Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses 9781350050136, 9781350050167, 9781350050143

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Imagination

Also available from Bloomsbury Comparative Philosophy without Borders, edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber Doing Philosophy Comparatively, by Tim Connolly Landscape and Travelling East and West, edited by Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew K. Whitehead Wisdom and Philosophy, edited by Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew K. Whitehead

Imagination Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses edited by Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew K. Whitehead

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew K. Whitehead, 2019 Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew K. Whitehead have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: ePDF: eBook:

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Contents Introduction  Andrew K. Whitehead Part 1  Imagination in Chinese and Japanese Philosophies 1

1 11

Truth and Imagination in China: Opposition and Conciliation in the Tradition  Richard John Lynn

13

2

Zhuangzi and Fantasy Literature  Nicolas Le Jeune

29

3

Visual Zen: The Role of Imagination in Shaping a Zen Aesthetics  Rudi Capra

45

Part 2  Comparative Studies on Imagination

57

4

The Imaginary and the Real in Zhuangzi and Plato  May Sim

59

5

Is There Imagination in Daoism? Kant, Heidegger, and Classical Daoism: Rethinking Imagination and Thinking in Images  Steven Burik

79

6

Daoism, Utopian Imagination, and Its Discontents  Ellen Y. Zhang

Part 3  Post-Comparative Conceptions of Imagination

103 127

7

Imagination beyond the Western Mind  Julia Jansen

129

8

Time, Habit, and Imagination in Childhood Play  Talia Welsh

141

9

Images of Me in the Roles I Live: An Existentialist Contribution to Confucian Role Ethics  Andrew K. Whitehead

153

10 Imagination, Formation, World, and Place: An Ontology  John W. M. Krummel

163

11 Imagination and the Lives of Others  Victoria S. Harrison

187

12 Between Truth and Utopia: Philosophy in North America and the Narrowing of the Social-Political Imagination  Gabriel Soldatenko

203

Index221

Introduction Andrew K. Whitehead

The imagination has been a topic of fascination and examination throughout the history of Western philosophy. From the writings of Plato and Aristotle, drawing on the etymological links between idea (ιδέα from the Greek “to see” εἴδω) and image (εικόν), and between fantasy (φαντασία) and appearance (“phainomenon” φαινόμενο), through to contemporary scholarship in phenomenology, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, and psychoanalysis, the imagination in its various senses has consistently been afforded significance in how the world is encountered, experienced, and conceived. The role of the imagination may be understood negatively, as the capacity to depart from the real, or as deceptive and illusory, and therefore as demanding correction or critique. It may also be understood positively, as reproductive or even constructive, as an invaluable source for our making present what is not itself present, and as necessary for the projection of alternative scenarios and possible worlds. Despite this notable difference in the many senses in which the imagination is understood, it is not clear that this difference indicates a rigid distinction, as the negative and positive conceptions of the imagination can also be understood as different aspects of one and the same phenomenon. The ebb and flow of philosophical scholarship on the imagination evidences the correlative emergence of divergences in perspective and situated critique. Turning to non-Western philosophy, although the idea of imagination as the mental faculty of an individual mind makes less sense, we still encounter comparable notions of imaginative engagement. Conceptions of the illusory and deceptive, the development of fantastic narratives and metaphors, the relation between projection and truth, and the use of images and allegories abound in all schools. Even more relevant material is found in implicit engagements with issues of the imagination, which do not necessarily make use of concepts and do

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not necessarily address questions commonly associated with the imagination in Western discourses. However, the imagination is of interest to comparative philosophy in particular not only as a topic of investigation, but also as an indispensable means. Comparative philosophy often takes place in a non-place, if you will, in an imagined place where comparisons can take place. The imagination here acquires a crucial methodological role, providing possibilities for intercultural and transtemporal dialogue and critical engagement. As comparative philosophers, we do not simply analyze and examine, but we also imagine collectively, in a social imaginary that we might come to call a post-comparative place, to the extent that this imagined place focuses on method as opposed to disciplinary affiliation, and to the extent that we imagine it to go beyond simple comparisons. Over the last several decades, there seems to be an increasing tendency first to co-opt the nomenclature of comparative philosophy, and then, in turn, to argue for more refined and sophisticated nomenclature, such as “fusion philosophy,” “contrastive philosophy,” and “synthesizing philosophy.” Here we find attempts to draw out the legitimacy of non-Western philosophical schools of thought in terms appropriate to “philosophy proper,” that is, to evidence their legitimacy for inclusion in a canon of “philosophy simpliciter” by translating them into the language of the existing (Western) canon. In this sense, such scholarship embellishes upon boundaries and borders that it has itself erected, under the (false) presupposition that the penultimate intention of such scholarship is to eradicate these very same borders. The following volume looks to move beyond precisely this “appropriating” type of comparative philosophy. In other works, Hans-Georg Moeller1 has insisted on a turn to post-comparative philosophy. My understanding of this turn is as a response to a marked need to turn back to comparative philosophy as it was initially conceived and practiced, as a call to an “imaginary” neutral territory for the sake of allowing pluralism and its efforts to speak for themselves. As I see it, it is also a liberating turn, a turn away from the distorting constraints produced by the disciplinary tendencies of the neo-liberal university, such as an overzealous preoccupation with “novel” analyses, “high-impact” and “groundbreaking” research, and an unprecedented demand for research “output” in general. Eduardo Galeano reminds us in the book Open Veins of Latin America that “in an incarcerated society, free literature can exist only as denunciation and hope” (1997: 13). I choose to paraphrase his sentiment and note that in an incarcerated institution such as the neo-liberal university, free philosophy can exist only as denunciation and hope. The denunciation of the collective imbecilization that

Introduction

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has permeated our institutions of higher education for the last fifty years has already begun, indicating a marked hope for an imagined alternative. There are increasingly more venues where we are free to imagine such alternatives freely, collectively, and critically. If Galeano (1997: 13) is correct in his existential finding that “we are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are,” then our commitment now, to imagine and enact a return to philosophy proper, to a sustained and systematic articulation of how we are for the sake of drawing us to how we should be, is what we are. I find myself inspired by and resolutely empathetic with a story that Galeano articulates in his Book of Embraces. He writes: There was an old and solitary man who spent most of his time in bed. There were rumors that he had a treasure hidden in his house. One day some thieves broke in, they searched everywhere and found a chest in the cellar. They went off with it and when they opened it they found that it was filled with letters. They were the love letters the old man had received all over the course of his long life. The thieves were going to burn the letters, but they talked it over and finally decided to return them. One by one. One a week. Since then, every Monday at noon, the old man would be waiting for the postman to appear. As soon as he saw him, the old man would start running and the postman, who knew all about it, held the letter in his hand. And even St. Peter could hear the beating of that heart, crazed with joy at receiving a message from a woman. (1997: 10)

While tempted to identify with the old man, I believe our role and our function are and need to be closer to that of the thieves and the postman. We must reappropriate what has been hidden away for the sake of re-distribution. We must yoke the social affect that is to be so crazed with joy by instigating collective hope. We must reinvigorate the social imaginaries. In so doing, we must endeavor to take up legitimate comparative philosophical methods, free, as much as possible, from the constraints imposed by current disciplinary orders and from the analytic critiques which support and facilitate the imposition of illegitimate terms of differentiation and reconciliation. We must endeavor to practice comparative philosophy anew. This then is what can be meant by post-comparative philosophy: comparative philosophy, free from the pomp and presumption that has worked to undermine it in the name of something like “global philosophy,” at least insofar as this suggests that distinct perspectives can be amalgamated and their differences somehow dissolved. Insofar as I have a pluralist understanding of comparative philosophy, I remain skeptical of such tendencies. If comparative philosophy really is not only rigorous, but also “open,” then it must remain receptive to objections and revisions. I believe this volume

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marks a turn toward the possibility of such a practice, even if it falls short in its own efforts to take up this call. The chapters collected in this volume question the nature of the imagination and its relation to philosophy from an intercultural perspective. They discuss similarities and differences among a wide variety of conceptions of the imagination and provide a sustained reflection on the actual and potential consequences of these conceptions for the practice and undertaking of philosophy. As comparative philosophers, in the post-comparative sense described above, we find ourselves free to articulate such investigations on new terms, no longer beholden to contrastive, fusing, synthesizing or deconstructive forms of comparative philosophy, or to the implicit biases that accompany their language use and argumentative styles. We are now free to return to the genuine practice of comparative philosophy, free from preoccupations with the trends and fads of modernity as a thoroughfare to global philosophy, to the reconciliation of vastly different thought systems on universal terms. I therefore find myself in agreement with Paul Masson-Oursel’s observation that “the great episodes in philosophy appeared in the crises of faith, amidst social troubles, when foundations were crumbling,” and his diagnosis that “comparative philosophy is a necessary condition not only of peace, but of human existence itself ” (1951: 8). In this volume, authors work through precisely this kind of legitimate comparative enterprise, while, at the same time, indicating—or, better yet, pointing to—a horizon upon which a new form of dialogue can emerge, one that is founded on grounds that are not divided at the outset, one that is instead already always in the process of imagining and reimagining the vernacular best suited to the comparative enterprise. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on a number of significant developments and/or deployments of the imagination in East Asian thought systems. This scholarship works toward highlighting the importance of the imagination in Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and, thereby, it works toward generating discussion and stimulating further research into the imagination as an important philosophical concept in Classical Chinese and Japanese philosophies. The second part of the volume offers methodologically innovative scholarship in comparative philosophy. Making use of traditional comparative approaches as well as offering new insights into contemporary comparative practices, these chapters investigate how the imagination operates in classical distinctions between the real and the imaginary, reality and appearance, and classical, modern, and contemporary understandings of the imagination; and how, in turn, these distinctions operate in a wide array

Introduction

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of traditions and texts. This also shows how the imagination continues to be a central notion in such social-political enterprises as discerning, articulating, and aspiring toward progress and the ideal state. The third part of this volume is perhaps the most ambitious, methodologically speaking. Operating outside of traditional comparative discourses, this part works toward the post-comparative method outlined above. Making use of a truly imagined place, these chapters work through philosophical problems in dialogue with a number of different interlocutors, not with the hope of reconciling or amalgamating these into a coherent position, but instead focusing on potential and actual contributions they make in relation to a given contemporary problem. Perhaps not surprisingly, this part traces the role of the imagination as it develops from infancy to faculty formation, and culminates in the social-political practices of imagining that can help us face twenty-first-century problems. Concretely, the chapters of the first part of this volume approach the topic of the imagination as found in the East Asian traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. In this sense, they address the general lack of scholarship dealing with East Asian conceptions and articulation of the imagination, as well as the role of the imagination in developing and expressing a number of philosophical ideas and ideals. In the first chapter, Richard John Lynn explores a number of possible renditions of imagination in Chinese texts and the role that the imagination played in the development of Chinese poetics. He accounts for imagination both in the positive sense, as the “authentic” creative deployment of sincerity and honesty, and in the negative sense, as “fictional” pretending that deviates from the real. Citing a wide array of texts throughout the canon, Lynn evidences the fine line between understanding the imagination simultaneously as “a vital form of cognition, defended on empathetic and creative grounds, and discredited in terms of the rational intellect as pretension and fantasy.” Nicolas Le Jeune questions whether or not Zhuangzi can be understood to have written in the genre of “fantasy” and what the philosophical functions of this genre can be thought to accomplish in the Zhuangzi. Le Jeune articulates his understanding of fantasy as that element in literature that is and remains “fundamentally mysterious and unexplained” and insists that “fantasy is always a confrontation with the unknown”; as a consequence, “fantasy reveals the limit of what we consider possible, which is at the same time the limit of our familiar world, the world we know.” Rudi Capra draws our attention to the role played by the imagination in the Rinzai Zen tradition, with a focus on figurative artworks drawn by Rinzai Zen

