of freedom attained by an arhat (aluohan 㜿⨶₎) in terms of dissipation of alƗya, i.e., the mental and emotional attachment. According to Vasubandhu, all ideas have mind (mano) as a pre-condition, and the mind as a special faculty is different from other faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body) in that it tends to substantiate and conceptualize things/objects it has experienced, which eventually leads to attachment, not only to a metaphysical object but also to a metaphysical self. Non-attachment, in this sense, means a freedom from a metaphysical object—that is, the essence—and more importantly, from a metaphysical self that perceives mind as independent and incorruptible.

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The notion of non-attachment is an important teaching in Chan Buddhism as well, especially the Hongzhou Chan. This non-attachment gesture can be seen in a famous Chan fourfold statement which runs as follows: A special transmission outside the scriptures; No dependence upon words and letters; Direct pointing at one’s heart-mind; Seeing into one’s own nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.32

I shall focus my discussion here on the first two statements as they are closely related to the notion of freedom. There seems to be an antiauthoritative implication in the statements of “being outside the scriptures/tradition” (jiaowai biechuan! ᩍ እ ู ബ ) and “being not dependent upon words and letters” (buli wenzi ୙❧ᩥᏐ). In other words, freedom in this context means that Chan intends to be free from (1) previous traditions and authorities, and (2) to be free from language, and the written language in particular. Nevertheless, anyone who has read Chan history knows that the development of Chan Buddhism in China not only depended upon tradition, but has also created its own tradition (e.g., patriarchs, masters, and monastic rules) and that the transmission of Chan not only depended upon words and letters, it has created its own words and letters (e.g., recorded sayings, biographies, and ko’an/gongan බ᱌). Does this mean then that Chan was hypocritical in that the Chan masters were riding on a horse while claiming that there was no horse? Or, Chan was only playing with words by speaking of paradoxes? In his essay “Emancipation from What? The Concept of Freedom in Classical Chan Buddhism,” Dale S. Wright attempts to articulate an understanding of the idea of “freedom” in classical Chan Buddhism by exploring the Chan notion of “liberation” in relation to the kinds of authority and regulated structure characteristic of Song dynasty Chan monasteries. Wright aims at accomplishing two points by the discussion: First, how appropriation of the symbol “freedom,” and its various Western cognates such as emancipation and liberation, into translations and interpretations of Chan and Zen texts have framed a pre-conditioned point of entry into the Buddhist world. Second, how those initial projections have inevitably obscured the character of Chan freedom in its divergence from “Western understanding” in such a way as to prevent these variant modes of “freedom” from playing a critical and constructive role in Western thought.33 According to Wright’s interpretation, the iconoclastic theme represented by Chan should not be taken as a mere repudiation of authority

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in the form of teachers, texts, hierarchies, customs and traditions, even though the Chan literature is full of narratives such as how Deshan Xuanjian ᚫᒣᐉ㚷 (782–865) rips up the Buddhist sutras, freeing himself from their heteronomous power over him, and how Nanquan Puyuan ༡Ἠ ᬑ 㢪 (748–835) makes a claim that at the moment of sudden enlightenment, he completely freed himself from all that he had learned, or the well-known saying made by Linji that “If you see the Patriarch, kill him; If you see the Buddha, kill him.”34 Wright insists that freedom in Chan should be understood within the framework of the communal structure of the monastic Chan life in which there is no radically individualistic notion of freedom as perceived in the modern West. Furthermore, by using the example of Huangbo, Wright points out that the Chan “freedom from authoritative injunctions takes the status of a new injunction, authorized by no less an authority than the monastery’s abbot, Huang-po [Huangbo] himself.” Here Wright has offered two important arguments: (1) Chan freedom is not individual-oriented, and (2) freedom from previous authority is a means to establish a new authority. Wright’s observation has a valid point in that he has acknowledged that freedom in Chan does not mean that there is no authority, no tradition and no constraint whatsoever, for the Chan tradition is the product of “dependent-origination (in Buddhist words), and that Chan does not demand a kind of radical individualism characterized by the postEnlightenment (another kind of enlightenment) West.” However, there is an important element in the Chan notion of freedom that Wright has acknowledged but does not emphasize. That is, the purpose of negation, rejection, and repudiation in Chan is not for the sake of negation, rejection, and repudiation, but only one goal, i.e., the deconstruction of attachment (pozhi ◚ᇳ).35 To put it differently, Chan freedom is attained via nonattachment, especially any form of conceptual attachments including the very concept of “non-attachment” itself. This is why Chan insists that one should act in the manner of being “neither identical nor separated from” (buji buli! ୙ ༶ ୙ 㞳) as we mentioned above. This notion of being “neither identical nor separated from” is called “fitting” (shi 㐺) and “corresponding” (ying ᠕) if we borrow the terms from Zhuangzi. Therefore, what is the Chan position on tradition and authority? The simple answer is buji buli. Philosophically speaking, Chan also follows the PrajñƗpƗramitƗ theory and doctrine of emptiness maintained by NƗgƗrjuna’s MƗdhyamikan philosophy. Let us take a look of NƗgƗrjuna’s four propositions (the tetralemma) and insert the argument given by Chan’s view on tradition:

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1. X exists. (Tradition exists.) 2. X does not exist. (Tradition does not exist.) 3. X both exists and does not exist. (Tradition both exists and does not exist.) 4. X neither exists nor does not exist. (Tradition neither exists nor does not exist.) When a student asks Baizhang the meaning of freedom, Baizhang replies, “If I get it now, I get it…as for emotions, I neither accept them nor reject them… If you are constrained by the idea of either having [presence] or having-not [absence], you will not be free.”36 The point here is that all concepts and ideas are only used nominally, and enlightenment as such should not be taken as an entity, substance, essence, something with selfnature (zixing ⮬ᛶ) but an experience of existence as the interdependent arising of all things. In other words, the transformation of the mind and body cannot be ‘ontologized,’ since the human mind and body, as Buddhist teaching maintains, are nothing but designations; so is the reality to which the human mind and body correspond. Therefore, the Chan idea that the dao must flow freely is emphasized in order to practice non-attachment. After all, life is not a plethora of concepts to be deciphered but an experience to be lived. Therefore, Linji claims that If you want to be free, get to know your authentic self. It has no form, no appearance, no root, no basis, no abode, but is lively and buoyant. It responds with versatile facility, but its function cannot be located. Therefore when you look for it, you become further from it; when you seek it, you turn away from it all the more.37

Another term in Hongzhou Chan associated with freedom is “following along with the movement/flux of all things and being free” (renyun zizai ௵ 㐠 ⮬ᅾ ). Renyun indicates the idea of accepting the ever-changing reality as it is. Zizai literally means self-existence, or self-so, similar to the Daoist idea of ziran ⮬↛(naturalness, self-so-ness). The following are three statements given by Hongzhou masters: At all times…never attach yourself to one thing; just follow along with the movement of all things the whole day long. Following along with the movement of all things without any restriction is called liberation.

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Merely according to circumstances as they are, use up your past karma; following along with [the change of] circumstance, put on your [different clothes].38

All three statements here express a unified idea of following along with the movement, which reminds us of the Daoist notion of spontaneity and following the flux. Based on this characteristic of Chan, Graham Parkes compares Daoist philosophy with Chan Buddhism in terms of their attitude towards attachment and the emotive aspect involved in it. He points out that “For the Daoists, to be ruled or ensnared by the emotions is to fail to realize one’s true humanity—and yet to become devoid of emotion altogether is not to be fully human either. The idea of responsiveness to the world that is free of attachment is one that runs through the entire Rinzai Zen [Linji Chan] tradition, although a development in the attitude toward emotion is discernible as one moves from Huineng to Rinzai and then to Hakuin.”39 The non-attachment, therefore, is based upon a deconstruction of the either–or way of thinking.40 The deconstructive aspect of the Hongzhou Chan can be traced back to Huineng who has playfully opened up the concept of self-nature or selfcause (svabhava) by refusing to place it on either the presence or absence of mind. Likewise, Hongzhou Chan’s double gesture of both the apophatic and the kataphatic has successfully deconstructed Shenhui’s idea of the “mind of suchness” (aka the original mind) as an intrinsic and effulgent entity, as shown in his poem cited earlier in the paper. The selfdeconstructing of an essentialist mind is further articulated by Huangbo’s self-erasing discourse on the Buddha mind and Linji’s insistence on the free-flowing character of the authentic person without rank, mind, and the Buddha. This self-deconstructing or self-erasing strategy is a way for Chan Buddhism to achieve freedom.

VI. Conclusion As discussed above, Buddhism—Chan Buddhism in particular—does not hold a dualistic view on the cognitive and emotive, rational and emotional, and body and mind. Likewise, freedom is not seen as something utterly in opposition to constraint. Sometimes, constraint is what makes freedom possible. As Linji puts it, “Even though you bear the remaining influences of past delusions of the karma from the five heinous crimes, these of themselves became the occasion of emancipation.”41 That is to say, “human life is enclosed within limitations from which some form of freedom is possible.”42 Meanwhile, the Chan notion of freedom focuses

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more on the possibility of existential transformation of the heart-mind so that one is capable of being engaged with one’s living ambience in a spontaneous way, and de-limiting borders, boundaries, and limitations of all kinds. Personal wisdom, instead of personal rights, is the main theme of the Chan discourse on freedom. The idea of non-attachment as such should not leave one with a sense of existential privation, a loss of some hopedfor meaning of life, but instead should offer us a sense of liberation via the realization of the interconnectedness of all things, including the human body, mind, and spirit. From the vantage point of the phenomenology of emotions, the Chan Buddhist insistence on the non-dual view between subjectivity and objectivity reflects a fundamental question concerning epistemology and epistemological subject. That is, the intentional content, the object that, perceived, recognized, and felt, is imbued with the phenomenology and is experienced as an indissoluble aspect of the content. From the perspective of Existentialism, there is no doubt that Chan Buddhism points to a very strong existential dimension with its emphasis on personal experience, the engagement of the personal body/mind and living ambience, its acceptance of the flux of reality in life, and its rejection of any a priori ontological claims as well as any dogmatic and fixed doctrines. Therefore, the Chan practice of “cutting off” (emotions, passions, and false views) is precisely what enables an advanced practitioner to truly realize ‘nirvƗna is samsƗra’ and thus enjoy, unobstructed, the meaningfulness of the samsƗric/existential world with emotions and passions. But at the same time, we need to point out that Chan Buddhism is not phenomenology, nor is Chan existentialism. After all, Chan aims at a specific experience, i.e., samƗdhi that is not confined to any (linguistic and socio-cultural) structured parameters. In addition, the transformative function of Chan Buddhism with its discourse on freedom does not directly lead to social and cultural transformation emphasized by Existential philosophy, especially the one by Jean-Paul Sartre. The form of emancipation or liberation which Chan transcendence confers upon its religious purpose is a spiritual inquiry, as opposed to a political inquiry. Finally, there is no radical individualism in the Chan tradition, whereas individualism (“me” versus the “crowd”) is a conspicuous theme in Existentialist philosophy.

CHAPTER SEVEN REFLECTIONS ON ROBERT SOLOMON’S IDEATION OF EMOTION AND MENCIUS’ MORAL CULTIVATION OF “EMBODIED EMOTION” EVA KIT WAH MAN

Solomon’s Theory of the Ideation of Emotion Solomon argues in his 1973 paper, “Emotions and Choice,” that emotions have traditionally been understood as physiological disturbances, and that much of the twentieth century’s literature on emotions has been dedicated to mapping out the relationship between sensations and correlative occurrences.1 In 1976, he goes on to argue that emotion is not reducible to its distinguishable neurological correlates, even though we have some knowledge of the effects of certain chemicals on our states of consciousness.2 Here, Solomon first addresses James and Lange’s theory of the emotions, according to which emotions are nothing but our awareness of the chemical and physiological changes in our bodies. He then reviews the negation of James and Lange’s model in the 1940s by way of W. B. Cannon’s argument that physiological changes and their accompanying sensations have no role in differentiating emotions.3 Despite rejecting James and Lange’s theory, Solomon also expresses disagreement at this point with the extrapolation of Cannon’s argument: that the “emotion felt” is the emotion, as if neurology had nothing to do with it.4 At an early stage in his thinking, Solomon maintains with conviction that emotions are rational and purposive; that we choose an emotion as much as we choose a course of action. In short, emotions are always intentional. They are judgments, and partake in conceptual relationships.5 Emotions are our choices and our responsibility.6

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In 1988, Solomon further argued that emotions are political in nature, and that they are powerfully implicated in the relationships between people living in a particular region. In “The Politics of Emotion,” he proposes a framework for addressing emotions as relating not merely to the mind or to the body, but to one’s social context in all of its ethical and interpersonal complexity.7 In Solomon’s words, emotions do not just “happen” to us, but are actions that we carry out, both individually and collectively.8 In this sense, emotions are political strategies and attitudes, and a means by which one reaches out to one’s living and social environment. They are thus tied to actions, such as the exercise of power in persuasion, manipulation and intimidation. Solomon argues: [T]he emotion is ‘in the world,’ not in the mind, the psyche, or the soul … politics of emotion (therefore) extend to the “meta-” realm of emotion “labeling,” emotion-recognition, emotion reportage.… emotions are vital experiences had by [a] conscious social creature.9

Regarding the reportage of emotion, Solomon suggests that emotions involve languages and concepts, which are either linked with, pervade, or define the emotions themselves.10 However, he does not reject the notion that emotions are embodied and may even involve voluntary neurologically based responses. He argues that “one need not deny physiology to engage in philosophy, but neither should we allow the facts of physiology to eclipse significant philosophical investigations.”11 How does Solomon deal with the dualities of the body and the mind, emotion and reason? He describes emotions as physiological disruptions and psychic “forces” beyond our control, and commends the existentialist emphasis on social relationships and engagement in speech and behavior as part of living in the world.12 Emotions arise in the social world via interaction; they are interactive results of being in the world, and choices made by subjects. In Solomon’s own words, complex creatures like human beings “should not be split up into a simplistic and arbitrary ontology of bodies and minds.”13 Solomon also praises John Dewey’s theory of experience for its holistic, all-embracing view of emotion, which he considers a useful model for the multiplicity of embodied emotion. In the process of revisiting the Deweyan model, I review Dewey’s explication of aesthetic experience as a form of intense feeling, as in the following statement in his work, Art as Experience: Experience occurs continuously, because the interaction of live creature and environing conditions is involved in the very process of living…. we have an experience when the material experienced runs its course to fulfillment. Then and then only is it integrated within and demarcated in

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the general stream of experience from other experiences. A piece of work is finished in a way that is satisfactory; a problem receives its solution… Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience… Nevertheless, the experience itself has a satisfying emotional quality because it possesses internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.14

Influenced by biological evolutionism and his own sense of its functional and pragmatic implications, Dewey regards aesthetics as basically instrumental. He states that the activities of living things are characterized by natural needs, the efforts to satisfy those needs, and by the forms of satisfaction themselves, resulting in a range of emotions. The process leading to emotions is primarily biological, as described in another of his works, Experience and Nature: By need is meant a condition of tensional distribution of energies such that the body is in a condition of uneasy or unstable equilibrium. By demand or effort is meant … (to) modify environing bodies in ways which react upon the body, so that its characteristic pattern of active equilibrium is restored. By satisfaction is meant this recovery of equilibrium pattern, consequent upon the changes of environment due to interactions with the active demands of the organism.15

The Deweyan model, which Solomon considers sensible, emphasizes the biological and natural needs of the human subject, regarding emotional experience as an intense, direct, immediate and integrated manifestation of the interaction of humans with their natural living environment. Dewey also identifies happiness as a product of the subject’s physical adjustment, leading to an emotional experience that is satisfying because “it possesses internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.” Here, “fulfillment” refers to the feeling that things are “just so”; in other words, a sense of rightness and coherence. Aesthetic experience is thus described as valuable to the lives of human beings, due to the equilibrium and the harmony attained in the process of interaction and adjustment, which is experienced as “delightful.” Solomon’s theory of emotion is further developed with the insight that emotions interact with reason; that emotional choices are made for particular reasons. In a 1992 article, he argues that to be reasonable is to have the right emotions, and being rational includes having the right emotional premises. For example, anger involves the apportioning of blame; jealousy entails judgments about a potential threat or loss; and both love and hate involve evaluative judgments.16 Solomon claims that

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emotions are closely entangled with rationality: rationality presupposes the right emotions, and emotions constitute the framework of rationality. He states clearly that one’s conception of the world is defined by the scope and objects of one’s emotional cares and concerns.17 Solomon goes on to discuss universal emotions, and whether emotions are “relative” to cultural formations and particular social conditions.18 He does not take a negative view of cultural relativism and its effects on the emotions, but insists on an open dialogue and a “live and let live” policy of mutual tolerance.19 In a paper published in 1997, he uses Hume’s philosophy to address cultural considerations and reinforce his own theory of the ideation of emotion. He concludes that “the promise of crosscultural emotions research” lies “on the side of ‘ideas,’ in terms of different ways of seeing, different ways of conceiving, and different ways of carving up and evaluating the world.”20 At this point, Solomon also suggests that emotions are phenomenological rather than ontological; i.e., they are not metaphysical constructs or simple generic frameworks, but modes of experience (including bodily experience) that may be manifested as facts, things, events or states of affairs.21 When Solomon maintains that an emotion consists of ideas, has intentional objects and can be rationally evaluated, he also suggests that emotions are embodied in the form of feelings. He asks the following questions: Do ideas … share some of the properties of feelings, for example, the property of being “felt,” the quality of intensity, being pleasant or unpleasant, perhaps also being concerned somehow with the body? And how are both ideas and feelings tied to behavior? To the social world and relationships, to other people? 22

The answer to the first question seems to be in the affirmative. Although Solomon concedes that emotions have a biological substratum, he argues forcefully for the significance of biological-cultural variance in determining emotional experience. He stresses the cultural constitution and cultural specificity of the ideas that underlie emotions, and draws the following conclusions regarding the interaction of subjective and objective domains:23 1) The human condition, including the neurological structure, might lead to some truly universal ideas and so develop much the same emotional responses. They are found in human experience, in the human body and in the human condition. 2) Emotional judgments are always evoked from a perspective, defined in part by one’s physical embodiment but, more generally, by one’s place in the world, one’s cultural context, status and role(s) and one’s personal situation. 3) They are rational and judgmental, need not be overly intellectualistic but are existential choices.