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monks. Capra contends that “an imaginative knack allows a Zen master to teach in a creative and innovative fashion, resulting in unconventional pedagogical means which reduce the risk of conceptual reification and delusive thinking.” He then applies this notion of the imaginative knack to paintings by Hakuin (1686– 1768) and Nakahara (1839–1925), as a way to define the role of the imagination in shaping an aesthetics of Zen. The second part of chapters presents a number of comparisons of different conceptions of the imagination. Drawing distinctions between differing conceptions of the imagination and how these come to impact our experience of the world, these chapters also question the viability of the very comparative enterprise they take up, if only through a firm recognition of the obstacles to be engaged and overcome in making use of such loaded philosophical concepts in and for the comparative project. In Chapter 4, May Sim works through a comparison between conceptions of the imaginary and the real in the writings of Zhuangzi and Plato, highlighting a similar relation between the two notions in the works of both thinkers. Sim finds that while “Plato and Zhuangzi agree that the world of sensible and imaginary things is one of change,” in light of differences in their views concerning reality and knowledge, “their reasons for why visible things are not knowable are … different.” Steven Burik, working through a comparison between classical Daoist thinkers and the works of Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger, aims to determine whether or not there is imagination in Daoism. Beginning with the recognition of the “imaginative” styles of Heidegger and the Daoists, Burik proceeds to problematize whether or not they can be understood to make use of a philosophical notion of the faculty of the imagination in the sense popularized since Kant. In her chapter “Daoism, Utopian Imagination, and Its Discontents,” Ellen Zhang asks whether or not Chinese philosophy or literature has a corresponding term or idea for the notion of utopia as it has been articulated in the West, in a long tradition stretching back to the sixteenth century. Citing the work of Longxi Zhang as her starting point, and his idea that there are in fact corresponding terms and ideas to be found in Classical Chinese texts, Zhang works through possible iterations of utopian, dystopian, and meta-utopia to “explain some key points of the Daoist notion of an ideal state.” Zhang shows how Daoist utopianism is able to offer “a stimulating portrait of a highly varied but distinctive political ideal, tradition, and practice arising from the enduring human impulse to be free.”

Introduction

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The third part, as discussed above, aspires to take up the comparative philosophical project anew, perhaps even as the “post-comparative.” It includes chapters that bring contemporary concerns with the imagination into new discursive terrain, addressing issues of childhood development, perception and consciousness, and the role of the imagination in the establishment of philosophical conceptions of the self, the state, and the world. Julia Jansen draws on current research on imagination in phenomenology and philosophy of mind to highlight how restrictive common Western conceptions of the imagination as a mental faculty of an individual subject are, and how they are beginning to be seriously challenged even within Western philosophical discourse. Thus she frees the imagination from “mental” and “individualistic” prejudices to develop an understanding of imagination as an embodied practice of simulation, projection, and play, which opens up new avenues for recognizing the operations of the imagination in non-Western practices of philosophy, ritual, and art making. Talia Welsh’s contribution develops a phenomenological description of the role of the imagination in childhood, arguing that “considering childhood imaginative play reveals a lost part of our connection to the world … [and] further suggests that perhaps our own adult sense of a constant real and our mature autonomy are neither as complete nor as solid as we intuit.” Turning to the works of a number of phenomenologists, and in particular to the writings and lectures of Merleau-Ponty, Welsh convincingly establishes that the imagination plays a significant role in our personal development. Andrew K. Whitehead openly assents to “take up what might be called a SinoExistential philosophical anthropology,” and does so in relation to the theory of Confucian Role Ethics, as articulated by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr., as well as in relation to select ideas in the traditions of existentialism and phenomenology. Whitehead contends that in encountering the self as integrated, in the sense of transcending or subsisting dispersed role-relations, one is necessarily making use of the imagination. He attempts to “reconcile the unique, divergent, and therefore seemingly irreconcilable roles encountered in situated existence by means of the imagination,” and describes his task as “a work concerned with describing how we become, as persons.” In Chapter 10, John Krummel emphasizes the importance of “the ontological role of the imagination as a faculty of formation.” Making use of a wide breadth of resources, Krummel unfolds “the imagination’s ontological implications that connect the dynamic of form and formlessness on the one hand, and place on the other hand, in the construction of the world or web of meanings.”

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In her chapter “Imagination and the Lives of Others,” Victoria Harrison discusses the “transformative potential of careful attention to the lives of others,” noting how “imaginative engagement with the lives of others can yield a sharpened understanding of other people’s beliefs and values, and of the ways in which those beliefs and values are related to their commitments, motivations, and, ultimately, actions.” Harrison contends that in accordance with such an imaginative approach, understanding becomes “more experiential than theoretical.” Specifically, Harrison proposes that “systematic reflection on people who are regarded as exemplary can allow one to explore the beliefs and values, commitments and motivations, that are expressed in their lives and thereby to gain some understanding of what it is like to allow those beliefs and values to exercise a shaping force on one’s life.” Taking the form of continental-critical political philosophy as its frame of reference, the final chapter, by Gabriel Soldatenko, highlights the role the imagination can play in a critical account of the historical marginalization of this form of political philosophy within the discipline. He offers a general schematic as well as a methodological account that considers the creation of utopias as a by-product of this role. Soldatenko thus compels us to consider how and why “a continental-critical philosophy has much to offer, and why it is urgent that we dwell on it, and recognize its value today.” The editors would like to thank all of those who have helped make this volume possible. In particular, we would like to thank Harriette Grissom for her invaluable assistance in preparing the final versions of the text. We would also like to thank the University of Macau for finances in support of editing. Finally, we are very grateful to Helen Saunders of Bloomsbury Publishing for her patience and support.

Note 1 See Hans-Georg Moeller, “On Comparative and Post-Comparative Philosophy.”

References Galeano, Eduardo (1997), Open Veins of Latin America. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. New York: Monthly Review Press.

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Moeller, Hans-Georg (2018), “On Comparative and Post-Comparative Philosophy.” In Appreciating the Chinese Difference: Essays in Honor of Roger T. Ames, edited by Jim Behuniak. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York. Oursel, Paul-Masson (1951), “True Philosophy Is Comparative Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West 1(1): 6–9.

Part One

Imagination in Chinese and Japanese Philosophies

1

Truth and Imagination in China: Opposition and Conciliation in the Tradition Richard John Lynn

“Imagination” in the Chinese tradition, the formation of mental images in the mind, both of the actual and the non-actual, is problematic and complex; for it differs with time, with the theories and practice of thought involved, especially as ideas relate to words through the medium of images, and from genre to genre in literature, where it is sometimes judged to lead to and render “truth,” and sometimes regarded as inimical to it. A passage in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi 莊 子, with the commentary of Guo Xiang 郭象 (c. 252–312), might be a good place to begin our exploration of imagination in China, as it provides perspectives on several essential issues involved.1 Here we see it championed as a vital form of cognition, defended on empathetic and creative grounds, and discredited in terms of the rational intellect as pretension and fantasy: 莊子與惠子遊於濠梁之上。莊子曰： 「儵魚出遊從容，是魚之樂也。」惠子曰： 「子非魚，安知魚之樂？」莊子曰： 「子非我，安知我不知魚之樂？」欲以起明 相非而不可以相知之義耳。子非我，尚可以知我之非魚，則我非魚，亦 可以知魚之樂也。惠子曰： 「我非子，固不知子矣；子固非魚也，子之不知魚 之樂，全矣。」舍其本言而給辯以難也。莊子曰： 「請循其本。子曰『汝安知 魚樂』云者，既已知吾知之而問我，我知之濠上也。」尋惠子之本言云：「非 魚則無緣相知耳。今子非我也，而云汝安知魚樂者，是知我之非魚也。 苟知我之非魚，則凡相知者，果可以此知彼，不待是魚然後知魚也。故 循子安知之云，已知吾之所知矣。而方復問我，我正知之於濠上耳，豈 待入水哉！」夫物之所生而安者，天地不能易其處，陰陽不能回其業； 故以陸生之所安，知水生之所樂，未足稱妙耳。 (Guo Qingfan 1894: [17] 606–607)

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Imagination Whilst Master Zhuang and Master Hui were walking about on Hao Bridge, Master Zhuang remarked, “The shu fish emerge to wander so free and easy; such is the joy of fish” (Guo Qingfan 1894: [17] 606).2 Master Hui then said, “You are not a fish, so can you know the joy of fish?”3 Master Zhuang replied, “You are not me, so wherein do you know that I do not know the joy of fish?” [Guo Xiang:] By saying this he wants to cast light on the proposition that because one is not another he cannot know that other: If despite not being me you still can know that I am not a fish, then it must be true that even though I am not a fish, I too can know the joy of fish.4 Master Hui then said, “I am not you, so I definitely do not know what it is to be you, but as you are definitely not a fish, this proves perfectly that you do not know what it is to be a fish.” Abandoning his original thesis, he tries to use nimble disputation to refute him. Master Zhuang responded, “May I get back to your original thesis? When you said ‘wherein do you know the joy of fish,’ you already knew wherein I knew it but asked me anyway: I knew it above the Hao.” He gets back to Master Hui’s original thesis, in which he said, “Since you are not a fish you have no means to know what it is to be one.” Now [to paraphrase Master Zhuang], “You are not me yet still ask wherein do I know the joy of fish, which means that you know that I am not a fish, and if you know that I am not a fish, this in general means that mutual knowing [between self and other] is such that a this one can know a that one, and one need not depend on being a fish and only then know what it is to be a fish. Therefore I went back to what you said about wherein could I have known such a thing, which means that you already knew what I knew! But just when you persisted in interrogating me, I knew it exactly there above the Hao, so why did I have to depend on entering the water!” That creatures live where they feel safe and secure [an] is because Heaven and Earth cannot exchange places, and yin and yang cannot interchange productive activities. Therefore, one living on land may by reference to how he feels safe and secure know how those that live in water feel joy—there is nothing especially profound or mysterious about this at all!5

Although it is clear from both the text of the Zhuangzi and Guo’s commentary that the vehicle of cognition is empathetic imagination, neither use specific terminology to identify it, and only Cheng Xuanying refers to it these ways: da wuqing suoyi 達物情所以 “understand how the innate character of creatures is as it is” and ti wuxing 體物性 “embody the inherent nature of others.” Da might also be rendered “have unimpeded access to,” and ti is thus employed surely with the meaning of such binomials as tihui 體會 “bodily understand” or ticha體察 “bodily apprehend,” functions that involve the whole body, its physical sensations, and workings of the mind and heart, all of which involve empathetic imagination.

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However, another common way to render “imagination” in the Chinese tradition is with the term xiangxiang 想象[像], “images produced by/of thought/ideation,” a term which dates back as early as the Hanfei zi 韓非子 [Sayings of Master Hanfei] third century BCE., the fu (rhapsodies) of Cao Zhi 曹植 (192–232), and the poetry of Xie Lingyun謝靈運 (385–433). Although xiangxiang is generally neutral vis-à-vis truth/authenticity/the actual, other terms associated with imagination, such as kongxiang 空想 “fantasy,” wangxiang 妄想 “delusion,” and huanxiang 幻想 “illusion” (all also common in pre-modern usage) obviously have negative denotations. The expression/depiction of “truth” in Chinese literature is equally problematic. In the elite tradition of classical poetry and prose, “truth” means the authentic expression of the “real” person of the author, epitomized in the age-old maxim taken from the “Great Preface” to the Classic of Poetry, shi yan zhi詩言志: “poetry verbalizes intent/what occupies the mind.” That is, persona and person should be one: what appears in writing should be the authentic personality of the author and his actual experiences. Narratives should be accurate as to historical fact, and description and accounts of places and people should accord with what the author actually knows of them. The fantastic spirit journeys of Qu Yuan 屈原 (c. 340–278 BCE) or the bizarre accounts of strange creatures in the Zhuangzi (fourth to third centuries BCE), as well as men writing in the personae of women, for example, were justified in this tradition by casting them as allegories or parables that aim at truth through metaphor and allusion. Poets who deviated from these models stood accused of fabrication and falsehood, and eras in which such heterodoxy became common, the later Six Dynasties and the Late Tang, for example, largely came in for disapprobation by traditional mainstream critics; although many a later poet may have indulged in creative and imaginary fabrication, their reputations in later traditional criticism never fared well. However, with the appearance of the ci 詞 [song lyric], which developed during the later Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Song, and the qu 曲 [dramatic lyric], which developed during the Yuan, elite classical verse and these two lyric genres, rich in imaginative fictionality, began to influence one other: classical verse became more prone to attempt dramatic inventiveness, and lyrics at times became vehicles for the intense kinds of personal expression hitherto reserved for classical verse. These general trends can be traced in indigenous Chinese works of literary thought, which included shihua 詩話 (discussions of poetry), letters, essays, and technical manuals. This paper will explore these sources to determine how “truth” and “imagination,” though often opposed in literary thought, at times achieved genuine conciliation.

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One passage in the Chuci 楚辭 [Elegies of Chu], Yuanyou 遠游 [Far roaming], clearly contains an occurrence of xiangxiang 想像 that can only mean “imagine”: 涉青雲以氾濫游兮 忽臨睨夫舊鄉 僕夫懷余心悲兮 邊馬顧而不行 思舊故以想像兮 長太息而掩涕6 (Wang 王逸1936: 5 [10b–11a]) Traversing clouds up in the blue, I roamed as if flood in surge, oh, But suddenly looking down, spied my old homeland. My driver was homesick while I grew sad, oh, As the trace horses looked back and would not go on. Remembering my old friends as I imagine [xiangxiang] them, oh, I long heaved great sighs and concealed my tears.

The composition as a whole is thought to be a later counterpart to the first of the Elegies of Chu, the more familiar Lisao 離騷 [Encountering sorrow], whose celestial spirit-journey is generally either interpreted as an analogy for a virtuous man’s search for a worthy sovereign or the recording, however highly edited, of a shaman’s vision of a spiritual journey through supernatural realms. As analogy, the Elegies of Chu inspired many later similar compositions, one of which by Cao Zhi we examine below. In a prose text roughly contemporary with the Elegies of Chu, the Han Fei zi [Sayings of Master Han Fei], third century BCE, an attempt is made to explain why the character for elephant (xiang 象) came to mean “image” and “imagination,” in the section Jie Lao 解老 [Explaining the Laozi]: 人希見生象也，而得死象之骨，案其圖以想其生也，故諸人之所以意想 者皆謂之象也。今道雖不可得聞見，聖人執其見功以處見其形，故曰無 狀之狀，無物之象。(Chen 2000: [6] 413) People rarely see a living elephant (xiang), but when they get the bones of a dead elephant, complying with their design, they imagine the living thing. This is why when anyone imagines something, this is always called a xiang (image). Now, although there is no way to know how the Dao looks or sounds, the true sage grasps its visible effects and thereby manages to discern its shape. This is what the text [of the Laozi] refers to when it states “the shape of that which has no shape, the image of that which has no physical existence.” (Lynn 1999a: 72–73)

Han Fei’s explanation of image and imagination, based on hints of things unseen, might well be ultimately based on the way the images (xiang 象) of the Yijing 易 經 [Classic of changes] were interpreted by the ancient sages who, apprehending

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the principles underlying Heaven and Earth and all things, channeled them to mankind in terms of analogous images: 聖人有以見天下之賾。而擬諸其形容。象其物宜。是故謂之象。 The sages had the means to perceive the mysteries of the world and, drawing comparisons to them with analogous things, made images out of those things that seemed appropriate. This is why they are called “images.” (Lynn 1995: [1] 57)

Although chronologically out of sequence, at this point we should briefly consider what Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249) had to say about the images in the Classic of Changes: 夫象者。出意者也。言者。明象者也。盡意莫若象。盡象莫若言。言生 於象。故可尋言以觀象。象生於意。故可尋象以觀意。意以象盡。象以 言著。故言者所以明象。得象而忘言。象者所以存意。得意而忘象。猶 蹄者所以在兔，得兔而忘蹄。筌者所以在魚。得魚而忘筌也。然則，言 者。象之蹄也；。象者。意之筌也。(Lou 1980: 609) Images are the means to express ideas. Words [that is, the texts] are the means to explain the images. To yield up ideas completely there is nothing better than the images, and to yield up the meaning of the images there is nothing better than words. The words are generated by the images, thus one can ponder the words and so observe what the images are. The images are generated by ideas, thus one can ponder the images and so observe what the ideas are. The ideas are yielded up completely by the images, and the images are made explicit by the words. Thus, since the words are the means to explain the images, once one gets the images, he forgets the words, and, since the images are the means to allow us to concentrate on the ideas, once one gets the ideas, he forgets the images. Similarly, “the rabbit snare exists for the sake of the rabbit, once one gets the rabbit, he forgets the snare, and the fish trap exists for the sake of fish; once one gets the fish he forgets the trap.”7 If this is so, then the words are snares for the images, and the images are traps for the ideas. (Lynn 1999b: 86)

Wang’s observations concerning the intimate connections among ideas, images, and words had considerable influence on the later Chinese tradition, including the great sixth-century literary critic Liu Xie, whose thought is examined below. In a somewhat later text than the Sayings of Master Han Fei, the Tangwen湯 問 [Questions of Tang] section of the Liezi列子 [Sayings of Master Lie], another significant use of the term xiangxiang 想象 appears: 伯牙善鼓琴，鍾子期善聽。伯牙鼓琴，志在高山。鍾子期曰：善哉！峨 峨兮若泰山！志在流水。鍾子期曰：善哉！洋洋兮若江河！伯牙所念， 鍾子期必得之。伯牙游於泰山之陰，卒逢暴雨，止於巖下；心悲，乃援

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Imagination 琴而鼓之。初為霖雨之操，更造崩山之音。曲每奏，鍾子期輒窮其趣。 伯牙乃舍琴而歎曰：善哉，善哉，子之聽夫！志想象猶吾心也。吾於何 逃聲哉？ (Yang 1997: [5] 178) Bo Ya excelled at playing the zither, and Zhong Ziqi excelled at interpreting how he played. When Bo Ya played his zither, his mind on high mountains, Zhong Ziqi said, “How wonderful! Lofty, like Mount Tai!” And when his mind was on flowing waters, Zhong Ziqi said, “How wonderful! Vast, like the Yellow River and the Yangzi!” Whatever came into Bo Ya’ s thoughts, Zhong Ziqi was sure to grasp it. Once when roaming with Bo Ya on the North side of Mount Tai, they were caught in a sudden rain storm and so took shelter under a cliff. Feeling sad, Bo Ya took up his zither to play. At first he composed something about the hard driving rain, then made it sound like a mountain landslide. Whatever melody he played, Zhong Ziqi always grasped the thought behind it. Bo Ya finally put down his lute and sighed, “Excellent! Excellent! How well you listen! What you imagine is exactly what is on my mind. How can my notes manage to escape from you?”

It is difficult to date this passage; for the Liezi, although containing many preHan passages, as a compilation dates from the Western Han at the earliest. However, since a closely related passage is included in Lü Buwei 呂不韋 (235 BCE), Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 [Spring and autumn annals of Master Lü], it may date to the third century BCE (Chen 2002: [14] 744–745). The way xiangxiang functions here seems to be in the same category as the empathetic imagination that appears in the above Zhuangzi passage—the identification of one self with another. Moving now to the immediate post-Han era, a passage from Cao Zhi 曹植 (192–232) Luoshen fu 洛神賦 [Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess], which occurs toward the end of the piece, following some 150 lines of description of the poet’s vision of the goddess, provides yet another perspective on xiangxiang: 於是背下陵高 足往神留 遺情想像 顧望懷愁 冀靈體之複形 御輕舟而上溯 (Zhang et al. 1936: [19] 20b) Then I turn about and descend the hill heights, And though my feet go forth, My spirit would stay behind, Continuing to imagine [xiangxiang] her in lingering thought,

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As, looking back, my heart fills with sorrow. Hoping that her divine form would manifest itself again, I commandeer a light boat and go upstream.

So how do we regard Cao Zhi’s rhapsody? As an imaginative exercise in literary composition in the tradition of the Elegies of Chu or an account of a genuine vision that Cao actually had? The commentary tradition prefers the first possibility, for just as “Encountering Sorrow” and “Far Roaming” in the Elegies of Chu are usually read as analogies for the quest of the virtuous man for a worthy sovereign, so Cao Zhi’s work can be read as an analogy for his struggle to gain the affection and trust of his suspicious and distant older brother Cao Pi曹 丕 (187–226), the first emperor of the Wei dynasty during the Three Kingdoms era. Note also that Cao Zhi imagines the goddess as remembered from his vision described earlier in the work; we thus have again imagination tied to memory (real or not), just as in “remembering my old friends as I imagine them” in the “Far Roaming” piece. Turning now briefly to xiangxiang in post-Han classical verse, we find an occurrence in the second of two poems by Xi Kang 嵇康 (224–263) composed for his close friend, Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210–263), Ruan Derru da ershou 阮德如答 [In response to Ruan Deru], the first part of which is translated here: 雙美不易居 嘉㑹故難常 爰處憇斯土 與子遘蘭芳 常願永遊集 拊翼同廻翔 不悟卒永離 一别為異鄉 四牡一何速 征人告路長 顧歩懷想象 遊目屢太行 (Dai 1962: 70–71) It’s not easy for two fine fellows to get together, And our auspicious meeting could not possibly last long. Thus it was that I came to this place for rest, Where in you I met a worthy fragrant as orchids. My constant wish was always to keep company together Like two birds that share the same set of wings. But after all we knew not our parting should be so long, And once separated it would be in regions so apart. Though my four steeds now make uniform fast progress, This traveler must tell you my route will take long! Advancing I look behind and in mind I imagine you [xiangxiang] there, My eyes wander so after you I often fail to move on.