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4) Emotions are culturally taught, cognitively framed, but implemented by the individual in the interactive mode of the body and the mind. 5) Emotions belong to a culture and enable cross-cultural comparison. Solomon clearly seeks to place an adequate emphasis on both sets of theories—emotions as physiologically based and emotions as socially constructed—and points out the dangers of neglecting either of them. He suggests a workable phenomenological theory of the cross-cultural comparison of emotions, which he feels should go beyond ontology in a mere physical, metaphysical or essentialistic sense.24 The above ideas reached some developments in the 2000s. Solomon stresses in Not Passion’s Slave in 2003 that most emotions are processes within which we make various choices and have considerable control.25 Even feelings, which he differentiates from emotion by adding to them basic physical fervors, are not mere “‘readouts’ of processes going on in the body and they are not distinct from cognition or judgment.”26 In reviewing his earlier work, he admitted in the mid-2000s that he should have related more of his existential theory of the emotions to recent research findings in cultural anthropology, neurobiology and evolutionary biology.27 He bluntly refuses what he calls cognitive reductionism and biological reductionism.28 Some advancements are noted in his theory of the emotions in the 2000s: that “appropriateness” is the truth of emotions, which refers to both the subject’s characters and living culture;29 that “emotional integrity” is the unity of one’s emotional life, based on “the wise management of emotional conflicts in conjunction with one’s heartfelt values.” One should note that he relates these values to the notion of “authenticity” in existentialism, which he stresses “has built into the idea of social virtue as well as existential individuality.”30

Reflections on Solomon’s Theory of the Ideation of Emotion and its Implications It is evident that Solomon’s theory of the ideation of emotion casts light on the nature of emotional experience. In the following, I discuss the work of several scholars who responded either directly or indirectly to Solomon’s insights. Robert Roberts responded immediately to Solomon’s explication of the ideation theory in 1988. Although conceding that some emotions have typical physiological concomitants, Roberts maintains that emotion also depends on the subject’s desire to realize a particular state of affairs. He defines emotions as serious, concern-based construals that effect desires and aversions, and emotional feelings as intentional states with a

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propositional content.31 Such propositional content, when taken seriously, creates both the desire and the intention to perform a bodily action. Yet the awareness of emotion is more than the awareness of a physiological condition, as it involves cognition of physiological arousal, which in turn directs the emotions.32 Roberts’s criticism of Solomon’s theory focuses on the term “judgment,” for the following reasons: Phenomenologically, a construal is not an interpretation laid over a neutrally perceived object, but a characterization of the object, a way the object presents itself … I have argued elsewhere that emotions cannot be identified with any judgments because a rational person has more options with respect to his emotions than he has with respect to his judgment.33

On closer reading, however, Roberts’s proposed correction, “concernbased construals,” actually echoes Solomon’s statement in 1992, that one’s conception of the world is defined by the scope and objects of one’s emotional cares and concerns, and his later argument for the experiential interaction of the subjective and the objective domains, with emotional choices as existential decisions made according to rational judgment.34 An increasing number of scholars of comparative philosophy are offering support for Solomon’s claim that emotional judgments always arise from a particular perspective, defined in part by one’s physical embodiment but in more general ways by one’s place in the world and one’s cultural context. Mary Bockover observes that the distinction between subjective and objective is one of the most prominent Western formulations of the emotions.35 Following Solomon, she criticizes James and Lange’s theory of emotion on the grounds that it “makes no sharp distinction between feelings qua perceived bodily disturbances that occur internally or physiologically and those expressed externally or behaviorally.”36 Bockover explicates Solomon’s theory of the ideation of emotion, in contrast to James and Lange’s model, and uses the comparison to suggest a further revision. She argues that greater emphasis should be placed on the role of intentionality in providing emotions with content and direction. Solomon’s notion of normative judgments is adduced as an example of such an intentional event.37 Bockover regards emotions as irreducible unities which are both affective in themselves and a distinct kind of intentional event. They are amenable to rational evaluation and control because as intentional events, they are essentially directed at objects.38 This explains why Bockover turns to Confucian philosophy for comparison. She pays particular attention to Confucius’s theory of the inseparable concepts of li and jen. Jen, the basic moral principle, is reflected in li or bodily rituals, which a person

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“practices in the ready and masterful way and through which one is truly cultivated in social grace that can effectively relate the person to others.”39 Jen and the rituals of li are all intentional events and purposive acts of consciousness. Bockover claims that both human decency and emotions have a distinctive way of being conscious, which she describes as “a mysterious and almost magical orientation toward persons and things in our world which simply cannot be reduced to bodily feelings, to mere behavior, or to normative beliefs.”40 This, she writes, also explains the existence of emotions regarded as irrational, unjustified, unreasonable or inappropriate. These may arise from a purely subjective, intrapersonal framework, or else be considered “objective.” Her understanding of the “subjective” and the “objective” echoes with Solomon’s claims. For Bockover, “subjective” refers to intrapersonal phenomena, and “objective” to phenomena presumed to have a reality not dependent on the experiential idiosyncrasies of any given person. In short, a neat application of the subjective/objective dichotomy to the understanding of emotions is just not possible.41 Her argument recalls Solomon’s suggestion of interactivity between the human body, one’s living and cultural environment and one’s existential judgments. It is important to recall that Solomon’s notions of judgment and the ideation of emotions are in essence intentional. In an article published in 2011, Emily McRae lists numerous instances of the Western insistence on the impossibility of cultivating basic moral feelings due to their alleged caprice, unreliability and blindness to value. She also offers Confucian theories as corrective, reminding readers of his proposal for a unique method of moral self-development through the cultivation of feeling.42 McRae notes, in particular, Mencius’s idea of a process of “extension” by which the cultivation of feeling operates in emotional-ethical life.43 In McRae’s reading, Confucian philosophy makes no clear conceptual distinctions between reason and emotion, mind and body. Following Shun Kwong-loi, McRae identifies “the heart/mind” as the seat of the mental and affective capacities, which she associates with the emotions. Shun implies that the faculty enables desire, as quoted by McRae: “Xin,” a term often translated as “heart” or “mind,” can have desires (yu˅ and emotions (qing) and can take pleasure in or feel displeasure at certain things. It can also deliberate (lu) about a situation, direct attention to and ponder about (si) certain things and keep certain things in mind (nian). 44

Here, McRae stresses that in the Confucian philosophical tradition, rational and emotional capacities are not distinguished by kind. This point is elaborated in her discussion of Mencius’s notion and method of

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extension, which she understands as a process of attending to objects outside one’s current area of concern and, where appropriate, applying a particular feeling to those objects (where “feeling” is used as a synonym for “emotion”).45 McRae quotes Mencius’s description of the process as follows: Treat your elders as elders, and extend it to the elders of others; treat your young ones as your ones, and extend it to the young ones of others; then you can turn the whole world in the palm of your hand. The Odes says, “He set an example for his wife, it extended to his brothers, and so he controlled his family and state.” This means that he simply took this feeling and applied it to that. Hence if one extends one’s kindness, it will be sufficient to care for all within the Four Seas. If one does not extend one’s kindness, one will lack the wherewithal to care for one’s wife and children. That in which the ancients greatly exceeded others was no other than this. They were simply good at extending what they did. 46

First, McRae takes a rational approach to the important notion of “extension,” arguing that Mencius understands moral feelings as primary, and moral doctrine as enabling these feelings to mature and develop into their corresponding virtues.47 In her analysis, extension is both a rational process, based on beliefs and judgments (in Solomon’s definition), and a matter of values. McRae glosses Mencius’s account of extension as a gradual process consistent with human psychological tendencies.48 She judiciously identifies extension as the process by which, according to Mencius, one develops compassion for all people and thereby gains the virtue of benevolence. In developing one’s compassion, and in the later process of extending that compassion, one should begin by examining one’s own heart, then engaging one’s rational and intellectual capacities by reflecting on the human quality of virtue and its cultivation. Lastly, McRae offers a detailed reading of the final aim of extension, which is to cultivate feelings by accessing beliefs, judgments and even mental images that arouse compassion and thereby “trigger, maintain, heighten and lessen our affective states.”49 In short, McRae understands Mencius’s theory of extension as a rational process, but one that interacts with our beliefs, imagination and judgments. How is extension related to embodied emotion in McRae’s account? According to McRae, extension begins with awareness of our own psychological tendencies. Next, we use the tendencies we have discovered in ourselves (or observed of human beings in general, through sympathetic engagement) to cultivate the desired feeling.50 In her summary, extension is a method of aligning our feelings with our beliefs and well-considered value judgments to cultivate moral virtue. All of these judgments, in

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Solomon’s sense of the word (that is, referring to the ideation of emotion), along with the feelings subsequently cultivated, are understood to originate from the faculty of the heart/mind emphasized by Mencius.51 However, McRae adds that “we ought to give an explanation of how this cultivation happens, especially given the history of suspicion of feelings in the Western philosophical traditions.… Mengzi’s method of extension gives us just such an explanation of how one cultivates feelings into virtue.”52 Solomon stresses that emotional judgments are always defined by one’s physical embodiment, cultural context, social status and social roles. It is constructive, therefore, to compare his model of the emotions with Mencius’s theory, which shows strong ideosomatic leanings.

Mencius’s Moral Cultivation of “Embodied Emotion” What is the “mysterious and almost magical orientation” that Mary Bockover finds in Confucian philosophy? In what ways might it correspond to Solomon’s theory of the ideation of emotion, and how might it expand or confirm Solomon’s reading? Mencius’s precepts, which contain materials crucial to our understanding of embodied emotion in the Confucian tradition, should help to answer these questions. In the following, I discuss a few citations in detail. (Mencius:) Men have these Four Beginnings just as they have their four limbs. Having these Four Beginnings, but saying that they cannot develop them is to destroy themselves. When they say that their ruler cannot develop them, they are destroying their ruler. If anyone with these Four Beginnings in him knows how to give them the fullest extension and development, the result will be like fire beginning to burn or a spring beginning to shoot forth. When they are fully developed, they will be sufficient to protect all people within the four seas (the world). If they are not developed, they will not be sufficient even to serve one's parents.53

The “Four Beginnings” referenced here can be interpreted as innate moral qualities.54 In essence, Mencius argues that human nature is inherently good in the sense that humans have an innate knowledge of goodness, which Mencius calls liang-chih, and the inclination to act according to it. According to Cheng Chung-Ying, this innate knowledge is related to our potential as human beings to achieve harmony both within ourselves and with other people and objects in the world. The difficulty lies in preserving this natural and innate sense of the right and the good and extending it to cover every phase of our lives and activity.55 The “Four Beginnings” are the four fundamental feelings and sentiments that make

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up moral knowledge (liang-chih): compassion, shame, modesty and reverence, including the distinction between right and wrong. These feelings and sentiments are natural and universal, and can be accessed immediately in the proper circumstances. They produce the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom, respectively, and give the moral subject the inclination to act accordingly when interacting with others. According to Mencius, liang-chih is the ontological foundation of virtue, but one that must be nurtured and preserved. In other words, each of these four fundamental moral sentiments holds simply the potential for moral action, and thus an individual’s development into a whole human being in harmony with all of humankind.56 But what about embodied emotions? How do they interact with moral sentiments? Mencius provides an in-depth account of their relationship, as shown in the following extracts. (Mencius:) It is all right to say that what is not attained in the mind is not to be sought in the vital force, but it is not all right to say that what is not attained in words is not to be sought in the mind. The will is the leader of the vital force, and the vital force pervades and animates the body. The will is the highest; the vital force comes next. Therefore, I say, “hold the will firm and never do violence to the vital force.” ... If the will is concentrated, the vital force [will follow it] and become active. If the vital force is concentrated, the will [will follow it] and become active. For instance, here is a case of a man falling or running. It is his vital force that is active, and yet it causes his mind to be active too.” Ch’ou asked, “May I venture to ask, sir, in what you are strong?” Mencius replied, “I understand words. And I am skillful in nourishing my strong, moving power.” “May I ask what is meant by the strong, moving power?” “It is difficult to describe. As power, it is exceedingly great and exceedingly strong. If nourished by uprightness and not injured, it will fill up all between heaven and earth. As power, righteousness and the Way accompany it. Without them, it will be devoid of nourishment. It is produced by the accumulation of righteous deeds but is not obtained by incidental acts of righteousness. When one’s conduct is not satisfactory to his own mind, then one will be devoid of nourishment.57 (Mencius): With proper nourishment and care, everything grows, whereas without proper nourishment and care, everything decays. Confucius said, “Hold it fast and you preserve it. Let it go and you lose it. It comes in and goes out at no definite time and without anyone knowing its direction.” He was talking about the human mind.58

“Vital force” (chi) refers to bodily substance, matter and desire, and is different from “will” (the moral mind), but both are interrelated in the

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sense that the moral mind must govern chi or virtue will fail. Chi in this sense may be read as the totality of embodied emotions, which differs from the “strong, moving power” (hao-jan chih chi), whereby chi is guided by righteousness (yi) in the fullest sense. Through one’s selfconscious and conscientious effort to act according to moral principles, yi leads naturally to the ontological extension of oneself, and transforms the world into a universe of significance integral to the individual self.59 (Mencius:) There is not a part of the body that a man does not love. And because there is no part of the body that he does not love, there is not a part of it that he does not nourish. Because there is not an inch of his skin that he does not love, there is not an inch of his skin that he does not nourish. To determine whether his nourishing is good or not, there is no other way except to see the choice he makes for himself. Now, some parts of the body are noble and some are ignoble; some great and some small. We must not allow the ignoble to injure the noble, or the smaller to injure the greater. Those who nourish the smaller parts will become small men. Those who nourish the greater parts will become great men.60 (Mencius:) Those who follow the greater qualities in their nature become men and those who follow the smaller qualities in their nature become small men. When our senses of sight and hearing are used without thought and are thereby obscured by material things, the material things act on the material senses and lead them astray. That is all. The function of the mind is to think. If we think, we will get them (the principles of things). If we do not think, we will not get them. This is what Heaven has given to us. If we first build up the nobler part of our nature, then the inferior part cannot overcome it. It is simply this that makes a man great.61

Critical commentary on the above citations discloses a moral metaphysics in Mencius’s precepts. The phrase “this [the mind] is what heaven has given to us” signifies a person’s relation to his or her ontological foundation, t’ien (heaven). According to Confucian philosophy, heaven is the transcendental ground of everything in nature including human beings, whose essential attribute, the moral mind, is endowed by heaven. Therefore the mind is the noblest and the greatest component of the body. Its moral consciousness or innate knowledge of goodness makes it more than merely physical. Human beings are also made up of smaller, physical components with basic functions, such as hearing and vision. The physical needs, embodied emotions and desires of these smaller components are subordinate to the control of the “thinking greatest-component,” which is central to one’s moral principles and will. As Cheng points out, the moral psychology and moral metaphysics underlying this model offer a guide for behavior—in the form of moral

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practices—in one’s personal life and social interactions. According to traditional Confucian philosophy, this process is the central and ultimate concern of human activity.62 (Mencius:) [When] Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.63

This extract demonstrates the significance of the mind’s role in dominating and repressing the smaller components of the body. However, this process involves suffering. It is only through the stimulation of the mind and the hardening of the body that one is able to fulfill the great responsibility bestowed by heaven. The process of domination and repression includes a series of exercises by which bodily desires, feelings and embodied emotions are regulated. As a result, the morality of one’s mind and behavior is nourished. (Mencius:) Form and color (our body) are nature endowed by Heaven. It is only the sage who can put his physical form into full use.64

What insights can we gain from the above discussion of Mencius’s theories of the body? Do these ideas constitute an alternative ontology of the body to that which has been compiled in the Western tradition? A vital force pervades and animates the body and assembles its small components, which are the material senses related to the feelings we discuss, and they are governed by the mind, the greatest component. This is through the judgment involved in the process that turns embodied emotions into moral emotions. Is this the “mysterious and almost magical orientation” to which Mary Bockover alludes? The small components of the body could be interpreted as the material and ontological bases of human existence. These small components are also the location of the “receiving” principle, waiting passively for the form-giving process and for the guidance of moral imperatives—both activities which are supervised by the mind. The chief remaining question concerns binary structure and the equilibrium or harmony that Solomon and other scholars aspire to. Do Mencius’s ideas of the body resemble the mind-body dichotomy criticized by them? Some hints are given in the I-Ching, the fundamental text of Confucian cosmology, especially with reference to the Yin and the Yang: One yin and one yang is called Tao (the way). What we inherit from (the Tao) is good. What forms things in nature (hsing)... Being full of being is

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the great deed; being fresh and novel every day is called luxuriant virtue. To produce life is called change. To form forms (hsiang) is called chien (the creative principle). To follow up (the chien) is called kun (the receptive principle). To exhaust numbers in order to know the future is called derivation. To comprehend change is called conducting an affair. The unpredictability of the changes (due to the interchange of yin and yang) is called the divine. ... Thus I [have] the great ultimate, which generates the two norms. Two norms generate four forms. Four forms generate eight trigrams. 65

Cheng explains that there are always two opposite but complementary forces in the process of change: the Yin, representing the receptive and the potential, and the Yang, representing the creative and the actual. The differences between things are manifestations of the interaction between the Yin and the Yang, which resembles the interaction of the vital force and the moral mind. These general polarities do not exhibit any real opposition or antagonism; they are only opposite insofar as they are complementary. There is neither tension nor hostility between the terms. According to the I-Ching, the world is undergoing change and development, moving towards unity and a state of holistic harmonization. Discrepancy, imperfection, conflict, contradiction and struggle are understood to arise from incomplete sub-processes in the interaction of polarities. Moreover, conflict is only a matter of a person’s inability to conform to reality and to appreciate the intricacies of change. Conflict can be avoided if one strives to conform to nature (hsing in the human sense) by cultivating one’s understanding and adjusting one’s actions appropriately. Such adjustment is also a process of harmonization. To conclude, according to the metaphysics of harmony and conflict outlined in the I-Ching, antagonism calls for humans’ moral and practical transformation.66 The non-mechanical, non-binary and non-essentialistic interactivity of the two cosmological principles enables the body and the embodied emotions to form a single process interacting with its situated context. The interaction of the two principles also fundamentally shapes the concrete experiences of life, history, and time.67 It is on these grounds that Mencius’s ideas of the mind and the body can be used to initiate a radical rethinking of the connections among rational judgments, the emotions and ethical-political issues into which Solomon’s discussion provides significant insights. Solomon states that the promise of cross-cultural emotions research lies in “ideas,” in terms of “different ways of seeing, different ways of conceiving, and different ways of carving up and evaluating the world.”68 Here, he could equally be referring to empirical research, as he describes

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emotions as phenomenological rather than ontological, modes of experience (including bodily experience) rather than a form of metaphysical existence. However, Mencius’s theory of the body, which offers a different way of “carving up and evaluating the world” based on its own system of moral metaphysics, provides another framework for the ideation of emotion in support of Solomon’s theories. It is the moral metaphysics within that framework, which implies an interactivity among heaven, moral mind or moral reason (the faculty of xin), feelings, embodied emotions and action. The universal ideas underlying Mencius’s theory of the body, including the notion that the moral mind is bestowed by heaven, and that the embodied emotions and desires of the body’s smaller components must be regulated or cultivated by its greater components (namely the moral mind), are, in Solomon’s broad senses, rational and judgmental. Mencius’s discussion of the moral, intentional choices of action and behavior, whose co-workers are feelings and embodied emotions, ascribes to human beings a similar degree of existential choice. His descriptions of the mind’s control over our vital force (chi) and the importance of making virtuous choices in life with a sage’s wisdom, recall Solomon’s claim that emotional judgments always arise from a particular perspective, defined in part by one’s physical embodiment, but more generally by one’s place in the world and one’s cultural context, and that they need not be overtly intellectualistic but are existential choices. This argument clearly resembles Confucius’s situational ethics. Solomon’s notion of universal emotions may refer to the human condition, including human beings’ shared neurological structure, which is not the same as the vital force described by Mencius, which implies both embodied emotions and the stratum waiting to be humanized or moralized by the metaphysically endowed mind. However, these very differences verify Solomon’s theory still, which emphasizes the cultural positioning of emotions and the possibility of cross-cultural comparison. For Solomon, emotions are always culturally taught and cognitively framed. The comparisons demonstrate similar fervor in refusing cognitive reductionism and biological reductionism between the two, the “appropriateness” or existential choice within one’s ethical judgments, and the “emotional integrity” with one’s heartfelt values. And Mencius’ moral theory also advocates the “authenticity” of Solomon’s later elaboration, which is moral intuition that has taken into account the social virtues and the existential subjectivity.

CHAPTER EIGHT WHISTLING TO SUMMON SPIRITS: DAOIST ATTEMPTS TO WHISTLE WHAT “CANNOT BE SAID” MARTHE CHANDLER

I. You can’t whistle it either—Wittgenstein and Ramsey The logician Frank Ramsey is said to have responded to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus by remarking “What you cannot say, you cannot say. And you can’t whistle it either.” Although Ramsey was discussing a technical point in logic,1 his remark has been interpreted as a criticism of Wittgenstein’s views of mysticism; either of the view that “what cannot be said” could be shown (“There are, indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical”2) or of the claim that while the propositions of the Tractatus were nonsensical, they could somehow be used to convey a mystical view of the world as a limited whole.3 Ramsey’s remark is generally understood in the context of a view that whistling is a fairly trivial pursuit—the phrase “whistling Dixie” for example means wasting time by engaging in conversational fantasy. This view is consistent with a certain tradition in philosophy that “what cannot be said” (rationally in propositions with truth values) is not philosophically interesting or important. Discussing mysticism and the value of experiences brought on by fasting, breathing exercises, or more artificial means like drugs and alcohol, and the inexpressible, ineffable kind of “knowledge”4 said to accompany these experiences, Bertrand Russell remarked: “From a scientific point of view, we can make no distinction between the man who eats little and sees heaven and the man who drinks much and sees snakes.”5 While Confucius was not as rudely dismissive of mystical experiences, his remarks suggesting that there are more important things with which to be concerned6 and the comments

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about the worthlessness of going without food or sleep in order to think/reflect/meditate (si ᛮ )7 suggest that he might have had some sympathy with Russell. Finally, in a work devoted to a famous Chinese whistling poet, Ruan Ji, Donald Holzman contrasts what can be said with rational speech with whistling, xiao, by noting that whistling is “an unintellectual art, probably a fairly strange kind of sound that is divorced from speech and reason.”8 On the other hand, as a close friend of Wittgenstein’s, Ramsey was probably quite familiar with the latter’s ability to whistle large portions of classical music.9 It is hard to imagine that a man who, unlike Russell, had a deep appreciation of music would dismiss music, including whistling, as a trivial waste of time.

II. Whistling in Daoism The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing), a geographical encyclopedia dating to perhaps the fourth century BCE, contains many references to Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, a shamanistic deity associated with Daoism who lived in the (mythical) Jade Mountains and was a skilled whistler.10 Philosophically the Daoist interest in whistling appears in Zhuangzi’s chapter “The sorting which evens things out” (section 2), which suggests a relationship between natural sounds and the sounds of flutes and bamboo whistles, contrasting these sounds with human speech. Like music produced using instruments, the sound of wind, and the chirping of birds, whistling does not carry the semantic meanings that speaking does. Given the Daoist suspicion of language, it is natural that whistling would be part of an extremely meaningful and important part of Daoist practice. Ancient Daoist exercises to promote longevity and health and aid spiritual cultivation often include whistling. Whistling not only involves the life sustaining physical activity of breathing, but there is a Daoist tradition that whistling, xiào, is an important way to experience (show or be shown) “what cannot be said.” This paper will look at the Daoist whistling tradition—particularly as it appears in three philosophical poets—and will argue that Ramsey is at least partly wrong. It may not be possible to whistle technical points in logic, but there are meaningful and important things that can be whistled.