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The annotations provided by Dai Mingyang offer valuable information: The last couplet translated is modeled on lines in the Elegies of Chu presented above: “As the trace horses looked back and would not go on./Thinking of my old friends as I imagine them, oh,/I long heaved great sighs and concealed my tears.” Dai also rightly indicates that taihang太行 “greatly move on” is surely a long transmitted scribal error for buhang 不行 “fail to move on.” “In mind I imagine you there,” like the Elegies of Chu passage, suggests the intimate association of imagination with memory—one necessarily functions in terms of the other. With Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385–433) we encounter an example of creative imagination, in his Deng Jiangzhong guyu 登江中孤嶼 [Ascending solitary isle in the river] (only the second half presented here): 雲日相暉映 空水共澄鮮 表靈物莫賞 蘊真誰爲傳 想象崑山姿 緬邈區中緣 始信安期術 得盡養生年 (Lu 1979: 1162) As clouds and sun enhance one another’s gleam Sky and water augment each other’s clarity and zest. The numinous manifested here, no one appreciates, The pure truth gathered here, who tells about it? But it allows me to imagine how Mount Kunlun looks, Here far from the human world with its causal connections, And I start to have faith that the arts of Anqi Shall nourish to the full all my years of life.

Anqi Sheng is a legendary immortal, who supposedly reached the age of 1000 during the reign of Qin Shi Huangdi (221–210 BCE). The mythic “Mount Kunlun” was identified with Mount Sumeru, the cosmic center of the world and the marvelous paradisiacal abode of immortals. Note that the function of the magnificent scene before him serves as catalyst for Xie’s imagination—just as the bones of elephants allow Han Fei to imagine the living creature. But elephants once really existed in North China, so we have to ask if the imagination might work differently when conjuring up the mythic existence of Mount Kunlun— perhaps though ends differ, processes are the same. The Wenxin diaolong 文心彫龍 [The Literary Mind: Dragon Carvings] of Liu Xie 劉勰 (465–522), in Chapter 26, Shensi 神思 [Spirit Thought], offers perhaps the fullest description and analysis of imagination ever to occur in the early Chinese tradition:

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古人云。形在江海之上。 心存魏闕之下。 神思之謂也。 文之思也。 其 神遠矣。 故寂然凝慮。 思接千載。 悄焉動容。 視通萬里。 吟詠之間。 吐納珠玉之聲。 眉睫之前。 卷舒風雲之色。 其思理之致乎。 故思理為 妙。 神與物游。 神居胸臆。 而志氣統其關鍵。 物沿耳目。 而辭令管其 樞機。 樞機方通。 則物無隱貌。 關鍵將塞,則神有遯心。 An ancient once said, “Though my bodily form may be out on the vast river reaches, my mind stays below the palace gate towers of Wei.”8 This is what I mean by spirit thought. The thought associated with writing is such that its spirit indeed reaches far. With pondering concentrated in perfect calm, thought links a thousand ages, and in utter silence only a slight alteration of countenance sends vision across a myriad li. Whilst thus chanting or singing, emerge tones the quality of pearls and jades, while right before the eyelashes a scene of windblown clouds unrolls. Such is the ultimate power of reflective thought. Therefore, when reflective thought is at its most subtle, its spirit roams with things as one. Since spirit dwells within the breast, the will controls the bolt to its gate. As things find conduits in the ears and eyes, so language allows control of its pivot mechanism. When the pivot mechanism works smoothly, no aspect of things remains hidden, but as soon as the pivot mechanism gets stuck, spirit finds the mind withdraw.

The “Spirit Thought” chapter ends with a zan 贊 [appraisal] in which a reference to images is made: 神用象通。 情變所孕。 物以貌求。 心以理應。 (Yang 2000: [6] 369–370) Spirit operates by means of images and is nourished by sentient transformations. Things are sought by external appearances, and the mind resonates with them in terms of principles.

“Sentient transformations” translates qingbian 情變, an ambiguous term that demands analysis. The bian 變part presents no problem, for it obviously means “change” or “transformation.” However, 情qing has a wide range of meanings, which include “affection(s),” “conditions,” “emotions,” “innate character,” “predilection,” “prejudicial feelings,” “properties,” “innate tendencies,” and even “true state,” all of which can be found in early Chinese texts. These also appear in Buddhist texts, but qing in Buddhist expressions such as youqing 有情 “have consciousness” or “be sentient” suggest that Liu Xie, a serious Buddhist thinker as well as a secular literatus, might well have used qingbian with this dimension in mind. As such, qing here is likely to mean more than the emotions (qing) or the innate tendencies (qing) within literary development (forms of expression, generic and individual style, and so forth). Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively—subjective perceptual experience—which in the Western tradition is usually contrasted with the capacity for objective

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ratiocination, a distinction often blurred in the Chinese tradition, in which the mental response to things is generally conceived of as a matrix consisting of both. Complicating things further, qing can also refer to the modes of articulation in literary form—the verbalization of sentient experience. Two other passages in the Wenxin diaolong that contain the term qingbian cast more light on this issue. The first is found in Chapter 6, Mingshi 明詩 [Illuminating Poetry]: 故鋪觀列代。而情變之數可監。撮舉同異。而綱領之要可明矣。 (Yang 2000: [2] 265) Therefore, if one scrutinizes in turn the works of successive ages, it is possible to discern how often sentient transformations occurred. And if one singles out the singularities and differences involved, it is possible to illuminate their essential features.

The second is in Chapter 44, Zongshu 總術 “Summing up Techniques,” where after warning that a great endeavor will fail even if only one minor element is not right, Liu adds: 況文體多術。共相彌綸。一物攜貳。莫不解體。所以列在一篇。備總情 變。譬三十之輻。共成一轂。 (Yang 2000: [9] 530) This is even more true when it comes to the many techniques involved in literary form, which must all mesh together successfully, for if even one thing goes wrong, the form inevitably collapses. Therefore, the way I have listed them [literary forms] in this chapter provides a general account of all such sentient transformations—just as thirty spokes of a wheel converge at one hub.

Clearly, Liu Xie sees an intimate connection between different kinds of literary technique and changing sentient experience: as different modes of sentience develop, so linguistic/stylistic modes of literary expression change. All this, of course, seems predicated on the apparent assumption that the mind works in terms of word-imagery—fusions of linguistic and visual images. If so, it is likely that Liu was greatly influenced in this regard by Wang Bi, whose ideas-imageswords syllogism we examined briefly above. Returning to xiangxiang, now later during the Tang era, an example of its use similar to how Xie Lingyun used it appears in Ouyang Zhan’s 歐陽詹 (756–800), Ti Yanping Jiantan 題延平劍潭 [On Sword Tarn at Yanping]: 想象精靈欲見難 通津一去水漫漫

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空餘昔日凌霜色 長與澄潭生晝寒 (Peng彭定求 et al. 1979: v.11 [349] 3913) We might imagine the spirits but try to see them, how hard, Here, once past the ferry crossing where water stretches so far. Since longer than long ago their icy frost color For ages has joined with the clear tarn to make the days cold.

The “spirits” are two dragons transformed from a pair of magic swords dug up by Lei Huan 雷焕 in Fengcheng豐城 (in Jiangxi), who was appointed magistrate there by Zhang Hua 張華 (232–300). Lei gave one sword to Zhang and kept the other himself. After Zhang was executed, the whereabouts of his sword was unknown, and when Lei died, his sword went to his son Lei Hua 雷華, who while crossing by ferry at Yanping 延平 (in Fujian) accidentally dropped the sword into the water, where the other sword already lay hidden. Legend has it that the two swords then transformed into a pair of twisting, coiling, shining bright dragons (Fang et al. 1974: [36] 1075–1076). Such legends can, it is suggested, create mythic presence so intense that it allows imagination to create a visual sense where no physical perception is possible.

Conclusion Hundreds of occurrences, as in the above examples of classical verse, appear throughout the ages, but such poetry is consistently considered the product of the “real” experiences of the poets involved: both Xie Lingyun and Ouyang Zhan were describing their “real” reaction (or interaction) with the “real” scenes they themselves encountered. As such, they accord in both principle and practice with mainstream Chinese poetics that insist on the poet speaking in his own voice, that is, with authenticity of self: authentic personal expression, honest narrative representation, and reliable depiction of things actually “seen” (even if only in the mind’s eye). Justifiable also is the tradition of men writing in the voices of imagined women, as well as in the imagined voices of figures clearly identified as belonging to ages past or in walks of life obviously different from the poet’s own—so Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770) or Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846), for

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example, can speak with the voices of neglected palace ladies, abandoned wives, inn keepers, aged fathers of army conscripts, or illustrious generals of yesteryears. However, a serious problem arises when poets deliberately blur and even hide the distinction between their own authentic selves and the persona present in the poem, for here creative imagination is easily suspected of pretense and posing—the fabrication of inauthentic selves and the experience of fictional existence. The later mainstream tradition of Chinese poetics largely held a dim view of all this, and so, for example, often judged the mannered and highly inventive poetry, rife with often obscure personal symbolism, of such mid- and late-Tang poets as Li He李賀 (790–816), Wen Tingyun 溫庭筠 (812–870), and Li Shangyin李商隱 (813–858) as decadent manifestations of social, moral, and political decline—warning students of poetry away from them as entirely inappropriate models to emulate. Modern views of such poetry, of course, thanks to emancipation from the conventional straight-laced Confucian formula of “authentic” expression plus socially utilitarian function, instead greatly appreciate the very qualities that earlier mainstream traditional critics deplored. Such attitudes carried over to new genres of literature as they emerged and developed from the Song era through the Qing: ci 詞 (lyrics), sanqu 散曲 (dramatic lyrics), the dramatic forms zaju 雜劇 and chuanqi 傳奇, as well as short and long works of vernacular fiction (xiaoshuo 小説), all of which, now championed in the modern age as essential features of the canon of Chinese literature, were earlier largely marginalized by mainstream critics as inferior genres throughout traditional times. These new genres, of course, had their own champions in pre-modern times; these critics, when they felt the need to do so, justified interest in lyrics, dramatic lyrics, drama, and fiction by appealing to the same guidelines that the classical prose and poetry mainstream tradition used to marginalize and denigrate them as lacking: (1) they were “authentic” personal expressions of authors and playwrights, novelists, and short-story writers, and (2) they managed to achieve a degree of verisimilitude equivalent to or even better than accounts and portrayals in classical verse and prose—they could in effect be truer than the truth. All this deserves considerable and detailed treatment not possible here, but consider, for example, the observations of the iconoclast late Ming thinker and critic Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602) that dramas such as Xixiang ji 西廂記 [Story of the West Chamber] and novels such as Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 [Water Margin] were as great as the poetry of Du Fu or the historical writing of Sima Qian; or the fact that the nineteenth-century world of Chinese letters was obsessed with Hongxue 紅學 “Redology”—the study of the novel Honglou meng 紅樓夢 [Dream of the

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Red Chamber] by Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 (1715–1763), as many searched for “keys” that would supposedly identify the “real” people masked as fictional characters in the novel, or labored incessantly at relating episodes in the novel with what was known of Cao’s “real” life. With such critics, the age-old opposition of authenticity to fictionality was overcome, and, albeit on the margins of mainstream criticism, a kind of comprehensive unity came to the Chinese literary tradition—a unity that modern scholars and critics of Chinese literature often take for granted, often forgetting that such had not been so during the many earlier centuries.

Notes 1 All translations in this chapter are the author’s. 2 Cheng Xuanying 成玄英 (flourished c. 631–655): “The Hao is the name of a stream in Zhongli prefecture in the Huainan region. … Where rock cuts across water a liang [‘bridge’] is formed, but the text here may also refer to an actual bridge over the Hao River. … Fish move about in water, while birds perch on land; each complying with its inherent nature, they all enjoy spontaneous freedom. Master Zhuang was deft at understanding [da] how the innate character of creatures was as it was [wuqing suoyi], thus he knew the joy of fish” (Guo Qingfan 1894: [17] 606). The shu may be identified with the Hemiculter leucisculus, the common sharpbelly or sawbelly of East and Southeast Asia, adult average size about 30 cm./12 in. Although the consensus of modern lexicography has shu for the name of the fish, traditional commentators suggest other pronunciations. 3 Cheng Xuanying: “Failing to embody the inherent nature [buti wuxing] of other creatures, Hui Shi presumptuously [wang] challenged him: Master Zhuang, you are not a fish, so wherein can you know the joy of fish?” (Guo Qingfan 1894: [17] 607). 4 Cheng Xuanying: “If I cannot know what it is to be a fish because I am not a fish, since you are not me, wherein can you know what it is to be me? But if you are not me yet can still know what it is to be me, although I am not a fish, what prevents me from knowing what it is to be a fish? Master Zhuang turns Master Hui’s argument back on him, which allows him to refute his objection” (Guo Qingfan 1894: [17] 607). 5 An here is translated “wherein” instead of the more usual “how” because a deliberate pun on the word is involved that exploits the range of meanings of an: content, contentment, safe and secure, where, and wherein. “Wherein” can suggest both “how” and “where”: Master Zhuang deliberately (and mischievously) misconstrues Master Hui’s questioning so he has him asking “where do you know the joy of fish,” which leads to Master Zhuang’s concluding remark, “I knew it there above the Hao.”

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6 Wang Yi 王逸 (89–158) notes that some versions of the text has xiang 象 instead of xiang 像 in the compound xiangxiang. 7 Compare with “The trap exists for the fish, but once the fish is caught, one forgets the trap. The snare exists for the hare, but once the hare is caught, one forgets the snare. Words exist for the idea, but once the idea is had, one forgets the words. Where, oh, where can I find someone who will forget words so I may have a word with him?” (Guo Qingfan 1894: [26] 944). 8 The “ancient” is Zhuangzi (Master Zhuang); compare with Guo Qingfan (1894: [28] 979) 中山公子牟謂瞻子曰。身在江海之上。心居乎魏闕之下。柰何。瞻 子曰。重生。重生則利輕。“Mou, Prince of Zhongshan, asked of Master Chan: ‘Though my body may be out on the vast river reaches, my mind stays below the palace gate towers of Wei—what can I do about it?’ Master Chan replied: ‘Value life more, for if you value life more, worldly advantage will then become unimportant.’”

References Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷, ed. (2000), Hanfei zi xin jiaozhu韓非子新校注 [Sayings of Master Han Fei, collated and annotated]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe古籍出版社. Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷, ed. (2002), Lüshi chunqiu xin jiaoshi 呂氏春秋新校釋 [Spring and autumn annals of Master Lü, with collation and explication]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Dai Mingyang 戴明揚. (1962), Xi Kang ji jiaozhu嵇康集校注 [Literary collection of Xi Kang, collated and annotated]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. Fang Xuanling 方玄齡 et al., eds (1974), Jinshu 晉書 [History of the Jin]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, ed. (1894), Zhuangzi jishi莊子集釋 [Collected explanations of Zhuangzi]. In Xinbian zhuzi jicheng 新編諸子集成 [New edition of the grand compendium of the philosophers], 第一輯 (First Collection), 1997, edited by Wang Xiaoyu 王孝魚, 17: 606–607. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Lou Yulie 樓宇烈, ed. (1980), Wang Bi ji jiaoshi 王弼集校釋 [Critical edition of the works of Wang Bi, with explanatory notes]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Lu Qinli 逯欽立, ed. (1979), Xian Qin Han Wei Nanbei chao shi先秦漢魏晉南北朝詩 [Poetry of the pre-Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Lynn, Richard John, trans. (1995), “Commentary on the Appended Phrases (Xici zhuang 繫).” In The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching. New York: Columbia University Press. Lynn, Richard John, (1999a), “Explaining the Laozi,” Section 14. In Laozi, Jie Lao 解 老The Classic of the Way and Virtue, translated by R.J. Lynn. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Lynn, Richard John (1999b), “Wang Bi and Liu Xie’s Wenxin diaolong: Terms and Concepts, Influence and Affiliations Terms and Concepts, Influence and Affiliations.” In The Idea of Literary Culture: Contemporary Perspectives on Wenxin Diaolong, edited by Zongqi Cai 蔡宗齊. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Peng Dingqiu彭定求 et al., eds (1979), Quan Tang shi 全唐詩 (Complete poems of the Tang). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Wang Yi 王逸, ed. (1936), Chuci zhangju 楚辭章句 [Elegies of Chu]. In Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 [Collection from the four categories of literature], edited by Zhang Yuanji 張元濟et al., 5: 10b–11a. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan [Commercial Press]. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, ed. (1997), Liezi jishi 列子集釋. In Xinbian zhuzi jicheng 新編諸 子集成 [New edition of the grand compendium of the philosophers], 第一輯 (First Collection), edited by Wang Xiaoyu 王孝魚. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Yang Mingzhao 楊明照, ed. (2000), Zengding wenxin diaolong jiaozhu 增訂文心雕龍校 注 [Revised and expanded edition of the Wenxin diaolong, collated and annotated]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Zhang Yuanji 張元濟 et al., eds (1936), Liuchen zhu wenxuan 六臣注文選 [Commentaries by six officials to the selections of refined literature]. In Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 [Collection from the four categories of literature]. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan [Commercial Press].

2

Zhuangzi and Fantasy Literature Nicolas Le Jeune

The Zhuangzi is remarkable not only for its philosophical influence, but also for its distinctive writing style. It consists for the most part of a collection of tales and parables that generations of readers have praised for their poetry, humor, and overflowing imagination. In this collection of fables, historical characters are mixed with imaginary beings: giant creatures, sages with supernatural powers, monsters, and so forth. In particular, it is this presence of fantasy that distinguishes it from the rest of the philosophical literature of ancient China. As Chad Hansen writes, “Zhuangzi had a unique philosophical style. He wrote philosophical fantasy” (Hansen 2009: 265). Thus we think that to better understand the Zhuangzi, we need to study not only its philosophical content, but also its literary form, or in this case, its fantasy characteristics. The conclusion of this chapter will be that, not only can the Zhuangzi be read as a fantasy book, but that its fantasy has an essential philosophical function. In the first part of the chapter, we propose to use Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of fantasy literature as a basis for our study of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. Tzvetan Todorov defines fantasy as the confrontation of the familiar with the unreal, the mysterious, and the unknown. In the second part, we argue that this definition of fantasy, despite its limitations, corresponds to what fantasy is in the Zhuangzi. In the following two parts, we study the philosophical functions of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. First, fantasy in the Zhuangzi has a critical function in the sense that it confronts us with the limits of our familiar reality, of the world we know. Secondly, fantasy in the Zhuangzi has also a subversive function in the sense that by confronting us with the limit of our familiar representation of reality, it also confronts us with the limit of the values systems that accompany these common representations of reality.

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Fantasy literature Fantasy literature can be defined as “a genre of imaginative fiction” (English Oxford Dictionaries), “that describes situations that are very different from real life, usually involving magic” (Cambridge English Dictionary), and “set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world” (“Fantasy Literature” 2017). These definitions are rather imprecise and could include a large spectrum of very different kinds of stories. Now, if we look at the literary theorists who have tried to give a more precise definition of the genre, we see that: Fantasy literature has proven tremendously difficult to pin down. The major theorists in the field—Tzvetan Todorov, Rosemary Jackson, Kathryn Hume, W. R. Irwin and Colin Manlove—all agree that fantasy is about the construction of the impossible whereas science fiction may be about the unlikely, but is grounded in the scientifically possible. (James and Mendlesohn 2012: 1)

At least the important authors who wrote on fantasy literature seem to agree on one thing: its difference from another closely related genre, science fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are close because they are both characterized by the important presence of unreal elements. But they are different because, in science fiction, unreal elements are explained and made possible by the means of scientific discourse, whereas in fantasy literature, they are not explained and remain essentially and irreducibly impossible. For example, if someone explains to me that the brooms in Harry Potter (Rowling 2010) are in fact propelled by a high-tech micro turbo-jet, we are no longer in the world of fantasy, but in the universe of science fiction. Something remains magical as long as the way it works remains mysterious and unknown. This points to an essential characteristic of fantasy: the fantasy element is and remains fundamentally mysterious and unexplained. Fantasy is always a confrontation with the unknown. But “from there these critics quickly depart, each to generate definitions of fantasy which include the texts that they value and exclude most of what general readers think of as fantasy” (James and Mendlesohn 2012: 1). In their effort to give a more precise definition of fantasy literature, most of these authors tend to focus their studies on a limited group of texts, leaving by the wayside many stories that are commonly included in the genre of fantasy. This is clearly what happens, for example, to Tzvetan Todorov. His book, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, has been influential in the development of a theory

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of fantasy literature, and Lucie Armitt, in his introduction to fantasy literature, has called it “the classic text on the literary fantastic” (Armitt 2005: 195). But, as Brian Attebery points out, “the genre Todorov examines in this book is not what most English speakers call fantasy” (Attebery 2012: 89). Indeed, here is how Todorov describes a fantasy story: “In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know, a world without devils, sylphides, or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world” (Todorov 1975: 25). For him, a fantasy story takes place in our familiar world, in our reality, and therefore he excludes from the genre of fantasy all the stories that take place in an imaginary world. His definition is clearly problematic, as it excludes what most of today’s readers call fantasy, including the most famous current example of the genre, The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien 1965). Indeed, Todorov’s definition of fantasy corresponds better to a what is called “low fantasy,” which “has a primary-world setting”; whereas “high fantasy,” which for Todorov corresponds to the marvelous, includes any stories “set mainly in a secondary world” (Ekman 2013: 10). This is explained by the fact that Todorov focuses his research on authors such as Poe, Dostoevsky, or Maupassant, who wrote a form of fantasy that is set in our world. Todorov’s definition may be problematic for someone who would like to study fantasy in general. But in this chapter, which focuses on fantasy in the Zhuangzi, it is not a problem, because, as we will show, Todorov’s conception of fantasy corresponds very much to what is fantasy in the Zhuangzi. In the Zhuangzi, fantasy takes place in our reality. Indeed, the value of fantasy as it is conceived by Todorov and as it exists in the Zhuangzi is based on this confrontation between our familiar world and something fantastic, unreal, and unknown. Therefore, Todorov’s book will serve as a good basis for our study of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. Moreover, we will also use Rosemary Jackson’s book, Fantasy: Literature of Subversion, which will “extend Todorov’s investigation from being one limited to the poetics of the fantastic into one aware of the politics of the form” (Jackson 1981: 6).