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III. Etymology and translations of თ xiào The character used when translating “whistle” is თ xiào, which is composed of ཱྀ k΅u, mouth, and ⫓ sù, respectful, solemn. Sù, in turn, is composed of 晴 niè, dexterity (hand wielding a trowel, pen or other object) and 㷴 yuƗn, abyss, whirlpool, suggesting skillful action in dangerous `q (abyss, whirlpool) situations.111 The Shuǀwén defines xiào as “a blowing sound” citing the comment that it “means to pucker up the mouth and emit a sound.”12 Xiào is translated as “(1) whistle, (2) howl, roar, scream.”13 In its early uses in the Book of Songs (娑䴻 Shijing), xiào was often used to describe a sound made by a woman “under great emotional distress [who let] out her anguish in the form of a long, slow audible sigh” rather than an actual whistle.14 Another meaning of xiào was “to summon spirits.” In ancient (pre-Han) magic, whistling was used to evoke wind, rain, clouds, thunder, goblins and demons.15 Later, when the term became important in Daoist breathing practices, it took on an expanded meaning including both emotional expression, calling up spirits, and communication with Daoist immortals.16 Daoist breathing practices united an interest in developing a mystical spiritual communion with the natural world, with a concern for physical health and longevity—perhaps even immortality. While in many of the world’s religions, the path to spiritual cultivation/development requires ignoring our physical bodies if not actually maligning and mistreating them,17 Daoists understand that physical health and spiritual health have the same roots, in the development of cosmic and personal qi (㯋).

IV. Theory of qi Qi has been translated in many ways: “vital energy”, “breath”, “wind”, “psychophysical energy”, “ether” and “the continuous psychophysical sea of stuff that constitutes the ceaseless flow of existence.”18 There is only one qi, but it varies in consistency and form. Dense qi is heavy and falls to become earth and make up physical bodies. Refined qi is light and rises up to the heavens where it is associated with shen ⚄, “spirit”—the ghosts and spirits that reside in the heavens. Refined qi is present in the air, “the ghostly and daimonic.” Since humans are mid-way between heaven and earth we are a mixture of dense qi that makes up our bodies and refined qi, our bodily energy, shen or spirit.19

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Traditional Chinese medicine identified many forms of qi which are involved in the healthy functioning of a human body. We breathe heavenly or cosmic qi into our lungs. Inside our bodies, qi undergoes a series of transformations interacting with the other parts of our body (physical qi) and yuanqi, the original primordial qi we receive from our parents, to become zhengqi “perfect” or “normal” qi that circulates throughout the body, nourishing and protecting it.20 To ensure that zhenqi remains pure, stale or used qi must be eliminated—primarily by being breathed out through the lungs.21 Freely flowing qi creates the “harmony in the body and a balanced state of being in the person”22 that lead to good health and longevity. Moreover, the physical health brought about by the harmonious function of qi was associated with harmony/health in nature, demonstrated by “regular weather patterns and [the] absence of natural disasters” and by the harmony between “families, clans, villages, and states” that indicate a healthy society.23 Finally, nourishing and purifying one’s qi opens one to the inflow of “the purest and most freely circulating qi [that] pervades and unifies everything in the universe.”24 Mencius describes his “flood like qi” in 2A2: “It is difficult to explain. This is a qi which is, in the highest degree, vast and unyielding. Nourish it with integrity and place no obstacle in its path and it will fill the space between Heaven and Earth. It is a qi which unites rightness and the Way.”25 This description seems to have mystical overtones in its ineffability, sense of union, and moral value. Because cosmic qi enters the human body primarily through the lungs, various methods of breath control were developed to maintain the harmonious balance required for physical and spiritual health and longevity. One such method involved the “Six Healing Breaths” in which air was inhaled through the nose and exhaled in six distinct ways out of the mouth. Although Daoist breathing exercises grew out of the practical concern for living a long and healthy life, including appropriately moderate sensual and social pleasures, 26 the importance of harmonizing qi—both in the internal harmony of organs and emotions, as well externally with the qi of the cosmos—meant that Daoist breathing exercises always had a philosophical/spiritual dimension.

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V. Texts on Whistling: “Poetic Essay on Whistling (Xiao Fu თ㈿)” and “Principles of Whistling” (Xiao Zhi თ᪨) .

In a third century work, the Xiao Fu (Poetic Essay on Whistling) by Cheng-gong Sui [Ch’eng-kung Sui] describes a talented whistler, a retired scholar, who has left the world to study the mysteries of the Dao and learn the secret of life.27 While the poem gives no directions about the technical aspects of whistling, it contains many references to Daoist breathing techniques,28 and details the role and importance of whistling to his practice, He transcends the common, and leaves the limits of his body; Then filled with noble emotion, he gives a long-drawn whistle.29

Whistling is the perfect natural music because it does not involve any artificial instruments, strings, woodwinds, gongs or drums, only the whistler and his body, lungs, mouth, teeth, throat and breath. The whistler’s marvelous music “is able to commutate with souls and awaken spirits.”30 The whistler can imitate natural sounds—“the sounds of waves and gushing water”, “a rising whirlwind”, the “neighing of a tartar horse”, “a flock of wild geese”—and natural forces respond to him. Fei Lien, the Wind God, swells out of his deep cavern, And fierce tiger replies with a howl in the central valley.31

Whistling also serves to focus and calm the mind and spirit. Though our minds be filled with thoughts, [xiao] can divert us; Though our hearts be distressed, they are not broken. … It shatters our crammed-up [cares] and scatters them, Purging away the turbid constipations of [life’s] dusty cloud. It works the changes of Yin and Yang in perfect harmony, And transforms the base vulgarity of lewd customs. … And he unfolds [in his whistling] the inexpressible melancholic thoughts Harbored mutely in his mind. And he arouses his most intimate feelings, Which have long been knotted up.

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Whistling allows the Daoist adept to make music, “combining in a perfect harmony the music of Man and the music of Nature.”33 The last lines of the poem ends by associating a particular kind of whistling, the longdrawn whistle (攟◗ cháng xiào), with the Book of Documents.34 The several animals all dance and stomp their feet. The paired phoenixes come with stately mien, and flap their wings. Then they understand the magnificent beauty of the long-drawn whistle (攟◗ cháng xiào); Then, indeed, they [know] the most perfect of sounds.35

This text makes clear that while whistling does not present any semantic or propositional knowledge, it is important in establishing an atmosphere reflecting a harmonious relationship between the whistler who is a Daoist adept, the natural world and the cosmos. Although the Xiao Fu provides a detailed description of the phenomenology of whistling, it offers no indication of how the actual sounds are produced. A Tang Dynasty text, “Principles of Whistling” (Xiào Zhi ◗㖐), gives detailed instructions on how to position the tongue, teeth, lips and cheeks, and how to breathe to produce twelve distinct whistling sounds.36 The text goes on to describe a series of songs/pieces arranging these sounds and producing them in various modes—shrill, quickly, high, low, drawn out. The pieces have titles evoking natural or supernatural scenes—‘Fleeting Cloud,’ ‘Tiger in a Deep Ravine,’ ‘Night Demons in a Lonely Wood,’ ‘Snow Geese and Swans Alighting,’ ‘Kite on a Dead Tree,’ ‘Dragons Droning,’ ‘Earthquake,’ ‘Su Men [Mountains],’ ‘Liu Kung commanding Demons’—and the essay sketches the emotional import, mood or story of each scene/song.37 The essay makes it clear that whistling is a form of music, capable of expressing not just emotions and moods, but the tension, relaxation, expectation and satisfaction felt by intentional agents.38 Although it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe in words precisely what music does, several philosophical poets have written about whistling in ways that suggest its importance and effect.

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VI. Famous whistlers, philosopher-poets A. Ruan Ji Although Ruan Ji (210-263), one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, was known for being a drunken clown, a Daoist wild man who rejected all Confucian rituals and proprieties, Holzman argues that his situation was complex. Living in a brutal and dangerous political age, Ruan Ji could neither join the corrupt and cruel regime, nor risk his life and that of his whole family by refusing to serve. Ruan Ji thus took on an irresponsible and unconventional persona as a form of passive resistance, to “serve without serving.”39 Ruan Ji’s poetry is very difficult, full of obscure and unintelligible (probably political) references, but he was fond of music and a famous whistler. Like many intellectuals of the age, he was interested in search for immorality and was fascinated with Daoist immortals. Hearing that a Daoist recluse/immortal, Sun Teng, had been seen in the mountains, Ruan Ji went to visit him, finding the recluse crouched down, his arms about his knees, on the edge of a precipice. Ruan Ji climbed the mountain, came up to see him, and then sat down facing him with his legs spread out fan-wise (“very unceremonious behavior”). He expiated upon the whole of antiquity, beginning with the most ancient period, for which he exposed the Mysterious and solitary Way of the Yellow emperor and the Divine Husbandman, and going down to an examination of the excellences of the flourishing virtue of the Three Dynasties. When he asked the True Man’s opinions about it, the latter remained fiercely silent. Ruan Ji went at it again, this time describing that which is beyond activity, the art of perching the spirit and controlling the breath … to see what the True Man would say about it. But he remained unchanged: his glassy stare hadn’t budged an inch. Ruan Ji then faced him and whistled for quite some time. Finally the True Man smiled and said: ‘You may do that again.’ Ruan Ji whistled again, until he had whistled himself out, and then he retired to about halfway down the mountainside. There he heard a flowing (derisive?) sound that seemed to be produced by several sections of flutes and drums, and the wooded valley carried on its echo. When he turned around to see what it was he saw it was the man he had just left, whistling.40

The immortal Sun Teng was clearly bored by Ruan Ji’s scholarly knowledge of history and philosophy and uninterested in descriptions of Daoist metaphysics and breathing practices, but faced with an example of the result of those practices—Ruan Ji’s whistling—he responded, first

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with delight and then with a demonstration of his own astounding ability to whistle.

B. Tao Qian The reclusive poet Tao Qian (365-427)41 also whistled. Abandoning public life to make his living as a farmer, Tao wrote a number of poems praising the simplicity and beauty of his new life and delighting in the isolation of his farm and the limits of his conversations with fellow farmers. In a poem describing planting and weeding beans he remarked that their cultivation “reminds me never to resist,”42 a line that expresses and echoes the poet’s deeply Daoist feelings. One of his poems celebrating his return to the farm ends: I have no desire for riches And no expectation of Heaven. Rather on some fine morning to walk alone Now planting my staff to take up a hoe, Or climbing the east hill and whistling long (䮧౟ cháng xiào) Or composing verses beside the clear stream: So I manage to accept my lot until the ultimate homecoming. Rejoicing in Heaven’s command, what is there to doubt?43

Tao’s “whistling long” recalls the line in the Xiào Fu They then understand the magnificent beauty of the long-drawn whistle (cháng xiào); Then, indeed, they [know] the most perfect of sounds.44

Despite the poverty, hunger and cold of his life as a farmer, Tao expressed few regrets about his choice of a life of escape from government service.45 Farming is extraordinarily hard work with few material rewards, but it is infinitely preferable to life in office. Some of Tao’s most famous poems are in the series titled “Drinking Wine.” David Hinton’s translation of one of them is: Colors infusing autumn chrysanthemums exquisite. I pick dew-bathed petals, float them on that forget-your-cares stuff. Even my passion for living apart soon grows distant. I’m alone, but after

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that first cup, the wine jar pours itself. Everything at rest, dusk: a bird calls, returning to its forest home. Chanting, I settle into my breath. Somehow, on this east veranda, I’ve found my life again.46

Hinton’s translation may not be the most literal, but it seems to me to be the most graceful.47 The last line of the Chinese is ┠⁚᷄弑ᶳ炻俲⢵⼿㬌䓇ˤ

The relevant characters are ┠⁚ (xiào ào). Ào is defined as “arrogant, proud; haughty; refuse to yield to; brave; defy.”47 Hinton’s translation of the phrase as “Chanting, I settle into my breath” does not mention “whistling” but his use of “chanting” seems to capture the quasi-religious Daoist aspect of whistling, while “I settle into my breath” refers to breathing exercises. Nevertheless, his assimilation of “whistling” into the word “chanting” may be misleading because of the association with the verbal activity of “chanting” a text, and because Sun Teng’s response to Ruan Ji makes more than clear “whistling” is not a verbal exercise. Two other translations are more literal: Haughtily, I whistle below the eastern balcony I’ve found again the meaning of life.48

And Whistling proudly under the East railing, Somehow, I've grasped this life anew.49

Clearly translating “xiào”, much less “xiào ào”, is difficult—“haughtily” or “proudly” may be relatively literal, but do not fit the context of Tao Qian’s Daoist acceptance of his place in the world. In Hightower’s translation, I sit complacent on the east veranda Having somehow found my life again.50

“Complacent” seems better, but Hightower, like Hinton, leaves out the whistling, and moreover makes no mention of breathing.

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In a discussion of another poem in the Drinking Wine series, Hightower translates “ào” as “scorn”—the attitude of someone who “favors irresponsibility and duty to self over dedication and devotion to the public good”—a mood of “independence.” The poem in question is a dialogue between Tao’s Drunken Self and his Sober Self. The drunken self is unable to understand the sober one’s “hidebound” stupidity and the poet remarks, “The drunkard’s score is more intelligent.”52 This line and Tao Qian’s famous love of wine ally him with Ruan Ji, particularly if we remember that while chanting usually involves words, whistling does not. Sun Teng’s refusal to respond to Ruan Ji’s abstract and scholarly conversation recalls the suspicion of language found in both the Daodejing and Zhuangzi as well as another famous line from Tao’s Drinking Wine Poems: All this means something, something absolute. Whenever I start explaining it, I’ve forgotten the words.53

On the other hand, Tao Qian’s poetry is simpler and clearer than Ruan Ji’s and Tao seems to have found some measure of contentment.54 Both poets are famous drinkers and have rejected the Confucian values of ambition and public service. However, Tao Qian’s poetry is about the practical details of his life, and avoids Ruan Ji’s obscure political references. Tao’s poverty and the hard physical work of farming place him in nature—wealth and ease are benefits of a successful life in society. His poetry suggests a harmonious relationship between his physical life, his Daoism—both in philosophical outlook and breathing practices, including whistling long (cháng xiào) and whistling to express self-assured, independence (xiào ào). The final example of a whistling poet philosopher is more complicated—and to my mind more interesting.

C. Su Dongpo (Su Shi) Su Dongpo was a brilliant and successful public servant who got caught up in a political conflict at court. Thrown in prison for three months, he expected to be executed.55 Released and exiled to Huangzhou where he seemed destined to live out his life as a poor farmer, he planned to model his life after Tao Qian. Several months after his arrival in Huangzhou, Su and some friends took a boat to Red Cliff, the purported site of a famous battle at the end of the Han Dynasty.56 The First Red Cliff Ode describes this trip: the fresh

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breeze, gentle waves, brilliant moon and stars.57 Su and his friends drank wine, sang old songs and composed new ones. Su states that he felt a boundless exhilaration, as though I were sailing on the void or riding the wind and didn’t know where to stop. I was filled with a lightness, as though I had left the world and were standing alone, or had sprouted wings and were flying up to join the immortals.58

When Su’s friend began playing a mournful tune lamenting the transitory nature of life and fame, Su consoled him with Daoist-Buddhist philosophy about the nature of time and change, enjoining him to enjoy the beautiful night, the music and the moon, because “These are the endless treasures of the Creator, here for you and me to enjoy together.”59 Su’s friend laughed in delight. They drank more wine, finished their food and lay down in the boat “unaware that the east was already growing light.”60 The Second Red Cliff Ode is different. It describes a November day, three months after the first outing. Su and two friends were walking home. It was cold and the leaves had fallen. Su sighed in regret because he had neither food nor wine for his guests. However, one of his friends had caught a perch that morning and Su’s wife had some wine saved. They took the wine and fish and returned in a boat to the Red Cliffs. The scenery had changed almost beyond recognition. The river raced along noisily, its sheer banks rising a thousand feet. The mountains were very high, the moon small. The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out.61

Su climbed up the cliffs, leaving his friends below. Tucking up my robe, I began to climb, picking my way along the steep embankment, pushing through tangled grass, straddling rocks the shapes of tigers, clambering over roots twisted like dragons. I pulled myself way up to the eagle’s precarious nest, and looked down into the hidden halls of the river god…. I gave a cháng xiào [which Watson translates as “long, shrill whoop”]. Trees and grass shook and swayed, the mountains rang, the valley echoed. A wind came up, roiling the water, and I felt a chill of sadness, a shrinking fear. I knew with a shudder that I couldn’t stay there any longer.62

Su returned to the boat and he and his friends drifted down the river. A lone crane flew overhead. “With a long, grating cry, it swooped over our boat and went off to the west.”63 That night Su dreamed of a Daoist immortal who asked,

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Su Dongpo asked the Immortal his name but there was no answer. “Ah, wait—of course—now I know! Last evening, flying over our boat and crying—that was you, wasn’t it?” He turned his head and laughed, and I woke up with a start. I opened the door and peered out, but I could see no sign of him.65

The mood of this poem is more somber than that of the First Ode. The weather is dismal. Su’s poverty is more obvious, and rather than a pleasant boat ride drifting down the river, he has a frightening experience on the cliffs, including the sight of “the hidden halls of the river god,” an allusion to the suicide of Qu Yuan (343–278 BCE), an exiled official who threw himself into the river in despair over the political corruption of his age.66 This time, instead of some light hearted philosophizing to dispel the mood, an Immortal appears, first overhead in the guise of a crane and then in Su’s dream. At the end of the First Ode, laughter dispels the feelings of sadness. The Immortal’s laugh at the end of the Second Ode only increases the sense of eeriness and mystery. Su had been studying Daoist breathing exercises and his xiào at the top of the cliff was probably an attempt to inspire a welcoming response from nature itself, or to summon the feeling of self-assurance expressed by xiào ao,67 but the response he got was decidedly hostile. Su felt terrified at the top of the cliff. The crane attacked the boat, and the Immortal in his dream was mocking and unfriendly. When Ruan Ji whistled for Sun Teng, the immortal was quite pleased. Why is Su Shi treated so differently? Unlike Ruan Ji, Su is not known for his ability to whistle; but then neither was Tao Qian. Ronald Egan suggests that Su is being punished for assuming a privilege that he does not deserve, has not earned.68 Su’s relationship with his world—political, natural and cosmic—is disturbing and out of harmony. The physical landscape—the weather, the river, the frightening shaped of the rocks and trees, even his scramble up the cliff are all unpleasant. Spiritually he feels a sense of failure. Unlike Tao Qian and Ruan Ji, Su did not leave government service willingly and was happy to return every time he was asked to do so. Cosmically his view of the universe varies dramatically—in the First Red Cliff Ode (and other places) he dabbles in abstract Buddhist metaphysics. In his delight in his own farm, he echoes Tao Qian’s Daoist love of nature and a simple life, yet he continues to enjoy many conversations with local scholars and government officials. His deepest self is probably Confucian—devoted to

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duty and service (ambition and fame)—and considers suicide when he thinks he has failed. At the top of the Red Cliff, Su is “whistling in the dark”—making a pretense of bravery and confidence, and claiming to have the ability of a Daoist adept to live in harmony with the forces of nature—away from Confucian scholarship, service and society. But his failure is obvious; first in his feeling of panic at the top of the cliff and then in his response to the appearance of a Daoist immortal, he tries to start a conversation. The response to Su’s whistle was not a comforting one, but it did reflect his life—out of harmony with his society, he is in exile, having barely escaping execution; out of harmony with his circumstances, he tries very hard to be reconciled to his poverty, but cannot be; out of harmony with nature, the rocks and trees, even the river itself, are alien and threatening. Su has not given up. He has his moments of despair—when he cannot provide feast for his friends, when he thinks of the “halls of the river god”—but he carries on, looking down the road, finding nothing, no one. The Daoist immortal’s mocking laugh may either be the response from a spiritual world that rejects him, or as with many dreams, an honest selfappraisal that, in the end, he cannot accept the isolated world of a Daoist recluse, nor be reconciled to the failure of his Confucian ambitions for a life of service and fame.

VII. Conclusion Music and poetry are both ways to express what “cannot be said.” Although poetry is a kind of saying, poets typically do not write clear, logical prose with unambiguous meanings. In poetry, as in music, precise semantic meanings, if any, are not the point. Thus the famous NeoConfucian scholar Zhu Xi was critical of Su Shi, not for having mistaken philosophical views, but for writing so beautifully that readers did not care whether what he was saying was correct. But what is it that is expressed that “cannot be said”? On one level, this question is obviously impossible to answer; a fact that lends support to a view that Russell may have held that what “cannot be said” is unscientific nonsense. Music on the other hand, seems able to express “the profoundest human concerns” showing “deep insight into human subjectivity,”69 and, like the last couplet in Tao Qian’s Autumn Chrysanthemum poem, shows us the meaning of life. Music was extremely important in classical (pre-Han) China. Confucians used ritual music to educate people to be good members of their families, societies and the whole human world, to create harmony

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between people, a harmony growing out of intellectual study of ancient texts and forms, and the discipline of li.70 On the other hand, Confucius was suspicious of certain kinds of music: warlike music, lewd music71 and whistling72—perhaps for the latter’s tendency to imitate, summon, and get responses from the wilder and more dangerous aspects of nature— earthquakes, tigers and storms. In turn, the famous whistlers—Sun Teng, Ruan Ji and Tao Qian, each in his own way—all rejected the Confucian way of life. Daoists whistlers were concerned more with Harmony with the natural world, the Dao of Heaven, than with the social, human world, the Dao of People.73 Daoist breathing practices originated in a very practical concern for physical health and longevity.74 Daoist whistling is the most natural kind of music, without words, without instruments, uniting the human body (breath, lungs, and mouth) and spirit with nature and the cosmos. Daoist whistling expresses a sense of contentment with one’s place in the world, an emotional feeling of communication and harmony with spirits, Daoist immortals, sages and the natural world itself.75 Those of us who love philosophy and rational communication may find ourselves becoming so abstract that we allow ourselves to forget that we are physical beings with bodies that are located in the world and interact with it at the most basic levels, eating, moving around, and breathing. At that point, attempts to “reconnect,” reestablish, or at least recognize our place in the physical natural world, can be difficult. Ruan Ji was forced to save himself and his family from disgrace or execution through a lot of drinking and an astounding ability to whistle. Tao Qian was subjected to the hardships of farm life. Su Shi reminds us that, often, we fail to find a place of contentment and harmony in a hostile world. Su’s whistling was unsuccessful precisely because he continued to accept Confucian values.76 Su was too much like Russell and not enough like Ruan Ji and Wittgenstein to know that sometimes there are things you cannot say, you can only whistle them.

PART III: HARMONY IN POLITICS

CHAPTER NINE “CONFUCIAN CULTURAL FALLACY” TH IN THE 20 CENTURY CHINESE ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT WEN HAIMING

I. Introduction1 Tu Wei-ming, a Confucian thinker, has devoted himself to the difficult project of reviving Confucianism in an era of Chinese enlightenment. Tu raises several arguments relating to the future of the third Confucian revival in modern times. His series of arguments are in response to Joseph R. Leveson’s famous argument in Confucian China and Its Modern Fate that the Confucian tradition is already stuck in museums, and also in response to the New Confucian pioneers of the 20th century who would like to perpetuate the dominating role of Confucianism in the Chinese cultural tradition. These arguments are particularly relevant to the Enlightenment movement of the 20th century.2 Tu Wei-ming’s works are strongly influenced by this Chinese modern Enlightenment. Unlike many who have emphasized the negative impact of the Chinese cultural tradition, Tu, while taking this position into account, argues that culture might play a key role in changing the society and the times. However, as opposed to those who would minimize Confucius’ impact in the study of the humanities while promoting their ideas of cultural enlightenment, Tu tries to revive Confucianism as a lost tradition while also staying on the enlightenment track. Thus, most Chinese intellectuals in the 20th century, whether they have negative or positive views about Confucianism, intend to make philosophy, thought, and culture play leading roles in socialpolitical changes. This is what I call the “cultural fallacy.” The soft version of “cultural fallacy” means that culture is not only relevant to socio-political change, but that culture is itself also changed by social-political situations. The strong version of “cultural fallacy” means

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that culture is understood as a stagnant entity that entirely determines socio-cultural development. In this article, taking Tu’s arguments as examples, I discuss this “Confucian cultural fallacy” in relation to the 20th century Chinese enlightenment movement. Tu promotes Confucianism as a leading, sometimes determining, factor in this period of change, thus Tu’s arguments reflect at least a soft version of the Confucian cultural fallacy, especially when dealing with the function of how Confucianism works within social and political reality. It is important to understand his arguments because he recognizes the significance of culture in changing times, and he really believes that Confucianism should play a major role in modern China. He sympathizes with the declining role of modern Confucianism, and develops his arguments through his profound understanding of Confucian scholarship, his exploration of Chinese and Western cultures, as well as his practice of promoting Confucian culture around the world. This article will mainly discuss two of Tu’s arguments: “the third revival of Confucianism” and “cultural China,”3 as well as the underlying notion that culture can not only influence history, but to some extent it might play a determinative role. I call this view the “Confucian cultural fallacy” because it overestimates the impact of Confucian culture on history, and considers Confucianism as a determining power in creating Chinese history. This kind of Confucian cultural fallacy has a long history, but it became much more powerful in the 20th century when China faced many failures in its modernization process. Tu’s numerous cultural arguments cannot be isolated from the historical and cultural background of the 20th century. We should also be alert to another version of the Confucian cultural fallacy in the 21st century: the high expectations for Confucianism after China’s economic development. Whether rejecting Confucianism in the 20th century, or expecting Confucianism to play a much stronger role in the new age of cultural dialogue, both reflect an enlightenment perspective which believes culture can determine historical change.

II. Western Enlightenment Thought and the Modern Confucian Cultural Fallacy When the 18th century enlightenment movement emerged out of an outdated theology, thinkers looked for a substitute for God, and typically they found nature to be a handy replacement. According to Crocker, thinkers of that time succeeded in destroying the belief of God, but failed to make nature a successful substitute; thus the undertaking became a

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legacy of tragedy. They were unable to make the case that nature should be the foundation for our ethical beliefs. Enlightenment ideas, together with the belief in science, the future, and progress, displayed steadfast optimism. Condorcet’s idea that human beings are on track towards non-stop progress has, after two world wars, proven to be utopian thinking. Nonetheless, most Chinese intellectuals in the 20th century were greatly influenced by Hegel and Marx, and believed that history was continuously progressive. Marxism was widespread after the New Cultural Movement, and the belief in social progress became one of the core ideas in Marxism ideology. From a Marxist perspective, society is understood as an organization. Although we can explore the goals of certain organizations, Chinese and Western perspectives differ with respect to the understanding of the purpose of the organization itself. Western enlightenment thinkers asked questions about causality in order to solve the problems related to the purpose of nature and human beings, i.e., is the ultimate purpose natural or human? Darwinism and Marxism agree on some kind of linear teleology which propels nature or the world toward some higher end. Does this kind of purposiveness entail necessity? Xunzi (313–238 B.C.E.), one of the pre-Qin philosophers, mentions that human beings are able to organize themselves. Does this mean that human beings have some kind of aim in doing so? Enlightenment thinkers often metaphorically take society as organization, and there was a similar metaphor in pre-Qin Chinese thinkers’ writings. Is the purpose of an organization as seen in nature similar to that of a certain human political group? From a Chinese perspective, nature, normally taken as the foundation of human society, does not reveal an ultimate purpose. This kind of nature, without an ultimate purpose, has to be carefully considered when applying Western terms like “final causality” to Chinese thinking. Basically, Chinese people do not take Chinese society to progress in a linear model, and do not assume that there is any final agenda for themselves. In other words, most Chinese thinking is nonteleological. Generally, the Chinese modern enlightenment movement was strongly influenced by Western enlightenment thought, which is very different from traditional mainstream Chinese philosophical ideas.4 While the May Fourth Movement5 in 1919 is generally considered the first Enlightenment movement of the 20th Century, the second movement occurred in the 1980s. Liberal thinkers in the 1980s publicized Western ideas of enlightenment to educate Chinese people after the notorious Cultural Revolution (1966–76)ʊthe time when both Confucian and Western cultures were tagged as arising from corrupted ideologies which should be

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erased from people’s minds. French enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu (1689–1755), Voltaire (1694–1778), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715–71), Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717–83), Paul Henri Thiry Holbach (1723–89), Condorcet (1743–94), Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715–80), and others were heroes during the 1980s in China. Inspired by Denis Diderot (1713–84), who was a bookseller and tried to enlighten people through publications, some liberal Chinese intellectuals became booksellers or worked in the media in the early 1990s, after the enlightenment movement subsided after 1989. However, the belief that enlightening common people would change China continued to be held firmly by liberal intellectuals. The other strong belief associated with this is that culture, in its ultimate sense, is a determining factor in societal changes. The fundamental idea of the early 20th century enlightenment movement is that thought or culture has the power to change the times. Wei Zhang offers a typical statement of the enlightenment ideal, saying that it refers to “constantly evolving processes of humanity’s growth toward an ever-improving self-understanding and emancipation from all sorts of bondage.”6 Many intellectuals took this for granted because they believed in the power of thought to transform society. According to Marian Hobson, reason is responsible for the cultural atmosphere of a particular time, but it is not the direct cause of what happens over history. For example, the French Revolution happened not just because of the power of enlightenment thought, but was also related to famine and political corruption during that period. Some Western thinkers also hold that thought can be responsible for historical events, i.e., Crocker points out that Nazism was caused by nihilism after the enlightenment movement, and Bertrand Russell holds that Nietzsche should be held responsible for the rise of Nazism. As Vera Schwarcz correctly points out, The longer I lived in China, the more I understood the ways in which the May Fourth legacy served as a troublesome reminder of China’s incomplete emancipation from its feudal past. Chinese intellectuals, survivors and admirers of May Fourth alike, have been the concrete embodiment of that reminder. Their insistence that May Fourth goals of science and democracy have yet to be achieved in the People’s Republic has made them subject to repeated waves of persecution.7

It is correct to claim that Chinese intellectuals, driven by the enlightenment ideals since May Fourth, have extended the idea of promoting science and democracy, and have removed references to a feudal past and appeals to a spiritual realm. Confucianism was a cultural

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relic this movement sought to discard. As such, finding a place for Confucianism in modern China is very difficult.

III. Tu Wei-ming’s “Confucian Cultural Fallacy” in His Criticism of the Enlightenment Mentality Tu proposes to revive Confucianism in a third stage of reconstructed Chinese philosophy. He believes this is important to respond to the debates between the ancient and modern worlds, and between China and the West. In this time of transition, what kind of role traditional Chinese culture should play is controversial. In the early 20th century, considering China’s historical background wherein no single individual could determine the fate of the nation, many intellectuals argued that traditional Chinese culture was responsible for China’s humiliation at the hands of Western powers. The background of this debate is the strong contrast between China and the West. Chinese culture is represented by its long feudal history with hierarchical politics, clan-based local culture, and an economy based on agriculture and the rhythms of the natural world. This situation developed into an authoritarian culture which suppressed individualistic features and creativity. Western culture is represented by features of the Enlightenment movement: the rise of scientific research, democratic politics, individual liberation, the promotion of human dignity, the establishment of legal systems and human rights, and the establishment of a commercial or market-based economy.8 This typical example of attributing modern Chinese failings to traditional culture falls under the category of the “cultural fallacy.” After Matteo Ricci sent back his glowing reports of the Celestial Kingdom to eager European readers, the movement of cross-cultural communication from the East to the West could be called the “Oriental Enlightenment.”10 Tu disagrees with Leveson’s conclusion that the Confucian humanistic tradition disappeared in modern China because it could not stand the test of Westernization.9 It is clear that the Confucian tradition has declined in modern times, and, as Leveson mentions, the failures of movements to revive it by Emperor Tongzhi in 1862–74 and by the Wuxu Reform led by Kang Youwei (1858–1927) in 1898 could be related to the limitations of Confucian culture. However, these failures were not due to the flaws of Chinese culture, but rather to failures of those reformers in those historical moments. The continuous failures of reformers in the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) led to the abandonment of the traditional examination system in 1905, and, after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, the suppression of Confucian culture. Leading

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scholars at that time lost the patience to wait for systematic reform, so instead pulled down all elements of traditional culture in order to gain immediate influence over pressing real-world reforms. Many failures in Chinese modern history were due to the failures of individuals in power. Although some may have had the power to make changes, in the face of declining state power and repeated defeat in wars, these individuals failed to enact successful reforms. However, many intellectuals, after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, started a wave of anti-Confucianism in response to then current pressures.11 This started a broad-based and passionate surge to tear down all traditional cultureʊa surge that lacked reflection and deliberation. These reformers criticized Confucianism as a forced ritual system that only benefitted the old centralized power, and they encouraged the youth to tear apart this “carnival ritual system.”12 Tu criticizes those people in power who tried to borrow the names of Confucius and Mencius to defend their militaryruling system because this actually made the decline of Confucianism even more extreme. However, it might have been possible for Confucianism to revive had these military-ruling leaders become successful, like Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–220 A.D.). Whether or not they were sincere Confucians who would have promoted the culture is unknown, because they failed to maintain power. As a system of thought, though, Confucianism cannot be held responsible for either the failure or the success of particular leaders. Most modern Chinese intellectuals did not carefully examine the failures of the leaders in reacting to the challenges of Western powers, but instead criticized Confucianism for the failures of modernization. They even suggested that Chinese civilization would not survive if Confucian culture were not entirely discarded.13 This is another aggrandizement of the role of culture which, because it ignores many key factors in real historical situations, falls in line with enlightenment thinking. As Tu points out, Western culture made a good impression on the minds of Chinese intellectuals, not because of its inner truth or good values, but because of its pragmatic value. In a similar way, traditional Chinese culture was regarded as having no merit because it lost its pragmatic usefulness under the pressure of modernization.14 Late Qing intellectuals like Yan Fu (1854–1921), Kang Youwei, and Liang Qichao (1873–1929) planned to enlighten the common people, while intellectuals, after the May Fourth movement, tended to totally cast off traditional culture. Tu implies that intellectuals at that time should not have gone so far as to throw away traditional culture. Actually, the situation got worse and worse, not because of the intellectuals, but mainly because people

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made bad decisions in critical historical moments. The key issue here is not to blame or put responsibility on traditional culture, since most intellectuals who cared about the culture were not in positions powerful enough to determine the direction of state affairs, although they were nonetheless criticized as responsible for the ups and downs of the state. To do this was to criticize them for something out of their control, and it also exaggerated their historical function. Hu Shi (1891–1962) and Lu Xun are famous for their enlightenment writings in critical historical moments, and both of them criticized the national character of the Chinese common people as being conservative, exclusive, behind the times, etc. It is hard to say whether both of them really wanted to replace Chinese culture with Western values, but they had to raise very radical views because of the pressure they were under. Be this as it may, their efforts to promote an enlightenment point of view did not turn out as they expected. Rather, people’s attitudes became sharply divided, either wildly embracing Western culture or railing against it furiously. Tu points out that these kinds of extreme views assume that Western culture is only a pragmatic tool; the hope to change China overnight was far from the reality, which required years of effort and deliberation. Without a real foundation, modernization that embraced a superficial Westernization was sure to proceed fitfully.15 During the century that followed the Opium War of 1840, China was forced into a chaotic situation and most people lost their patience to study Western culture systematically and with an open mind. Steadfast progress in modernization occurred only after 1978, which was already nearly a century later than the Japanese Meiji Reform (1868–89). The fact that the enlightenment movement, led by critics in emotionally charged historical moments, blamed culture for China’s problems could be understood as a radical revolutionary way of reforming China’s chaotic situation, and it was clearly a violent standpoint requiring forceful efforts. Elites were tortured by the common people, who were not willing to change where they lived. In response, the elites relied on Westernization as the way to modernize China, and attacked traditional culture in all matters, even to the extent of discarding the Chinese written language.16 Intellectuals were also disappointed by the responses of those in power at the time, but nonetheless they mainly criticized the commoners. This can be understood as a strategy of self-preservation—avoiding condemning powerful people but attacking the weaker masses instead. The people in power were not only beyond the control of the traditional ritual system; they also escaped blame for their mistakes in crucial moments. The common people were not only attacked by those in power, but were

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also humiliated by intellectuals. The intellectuals who were influenced by Western culture did not recognize the significance of traditional culture, and forced the common people to accept their drive to totally eradicate it. From the May Fourth Movement to the Cultural Revolution and throughout modern Chinese history, Chinese traditional culture has been severely attacked. However, similar criticism was not directed towards the people in power. Thus, we come to understand that the “cultural fallacy” has been deeply rooted in 20th century China, while the people in power were beyond the reach of criticism. In this sense, the criticism of “Confucian China” is also a straw man fallacy, a strategy that tries to avoid examining the merits and faults of the ruling class. Tu realizes that it is too much to regard “Confucian China” as responsible for all of China’s problems over history, such as Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty making Confucianism the only leading doctrine, the invasion of the Mongolians in the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), and killing people in the name of the teaching of li (principle) in the early Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Concerning the enlightenment movement in a chaotic time, those intellectuals who tried to influence their time were too political to be reasonable and fair. That they criticized culture and wanted to make it responsible for all failures is a particularly political position, and Confucianism, unfortunately, was forced to be fully responsible. Tu’s reflection on this fallacy is reasonable, but some of his reasoning still falls into the fallacy since he insists on the revival of Confucianism and believes it should play a determining role in modern China. In facing Western powers, Chinese people started to understand themselves as a cultural unity, and later as a unity with a nationalistic sensibility. The people in power tended to make decisions according to their desire to keep power, without consideration of the nation and the public’s interests. We have no way to change those decisions now, since these historical choices have established the current situation, but we should not defend those wrong choices, especially if they were made simply in the interest of personal or communal power. Aside from succumbing to such selfish motivations, many of those leaders criticized culture as the major reason that led to their own false judgments. In short, the intellectuals’ enlightenment-based criticisms of traditional culture do not represent a fair viewpoint. The “cultural fallacy” that we find in their criticism has generated many unfortunate consequences.

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IV. Tu’s Propagating of “Cultural China” and the Cultural Fallacy In his search for a way forward in our own time, Tu has devoted himself to reshaping Confucianism so that it might redirect historical progress. He has high expectations for the development of Confucianism in mainland China, East Asia, Europe, and America. He takes Confucianism’s traditional leading role as the best way of shaping cultural identity for Chinese intellectuals, because, as it involves no need to rely on churches, temples, or any other religious institutions, Confucianism focuses on human conditions, and values the self-consciousness of intellectuals.17 Tu raised his arguments concerning “cultural China” during the culture revival movement of the 1980s, and his insights did turn out to function as a guide immediately after the Cultural Revolution. His arguments on cultural China18 became more complicated in the 1990s when he was in a leading position as a professor at Harvard University. As the author of Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center, Tu was the key figure in most debates about Chinese issues overseas in the 1990s.19 He made full use of his authoritative position as the director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute to create an international environment for the study of Chinese culture, and became an influential cultural leader who was able to challenge the agenda of central China by uniting people, all over the world, who care about Chinese culture. In his argument, Tu retains the notion that culture can determine historical progress. His argument reminds us of Jaspers’ famous claim about the “Axial Ages” and Max Weber’s argument for the determining role that Protestant ethics played in reviving modern capitalism. Tu considers his promotion of the third revival movement of Confucianism as comparable to the Neo-Confucian movement in the Song-Ming dynasties and the reformation of Martin Luther, and agrees with Robert Bella’s claim that Protestant beliefs in the Middle Ages provided the momentum that pushed the development of European capitalism.20 Tu’s position is that influential thought or religion does, to a certain degree, determine or direct historical movements. Max Weber is famous for his conclusion in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that ascetic Protestantism was one of the major “elective affinities” associated with the rise of capitalism, bureaucracy, and the rational-legal nation-state in the Western world. The work ethic of the Protestants maximized their efforts to create wealth, which in turn represented the grace of God, and this attitude actually helped early capitalism develop quickly. Weber points out a causal relation

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(Kausalbeziehung) between the religious ideas of the Protestants and the economic development of that particular time and space.21 Although Weber’s conclusion has its foundation in sociological research, it is still to some extent a version of cultural determinism, i.e., a suggestion that knowledge or culture might completely determine social progress. Likewise, Robert Bella later revised his theory that the Neo-Confucianism of the Song-Ming dynasties is an ideology with a creative function. Tu agreed with this revision, due to his own desire to reshape Confucianism and, from this, to then remodel global Confucianism and “cultural China.” Tu realizes that China has changed her constitutional laws eleven times since 1912, and therefore suggests that the absence of cohesiveness among intellectual groups is the most disastrous factor in China’s lack of progress.22 But this suggestion exaggerates the function of intellectuals in Chinese society. Compared with the harm that intellectuals might bring, the damage brought by those in power is much worse. Confucianism ceased to be a harbor for modern intellectuals not simply because of the strong influence of the West, but primarily because of the rejection of the cultural tradition by intellectuals themselves. Many countries faced similarly strong impacts from the Western powers during colonial times, but the Chinese revolution was the most widely impacted, and was fundamentally turned upside-down. Throughout the revolutions of the 20th century, Chinese people basically abandoned most of their traditionsʊeven to the extent that overseas Chinese communities maintain more cultural traditions than do communities in mainland China. The cultural fallacy and the enlightenment spirit made most Chinese people lose faith in traditional values, and they turned to Western values in their hope to save China. The cultural fallacy and enlightenment thinking are also the major reasons that Marxism replaced Confucianism in mainland China. The word “Chineseness” is particularly contrasted with foreign nationalities or barbarians, and was not pertinent in the Axial Age when Confucius lived. Confucius’ promotion of “this culture of ours (siwen ᪁ ᩥ)” was not to promote some special characteristics of the people of his land, but to remind people to be proud of their shared cultureʊto realize that their culture was valuable and should be preserved. However, in the mid-1980s, Chinese cultural characteristics were strongly condemned and the calls to discard them had already been powerful for some years. In the post-Tiananmen era, without Deng Xiaoping’s insistence on opening the state and continuing the reforms in 1992, China might not have been able to have its 20 years of prosperity and rapid progress. This model of openness and reform is now called the “China Model,” and indicates that

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China has found its own way of developing itself when compared with most other countries in the world, especially after the economic crisis. The world has, in fact, never before been so strongly influenced by Chineseness. It is clear that Chineseness, in this sense, is firstly economic, then political, and last, cultural. However, intellectuals tend to exaggerate the role that culture can play. For example, when Tu and other sinologists spoke for China in the 1990s, mainland China remained like a sleeping lion, letting “the four dragons” (Korea, Taiwan of China, Hong Kong of China, and Singapore) represent Chinese culture in the world. From 1949 to 1979, China was basically isolated, not only because of the hostile attitude that Western powers held towards China, but also because China isolated herself. In the eyes of foreign comparative scholars, Confucianism was part of the success of “the four dragons” in the 1980s. It was then explored through literature and documents in the 1990s, and was later marginalized by mainland China’s swift economic development. Only in the past ten years has Confucianism started to show its positive value as a part of traditional learning in mainland China. Looking back at Tu’s arguments on “cultural China,” we will find that, at the time he wrote that article, mainland China was far inferior to global Chinese communities, and that China’s voice was so weak that the country was expected to be marginalized for centuries and most sinologists were quite accustomed to the silence of this “Central Kingdom.” For decades, intellectuals in North America and Western Europe never felt that it was necessary to take China seriously.23 In this kind of international situation, Chinese communities around the world exerted pressure on mainland China, but the mainland had no power to determine any global issues related to China. Thus, in the 1990s, the “center” was never taken seriously and only the “periphery” represented reason and justice in Chinarelated issues. The “center” was condemned by those democratic, and free countries, as well as by Chinese people who believed in Western value systems or resided in the West and were free to scold mainland Chinese culture as severely as they wished. Fifteen years have now passed, and the “center” has again assumed a central position, while the “periphery” has become “outer” and weaker than before. Although China did show reliance on its peripheral opportunities in the 1990s, after ten more years, China has, with its remarkable economic success, surpassed the “four dragons.” Tu’s expectation that central China might be separated, or that the peripheral, cultural China might weaken the center’s political influence by changing mainland China’s economic and cultural agenda, has faded. However, this

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ideal that the “periphery” surpasses the “center” remains as an ideal, even after Chinese culture has moved into the international sphere. Unlike many other ancient civilizations, such as ancient Rome or Charlemagne’s Europe, China was a single nation-state.24 It is reasonable for Western historians to be amazed by a united empire with such a long history. However, in the 1980s, this super-stable structure was severely criticized by some scholars as a heavy burden that China had to carry. Chinese people moved to other counties for better living conditions, and suffered from being marginalized in poor situations in those other countries. Most overseas Chinese retain their Chinese cultural identity, but they lack the ability to act together. “Cultural China” was therefore meaningful in a time when Western Chinese communities were much more powerful than mainland China herself. With the growth of central China, the historical meaning of cultural China is much less important than it was more than a decade ago. According to Tu, the political meaning of cultural China is the use of culture as a weapon to influence and reform society. Chinese intellectuals were strongly impressed by this cultural fallacyʊthat culture is a key to the societyʊeven though they suffered from the anti-right-wing movement in the late 1950s, and the Cultural Revolution, etc. Tu’s ideas of the third wave revival of Confucianism and of cultural China are both proposals that appeal to the same goal of reform. However, we will have to be alert about the possibility of another version of the cultural fallacy arising when China moves to the center of a global stage and Chinese culture starts to play a significant role. This version of the cultural fallacy might hold that it is the renaissance of Chinese culture that helps shape the economic and political growth of modern China in the centennial ages. This would be another version of the cultural fallacy, because it tries to make culture carry much more influence than it can actually bear.