Fantasy in the Zhuangzi The very first story of the Zhuangzi is about a fantastic giant bird named Peng. Everything in the description of this bird is made to give the impression that we are dealing with a truly fantastic, unreal creature. Peng was at first a “quite huge” fish named Kun. In fact, he was not simply “quite huge” but immeasurable,

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“spanning who knows how many thousands of miles” (Zhuangzi 2009: 3). He was swimming in the Northern depth, a mysterious place that does not refer to any real location, before suddenly transforming into Peng, a bird of similarly immeasurable size, and rising to the absurd height of 90,000 miles. Peng is not simply an extraordinarily big bird, but a totally unreal being that transgresses all the norms that delineate common notions of reality. In other words, it is an impossible creature, a fantasy creature. But then, it encounters “the cicada and the fledgling dove” that start to “laugh at him, saying ‘We scurry up into the air, leaping from the elm to the sandalwood tree, and when we don’t quite make it we just plummet to the ground. What’s all this about ascending ninety thousand miles and heading south?”’ (Zhuangzi 2009: 4). Although these creatures may have some fantasy characteristics, as they laugh and speak, nevertheless, in particular by contrast with Peng, they are common animals, real species that we could encounter in the real world. They are flying from branch to branch, near the ground, near us, and they have very down-to- earth preoccupations: “If you go out on a day trip, you can return with your belly still full. If you’re traveling a hundred miles, you’ll need to bring a day’s meal. And if you’re traveling a thousand miles, you’ll need to save up provisions for three months before you go” (Zhuangzi 2009: 4). The cicada and the little bird are normal and familiar beings with banal preoccupations confronted with an unreal and impossible creature, Peng. Yet, it is this confrontation of the normal and the familiar with the unreal and the impossible that defines fantasy for Todorov. And we argue that this confrontation is typical of the fantasy of the Zhuangzi. In the stories we study in this chapter, there is always this contrast and this confrontation between something real, familiar, and common, and something unreal and fantastic; and it is precisely this characteristic that grants its values to fantasy. Indeed, it is this confrontation that produces what constitutes for Todorov the essence of any fantasy story, namely, a form of hesitation. As he explains: The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions. Either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination—and the laws of the world then remain what they are. Or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality—but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us. (Todorov 1975: 25)

In the first alternative, we remain in our familiar reality. The event was strange but it can be explained by elements that obey the laws of our world. For example, this is what happens when the strange event is explained as the consequence of an

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illusion or a dream. We are here in a genre that Todorov calls the “uncanny.” On the other hand, when we are projected into another reality that obeys different laws, we are in the genre that Todorov calls the “marvelous.” For example, The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien 1965) belongs to this genre of literature. In this novel, the reader accepts the fact that the dragons and the elves are depicted as real, because he knows that the story is situated not in our reality, but in a world very different from ours. In both cases, there is no hesitation concerning the reality of the story. On the contrary, for Todorov, in a fantasy story, we are hesitant about the reality of what is told. As he says, “the fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. Once we choose one answer or the other, we leave the fantastic for a neighboring genre, the uncanny or the marvelous” (Todorov 1975: 25). Fantasy is characterized by this hesitation, this uncertainty, this doubt experienced by both reader and character: “The fantastic … lasts only as long as a certain hesitation: a certain hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceived derives from ‘reality’ as it exists in the common opinion” (Todorov 1975: 41). What defines fantasy for Todorov is this hesitation that is experienced by someone who sees something unreal appear in the midst of his familiar world. In the Zhuangzi, this hesitation is expressed in the first chapter, in which Jian Wu discusses with Lian Shu a story he has heard from a madman called Jieyu. The madman told Jian Wu the story of a “spirit-man” with “a skin like ice and snow” who “does not eat the five grains but rather feeds on the wind and dew” and “rides upon the air and clouds” (Zhuangzi 2009: 6). Just like Peng, this “spiritman” appears as a fantasy creature, as something unreal which does not obey the laws of our reality. The madman spoke about something totally different from the reality with which Jian Wu was familiar, something “as limitless as the Milky Way—vast and excessive” and “with no regard for the way people really are” (Zhuangzi 2009: 6). In others words, the madman told Jian Wu a fantasy story. Hearing this story, he says: “I regard this as crazy talk, which I refuse to believe.” But at the same time, he says that he “was shocked and terrified” (Zhuangzi 2009: 6). If he was totally convinced of the unreality of the madman’s story, he would not be shocked and terrified; therefore, this shock and terror show that he still hesitates, that he doubts the reality of this story. Fantasy stories call into question our representation of reality, make us doubt and hesitate, and this is also the case with many of the fantasy stories present in the Zhuangzi. Many of them have this characteristic which, for Todorov, defines fantasy. They provoke a hesitation that dislodges those who read or hear them from their familiar reality; and Zhuangzi uses fantasy precisely to shake common representations

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of reality. As Rosemary Jackson says about fantasy literature, “its introduction of the ‘unreal’ is set against the category of the ‘real’—a category which the fantastic interrogates by its difference” (Jackson 1981: 4). Again, this story remains a fantasy story as long as Jian Wu hesitates, and as we saw, this hesitation can end in two different ways. On the one hand, he could eventually consider that Jieyu is really crazy and decide to not believe what he says; therefore, we would be in the genre of the uncanny. On the other hand, he could eventually believe what Jieyu said; therefore we would enter the world of the marvelous and the myth. But in this story, we clearly see that Jian Wu hesitates. As Todorov points out: “Either total faith or total incredulity would lead us beyond the fantastic. It is hesitation which sustains its life” (Todorov 1975: 31). And Lian Shu, when he answers Jian Wu, does not try to resolve his hesitation. He does not tell him if the madman’s story is real or not. On the contrary, he leaves him in his hesitation, explaining that his reaction is normal, that “it is as it should be” (Zhuangzi 2009: 6). The hesitation continues and we remain in fantasy. The way that these kinds of stories are written in the Zhuangzi does not allow the character or the reader to make conclusions about the reality or the unreality of what is told. The notion of reality is questioned, but no answer is provided and doubt remains. Of course, someone could argue that a reader of today would not really hesitate about the reality of such a story. But as Todorov indicates, when we talk about the reader here, we are not talking about the actual reader of the text, but about the implied reader. As he says, “it must be noted that we have in mind no actual reader, but the role of the reader implicit in the text (just as the narrator’s function is implicit in the text). The perception of this implicit reader is given in the text, with the same precision as the movements of the characters” (Todorov 1975: 31). This means that fantasy stories are written in such a way that, based on the text, it is impossible to decide if what is present is presented as real or not. Indeed, we argue that this is also what happens in the fantasy stories of the Zhuangzi.

The critical function of fantasy In fact, when Lian Wu responds to the hesitation of Jian Wu, instead of expressing an opinion on the reality of the story of the madman, an opinion that would have put an end to the fantasy, Lian Wu starts to talk about the limits of knowledge. He explains:

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The blind have no access to the beauty of visual patterns, and the deaf have no part in the sounds of bells and drums. It is not only the physical body that can be blind and deaf; the faculty of understanding can also be so. If you were then to “agree” with his words, you would be acting like a virgin girl who has just reached her time. (Zhuangzi 2009: 6)

This brings us to an important function of fantasy literature, its critical function. As Rosemary Jackson says: “Themes of the fantastic in literature revolve around this problem of making visible the un-seen, of articulating the un-said” (Jackson 1981: 48). In presenting “that which cannot be, but is, fantasy exposes a culture’s definitions of that which can be: it traces the limits of its epistemological and ontological frame” (Jackson 1981: 23). In other words, by confronting us with the impossible, with that which cannot be, but is, with the unknown, fantasy reveals at the same the limit of what we consider possible, which is at the same time the limit of our familiar world, the world we know. Yet, as Ziporyn says, “Zhuangzi claims that the way we see things, the way we consciously know, is itself determined by our perspective, our mood” (Ziporyn 2017). To understand this, we can have a look at another story of the Zhuangzi. In this story, there is a frog in a well. The frog is really happy to live in the well and she is enjoying herself there. This is all she knows. This is her reality. Now a turtle comes and starts to talk to the frog about the sea (Zhuangzi 2009: 74–75). The turtle has another notion of reality; the world she knows is different. When the frog hears the story of the turtle, she has a reaction similar to that of Jian Wu when he heard the story of the madman: she is shocked and astonished. Indeed, turtle’s story has the same effect on her as a fantasy story: confronted with something that appears unreal, she is now doubting her notion of reality. Of course, from a human perspective, the story told by the turtle does not appear fantastic. A human would tend to think that the frog is simply narrowminded and that she could expand her knowledge simply by going out of the well to see the ocean. But, if she does this, does it mean that it would completely suppress her ignorance? No, because there will still be something that she does not know. Indeed, even if she adopts the perspective of the turtle, there will still be something that she does not know because even the turtle who lives in the ocean has a limited perspective of reality. In fact, at the end of the day, large or small (and these terms are only relative for Zhuangzi), all knowledge has a limited perspective on reality. In other words, we are all like the frog in the well: we all have limited knowledge because the world we know is always only a limited perspective on reality. Therefore, there is always something that we ignore. The

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aim of Zhuangzi in these stories is not to say that there is a superior reality or a superior knowledge that we should try to reach. These stories aim to confront us with the fact that all knowledge has a limited perspective and that there is always something that we don’t know. Indeed, the essential task of fantasy literature is not to expand our knowledge, simply because fantasy talks about things that are by definition impossible, things that are by definition unknowable. The essential role of fantasy is rather to confront us with the limits of our knowledge. This confrontation reminds us of the very existence of these limits. Moreover, what is important in a fantasy story is the way the character and the reader react to this confrontation with the impossible and the unknown. In particular, their reactions will indicate what kind of attitude they adopt toward what they know and don’t know. We see that at the end of the story, the frog in the well did not really expand her knowledge. She still does not know the ocean itself, she has only heard about it. The only thing that has really changed is the fact that she is now putting into question her understanding of reality. She has experienced the limitation of her perspective, and she is now really seeing the wall of her well. This is the same for Jian Wu. The story of the madman confronts Jian Wu with the limits of his knowledge, with something that he does not, and actually cannot, understand. Like the frog, he is confronted with the limit of the world he knows, and through this experience, he becomes aware of the limitation of his knowledge. The value of fantasy comes from this experience of limits which allow us to see different kinds of reactions to the appearance of the unknown. Through this experience Jian Wu and the frog change their attitudes towards what they know and don’t know. Zhuangzi uses fantasy as a critical tool that reminds us of the irreducible limitation of our knowledge. Nevertheless, fantasy does not try to resolve ignorance. Fantasy is an experience of our ignorance, and what is interesting in fantasy stories is the way different individuals react to this experience of limits. Now, if we go back to the story of Peng we see that this story is also about the limitation of knowledge. Just after the story, the narrator asks about the cicada and the fledgling dove: “What do these two little creatures know? A small consciousness cannot keep up with a vast consciousness” (Zhuangzi 2009: 4). These two little creatures have a small kind of knowledge simply in the sense that they have a smaller perspective on reality, they fly from branch to branch, near the ground. On the contrary, Peng has vast knowledge because he is flying high and for a long distance. But we should not understand small and vast here as inferior and superior. As Guo Xiang comments about this story:

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Though some are larger and some are smaller, every being without exception is released into the range of its own spontaneous attainments, so that each being relies on its own innate character, each deed exactly matching its own capabilities. Since each fits perfectly into precisely the position it occupies, all are equally far-reaching and unfettered. How could any one be superior to any other? (Zhuangzi 2009: 285)

Small and vast refer only to the fact that the small flying creatures and Peng have different knowledge, that is to say, different perspectives on reality. At the end of the day, as we have said, all knowledge is limited, even Peng’s knowledge. Peng and the little flying creatures are also in a sense, like the frog, in a (more or less large) well. In this fantasy story, what is interesting is again the reaction of these little flying creatures that represent our familiar world, when they are confronted with the fantastic Peng. Indeed, their reaction is surprising: they laugh at Peng and find his behavior totally absurd. Their reaction is surprising because we might have expected that they would react more like Jian Wu or the frog. These little creatures should be shocked and amazed by what they see. They are confronted with something that is impossible, and yet they do not express any kind of surprise or hesitation about what they see. Peng is indeed a fantastic creature, but they do not see him as a fantastic creature. They just see him as a bird who behaves absurdly. This reaction teaches us something about these little creatures: the fact that they are not aware of the fantastic characteristic of Peng shows us that they are not aware of their own ignorance. Contrary to Jian Wu and the frog, who, confronted with the fantastic, become aware of the limitation of their knowledge, these little creatures remain ignorant of their own ignorance. They still do not see the wall of the well in which they live. Instead, they project their knowledge, their own perspective, onto reality, onto the fantastic Peng. They do not understand that Peng lives in a different reality with different norms and values. They judge him from their own representation of reality, from their own norms and values. What the confrontation with the fantastic shows us here is the pretentiousness and the pedantry of these small creatures who are so enclosed in their own knowledge and system of values that they are unable to understand that they cannot understand Peng, the fantastic bird. Yet, these little creatures, as we will see in the next part, are actually the representatives of a certain social elite criticized in the Zhuangzi. This aspect of the story brings us to another important function of fantasy literature: its subversive function.