V. Problems in Tu’s Criticism of Enlightenment and the Promotion of “Confucian China” Like most modern Chinese scholars who hold that China’s decline in modern times was due to the retreat of its traditional cultural characteristics, the Confucian cultural fallacy in Tu’s arguments can be traced back to the traditional high expectations of Confucian scholars throughout Chinese history. Tu expects Confucianism to return to its leading role, and relies on the traditional sense of responsibility that is rooted in the Analects 8.7: “Scholar-apprentices (shi ኈ) cannot but be

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strong and resolved, for they bear a heavy charge and their way (dao 㐨) is long.”25 Tu, like most Confucian scholars throughout history, has the expansive expectation that Confucian ideas can dramatically change reality. He argues that reshaping Confucian ideals is necessary for making progress in modern Chinese society, and believes that these ideals can greatly improve the unfortunate social-political situation.26 The remodeling of Confucian ideals by Neo-Confucians in the Song-Ming dynasties (960–1644), for example, had far-reaching influence in the history of Confucianism. Likewise, in facing the challenges posed by Western philosophy and civilization, new Confucian scholars of the 20th century, sharing the same mission in a similar historical situation, also felt obligated to devote themselves to Confucian ideals. However, both NeoConfucians in the Song-Ming dynasties and new Confucians in the 20th century might have expected that Confucianism could exert too great an influence on Chinese cultural reality, especially regarding its impact on large historical transformations. If the nation-state is originally and essentially an Enlightenment notion and product, then the Chinese have been forced to respond to Western Reason. Over thousands of years, China applied its own reason to build its civilization. Historically, China was never a nation-state, but was forced to become a nation-state when Western powers arrived. Facing the challenge of the West, China first abandoned, and then had to reconstruct her science and technology, then had to become a nation-state in the Western sense, and finally had to abandon her reason. Actually, what happened in China in the early 20th century was that the founders of the republic wanted to first build China to be a nation-state, and then to develop her science and technology, and finally to reconstruct her original and rational system of thought. Modern Chinese reason, continuously reconstructed under such a strong Western influence, might not any longer even resemble the original Chinese way of thought. Culturally, China is a nation that develops and refreshes itself with a strong internal cultural spirit. In the past, Indian Buddhism was transformed into Chinese Buddhism and became part of Chinese culture. By the same token, we can expect that one day Western culture will become part of Chinese culture, and Chinese culture will no longer take orders from Western powersʊespecially not from the international Chinese communities. The time when China was passive and backward should remain in the Chinese intellectuals’ memory, as Chinese people try to walk out of the enlightenment mindset and actively transform Western culture to be part of its own. Although it might be possible for future generations to claim a Weberian argument that it was the revival of

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Confucianism in the 21st century that helped the Chinese economy to grow so fast, it is not in fact the case. In the enlightenment frame of mind, many 20th century intellectuals, like Lu Xun and Bo Yang (1920–2008), criticized Chinese culture to the extent that they saw nothing good that we should maintain. They devoted their lives to tearing down the iron cottage (tiewuzi 摩⯳⫸) of Chinese culture, but never created a clear plan for rebuilding it. They have passionately criticized China’s culture and people, and their enlightenment mood was once regarded as the standard for examining our own tradition. They, too, have participated in the cultural fallacy. The kind of enlightening disposition reflected in this cultural fallacy is not far from the kind of thinking that allows a movement from Hegel to Hitler, nor is it far from the ethnocentrism of some European and American researchers in comparative studies. After Japan’s Meiji Reform, some Japanese scholars even tried to replace the spirit of Frost with Japan’s Yamato Damashii—the “Japanese Spirit.”27 Comparing the different psychological aspects of different nations will invariably lead to various versions of the cultural fallacy, which expects cultures to be responsible for a nation’s historical progress. Today, with China’s arrival on the world’s central stage, we need to examine the difference between cultures and histories, and should not be shackled by diverse versions of cultural fallacies. The enlightenment spirit of criticizing Chinese culture for its weakness should be discarded. Nie Minli (2010) argues that we should not replace time difference with location difference in comparative philosophy, and by doing so, make the difference between ancient and modern similar to the difference between China and the West. If Chinese leaders had not made so many mistakes in the 20th century, China might have caught up and developed much earlier. We should not continue to blame Chinese culture for China lagging behind. Therefore, as we reflect on cultural fallacies, we need to reexamine the value of the Enlightenment at the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. When China was weak, Chinese intellectuals were full of enlightenment spirit. Tu reminds us that we need to be alert, because that enlightenment spirit might marginalize Chinese culture.28 When Confucianism was at its low point, Confucian intellectuals might easily have felt how Fang Dongmei (1899–1977) did about the great distance between reality and the humanistic ideals; they might also have felt like Xu Fuguan (1903–1982) about the setbacks caused by Confucianism toward building a democratic system.29 With the real revival of Confucianism that has occurred in recent years, we should keep in mind

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that Confucian culture was not the determining factor for the changes we see in Chinese society today.

VI Conclusion In contrast to the French Revolution, which led to the liberation of human minds, the cultural enlightenment movement in the 1980s in China unexpectedly led to centralization in the 1990s and early 21st century. This turn caused most Chinese intellectuals involved with the enlightenment movement to regard the application of enlightenment logic to real Chinese situations as a general failure. In modern China, most enlightenment movements have failed, and it seems that whenever modern Chinese intellectuals wanted to expand the power of thought, they met with great obstacles and were able to do very little. This successive cultural-socialpolitical phenomenon indicates that modern Chinese intellectuals have committed themselves to different versions of cultural fallacy for quite a long time, and also shows that the cultural fallacy still continues in different formats. This article argues that the Chinese enlightenment spirit under the sway of cultural fallacy has attributed too much influence to the role of culture in times of historical change. While culture might influence social realities to different degrees, we should not burden culture itself with a determining role and should not force culture to be fully responsible for historical changes. Compared with the profound deliberation of Heidegger in 1966,30 Confucian scholars were famously carried away with a sense of responsibility for the rise and fall of worldly affairs, and therefore tended to exaggerate the influence of thought upon political reality. My reflection upon the Confucian cultural fallacy is not intended to denigrate the major role that Confucianism has played in Chinese culture, but to call for an awareness that culture should not be taken as a determining factor in historical progress. This kind of reflection on the enlightenment spirit of modern Confucianism can have great significance in the reconstruction of Chinese culture in a new century.

CHAPTER TEN BETWEEN CHAOS AND VAGUENESS: THE EXTREMES THAT THREATEN A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY JOSHUA MASON

Introduction All harmonies involve diverse parts which together form a larger whole. Further, harmony implies something positive in the union—a sense that the parts fit together in a way that is pleasurable, beautiful, or valuable. For example, different musical instruments contributing to one whole song can make a beautiful harmony; different ingredients contributing to one whole dish can make a delicious harmony; different gears contributing to one whole machine can make an efficient harmony; different people contributing to one whole community can make a joyful harmony, and so forth. Chung-ying Cheng writes that all people have a common sense feeling of harmony as an agreeable totality of agreeable parts, and we do as a matter of fact experience this feeling of harmony in colors, numbers, movements, natural objects, man-made things, human behaviors, human writings and poetry, human thinking and design, even human management and organization.1

We regularly experience the joining of parts in a larger whole, and when this process has a positive cast we recognize it as harmony. While harmony is typically a positive value, there are different quality harmonies, some more positive than others. Cheng describes four grades of harmony and their corresponding grades of strife:

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Level of integration Low

Harmony

Strife

Coexistence

Low-mid High-mid High

Interaction Mutual support Creative interpenetration

Logical incompatibility and negation Alienation Hostility Intimate resistance

These grades of harmony are based on how well-integrated the parts are with other parts within the whole, and how integrated each part is with the whole. The deeper and more extensive the integration, the higher quality the harmony. At the same time, further integration also affects the type of strife in the system and there are higher and lower grades of conflict as well. Of course this is a bare-bones schematic; there are sub-levels and subtle shadings and every particular harmony or strife will fall somewhere in between clearly defined levels. Given this understanding of harmony, there are two extremes that threaten to reduce integration and damage the quality of a harmony. First, differences in the parts can be so extreme that they cannot be unified. Second, the imposition of strict unity can overwhelm the distinctiveness of the different parts. These are the extremes of difference and identity. Alfred North Whitehead gives us a useful vocabulary for understanding these two ways of preventing a rich harmony from forming. He says that when the bonds that would unite differences are not strong enough or when the differences are too great to be unified, the result is chaos. And when unity demands the sacrifice of differences, the result is vagueness. Chaos and vagueness are not inherently bad. Indeed, both in some degree are necessary for creating harmony. When neither is extreme but both are carefully balanced with each other, this is when we can achieve the highest quality harmony. It is when chaos dominates vagueness or vagueness dominates chaos that the delicate balance between them falters and harmony suffers. This theoretical understanding of harmony can contribute insights into the real world pursuit of social harmony. While the Chinese government has explicitly stated that harmony is a social and political goal, I believe it pursues policies that put a priority on avoiding chaos. Because disintegration, division, and conflict are seen as disasters for the government, situations in which individual parts become distinct from the group are discouraged. The compensatory overemphasis on stability and conformity produces an overabundance of vagueness. In avoiding chaos,

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they run to the other extreme, upsetting the balance and missing the chance to achieve high-quality harmony. For example, in practicing censorship, suppressing petitioners, and pushing cultural hegemony into the contested edges of the Chinese nation, China pursues a harmony that is too heavily weighted towards unity. In Whitehead’s terms, this is the extreme of vagueness that inhibits high-quality harmony. In this paper, I will first explain and contextualize the Whiteheadian vocabulary of chaos and vagueness. Second, I will use this vocabulary to suggest why China, despite its policies and rhetoric aiming at harmony, has generally failed to bring about a satisfying harmony for many of its people. Third, I will suggest that only a harmony which pursues justice for every constituent member can maintain the delicate tension of chaos and vagueness which characterizes vibrant, high-quality harmonies.

Whitehead’s Harmony between Chaos and Vagueness Whitehead describes two orders of harmony: the logical order of rational coherence and the aesthetic order of beauty and meaning. Logical harmony implies that for any particular occasion to exist along with other occasions, it must not contradict the general laws of existence; that is, it must coexist harmoniously with all else: “The logical harmony involved in the unity of an occasion is both exclusive and inclusive. The occasion must exclude the inharmonious, and it must include the harmonious.”2 Harmony as the necessary compatibility of coexisting entities is built on the logic of non-contradiction. This notion of logical harmony is important, but it does not exhaust the possible understandings of harmony. Whitehead makes a more radical contribution with the concept of aesthetic harmony, which breaks with the model bequeathed by the Greeks and accords well with a Chinese conception of harmony.3 Instead of externally related parts arranged according to an eternal numerical standard, as in Pythagorean harmony, Whitehead sees aesthetic harmony as a dynamic negotiation between parts and wholes which brings about a novel order. The internal and constitutive relations of parts to a whole are key to the presence of Whiteheadian aesthetic harmony: [I]n so far as the qualitative characteristics of the whole and the parts pass into the subjective forms of their prehensions, the whole heightens the feeling of the parts, and the parts heighten the feeling for the whole, and for each other. This is harmony of feeling; and with harmony of feeling its objective content is beautiful.4

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In aesthetic harmony, the parts do not remain the same but are transformed by their participation in harmony. As opposed to the mere joining of externally related parts that remain the same despite the higher order they contribute to (as in Greek harmonia), internal relations of parts and wholes means that the presence of other parts and the larger whole helps to determine what the parts are and what qualities they display. This is an intimate relation wherein the whole is so integrated into the parts that the whole becomes constitutive of the parts, and the parts contribute to the feeling of the whole. There is nothing logically necessary about this dynamic harmony; rather, it is a rare and beautiful achievement that creates something new and unique. There are several other ways Whitehead describes this whole-part dynamic. One is as foreground and background: “This is the habitual state of human experience, a vast undiscriminated, or dimly discriminated background, of low intensity, and a clear foreground.”5 The clear foreground is the distinct parts under immediate consideration, while the background is a context which can extend as far as the known universe. Similarly, this can be described as “Appearance and Reality.” What appears is what a person can focus perception on, while Reality is all that supports the availability of that Appearance. In Process and Reality, Whitehead writes, “harmony is this combination of width and narrowness.”6 Width here is the extent of background data held dimly in the faint penumbral consciousness which contributes to the character of feeling in any specific harmony. Narrowness is the limitation of attention to particular relevant factors in the environment. This harmonic structure could also be described in terms of a focus and field model, which is one way David Hall and Roger Ames have described Chinese philosophy. Alternatively, we might speak of identity and diversity, sameness and difference, the one and the many, or yi and duo (୍ከ). To make clear the associations and correlations, here is a simple chart to distinguish these terms. Part Foreground Appearance Narrowness Focus Difference Diversity

Whole Background Reality Width Field Sameness Unity

Many (duo ཊ)

One (yi а)

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Because the distinction between parts and wholes is a common way of organizing our experience, these pairs of terms encompass some of our most fundamental concepts. Harmony is a basic experience that can be characterized in various ways, all of which imply the presence of different parts and an overarching unity. For harmony to be high-quality, the parts must be clear and distinct, and strong in their individuality, while connected by extensive and intimate relationship. The stronger and more distinctive the foreground elements, and the more embracing and significant the connections, the greater the harmony. As Whitehead puts it, “Thus, the basis of a strong, penetrating experience of Harmony is an Appearance with a foreground of enduring individuals carrying with them a force of subjective tone, and with a background providing the requisite connection.”7 Vivid parts intimately connected: this is the recipe for high-quality harmony. Regarding individual parts, Whitehead writes: For the understanding of Harmony and Discord it is essential to remember that the strength of the experience, in massiveness and in intensity, depends on the substratum of detail being composed of significant individuals. Appearance has been constituted fortunately when it has simplified the welter of occasions, individually insignificant, into a few significant individual things.8

By narrowing focus to a few significant individuals, the intensity of the experience is heightened: “Intensity is the reward of narrowness.”9 This focus on a few clear individuals also makes it possible to see the contrasts between them, and between each of them and the background. This contrast is important to the quality of harmony because, “Contrast elicits depth.”10 When we speak of the parts that contribute to high-quality harmony, those parts must contribute intensity, contrast, and depth. Regarding the whole and its unity, Whitehead points to the background which all parts under consideration share. The background connectivity that contributes to harmony can be split into two layers: the local background relevant to the occasion, and the deep background which is not immediately relevant, but is nonetheless part of the Reality which conditions the occasion. As Whitehead puts it: According to this account, the background in which the environment is set must be discriminated into two layers. There is first the relevant background, providing a massive systematic uniformity. This background is the presupposed world to which all ordinary propositions refer. Secondly, there is the more remote chaotic background which has merely an irrelevant triviality, so far as concerns direct objectification in the actual

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The first layer gives the occasion a general context in which it can make sense. It is uniform because nothing is distinct; everything is flat and even in the hazy background. This background lacks the clear distinctions, depth, and contrast that come from the differences in individual occasions. “In the background there lie a mass of undistinguished occasions.”12 Beyond this local background, the remote chaotic background hardly registers in everyday awareness. For example, the formation of our solar system is a fact of reality, and every day that we walk on planet Earth, this affects us. But, because it is so remote and its effects so stable, there is no need to register it consciously as we deal with appearances. Nonetheless, everything on earth is in some way informed by and connected through this shared background. The breadth of background that can be brought to bear on a harmony and the weight of feeling contributed by this massive whole is directly relevant to the quality of the harmony. The two layers of background unite all the particular parts, which appear as distinct and vibrant individuals. The unifying connectivity of the shared background along with the vibrant presentation of individuals in the foreground is the hallmark of Whiteheadian harmony. As he puts it, “The great Harmony is the harmony of enduring individualities, connected in the unity of a background.”13 However, great harmony is not so easy to achieve. As mentioned above, if relationships within the broad unity are not intimate and the background connections are too distant to be felt, or if the individuals lack intensity, depth, contrast, and significance, then harmony will not be great. These are the problems of chaos and vagueness, respectively. Chaos is present when individual entities have little connection with anything else. When nothing is connected, there are no defining relationships, no discernible order. Each individual does its own thing, unrelated and uncoordinated with others. This lack of coordination and lack of relations is chaos—random bits of disassociated information swirling without pattern, coherence, or order. Chaos is associated with triviality. Though an entity may stand boldly on its own as an individuated self, if it makes no impact on others, it has no meaning beyond its own simple presence. The entity is trivial because, having no relationships through which to affect anything, it is insignificant. Chaos and triviality are symptoms of disintegration, of divisions that cannot be overcome, and of individual entities radically disconnected from all others.

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Vagueness arises when the details of an occasion are washed out and no single entity stands out from any others. Without any particular entities to appear prominent, there is no contrast. Everything is blanched, mild, and uninteresting. There are no clear particulars to focus on. Boundaries become fuzzy and everything seems roughly the same. Differences are disregarded; identity is emphasized. The character and depth of any individual is whitewashed and unique elements are flattened out all so that a bland vagueness forms a single undivided whole. As noted above, chaos and vagueness are not intrinsically bad, but are necessary elements for creating the balanced tension of harmony: “harmony requires the due coordination of chaos, vagueness, narrowness, and width.”14 Where that coordination between these factors is absent or disrupted, we are liable to end up with at best a weak form of harmony. Like Cheng, Whitehead makes clear that there are different grades of harmony: “A mere qualitative Harmony within an experience comparatively barren of objects of high significance is a debased type of Harmony, tame, vague, deficient in outline and intention.”15 Whitehead is adamant that we should not value harmony if it is not a high-quality harmony with bold, significant individuals, and extensive connections binding them together.

A Vaguely Harmonious Society Whitehead is especially concerned that the presence of strong individuals within the harmony be maintained. A harmony without such bold and vibrant focal points is debased, tame, deficient, and vague. Whitehead seems more anxious to maintain the bold character of different individuals than to hold together a harmony haunted by vagueness. To avoid excessive vagueness Whitehead thinks we should value discord, or strife, even at the risk of sacrificing low-grade harmony: “even Discord may be preferable to a feeling of slow relapse into general anesthesia, or into tameness which is its prelude.”16 Where harmony has come to rest at a low intensity, it may take the introduction of discord to change the dynamics. Discord is especially valuable in making individuals stand out through contrast, which is a necessary ingredient of bold harmonies. Whitehead writes: Again, the value of discord arises from this importance of the forceful individuality of the details. The discord enhances the whole, when it serves to substantiate the individuality of the parts. It brings into emphatic feeling their claim to existence in their own right. It rescues the whole from the tameness of a merely qualitative harmony.17

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Where harmony is flat to the extreme of vagueness, some individuation of the parts is necessary to enliven the whole. Discord between those parts heightens contrasts and supplies the intensity needed for higher-grade harmony. Where harmony is debased by vagueness, discord and disharmony as spurs to progress may ultimately be preferable to tamely middling along. Strong harmony requires a balance of both chaos and vagueness: “The right chaos, and the right vagueness, are jointly required for any effective harmony.”18 The “right” chaos and vagueness means to avoid the extremes that allow one to dominate the other. If vagueness suppresses chaos to the point that harmony becomes flat and monotonous, a touch of discord introduced by bold individuals can enliven the whole. Whereas Whitehead is more concerned about avoiding the vagueness that haunts a tame, low-grade harmony and is willing to promote discord to enliven the individual elements of a weak harmony, the leadership of the People’s Republic of China leans towards the opposite extreme. China fears chaos among its diverse parts and is willing to sacrifice individuals to maintain the stability of the whole nation. This preference for unity and community at the expense of diversity and individualism has long been a driving force in Chinese culture and politics. When Hu Jintao’s government began to explicitly promote the value of harmony, it was a harmony heavily weighted on the side of unity, identity, and wholeness. Because harmony had been specifically disavowed as a Confucian relic by Mao and his government, the return to a rhetoric of harmony had to be couched in solid communist ideology. The ideals of solidarity and eliminating class distinctions in communism continue to push Chinese official rhetoric to emphasize the commonalities of the people, despite policies of opening up and freeing markets. As well, times of disunity throughout Chinese history have been associated with devastating wars. From the ancient Warring States period to the 20th century civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, fractures in the nation have had terrible consequences. Given the size of the country, different regional interests and levels of development, and the vast pressures of governing an enormous population, China is especially wary of divisive figures and movements. We can see this avoidance of strife in many places, and I will offer just three brief examples here. First, through the policies of censorship, China “harmonizes” public discourse by making sure that divisive issues are not raised and that one official narrative unifies the nation. High profile examples include the arrests and suppression of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and artist Ai Weiwei. Instead of celebrating these distinctive

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individuals who put out messages that contrast with government claims, all news about their work and their achievements is censored, and they have been locked up in their own homes and prevented from contributing to the society (though some messages and works have gotten out on the sly). The desire for stability and unchallenged messaging trumps the value of their unique contributions, and so their contrasting voices never enter the social discourse. Similarly, by overseeing the national media and censoring news stories that contradict the government’s preferred talking points, the government reduces the multiplicity of viewpoints and emphases, leaving a single dominant framing which becomes the official narrative. This single narrative unites the nation, yet at the cost of failing to incorporate divergent viewpoints. Second, by discouraging people from filing official petitions and complaints—often discouraging them through bribery, intimidation, imprisonment, and violence—China “harmonizes” the appearance of discord and contrast between common people and government. While petitioning is legal, the appearance of petitioners on the streets of Beijing vividly demonstrates the extent of strife among certain segments of the population. Harmonizing them in this case doesn’t mean to include and incorporate their voices in the national discourse, but to silence them so they don’t cause disruption. There is an industry of “interceptors” whose function is to prevent people from traveling to Beijing to petition the higher government, or to remove them from Beijing once they’ve arrived. The idea behind a law to allow petitions is that being receptive to complaints and criticisms—voices of strife—the government should be able to address those problems and restore harmony, or even improve harmony. Instead, by subverting the intent of the law through suppression, a lower quality harmony is maintained, a harmony which is poorer for not including those who have been silenced. Third, by actively moving Han people into areas inhabited by China’s minority cultures and by making minority children study Beijingsanctioned language and culture, China “harmonizes” its cultural diversity by enforcing cultural hegemony. For example, this is most clearly seen in Xinjiang and Tibet where dramatic population movements are crowding out the traditional culture and childhood education policies are weakening connections to local languages and religion. Instead of encouraging the unique contributions of religious and cultural minorities, China is swamping over the practices that make different populations distinctive, enforcing a uniformity that portends vagueness. When China has promoted the distinctiveness of minority cultures, there has often been an ossification of particular minority characteristics. We are presented with a

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static image of a minority people wearing a distinctive ceremonial dress or performing a single identifying task, such as fishing, or singing, or looking pretty. While recognizing differences, this is also a way of repressing dynamic interaction and perpetuating a staleness that denies minority people the opportunity to express potentially novel and creative contributions. In these ways and more, China’s vision of a harmonious society emphasizes stability, conformity, and unity over novelty, individuality, and diversity. This emphasis on unity leads to the vagueness that prevents high-quality harmony from forming. Bold individuals are suppressed, contrasts are denied, unique voices are silenced, and novel viewpoints are shut out. Instead, harmony as low-grade coexistence or the simple absence of overt violence takes precedence over enabling distinctive individuals to flourish and contribute to an enlivened society. Vagueness dominates the “harmony,” and many people don’t recognize it as a harmony at all.19 Driven by fear of chaos and disintegration, the Chinese government has turned towards a low-grade harmony as mere stability, failing to recognize that the opposite of chaos is not actually stability but rather vagueness. Harmony is found in the delicate balance of diversity and unity, parts and wholes, chaos and vagueness. Harmony requires “the right chaos and the right vagueness,” but this cannot be achieved if individuals and their diverse interests are sacrificed in the name of stability.20

Restoring Balance Where human society is concerned, the parts of the whole are not just identical widgets we can plug into a machine and expect it to keep running smoothly. People are uniquely themselves, living out their own unique roles in a society. To contribute to high-quality harmony, individuals must be distinguished, acknowledged, and respected. The cultivation of strong individuals is inhibited by policies that silence criticism, deny contrasts, and impose monoculture social planning. The remedy, which is easier to speak of than to put into practice, is to bring as much justice to individuals as possible, to let them shine out their diverse colors by honoring their unique contributions. A classic definition of justice is to “render to each what is due,” which we can use to insist on acknowledging the unique considerations relevant to each person.21 The practice of rendering to each what is due respects people’s differences and makes them available as rich and deep resources for creative interpenetration. Enforcing stability by silencing voices that rise out distinctly from the mainstream is an attempt to secure the low-grade

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harmony of mere co-existence. Treating discordant voices with respect and giving them due consideration—according them justice—opens up the possibility of creative reconciliation. Unless China can better ensure that justice is done for individuals and that genuine diversity is respected, the harmonious balance of parts and the whole cannot be achieved.22 Some may argue that stability must be achieved first before a society can pursue higher-order harmonies. They might ask, “Since even harmony as stability has been so elusive, why should we try for that delicate balance of high-quality harmony that you admit is so difficult to achieve? Should we not aim for achievable goals?” When the threat of disharmony includes war, starvation, and suffering on a mass scale, I agree that we do not want to pursue a pipe dream at the expense of basic security. With such high stakes, a safe bet is often a reasonable play. While I believe incremental development is generally a productive strategy,23 flawed implementation at the initial increments can cause more harm than good. How the government secures basic stability determines whether it has the human resources to move on to higher levels of social harmony. If stability requires that bold individual instruments be forcefully flattened down into a stable monotone, then stability is founded on injustice. When paving over differences causes deep suffering to particular people, then the apparent harmony at the surface conceals a discord which will appear, perhaps disastrously, in the fullness of time. Further, when we aim at a low-grade harmony, any appearance of strife will be similarly low-grade. The strife associated with mere coexistence is negation, meaning that anything (or anyone) which does not contribute to stability must be destroyed. If we aim at high-grade harmony by encouraging a range of bold and distinctive viewpoints, then the corresponding strife is intimate resistance, which offers much more interesting possibilities for ongoing development, and does not demand that anyone in opposition be eliminated. Some might point to the existence of very successful and prominent people in China as evidence that bold individuals are not all flattened down into vagueness. It is true that there are many outstanding individuals, but this does not show that deep contrasts are permitted to flourish. Prominent individuals must be careful not to clash too blatantly with the party line, or they too can be flattened. From another direction, harmony is here threatened by disunity. Because most of these successful individuals live in a world of wealth and privilege, they are barely in contact with the general populace. They have achieved individuation, but at the expense of the shared backgrounds that unify a nation; that is, at the expense of

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harmony. Justice also insists that everyone be given their due, and not just a few outstanding leaders. Finally, some may look at modern China and say there is already too much chaos and the imposition of some national unity actually restores balance. Truly there is tremendous diversity and transformation going on right now, but if policies aim to stifle certain streams of diverse opinions or practices rather than creatively integrate them into the national character, the threat to harmony is just as dangerous as divisive strife, and less likely to lead to a higher grade of harmony in the future. High-quality harmony requires the highest achievements of individuals within a unified system. The type of justice I am pushing for insists that individuals be given due consideration and protects their differences within the larger system. Respecting individuals and their differences means accepting a bit of risk by allowing a role for contrasting parts and even chaos within the system. This risk is necessary because without the enlivening presence of bold figures, harmony is unsatisfyingly vague. Harmonizing chaos and vagueness is indeed a delicate balancing act. If China hopes to achieve a deeply satisfying social harmony, the balance must be restored by allowing bold individuals to stand out and contribute their contrasts and differences, their touch of chaos, to the society as a whole. In this way the harmonious society might eventually be a highquality integration of distinctive parts in a unified whole, a balance of chaos and vagueness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN DO ECONOMIC RIGHTS CONFLICT WITH POLITICAL RIGHTS? AN EAST AND WEST CULTURAL DEBATE BENEDICT S. B. CHAN

There are many debates on human rights between the East and the West. This essay focuses on the one related to economic rights and political rights. Some people believe that only economic rights are human rights in East Asia, while political rights, including items such as political liberty and democracy, are only traditional Western rights. I am going to argue that this is not true. To do so, I should first discuss some important notions of human rights. Some people believe that human rights are universal, in the sense that human rights are rights that people have solely by virtue of being human. For example, Donnelly argues that “human rights are, literally, the rights that one has simply because one is a human being … they are universal rights, in the sense that today we consider all members of the species Homo sapiens ‘human beings,’ and thus holders of human rights” (Donnelly’s italics).1 In addition, there are several notions related to the idea that human rights are universal. Human rights are moral rights that are held by all (human) individuals. Also, others have correlative duties to the right-holders. This correlation between rights and duties (or more precisely, moral rights and moral duties) explains what it means by saying that a right is held by an individual. In general, human rights are claimrights, and so there are also correlative duties.2 That is, if an individual holds a right, then others have a correlative duty to the right-holder to have this right. Although the above notions are not without question, they are good enough for the purpose of this essay. They are good enough because the purpose here is not to argue whether human rights are universal. Instead, this essay focuses on the discussion of which rights are universal (and so

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they are human rights) and which rights are not universal (and so they are not human rights).3 Which rights are universal? Some people believe that the answer depends on cultural factors.4 A reasonable assumption is that universal rights are held by all human individuals, and hence they are somehow related to, or even determined by, the culture of these individuals. For example, Daniel Bell argues that “cultural factors can affect the justification of rights.”5 Generally, to justify something is to show something to be just, right, or reasonable. Justification is also generally contextual; that is, it addresses doubts or questions relevant to some specific contexts. But there are still many questions about how to construct a justification of rights based on cultural contexts. Let me explain such a cultural approach in detail below. First of all, some philosophers argue that cultural factors are important. For example, Walzer thinks that “We are (all of us) culture-producing creatures; we make and inhabit meaningful worlds.”6 They believe that “abstract and unhistorical universalism” cannot justify rights. Instead, rights should only be justified from “inside,” i.e., from culture or community. As another example, Bell writes, “Rather, they should be made from the inside, from specific examples and argumentative strategies that East Asians themselves use in everyday moral and political debate.”7 But what does it mean that rights should only be justified from “inside”? And why can different cultures provide different justifications? To answer these questions, let me discuss some ideas in the contemporary literature of rights. In the contemporary literature of rights, it is common to distinguish two different accounts of rights: choice (or will) accounts and interest (or benefit) accounts. Choice accounts understand rights (and the correlative duties) to be protected choices, while interest accounts understand rights to be protected interests.8 In the East and West debate on human rights, it seems that many Eastern philosophers prefer interest accounts to choice accounts. One possible explanation for such a preference is that it is easier for East Asian cultures to play some role in the interest accounts of rights. Comparatively, choice accounts are too “Western”, and many East Asian cultures do not emphasize choice. Although Stephen Angle, Daniel Bell, and Joseph Chan have different conclusions on the list of human rights (i.e. they disagree on which rights are universal rights), they all agree that East Asian cultures are important and should play some role in the human rights debate. Their interest account of rights is probably similar to or consistent with the following formula from Raz: “‘X has a right’ if and only if…other things being equal, an aspect of X’s well-being (his interest) is a sufficient reason for holding

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some other person(s) to be under a duty.”9 For example, Angle argues that “As we turn now to Chinese rights theories, we will see that rights are taken by most theorists to protect interests in a manner quite consistent with Raz’s ideas.”10 Angle also writes, “it is clear that the dominant view of rights, both now and throughout the history of Chinese rights discourse, has been that rights are closely tied to interests. Indeed, we saw that ‘quanli’ was originally adopted as an equivalent for ‘rights’ in large part because it readily expressed the ideas of both legitimate powers and legitimate benefits or interests—ideas with which one strand of the Confucian tradition had been concerned for centuries.”11 In summary of these two quotations, Angle clearly states that some Chinese versions of the interest accounts of rights are quite consistent with Raz’s interest account of rights. For another example, Joseph Chan also follows Raz’s idea to develop his own Asian or Confucian account of human rights.12 Bell himself has not directly discussed Raz’s idea; he has only mentioned Raz when he discusses Angle’s arguments.13 But there is no evidence that he disagrees with Raz’s interest account of rights. Indeed, not every part of Raz’s account is our concern here; the concern is simply limited to how a right is justified by interest. And Joseph Chan has summarized the idea as follows: “To justify a right, we need to show that the interests of the rightholder are weighty enough to place some other person or people under some obligation or duty.”14 It seems that Bell also agrees with this idea.15 In a word, such an idea is consistent with or similar to Raz’s idea, and such an idea is also supported among Bell and others. What interests are weighty enough to place others under some duty? This is exactly where Bell believes that the East and the West have different answers. He writes: A human rights regime is supposed to protect our basic humanity—the fundamental human goods (or needs or interests) that underpin any “reasonable” conception of human flourishing. But which human goods are fundamental? ... It is possible that most politically relevant actors, both officials and intellectuals, in East Asian societies typically endorse a somewhat different set of fundamental human goods than their counterparts in Western societies now and for the foreseeable future. Different societies may typically have different ideas regarding which human goods must be protected regardless of competing considerations, and which human goods can be legitimately subject to trade-offs with other goods as part of everyday politics.16

From the above quotation, we know that there are different interests (fundamental human goods) in different cultures. This affects rights in a positive way and in a negative way. In the positive way, cultures

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determine “which human goods must be protected regardless of competing considerations.” In other words, human goods that must be protected are also interests that are important (and sufficient) enough to place others under duties, and Bell and others believe that these interests are different in cultures. In the negative way, cultures determine “which human goods can be legitimately subject to trade-offs with other goods as part of everyday politics.” This tells us that a right is not justified if the correlative interests are subject to trade-offs with other interests. While the positive way states that cultures tell us which interests are weighty enough to place others under duties, the negative way focuses more on how cultures determine which interests are not weighty enough to place others under duties. The above approach explains why different cultures are grounds or moral foundations for human rights.17 Following the reasoning in this approach, x is a (universal) human right if x is an interest that is weighty enough to place others under some duties in every culture. This implies that x is an East Asian right if x is an interest that is weighty enough to place others under some duties in East Asian cultures. In other words, the relationship of human rights and East Asian rights is that if some rights are human rights, then they are also East Asian rights; but if some rights are not East Asian rights, then they are not human rights. Based on this idea, let us discuss further which rights are East Asian rights and which are not. Particularly, this is where we begin to discuss economic rights and political rights in this human rights debate. Some people believe that economic rights are East Asian rights while political rights are not East Asian rights. Some of them even believe that there are some conflicts between economic rights and political rights. Based on the discussion above, the conflicts can be reduced to the economic interests and political interests in East Asian cultures. So, one may ask what economic interests are so important in East Asian cultures. This is the question I intend to answer in detail. There are many economic interests. The first economic interest I would like to discuss is economic growth. Economic growth is usually measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is one of the most important indicators of the standard of living. Some political leaders in East Asia believe that economic growth is the most important interest in their own countries, and hence all other interests, especially political liberty and democracy, are comparatively not as important. For example, in the famous “Asian values debate,” Lee Kuan Yew, a former prime minister and now a political elder of Singapore, claims that “Asian values” are culturally unique and some Western values, such as political rights, should

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not be considered as East Asian rights.18 Lee’s view is also shared by some politicians in East Asia, such as Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister of Malaysia.19 The Asian values debate ended in around 19971998, due to the economic crisis in East Asia. However, Mainland China is an exceptional case. Mainland China has maintained economic growth continuously for more than thirty years (i.e., since 1979 to now). Some people still claim that economic growth is the major interest in China, and so political liberty and democracy should be sacrificed. All of these examples point to the same idea, which says that economic growth is important in East Asia and so some other interests, such as political liberty and democracy, should be abandoned for the sake of economic growth. Politicians in East Asia want to emphasize economic growth but suppress political liberty and democracy. However, the reason may simply be they want to maintain their political powers. In this sense, Asian values or cultural factors in East Asia are only excuses to cover political agendas. At least, the Asian values debate and other political debates in East Asia do not aim to construct any profound philosophical argument. Therefore, simply using the ideas from East Asian politicians is not sufficient to support the idea that economic growth is an important interest in East Asian cultures. We should discuss some East Asian cultures in detail in order to see how important economic growth is. I realize that there are many different cultural factors in East Asia, but I cannot discuss all of them here. Due to this limitation, I only focus on classical Confucianism in the rest of this essay. Does Confucianism endorse economic growth? It appears that the answer of this question is complicated. Economic growth, especially using GDP as the indicator, is quite a modern concept. It does not make sense to ask whether classical texts in Confucianism have mentioned GDP or even discussed GDP in detail. Instead, what we can discuss is simply some general principles or ideas behind economic growth. For example, one may wonder whether Confucianism endorses a good material life for everyone. One may also ask whether Confucianism endorses the idea that a society with strong economic growth is good. My answer to the above questions is that Confucianism does not completely deny the importance of economic growth. Nevertheless, in general, Confucianism does not emphasize economic growth, and only a few parts of economic growth are the concern of Confucianism. Let me explain my answer in detail. The most important concern of Confucianism is how everyone can develop his or her Confucian moral virtues (e.g., ren, yi, li, zhi, etc. see Mencius 2A:6).20 Some assumptions in economics, such as the assumption that everyone is self-interested, are not assumptions in Confucianism. In

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addition, Confucians are not concerned with whether the economy of a country is good, or whether a country is strong enough in terms of power and wealth. For example, in The Analects 16:1, Confucius says that “What I have heard is that the head of a state or a noble family worries not about underpopulation but about uneven distribution, not about poverty but about instability. For where there is even distribution there is no such thing as poverty, where there is harmony there is no such thing as underpoplutation and where there is stability there is no such thing as overturning.”21 This passage shows that Confucius cares more about equal distribution rather than poverty. In the Analects 12:7, Confucius also claims that trust is more important than food and food is more important than the army.22 For another example, in Mencius 3A:4, Mencius also says that if people have food and clothes (i.e., material needs) but no education, then people are just like animals. All of these examples are shared ideas in Confucianism, which says that the economy or power of a state is not that important—at least, there are many other factors that are more important than economy or power. Nevertheless, it does not mean that Confucianism denies the values of economic growth completely. Confucianism does not totally reject economic growth, provided that economic growth can be an instrument to promote Confucian virtues, or at least does not hinder persons in developing their virtues. Particularly, there is one specific kind of economic interest that concerns Confucians more, and this kind of economic interest can be indirectly related to economic growth. This economic interest is economic welfare.23 Let me begin by discussing “kingly governance” in Confucianism. Both Confucius and Mencius distinguish kingly governance (“Wang Dao”) from hegemony (“Ba Dao”). They believe that kingly governance promotes virtues and benevolence while hegemony uses force (e.g., The Analects 14:17-18; Mencius 2A:3). To be a kingly political leader, one should extend his or her compassion (“a mind which cannot bear to see the sufferings of others”) to everyone in the society. For example, Mencius told King Xuan of Qi that if he could extend his compassion to the people in Qi, just like his compassion to the ox, then he would be a good king (Mencius 1A:7). If the king likes music, then the king should promote music and let everyone have a chance to enjoy music as well (Mencius 1B:1); if the king likes wealth, then the king should make sure that everyone has a chance to have more wealth as well (Mencius 1B:5). This is a principle of kingly governance in the Confucian tradition. To apply this principle to economic welfare, Mencius has at least two valuable suggestions that I would like to mention here. First, Mencius