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The subversive function of fantasy The subversive function of fantasy literature is developed by Rosemary Jackson, who is particularly interested in the fact that “like any other text, a literary fantasy is produced within, and determined by, its social context” (Jackson 1981: 3). To understand a genre of literature, Jackson believes it is important to understand its relation to the social context in which it exists. In the case of fantasy, she characterizes this relation as subversive. We have already explained how “a fantasy is a story based on and controlled by an overt violation of what is generally accepted as possibility” (Irwin 1976: 9). This is the source of its critical function. But as she also explains, “such violation of dominant assumptions threatens to subvert (overturn, upset, undermine) rules and conventions taken to be normative” (Jackson 1981: 14). In other words, fantasy, by questioning our representation of reality, questions at the same time the norms and the values that go with this representation of reality. As Jackson says: “Fantasy literature points to or suggests the basis upon which cultural order rests, for it opens up, for a brief moment, on to disorder, on to illegality, on to that which lies outside the law, that which is outside dominant values systems” (Jackson 1981: 4). By “presenting that which cannot be, but is” (Jackson 1981: 23), fantasy not only questions the common understanding of what is or is not, but also questions common and dominant conceptions of what should or should not be. In the opening story of the Zhuangzi, the cicada and the fledgling dove are not only representative of the common understanding of reality, but also representative of a dominant value system, the value system of those “whose understanding is sufficient to fill some one post, whose deeds meet the needs of some one village, or whose Virtuosity pleases some one ruler, thus winning him a country to preside over.” An individual with such a value system “sees himself in just the same way” (Zhuangzi 2009: 5) as the little flying creatures who laugh at the fantastic Peng. In fact, this individual is represented as a successful member of the elite of scholar-officials who exerted a tremendous influence on Chinese society throughout history. Indeed, this individual could serve as a perfect model for the intellectual of ancient China, who generally strived to transform his knowledge into political influence. Moreover, he could serve as a model for Confucius himself, who spent a large portion of his life traveling in many different states in the hope that his knowledge and virtue would be rewarded by a position in a government. This understanding of the role of the intellectual corresponds to a dominant value system that the opening story of Zhuangzi tries to subvert. But the fact that Zhuangzi wants to subvert this dominant value system does not mean that he wants to replace this value system with another. In fact, there

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is nothing bad in itself about having political ambition, just as there is nothing bad about the cicada and the fledgling dove valuing their way of life. But based on this, these individuals construct a model of the good life and, because it is a model shared by many of their companions, they start to see this model of the good life, in particular, as the universal model of the good life. Therefore, they become enclosed in a form of social conformism that makes them project this dominant value system onto a fantastic creature that does not belong to their familiar world. This shows that these individuals adopt the dominant value system uncritically, and morally judge others based solely on this value system without understanding them. To show this, Zhuangzi uses fantasy. Common individuals who represent a common understanding of reality and who follow the dominant value systems are confronted with fantasy creatures that do not obey the laws of their familiar reality and therefore do not share the same value system. The aim of this confrontation is not to argue that the value system of the fantastic creature is better. Subversion here is not about substituting one value system with another, not any more than the critical function of fantasy is about substituting a certain conception of reality with another. The role of fantasy here is to show how people react when they are confronted by a creature that obeys different values. Then, the way they react will indicate what kind of attitude they have toward their own values. The story of Peng and the cicada and the fledgling dove shows the profound social conformism of those who judge before understanding. Beyond that, the goal is to challenge the hegemony of a dominant value system in society. As Jackson says: “Fantasy is preoccupied with limits, with limiting categories, and with their projected dissolution. It subverts dominant philosophical assumptions which uphold as ‘reality’ a coherent, single-viewed entity, that narrow vision which Bakhtin [philosopher and literary critic, 1895–1975] termed ‘monological’” (Jackson 1981: 48). With its fantasy creatures, the Zhuangzi subverts the philosophical assumptions of a certain elite that tries to impose a monological worldview which corresponds only to their own notion of reality and values.

Monsters Another kind of fantasy creature present in the Zhuangzi summarizes both the critical and the subversive function of fantasy: the monster. The figure of the monster is common in fantasy literature. Indeed, this figure corresponds well to Todorov and Jackson’s conception of fantasy because of its position between reality and irreality. It corresponds to the idea that “fantasy is

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not to do with inventing another non-human world: it is not transcendental. It has to do with inverting elements of this world, re-combining its constitutive features in new relations to produce something strange, unfamiliar and apparently ‘new,’ absolutely ‘other’ and different” (Jackson 1981: 8). This resonates well with the following description of a monster that can be found in the Zhuangzi: “Now Shu the Discombobulated was like this: his chin was tucked into his navel, his shoulders towered over the crown of his head, his ponytail pointed toward the sky, his five internal organs were at the top of him, his thigh bones took the place of his ribs” (Zhuangzi 2009: 31). A monster is essentially an abnormal combination of normal parts of the body. Shu has a chin, shoulders, head, ponytail, five organs, bones, and ribs. But these parts of the body are organized in an abnormal way. Moreover, real “monsters” exist in reality. As Allinson says about the monster in the Zhuangzi: The monster is a fantasy visual image which is one step closer to life than the fantasy visual image of myth. With the monster, one need not rely upon a literary tradition. One may utilize people that surround oneself in daily life: the hunchback, the cripple, the blind man and other deviations from and distortions of what is generally held up to be the standard or the norm to admire. (Allinson 1989: 54)

The monster is something unreal because of its abnormality, yet at the same time something that humans associate with existent individuals in our world: the hunchback, the cripple, the blind man. In other words, as Allison says, “with the monster, fiction and reality merge” (Allinson 1989: 54) and therefore the monster corresponds exactly to the conception of the fantastic creature we developed from the work of Todorov and Jackson. The monster is a transgression of norms. The first norm that he transgresses is simply physical. We construct an idea, a norm of what it is to have the physical form of a human. The monster is the one who transgresses this norm, whose physical form transgresses the norms of the human physical form. However, the abnormalities of his physical form have further consequences. The monster is generally considered ugly. Moreover, the monster can be perceived as scary. Alternatively, his monstrosity can be perceived as a disability. In other words, the monster usually produces such negative feelings as disgust, fear, or pity. Finally, monstrosity is also often associated with immorality. The monster is someone who is doing monstrous things, things that completely transgress the moral values of the majority.

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Monster Shu, however, appears very different: “With his sewing and washing, he could make enough to fill his mouth. By pounding the divining sticks and exuding an aura of mystic power he could in fact make enough to feed ten men” (Zhuangzi 2009: 31). Shu does not appear disabled, as he can feed himself by working. He does not appear scary, as he is “exuding an aura of mystic power” (Zhuangzi 2009: 31). Furthermore, he is not dangerous at all, but actually benevolent to other humans, as “he could make enough to feed ten men” (Zhuangzi 2009: 31). Shu appears as a “good” monster, monstrous because of his physical form, but nevertheless well-integrated in the human world. Moreover, his virtuosity is actually not at all insufficient; as Zhuangzi says: “A discombobulated physical form was sufficient to allow him to nourish his body, so he was able to live out his natural life span” (Zhuangzi 2009: 31). So the virtuosity of Shu appears complete, not at all “discombobulated” in itself. It is only discombobulated as viewed from the society. Here, the monster serves to reveal by contrast the limitation of a common representation of a “good” human, which tends to associate moral virtue with a certain physical appearance. It is a story of a good monster similar, for example, to the story of Shrek! (Steig 2016) and an illustration of the proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover.” But beyond that, the monster has a more precise subversive function. As Philip J. Ivanhoe says in his book on Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: There is an important contrast between Mengzi’s [Mencius’s] ideal of moral and physical perfection and the ideal described by Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi’s exemplars do not follow a set of conventional virtues or accept conventional standards of physical beauty. They reject the Confucian standards of a fully developed and intact physical body along with its related taboo against bodily mutilation or natural deformation. Zhuangzi’s exemplars often are the lowly, the deformed, the ugly, criminals who have lost limbs or been otherwise mutilated by punishment, and yet these very people have perfected their personal “virtue.” (Ivanhoe 2002: 187–188)

With his story of monsters, Zhuangzi criticizes this attempt to impose a unique model of the good man, the model of the Junzi or the “gentleman,” promoted by the Confucian. The idea for Zhuangzi here is to give a space to different expressions of fitness, goodness, beauty, and virtue that do not correspond to this dominant model. At the end of the day, the goal is to show how these “monstrous” individuals are considered monstrous only because a majority of

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the society imposes on them a predetermined conception of fitness, goodness, and beauty based on this dominant model of the good man.

Conclusion As Todorov says, “the fantastic represents an experience of limits” (Todorov 1975: 93). By introducing the impossible and the inexplicable in our familiar world, it confronts us with the limits of our representation of reality and with the limits of the value system that goes with it. In fantasy, these limits are impassable, as the fantasy element is by essence unknowable. Therefore, fantasy literature does not have the ambition to expand the limits of our knowledge. On the contrary, fantasy literature confronts us with things that we do not and cannot understand. Therefore, it is a confrontation with our ignorance, and what is important in fantasy is to see how the character and reader react to this encounter with the unknown. I argue that this is also the function of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. What is interesting in these stories of the giant bird, flying sages, and monsters is to see how different individuals react when they are confronted with something unreal that they cannot understand. When Jian Wu heard the story of the madman Jieyu, he was shocked and terrified. This reaction shows a change of attitude: he is now aware of the limitation of his knowledge. This is what we have called the critical function of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. When the cicada and the fledgling dove encountered the fantastic bird, they laughed. This reaction shows how a group of individuals are enclosed in a form of social conformism and blindly project their own value systems on a being that they do not even understand. In this story, this group of individuals is associated with a certain class of Chinese society, the scholar-official, which corresponds to a dominant model for the intellectual of that time. In the Zhuangzi, fantasy is used to show the pretentiousness and pedantry of this class of individuals, who, like the little creatures, are not aware of the inherent limitations of their worldviews. This is what we have called the subversive function of fantasy in the Zhuangzi. In the last part, we have presented the fantastic figure of the monster, which is used both for its critical and subversive function. He is used to criticize the common conception of fitness, goodness, and beauty as well as for providing a specific criticism of the dominant model of the gentlemen, the junzi, promoted by the Confucians.