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thinks that a good government should help the following four types of people. In Mencius 1B:5, Mencius writes: “Old men without wives, old women without husbands, old people without children, young children without fathers—these four types of people are the most destitute and have no one to turn to for help. Whenever King Wen put benevolent measures into effect, he always gave them first consideration.”24 Second, Mencius also discusses a “well-field system,” which is a system for the equal distribution of land. Roughly, this system suggests that a piece of land is divided into nine “squares”: the central square is the public field, while the eight surrounding squares are private fields for different people. People cultivate their own private fields and they jointly cultivate the public field together. While the crops of the private fields belong to themselves, the crops of the public field go to the government so that the government can help the poor. Mencius suggests that this system is a kind of economic welfare system (e.g., Mencius 3A:3). Notice that Mencius is not the only classical Confucian who proposes economic welfare. For example, although Xunzi disagrees with Mencius on whether human nature is bad or good, Xunzi also suggests a well-field system. Indeed, Xunzi’s suggestions regarding economic welfare are quite similar to the suggestions from Mencius (e.g., see Xunzi 27:52). This shows that economic welfare does play some roles in classical Confucianism. Of course, we should not over-emphasize the importance of economic welfare in the Confucian tradition. For example, as I quoted before, Mencius seems to think that education is more important than economic welfare (e.g., Mencius 3A:4). It is safe to conclude that economic welfare is only one of many Confucian interests. Economic welfare is an important interest because Confucians usually consider economic welfare important for kingly governance. A kingly government should establish a good system of economic welfare because a kingly government needs to promote Confucian virtues. Although classical Confucians do not directly discuss economic growth, it is now clear to us that economic growth may only be a secondary interest. That is, economic growth is only good if it helps economic welfare in a society, which is a way to promote Confucian virtues. In a word, economic welfare is a more important economic interest than economic growth in Confucianism.25 Now we understand that economic welfare is an important economic interest in Confucianism. It is time to compare economic interests and political interests. Is it really the case that there is a cultural difference between the East (Confucianism) and the West (Liberalism), so that

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economic interests and political interests conflict with each other in the East (but not in the West), and hence East Asian countries should choose economic interests and sacrifice political interests? My short answer to this question is no. Although I cannot discuss every reason behind this answer in detail, I would like to briefly sketch some reasons to support my answer in the rest of this essay. Some scholars discuss whether some political interests, such as political liberty and democracy, are also important interests in Confucianism. For example, one may want to argue that these political interests are compatible with some factors in Confucianism. One may even argue that these political interests are not only compatible with Confucianism, but are also necessary for Confucianism.26 I also argue elsewhere that if physical security is an important interest in East Asia and rights to physical security are human rights, then political liberty is also an important interest in East Asia and rights to political liberty are human rights.27 In a word, they all try to show that these political interests are important in Confucianism in different senses. This is the first step to answering the question in the last paragraph. In addition to this first step, I also need to discuss some other reasons to support my answer. As I have mentioned in this essay, economic welfare is an important economic interest in Confucianism. In the West, there are also many scholars who have discussed the importance of economic welfare. Let me illustrate two important ideas from Henry Shue and Amartya Sen to support my answer. One famous approach to argue for the relationship between economic rights and political rights is Henry Shue’s argument on basic rights.28 Shue argues that physical security rights, liberal rights, and subsistence rights are basic rights. He believes that basic rights protect people who are too weak to protect themselves. He writes, “Basic rights are a shield for the defenseless against at least some of the more devastating and more common of life’s threats… Basic rights are the morality of the depths. They specify the line beneath which no one is to be allowed to sink.”29 Shue also thinks that such a protection of the defenseless should be extended to everyone. He argues that basic rights are “everyone’s minimum reasonable demands upon the rest of humanity. They are the rational basis for justified demands, the denial of which no self-respecting person can reasonably be expected to accept.”30 Now let me discuss another approach. Contemporary social sciences tell us that political liberty does not conflict with economic welfare. Some people even argue that empirically, political liberty is a positive factor to economic welfare. For example, Amartya Sen has developed a famous

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argument on the relationship between famine and political liberty.31 Roughly, he argues that freedom of information exchange is essential for the avoidance of famine. He discusses “the Great Leap Forward” in China and explains that the famine in China at that time was caused by the lack of political liberty and democracy. He even quotes the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, to support his claim.32 Sen’s idea is just one of many examples in contemporary social sciences (such as economics). There are many other empirical examples showing that political liberty does not conflict with economic welfare. Based on these philosophical and empirical arguments from Shue, Sen, and many others, we can see that political liberty and economic welfare has a complicated but positive relationship. Let me summarize what I have discussed above. First, I have discussed that economic welfare is an important economic interest in Confucianism. Second, I have discussed that some scholars argue in different ways that political interests, such as political liberty and democracy, are also important interests in Confucianism. Third, I have also discussed that political liberty and economic welfare have a complicated but positive relationship. Due to the limitation of the length of this essay, I cannot discuss more reasons and examples. But I hope I have already made my point clear. The point can be summarized like this. In the Eastern and Western debates on human rights, some argue that political rights are not human rights because political interests conflict with economic interests in East Asia. They try to explain such a situation by claiming that economic interests are more important than political interests in East Asian cultures, such as in Confucianism. However, based on the above three points, it seems that there is no reason to believe that economic welfare and political liberty conflict with each other in East Asia. At least, even if they conflict with each other, such a conflict is not a cultural difference. In other words, it is not the case that they conflict in the East and not in the West; it seems that it is more likely that they do not conflict in either the East or the West. My conclusion is that in East Asian cultures, especially in Confucianism, economic rights do not have a higher priority than political rights, and political rights should not be sacrificed for economic rights. Therefore, it seems that there is no reason to claim that political rights are not human rights in East Asia. It is more likely that both political rights and economic rights are human rights in East Asia.

CHAPTER TWELVE NICHIREN AND WAR TONY SEE

Introduction Although Buddhism is not usually associated with war in the popular imagination, the relationship between the two has become increasingly apparent in recent scholarship. One of the earliest studies in this area, Paul Demiéville’s “Buddhism and War,” a translation of his earlier Le bouddhisme et la guerre (1957), highlights the way in which Buddhists have engaged in war and violence on the basis of Buddhist teaching itself.1 Demiéville’s pioneering work on Buddhism and war was followed by a number of similar studies, the most controversial being Brian Victoria Daizen’s Zen at War (1997), a study which is focused on how Zen Buddhists actively supported imperial Japanese campaigns during the Second World War (Victoria, 2006). In response to this, Kemmyǀ Taira Satǀ has defended D. T. Suzuki in his D.T. Suzuki and the Question of War (2008) by arguing that far from promoting Japanese military campaigns, he merely accepted the idea of defensive war.2 While works like these may have been successful in showing us the presence of heterogeneity within the Zen Buddhist community, it remains questionable why so many Zen Buddhists have supported the war with such apparent enthusiasm. One immediate response, given our preconceptions about Buddhism, is that these Buddhists must have somehow misinterpreted the Buddha’s teachings. This line of reading has been adopted by Brian Victoria Daizen in the recently published “A Buddhological Critique of ‘Soldier-Zen’ in Wartime Japan” in Buddhist Warfare (2010), wherein he maintains that by virtue of the fanatical zeal by which the Zen Buddhist schools supported Japanese militarism, they have in fact “so grievously violated Buddhism’s fundamental tenets that the school was no longer an authentic expression of the Buddhadharma.”3 Although this interpretation is attractive, it assumes that there was an original form of Buddhism which

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is opposed to war and is pacifist unconditionally. Although Buddhism is known for its fundamental respect for life and its repudiation of war, modern scholarship has presented us with a more complicated picture. Many studies show that Buddhism does not reject war unconditionally, but displays various degrees of acceptance of war.4 Although much research has been focused on the relationship between Zen Buddhism and war, relatively little has been focused on the relationship between Nichiren Buddhism and war. This is in spite of the fact that many Nichiren Buddhists demonstrated ultranationalistic tendencies during the Second World War and even actively participated in military campaigns. This suggests that an exclusive focus on the complicity of Zen Buddhists during the war in modern scholarship can only limit our understanding of the development of Japanese Buddhism under imperialism. This paper seeks to contribute to the relative lack in contemporary scholarship by focusing on the relationship between Nichiren Buddhism and war. Specifically, it seeks to examine two conflicting interpretations of Nichiren’s teachings regarding the war. While some Nichiren thinkers have interpreted Nichiren in “nationalist” terms and have used his philosophy to support Japan’s military campaigns, others have maintained that Nichiren’s loyalty towards the Lotus Snjtra has a priority over his nationalism. Chigaku Tanaka, for instance, is infamous for interpreting Nichiren’s Buddhist teachings along ultranationalist lines and for supporting Japanese military campaigns in Asia. On the other hand, the Sǀka Gakkai, led by Japanese educator and philosopher Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, has resisted government attempts to co-opt the organization and adopted an anti-war stance. Although there is nothing unusual about having divergent interpretations within the same religion, what is significant is the extent to which both interpretations are diametrically opposed to each other with regard to war on the basis of the same teachings. What was it about Nichiren’s teachings that made it susceptible to such widely divergent views regarding the war, or did either side grossly misinterpret his teachings? What is Nichiren’s view on waging war when we turn to the texts? This paper aims to examine Nichiren’s view on war on the basis of a select reading of his key writings.

Nichiren’s Buddhism at War Nichiren (1222-1282) was a 13th century Buddhist reformer in Kamakura Japan who advocated faith in the Lotus Snjtra over all other Buddhist teachings. According to Nichiren, all the pre-Lotus Snjtra Buddhist teachings are merely “provisional” teachings which were

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applicable during the Former Day of the Law, but which have become ineffective during the Latter Day of the Law (mappo). Nichiren maintains that during the Latter of the Day of the Law, not only are these teachings obsolete, they are also obstacles that prevent us from attaining Buddhahood. Instead of practicing these forms of Buddhism, Nichiren advocated sole faith in the teachings of the Lotus Snjtra, coupled with the practice of chanting the title of the Lotus Snjtra (daimoku)—Nam myoho renge kyo while facing the “fundamental object of worship” (Gohonzon), a mandala constructed to represent the state of enlightenment that is taught in the Lotus Snjtra.5 Nichiren left behind six successors to carry on his teaching upon his passing, but a dispute between Nikkǀ and Nikǀ saw the former leaving Minobu in 1289 with his disciples to set up Taiseki-ji at the foot of Mount Fuji, in what would come to be known as Nichiren Shǀshnj. Nikǀ became the head of Kuonji, in what has come to be known as the Minobu school. Prior to the Second World War, there were as many as twenty Nichiren sects, and many were merged with the Minobu school as part of the government’s effort to control Buddhism and to win support from religious groups in its promotion of war. Nichiren Shǀshnj initially resisted, but later joined in support of the military government. This was what caused a great rift between the priesthood of Nichiren Shǀshnj and the Soka Kyǀiku Gakkai.6 The Sǀka Gakkai is a Mahayana lay Buddhist organization founded by two Japanese educators and philosophers, Makiguchi Tsunesaburo (18711944) and Toda Josei (1900-1958), in the 1930s, with the aim of reforming education in Japan. The organization is based on Makiguchi’s philosophy of “Value Creation” on the one hand, and on the other hand, on Nichiren’s Buddhism. The philosophy of “Value Creation” holds that the goal of human life is happiness and that this can be attained if one creates value with one’s actions. In the context of Makiguchi’s philosophy, value consists of three separate but interrelated components: goodness, beauty and benefit, and one must maximize both one’s own happiness and other’s happiness on the basis of these three principles.7 On the other hand, the Sǀka Gakkai also advocates the practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings. It teaches that men possess the potential for good and bad, elaborated in the theory of ten worlds, and that those who devote themselves to Nichiren’s Buddhism would have purer karma which would allow them to be happy and achieve true peace, both at the individual level and at the global level. Thus, the teachings of Nichiren provide the key to the achievement of genuine peace and happiness in the world.8

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Although it is not unusual for religious organizations to have sectarian divides, it can be quite unusual given the diametrically opposed perspectives when it comes to the teachings of Nichiren. While some Nichiren thinkers have interpreted Nichiren in “ultranationalist” terms and have used his philosophy to support Japan’s military campaigns, others have maintained their independence from governmental pressures to be part of the Shinto cult and have upheld the principle of pacifism. One salient supporter of the Japanese alignment of Buddhism with the polity is Tanaka Chigaku (1861-1939). Well-known for promoting ultranationalism and supporting military campaigns during the Second World War, he laid the groundwork for his militaristic interpretation of Nichiren’s philosophy by identifying the Buddha’s teachings with the Japanese emperor himself, and by arguing that the emperor or “son of heaven” (Tennǀ) was the embodiment of the right path and is the very truth of the Lotus Snjtra itself. In his conception, the Buddha was merely one of the manifestations of the Tennǀ.9 With regard to Shinto and Buddhism, he also held that Shinto was the “root” while Buddhism was the “fruit.” In fact, Tanaka subordinated everything to the kokutai, and claimed that Japan, with its “unbroken” line of emperors has a unique destiny to guide the world. Thus, Tanaka basically joined ranks with Shinto imperialism and used Nichiren’s teachings as a “world-uniting imperialism” centered on Japan.10 In contrast to Tanaka Chigaku’s militaristic interpretation of Nichiren, the Sǀka Gakkai maintains that Nichiren sought to propagate a Buddhism for all mankind through engaged dialogue. This is why peace is at the heart of Sǀka Gakkai and why it adopted an anti-war stance during the Second World War. The Sǀka Gakkai opposed the religious policy of the military government of Japan and refused acceptance of talismans of Ise Shrine, so it was oppressed and accused of being guilty of the Maintenance of the Public Order Act and disrespect of majesty. Makiguchi died in prison in 1944 and Toda was only released a month before Japan was finally defeated.11 Toda maintained Makiguchi’s commitment to peace and this commitment was retained by the third president Daisaku Ikeda. The Sǀka Gakkai’s commitment to peace and its anti-war stance is the subject of a major work, Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy of Peace: Dialogue, Transformation and Global Citizenship (2012) by Urbain, which purports to give us a systematic presentation of Daisaku Ikeda’s philosophy of peace on the basis of Nichiren’s philosophy. The Sǀka Gakkai’s anti-war stance, however, has been questioned by some scholars, for two primary reasons. Christina Naylor, for instance, is skeptical about the Sǀka Gakkai’s pacifism because the imperialist and militarist attitude of many prewar Nichiren believers such as Tanaka

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Chigaku, Honda Nissho and Ishihara Kanji has made Nichiren Buddhism unpopular among the Japanese populace, and Sǀka Gakkai’s emphasis on peace is merely a “tactical move” rather than a natural development out of Nichiren’s philosophy.12 The second reason why Naylor is skeptical that Sǀka Gakkai’s peace programs are derived from Nichiren is due to the fact that Nichiren’s view of other religions was anything but inclusive. Nichiren, after all, was known for his fierce criticism of the other Buddhist schools, to the extent of advocating the use of violence in the defense of the Lotus Snjtra.13 Was the Sǀka Gakkai’s anti-war stance an outcome of its founders’ cosmopolitan outlook and not a natural outcome of Nichiren’s philosophy of life? Was Nichiren the “intolerant” Buddhist reformer that the critics made him out to be? Was Nichiren nothing more than a Japanese “nationalist?” In the next section, we will examine Nichiren’s philosophy to see if he was indeed what his critics made him out to be. We will examine 1) the reasons for his criticisms of the other Buddhist schools, primarily the Zen school, 2) his conception of the state and its relation to the Lotus Snjtra, and finally 3) his view of war.

Nichiren on Buddhism, State and War Nichiren has been described as “intolerant,” “nationalistic” and “militaristic” by scholars. George Sansom, for instance, believes that Nichiren “broke the tradition of religious tolerance in Japan.”14 Watanabe Shoko states that Nichiren displayed “a self-righteousness that was without precedent in all of Buddhist history, and [when] viewed from the standpoint of Buddhist tolerance, we must say that it is a completely nonBuddhist attitude.”15 Edward Conze also argued that Nichiren Buddhism differs from all other Buddhist schools by its “nationalistic”, “pugnacious”, and “intolerant” attitude.16 Although Nichiren’s critics are harsh, they have sound textual basis in Tientai philosophy. Furthermore, when we examine these criticisms in the context of their time, they are in fact responses to critics of the Lotus Snjtra itself. In this section, we will examine Nichiren’s criticisms of other Buddhist sects and the state itself. We will find that the reality is more complicated than it seems; that far from being “intolerant,” Nichiren was merely responding to his critics on the basis of scriptural authority. We will also find that Nichiren’s admonishment of the state sets him apart from the ultranationalism that was prevalent during the Second World War. Nichiren’s faith in the saving power of the Lotus Snjtra was such that it led him to criticize the other Buddhist schools. Nichiren’s polemics,

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however, were such that he did not mince his words when he criticized the other Buddhist schools. Nichiren’s criticism was summed up by some of his later followers into the four declarations (shika kakugen): “Nembutsu leads to AvƯci Hell, Zen is a devil, Shingon will destroy the nation, and Ritsu is a traitor.”17 Nichiren even told a believer that a way back to Buddhahood was to “destroy every Zen and Amidist temple, punish the monks, and build Hiei halls.”18 Nichiren’s critique presents a stark contrast with the other Buddhist institutions, which appeared to be more interested in maintaining the status quo than with doctrinal correctness. Although Nichiren’s criticisms of these schools may be harsh, they are nevertheless derivable from classifications that are traceable back to textual authority. In other words, although we may fault Nichiren for the harshness in his criticism, we cannot really fault him in terms of doctrinal correctness. In fact, one of the reasons for his response can be attributed to the attacks on the Lotus Snjtra by other Buddhist schools in Kamakura Japan. This is clear in the following passage: All the people throughout Japan have been led astray by the wild assertions of Hǀnen, who tells them to “discard, close, ignore, and abandon” [the Lotus Sutra], or of the Zen school, which declares its teaching to be “a separate transmission outside the sutras,” so that there is not a single one who is not destined to fall into the great citadel of the hell of incessant suffering. So believing, over the past more than twenty years I have never ceased to cry out in a loud voice against these errors, fearing neither the ruler of the nation nor the common people.19

In addition to his critique of the other Buddhist schools, Nichiren also engaged in criticism of the state. Nichiren believed that in order to achieve peace and security for the nation-state, the state must abandon its support for all other Buddhist teachings and begin to give its support for the Lotus Snjtra. Nichiren accepted the prevalent belief in Japan that Buddhist sutras can serve as a “nation protecting snjtra” (chingo kokkakyǀ). While he acknowledged that the pre-Lotus Snjtra Buddhist teachings were effective in bringing peace and security to the nation in previous ages, they were no longer efficacious during the Latter Day of the Law and could even be counter-productive to the nation’s wellbeing. In fact, supporting these teachings could only bring disaster and chaos to the state. It was in the context of these beliefs that Nichiren engaged in the practice of “admonishing the state” (kokka kangyǀ).20 Nichiren’s advice was not wellreceived and he was exiled several times. Nichiren’s ordeal shows clearly that loyalty to the Lotus Snjtra should take precedence over loyalty to one’s sovereign. He states “Having been born into the ruler’s domain, I may

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have to follow him with my body, but I don’t have to follow him with my mind.”21 If the above analysis is correct, then Nichiren’s love for Japan is far from what the ultranationalists would propose. Nichiren did not see the Buddha merely as a manifestation of the emperor, nor the Buddhist deities as manifestations of Japanese Shinto gods, but vice versa.22 Nichiren also did not see Buddhism merely as a means towards the peace and security of the state, but the reverse: the peace and security of the state was important because it provided an environment conducive for the establishment of the correct Dharma.23 This reverses the traditional view that Buddhist practice is merely a means to support the ruling authority. Here, the emperor is important only if he reveres and supports the Lotus Snjtra. Likewise, Nichiren did not advocate loyalty for one’s ruler and country at all costs. Instead, what Nichiren emphasized was loyalty to the Lotus Snjtra at the expense of everything else. This was why he was able to refuse to accept the official request to offer prayers for the defeat of the invading Mongols because the ruler did not embrace the Lotus Snjtra in 1274.24 Again, Nichiren’s advocating that we “pray for the nation” does not refer to the Tennǀ as a person, and his administration, but to the people and the land itself.25 Nichiren explicitly argued that the ruler had a special responsibility to bring peace to the land so that people could practice Buddhism, and stated that “Those who fall into hell do so because… they do not heed the cries of the people.”26 He sees the Tennǀ merely as a means to realize the “peace of the nation” and if he does not do so, he can be dragged into hell. This is why Nichiren repeatedly criticized the rulers who were unable to accomplish the goal. Nichiren seems to emphasize the notion of a power that transcended the authority of the Tennǀ and that thus made everything equal in a sense before this transcendence. This went against the ancient Japanese thought in which the Tennǀ had supreme authority and power.27 Fumihiko Sueki has rightly suggested that Nichiren was the pioneer of a new attitude toward politics from a “religious standpoint.”28 As Anne Mette Fisker-Nielson states, the goal is not to become just another religion which is aligned with the state, or that upholds the state’s power, but to rule according to the philosophy of the Lotus Snjtra.29 If Nichiren’s attitude towards the state is rather straightforward, his view of war is somewhat more controversial. On the one hand, Nichiren exhibited a profound respect for life, and in On Prolonging One’s Life Span, Nichiren wrote that “One day of life is more precious than all the treasures of the major world system.”30 Again, in On Recommending this Teaching to you Lord, Nichiren writes, “The foremost treasure of sentient

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beings is none other than life itself” and those who take life “are certain to fall into the three evil paths.”31 However, Nichiren’s admonition against the taking of life seems to be modified in his later writings.32 In the same writing just mentioned, he qualifies his admonition against killing by saying that the nature of killing varies with the nature of the person being killed, and related the story that the king who destroyed the enemies of the Lotus Snjtra in his previous existence became Shakyamuni Buddha.33 Again, in Reply to Jibu-bo, Nichiren states: By considering the magnitude of the punishment suffered by those who harbor enmity toward the Lotus Snjtra, we can understand the magnitude of the benefits obtained by devoting oneself to it. For example, if one murders one’s parents, then no matter how many causes for great good one may create, one’s efforts will not be acceptable to heaven. But if one kills an enemy of the Lotus Snjtra, even if that enemy should be one’s father or mother, this great crime will turn into a cause for great good.34

In addition to this, Nichiren also urged his disciples in the warrior class to obtain honor by joining the battle in Kamakura, and he did not condemn Tendai solider monks for raiding rival temples. Instead, he told the Bakufu that unless they razed all the Zen and Jǀdo temples and behead their monks, Japan would perish. He also famously told a follower that the only way to bring back the Buddhas and good kamis to Japan was to “destroy every Zen and Amidist temple, punish the monks, and build Hiei halls.” Thus, although Nichiren is in principle opposed to war, he is also realistic when it comes to those who seek to destroy the teachings of the Lotus Snjtra—the injunction to respect life is necessarily qualified when it comes to the “enemy” of the Lotus Snjtra. Nichiren was a pacifist but he was not a supporter of unconditional pacifism where the survival of the Lotus Snjtra is concerned.35 If our analysis is correct, then it solves a fundamental question regarding the pacifism adopted by Sǀka Gakkai. Scholars of new Japanese religions have frequently asked if these new religions support “absolute pacifism” or “conditional pacifism.”36 Robert Kisala, a leading scholar on Japan’s new religions, has found that in Japanese Buddhism, there are varying views with regards to what is acceptable—from a stance which absolutely rejects violence, to one that accepts peace as an ultimate goal but which does not rule out the employment of force.37 In the case of Sǀka Gakkai, Kisala suggests that it may have compromised its views on “absolute pacifism” because of its active support for the Komeito, a political party in Japan which has sometimes condoned the deployment of self-defense forces. Furthermore, he also claims that Daisasku Ikeda “does

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not absolutely rule out the use of force” but recognizes the occasional need for the application of force in order to maintain peace, although he would shift responsibility from the nation state to the United Nations for the deployment of such force. Thus, its pacifism is not an absolute one but a conditional one.38 The interesting thing to note is that if Kisala is correct, then the Sǀka Gakkai’s anti-war stance is basically in accord with that of Nichiren’s.

Conclusion Given that Nichiren’s harsh criticisms of the other Buddhist schools during his time was motivated by doctrinal correctness and the defense of the Lotus Snjtra, we must reexamine the view that Nichiren was an “intolerant” reformer. And since his critiques apply equally to the state, he was no “ultranationalist,” but the reverse, who saw the Buddhist teaching as being subservient to the state. Again, although Nichiren believes that war is sometimes necessary, he does not encourage it or valorize it, but saw it as being an evil, to be engaged in only in defense of the Lotus Snjtra, when there are absolutely no other alternatives available. Thus, we should rightly acknowledge that Buddhism, like most of the world’s major religions, should be recognized as a religion with an inherent potential for both war and peace. However, the philosophically interesting question to ask in an age of war is not why Buddhists failed to resist government pressures and engaged in war, but why some Buddhists successfully resisted war to the point of death.

NOTES

Chapter One 1

Gonda, Vedic Literature. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, 63. 3 ‫܀܇‬i۬vantu viĞve am‫܀‬tasya putrƗ‫ۊ‬. ৙gveda, 10/13/1. 4 Kane, History of DharmaĞƗstra, 2. 5 Kumar, “Ethical Concepts in the Vedas,” 28. 6 Aklujkar, “The Pandits from a Pi৆ঌa-BrahmƗ৆ঌa Point of View,” 42. 7 Yasya bhnjmi‫ ۊ‬pramƗnatarik‫܈‬amutodaram. Diva‫ ۦ‬yaĞcakre mnjrdhƗna‫ ۦ‬tasmai jye‫ܒ܈‬hƗya brahma۬e nama‫ۊ‬. Atharvaveda, 10/7/32. 8 J. Krishnamurti, “All our lives are in contradiction, and therefore in conflict, either the conflict born of trying to conform, conflict through fulfillment, or the conflict engendered by social influence. Conflict does produce a certain result by the use of the will, but conflict never is creative.” ‘Is This What You Call Conflict’, in Speaking Tree, Times of India, 10 June, 2013, p. 14. Abridged from his first dialogue in Rome, 1966, courtesy: KFI. 9 Yanme chidra‫ ۦ‬cak‫܈‬u‫܈‬o h‫܀‬dayasya manaso vƗtit‫۬۬܀‬a‫ ۦ‬b‫܀‬haspatirme taddadhƗtu. ĝa‫ ۦ‬no bhavatu bhuvansya yaspati‫ۊ‬. Yajurveda, 36/2. 10 Mo aha‫ ۦ‬dvi‫܈‬ate radham. ৙gveda, 1/50/13. 11 MƗ no dvik‫܈‬ata kaĞcana. Atharvaveda, 12/1/24. 12 Sa‫ۦ‬jñƗna‫ ۦ‬na‫ ۊ‬svebhi‫ ۊ‬sa‫ۦ‬jñƗnam ara۬ebhi‫ۊ‬. Sa‫ۦ‬jñƗnam aĞvinƗ yuvam ihƗsmƗsu ni yachatam. Atharvaveda, 7/52/1. 13 Sah‫܀‬daya‫ ۦ‬sƗ‫ۦ‬manasyam avidve‫܈‬a‫ ۦ‬k‫۬܀‬omi va‫ۊ‬. Anyo anyamabhi haryata vatsa‫ ۦ‬jƗtamivƗghnyƗ. Atharvaveda, 3/30/1. 14 Tanme manah Ğivasa۪kalpamastu. Yajurveda, 34, 1-6. 15 Paro’pehi manaspƗpa kimaĞastƗni Ğa‫ۦ‬sasi. Atharvaveda, 6/45/1. 16 Yo na‫ ۊ‬svo’ra۬o yaĞca ni‫ܒ܈‬hyo jighƗ۪sati. DevƗsta‫ ۦ‬sarve dhnjrvantu. SƗmaveda, 1872. 17 AĞmanvatƯ rƯyate sa‫ ۦ‬rabhadhvam ut ti‫ܒ܈‬hata pra taratƗ sakhƗya. AtrƗ jahƗma ye asann aĞevƗ‫ ۊ‬ĞivƗn vayam ut taremƗbhi vƗjƗn. ৙gveda, 10/54/8. 18 Vide ĝatapatha BrƗhma৆a, 11/1/6/10. 19 Asato mƗ sad gamaya Tamaso mƗ jyotir gamaya M‫܀‬tyor mƗ am‫܀‬ta‫ ۦ‬gamaya. B৚hadƗra৆yaka Upaniৢad, I.3.28. 20 Idamahaman‫܀‬tƗtsatyamupaimi. Yajurveda, 1/5. 21 Jyoti‫܈‬Ɨ bƗdhate tama‫ۊ‬. ৙gveda,10/127/2. 22 Dyau‫ ۊ‬ĞƗntirantarik‫܈‬a‫ ۦ‬ĞƗnti‫ ۊ‬p‫܀‬thivƯ ĞƗntirƗpa‫ ۊ‬ĞƗntiro‫܈‬adhya‫ ۊ‬ĞƗnti‫ۊ‬ 2

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vanaspataya‫ ۊ‬ĞƗntirviĞve devƗ‫ ۊ‬ĞƗntirbrahma ĞƗnti‫ ۊ‬sarva‫ ۦ‬ĞƗnti‫ ۊ‬ĞƗntireva ĞƗnti‫ ۊ‬sƗ mƗ ĞƗntiredhi. Yajurveda, 36/17. 23 P‫܀‬thivyƗ ahamudantarik‫܈‬amƗruham antarik‫܈‬ƗddivamƗruham. Divo nƗkasya p‫ܒ܈܀‬hƗt svarjyotiragƗmaham. Yajurveda, 17/67. 24 UlnjkayƗtum ĞuĞulnjkayƗtu‫ ۦ‬jahi ĞvayƗtumuta kokayƗtum. Supar۬ayƗtumuta g‫܀‬dhrayƗtu‫ ۦ‬d‫܈܀‬adeva pram‫۬܀‬a rak‫܈‬a Indra. ৙gveda, 7/104/22. 25 Ye puru‫܈‬e brahma viduste vidu‫ ۊ‬parame‫ܒ܈‬hinam. Yo veda parame‫ܒ܈‬hina‫ ۦ‬yaĞ ca veda prajƗpatim. Jye‫ܒ܈‬ha‫ ۦ‬ye brƗhma۬a‫ ۦ‬vidus te skambhamanusa‫ۦ‬vidu‫ۊ‬. Atharvaveda, 10/7/17. 26 Sarva‫ ۦ‬sa‫ۦ‬sicya martya‫ ۦ‬devƗ‫ ۊ‬puru‫܈‬am ƗviĞan. Atharvaveda, 11/8/13. 27 SarvƗ hyasmin devatƗ gƗvo go‫ܒ܈‬ha ivƗsate. Atharvaveda, 11/8/32. 28 Iya‫ ۦ‬te yajñiyƗ tannj‫ۊ‬. Yajurveda, 4/13. 29 A‫ܒ܈‬ƗcakrƗ navadvƗrƗ devƗnƗ‫ ۦ‬pnjrayodhyƗ. TasyƗ‫ ۦ‬hira۬yaya‫ ۊ‬koĞa‫ ۊ‬svargo jyoti‫܈‬Ɨv‫܀‬ta‫ۊ‬. Atharvaveda, 10/2/31. A‫ܒ܈‬Ɨ-cakrƗ = eight basic building materials of the body, see Taitt. Ɩra৆yaka (1.27, 2-3) Tvak = skin; asrak = blood; mƗnsa = flesh; meda = fat; asthi = bone; majjƗ = marrow; Ğukra = semen and oja = glow, Nava dvƗrƗ = Nine portals – seven in the head (2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth opening) and 2 below for the urine and feces. 30 Yasya trayastri‫ۦ‬Ğad devƗ a۪ge gƗtrƗ vibhejire. TƗn vai trayastri‫ۦ‬Ğad devƗn eke brahamvido vidu‫ۊ‬. Atharvaveda, 10/7/27. 31 TƗbhyo gƗmƗnƗyattƗ abruvanna vai no’yamalamiti. TƗbhyo’ĞvamƗnayattƗ abruvanna vai no’yamalamiti. TƗbhya‫ ۊ‬puru‫܈‬amƗnayattƗ abruvan suk‫܀‬ta‫ ۦ‬bateti puru‫܈‬o vƗva suk‫܀‬tam. TƗ abravƯdyathƗyatana‫ ۦ‬praviĞateti. AgnirvƗgbhnjtvƗ mukha‫ۦ‬ prƗviĞadvƗyu‫ۊ‬ prƗ۬o bhnjtvƗ nƗsike prƗviĞadƗdityaĞcak‫܈‬urbhutvƗk‫܈‬i۬Ư prƗviĞaddiĞa‫ ۊ‬Ğrotra‫ ۦ‬bhnjtvƗ kar۬au prƗviĞanno‫܈‬adhivanaspatayo lomƗni bhnjtvƗ tvaca‫ ۦ‬prƗviĞa۪ĞcandramƗ mano bhnjtvƗ h‫܀‬daya‫ ۦ‬prƗviĞanm‫܀‬tyurapƗno bhnjtvƗ nƗbhi‫ ۦ‬prƗviĞadƗpo reto bhnjtvƗ ĞiĞna‫ ۦ‬prƗviĞa۬. Aitareya Upaniৢad, I.2-4. 32 ƖtmƗna‫ ۦ‬rathina‫ ۦ‬viddhi ĞarƯra‫ ۦ‬rathameva tu. Buddhi‫ ۦ‬tu sƗrathi‫ ۦ‬viddhi mana‫ ۊ‬pragrahameva ca. IndriyƗ۬i hayƗnƗhurvi‫܈‬ayƗ‫ۦ‬ste‫܈‬u gocarƗn. Ɩtmendriyamanoyukta‫ ۦ‬bhoktetyƗhur manƯ‫܈‬i۬a‫ۊ‬. Ka৬ha Upaniৢad, 1/3/3-4. 33 Antaste dyƗvƗpthivƯ dadhƗmyantardadhƗmyurvantarik‫܈‬am Sajnjrdevebhiravarai paraiĞcƗntaryƗme maghavan mƗdayasva. Yajurveda, 7/5. 34 Sa vai naiva reme, tasmƗdekƗkƯ na ramate; sa dvitƯyamaicchat. Sa haitƗvƗnƗsa yathƗ strƯpumƗ۪sau sa‫ۦ‬pari‫܈‬vaktau; Sa imamevƗtmƗna‫ ۦ‬dvedhƗpƗtayat, tata‫ ۊ‬patiĞca patnƯ cƗbhavatƗm. B৚hadƗraya৆ka Upaniৢad, 1/4/3. 35 Kumar, “Indian Feminism in Vedic Perspective”, 141-152. 36 TasmƗdidamardhav‫܀‬galamiva sva‫ۊ‬. B৚hadƗraya৆ka Upaniৢad, 1/4/3. 37 IhemƗvindra sa‫ ۦ‬nuda cakravƗkeva da‫ۦ‬patƯ. Atharvaveda, 14/2/64. 38 PatnƯ tvamasi dharma۬Ɨha’‫ ۦ‬g‫܀‬hapatistava. Atharvaveda, 14/1/51.

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39

‫ۿ‬ta‫ ۦ‬ca satya‫ ۦ‬cƗbhiddhƗt tapaso’dhyajƗyata. ৙gveda, 10/190/1. Bose, Hymns from the Vedas, 7. 41 Kasminna۪ge tapo asyƗdhi ti‫ܒ܈‬hati kasminna۪ga ‫܀‬tamasyƗdhy Ɨhitam. Kva vrata‫ ۦ‬kva ĞraddhƗsya ti‫ܒ܈‬hati kasminna۪ge satyamasya prati‫ܒ܈‬hitam. Atharvaveda, 10/7/1. 42 Tena tyaktena bhuñjƯthƗ‫ ۊ‬mƗ g‫܀‬dha‫ ۊ‬kasya sviddhanam. Yajurveda, 40/1. 43 Yatte bhnjme vikhanƗmi k‫܈‬ipra‫ ۦ‬tadapi rohatu. MƗ te marma vim‫܀‬gvari mƗ te h‫܀‬dayamarpipam. Atharvaveda, 12/1/35. 44 Kumar, “Obligations Towards others: The Indian Perspective”, 219-226. 45 Kumar, “Ecology and Conservation in the Bhnjmisnjkta of Atharvaveda”, 63. 46 PumƗn pumƗ‫ۦ‬sa‫ ۦ‬paripƗtu viĞvata‫ۊ‬. ৙gveda, 6/75/14. 47 Yatra viĞva‫ ۦ‬bhavateyakanƯ‫ڲ‬am. Yajurveda, 32/8. 48 ViĞva‫ ۦ‬pu‫ܒ܈‬a‫ ۦ‬grƗme’smin anƗturam. ৙gveda, 1/114/1. 49 Sarvamijjagadayak‫܈‬ma‫ ۦ‬sumanƗ asat. Yajurveda, 16/4. 50 MitrasyƗha‫ ۦ‬cak‫܈‬u‫܈‬Ɨ sarva۬Ư bhutƗni samƯk‫܈‬antƗm. Mitrasya cak‫܈‬u‫܈‬Ɨ samƯk‫܈‬Ɨmahe. Yajurveda, 36/18. 51 YƗ‫ۦ‬Ğca paĞyƗmi yƗ‫ۦ‬Ğca na te‫܈‬u mƗ sumati‫ ۦ‬k‫܀‬dhi. Atharvaveda, 17/1/7. 52 ĝa‫ ۦ‬no bhava dvipade Ğa‫ ۦ‬catu‫܈‬pade. ৙gveda, 10/85/43. 53 ĝa‫ ۦ‬na‫ ۊ‬kuru prajƗbhya‫ ۊ‬abhaya‫ ۦ‬na‫ ۊ‬paĞubhya‫ۊ‬.Yajurveda, 36/22. 54 Eka‫ ۦ‬vƗ ida‫ ۦ‬vibabhnjva sarvam. ৙gveda, 8/58/2. 55 Rnjpa‫ ۦ‬rnjpa‫ ۦ‬pratirnjpo babhnjva. ৙gveda 6/47/18. 56 VƗgvai yajñasya hotƗ, cak‫܈‬urvai yajñasyƗdhvaryu‫ۊ‬, prƗ۬o vai yajñasyodgƗtƗ, mano vai yajñasya brahmƗ. B৚hadƗra৆yaka Upaniৢad, 3.1.3-6. 57 Yajño vai ‫܈‬re‫ܒ܈‬hatama‫ ۦ‬karma. ĝatapatha BrƗhma৆a, 1/7/3/5. 58 AdhyƗpana‫ ۦ‬brahmayajña‫ ۊ‬pit‫܀‬yajñastu tarpa۬a‫ۦ‬. Homo daivo balirbhnjto n‫܀‬yajño’ tithi pnjjana‫ۦ‬. Manusm৚ti, 3/70. 59 Tadetat catu‫܈‬pƗd brahma vƗk pƗda‫ ۊ‬prƗ۬a‫ ۊ‬pƗda‫ۊ‬, cak‫܈‬u‫ ۊ‬pƗda‫ۊ‬, Ğrotra‫ۦ‬ pƗda‫ۊ‬ ityadhyƗtmam. ChƗndogya Upaniৢad, 3/18/2. 60 AthƗdhidaivata‫ ۦ‬agni‫ ۊ‬pƗdo vƗyu‫ ۊ‬pƗda Ɩditya‫ ۊ‬pƗda‫ ۊ‬diĞa‫ ۊ‬pƗda ityadhidaivata‫ۦ‬. ChƗndogya Upaniৢad, 3/18/2. 61 Yasya sarvƗ۬i bhnjtƗni ĞarƯra‫…ۦ‬ityadhibhnjtam. BhadƗrayakya Upaniৢad, 3/7/15 62 Shripad Damodar Satavalekar, Vaidik VyƗkhyƗnamƗlƗ, (Hindi), (Swadhyaya Mandal, Pardi, n.d.), pp.1-5. 63 Bhadra‫ ۦ‬kar۬ebhi‫ ۊ‬Ğ‫۬܀‬uyƗma devƗ Bhadra‫ ۦ‬paĞyemƗk‫܈‬bhir yajatrƗ‫ۊ‬ Sthiraira۪gair tu‫ܒ܈‬uvƗnsas tannjbhir VyaĞema devahita‫ ۦ‬yad Ɨyu‫ۊ‬. SƗmaveda, 1874. 40

Chapter Two 1

Heidegger, Heraklit, 18, my translation. The German is: “Leben und Tod sind das Gegenwendige. Allerdings. Aber das Gegenwendige wendet im äuȕersten

160

Notes

Entgegen eines dem anderen sich innigst zu. Wo solches waltet, ist der Streit, die Eris.” Eris is in Greek alphabet in the original. 2 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 47-48, German added. 3 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 48, German added. 4 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 61, German added. 5 Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis), 265, my translation, italics in original, German added. 6 Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, 54. 7 Heidegger, Einführung in die Metaphysik, (1953), 47; (2000) 65. In German: “Auseinandersetzung is allem (Anwesendem) zwar Erzeuger...” 8 Ibid. In German: “allem aber (auch) waltender Bewahrer.” 9 Heidegger, Vorträge und Aufsätze, (1994b), 269; (1993), 119. 10 Heidegger, Heraklit, 145. 11 Heidegger, Heraklit, 178. 12 Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 65. This comment was added in parenthesis in the 1953 edition. 13 Heidegger, Identity and Difference , 45. 14 Heidegger, Vorträge und Aufsätze, (1994b), 187; (1971), 216. 15 Heidegger, Heraklit, 141-147. 16 Heidegger, Heraklit, 147. My translation. In German: “die Fügung in sich ist zumal das Voneinanderweg-wenden in die gelöste Ent-spannung und das Zurückwenden im Sinne der Spannung dessen, was sich in die Ent-spannung wendet. Die harmonia besteht also nicht bloȕ im Zusammenspannen, so daȕ das Auseinanderstreben in die Entspannung von ihr unterschieden und höchstens das Gefügte bleibt, sondern zur harmonia gehört das Auseinandergehenlassen in die Entspannung.” 17 Heidegger, Heraklit, 153, my translation. In German: “Die phusis is das Hinweg und Zurück, das Hin und Her; harmos—das gegenfahrende Fügen—harmonia— >Fügung