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References Allinson, R. E. (1989), Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation: An Analysis of the Inner Chapters. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Armitt, L. (2005), Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction. New York: Continuum. Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from http://dictionary. cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fantasy Attebery, B. (2012), “Structuralism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, edited by E. James and F. Mendlesohn, 81–89. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Ekman, S. (2013), Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. English Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https:// en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fantasy “Fantasy Literature.” (2017, August 25). Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_literature Hansen, C. (2009), A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press. Ivanhoe, P. J. (2002), Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. The Thought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Irwin, W. R. (1976), Game of Impossible: The Rhetoric of Fantasy. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Jackson, R. (1981), Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London and New York: Methuen. James, E. and F. Mendlesohn (2012), “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, edited by E. James and F. Mendlesohn, 1–4. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Rowling, J. K. (2010), Harry Potter. London: Bloomsbury. Steig, W. (2016), Shrek! Milano: Rizzoli. Todorov, T. (1975), The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Translated by R. Howard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Tolkien, J. R. (1965), The Lord of the Rings. New York: Ballantine Books. Zhuangzi (2009), Zhuangzi, the Essential Writing. Translated by B. Ziporyn. Indianapolis, IN and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Ziporyn, B. (2017), “Zhuangzi as a Philosopher.” Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https://www.hackettpublishing.com/zhuangziphil

3

Visual Zen: The Role of Imagination in Shaping a Zen Aesthetics Rudi Capra

The notion of imagination played an important role in the history of Japanese Zen. Thanks to their imaginative talent, Zen masters were able to teach their students employing a wide array of pedagogical means, thus complying with the traditional principle that the Buddha’s teachings need to be adapted in relation to one’s education, capacities, intellect, and disposition. In particular, this chapter focuses on specific figurative artworks, painted by Rinzai Zen monks, which express doctrinal concepts and notions through a visual medium. The rich history of the Rinzai’s visual culture is well known, and it has been the object of scholarly studies (Hisamatsu 1971; Levine 2006). My thesis is that the faculty of imagination played a significant role in shaping an aesthetics capable of expressing the complex worldview offered by Zen Buddhism. In order to show the significant weight of this notion in shaping what I called a “Zen aesthetics,” I will follow three steps. In the first place, the notion of “imagination” will be analyzed and defined. Then I will briefly expound on the analogies between the pedagogical strategies employed by Zen masters and the faculty of imagination. Finally, I will comment on specific artworks executed by Zen masters with reference to the faculty of imagination and the world of Zen.

In search of imagination “Imagination” is a problematic term. Indeed, the act of imagining involves some sort of mental representation that is nonetheless different from other mental states such as believing, remembering, supposing, or theorizing.

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Although the philosophical discussion of imagination dates back to Aristotle, there is still no univocal definition for this notion.1 In his influential article Imagination and Perception, a succinct but significant milestone for all modern studies on imagination, Peter Strawson writes: The uses, and applications, of the terms “image”, “imagine”, “imagination”, and so forth make up a very diverse and scattered family. Even this image of a family seems too definite. It would be a matter of more than difficulty to identify and list the family’s members, let alone their relations of parenthood and cousinhood. (Strawson 1970: 31)

Due to the wide range of meanings and ideas traditionally associated with the term “imagination” (Stevenson lists “Twelve Conceptions of Imaginations” in a 2003 article that appeared in the British Journal of Aesthetics), it is necessary to specify what kind of imagination is intended here in order to proceed with the present analysis. Strawson himself delineates three areas or semantic groups that are traditionally associated with the idea of imagination. First is the case in which imagination is linked with the idea of “image” and “image” is understood as a mental image; it corresponds, roughly, to the idea of a mental representation. Secondly, imagination is associated with invention, production, and with the alleged notions of originality, creativity, and so forth; therefore, in this case imagination goes beyond the sphere of mental or intellectual representation and assumes a practical connotation. In the third and last place, according to Strawson’s analysis, imagination is connected with false belief, delusion, illusion, and/or disenchantment, for instance, in the case of an optical illusion or whenever a specific thing is mistaken for something else (such as a rope for a snake). In relation to the present inquiry, the third point listed by Strawson is not relevant. Instead, the first two points are both significant for the sake of defining the notion of imagination. On the one hand, this term refers to the faculty of forming mental representations, mental images of real things or events (a “reproductive” or mimetic function). On the other hand, it refers to the ability to generate mental images by combining and constructing a fictional reality (a “productive” or poietic function). In this chapter, “imagination” coincides with this peculiar dialectics between mimesis and poiesis, imitation and production, or rather between creative reelaboration of conventional elements.

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The fundamental connection between creativity and imagination was also addressed by Kant in his Critique of Judgment. According to Kant, the artist is a creative genius who creates by means of the free play of imagination and understanding. Imagination is then a conditio sine qua non of creativity. It does not operate alone though, but through an interaction with the complementary faculty of understanding (Kant 2007: §22–24). More recently, Currie and Ravenscroft (2002) argued that among the main types of imagination there is what they called “creative imagination,” that is, the act of combining conventional ideas in unexpected and unconventional ways. For instance, a cubist portrait by Picasso is based on the imitation of a human face and its recombination through creative unconventional patterns. This formulation perfectly defines the dialectics of mimesis and poiesis that lies at the core of the process of imagination. In this case, the faculty of imagination does not involve a creation ex nihilo, but rather an original re-elaboration of apprehended ideas. This same process in the past allowed the compilation of fantastic bestiaries, in which unreal creatures were described as if possessing the characteristics of common animals, such as the chimera, a hybrid of snake, goat, and lion. Therefore, in relation to the present topic I would like to propose the following definition: imagination is a faculty that allows for the representation of conventional elements, either symbolic, visual, or conceptual, in unexpected and unconventional ways. The proposed definition thus reflects two of the three interpretations of imagination listed by Strawson, including the process of mimesis/poiesis through which conventional elements are assumed, altered, and then re-presented creatively. As will be shown in the next section, the ability to transmit conventional teachings in unconventional ways often marks the difference between a talented master and a clumsy one. This is especially true if the teachings, as often occurred in the history of the Rinzai School, take advantage of a visual medium.

Conventional message, unconventional means To begin with, Buddhism (like other religions) is concerned with the management of a textual and ritual heritage that constitutes an ideal supplément for the death of the founder.2 This textual and ritual heritage allows the disciples to recover the original message of the founder.

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However, in Buddhism there is no message to recover. In fact, the disciples strive to replicate the experience of the Buddha, the “awakening” to a different existential dimension. The experience of kensho 見性 (seeing one’s true nature) is the final (yet not definitive) goal of the Buddhist path.3 Therefore, all pedagogical means are ideally subordinated to the realization of that experience. This is why the Buddha stated: “In my fortynine years of teaching I did not preach even one word” (Sekida 1977: 384). This position is reiterated by Rinzai, who writes: “As for myself, I haven’t a single dharma to give to people. All I can do is to cure illnesses and untie bonds” (Linji 2009: 238). Rather than transmitting notions and explaining concepts, a skilled master is required to bring the student toward a spontaneous maturation, as a skilled farmer is required to accompany and favor the growth of plants and trees without forcing them, knowing by experience and intuition the proper moment for seeding, pruning, and picking. Since the diversity of lived experiences, languages, and personal capacities precludes the reduction of the Buddha’s teachings to a univocal formulation, and yet those teachings must be accessible to anyone, it is only natural that all branches of Buddhism, including Zen, gradually developed a wide “hierarchy of means and ends necessary to relate the dharma to a variety of people and yet to maintain the belief in one ultimate goal and one ultimate meaning of the dharma” (Bond 1993: 34). This wide array of pedagogical means is directed toward a single goal, that is recovering a direct, non-mediated view of reality as the very present suchness (真如 shinnyo), cutting off the natural course of ordinary consciousness (識 shiki), which is the source of delusive thinking and noxious attachments.4 On a practical level, it means that Zen students will be repeatedly frustrated by means of an extensive recourse to various forms of incongruity: nonsequiturs, odd behaviors, unexpected gestures, replies or silences, even blows, and other types of performances. This method causes the deconstruction of acquired cognitive patterns, and consequently keeps the mind agile and elastic, preventing the risks of delusive thinking, emotional or psychological attachment, and reification.5 In this sense, the strange words and extraordinary actions typical of Zen are nothing but unconventional means employed to present a conventional message. The use of unconventional means in fact preserves the freshness of the pedagogical process, preventing students from flattening their learning capacities through passive routines and thoughtless mnemonic effort.

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But gradually, even the most unconventional gestures, such as shouts or stick blows, became conventional forms of a typical Zen lore. Zen literature abounds with ritual encounters between master and students known as “Dharma battles” (issatsu 一拶), in which blows, shouts, and other gestures assume a ritual and symbolic function (Preston 1998). Once more, a talented master is required to bring the student’s attention out of the track of conventional learning through the aid of original unconventional means. It is precisely in this respect that the faculty of imagination plays an essential role in the context of Zen pedagogy. As imagination was defined as a “faculty which allows for the representation of conventional elements, either symbolic, visual or conceptual, in unexpected and unconventional ways,” an imaginative knack allows a Zen master to teach in a creative and innovative fashion, resulting in unconventional pedagogical means that reduce the risk of conceptual reification and delusive thinking. Therefore, it is not excessive to claim that the faculty of imagination, as previously described, is fundamentally consonant with the ordinary trend of Zen pedagogy. In fact, as a gifted master relies on unconventional means to present and re-present a conventional message, imagination is exactly the kind of faculty that allows and favors the re-elaboration of familiar elements into fresh and original patterns. This is particularly evident in the case of figurative artworks. The centuries-old history of the Rinzai School offers an immense profusion of visual artifacts, a great number of which constitute iconic representations of specific ideas, notions, or figures. In the next section, two of these subjects will be analyzed in relation to the topic of imagination, to show how the imaginative talent of the authors favored the transmission of conventional teachings in unconventional fashions, complying with the typical structure of Zen pedagogy and shaping thus a genuine aesthetics of Zen.

Imagination and Zen art: Unconventional subjects The Rinzai School is well known for the abundant production of artworks and paintings. Presumably, this tendency began in the Kamakura period (1185–1333), at the time when the renowned Six Persimmons by Mokkei 牧谿 (1210–69?) was imported from China to Kyoto where it was revered and jealously guarded in the temple of Daitoku-ji 大徳寺, together with other magnificent paintings.

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This peculiar “creative” or “productive” dimension of Rinzai spirit traditionally distinguishes this branch from the likewise influential Sōtō School, which was more inclined to emphasize the centrality of sitting meditation. Whereas the latter apparently favors a “more contemplative” approach, the Rinzai School, since its early origins, promoted the use of unconventional skilled means to facilitate the pedagogical process.6 In this regard, it is natural that even figurative artworks could be employed as unconventional teachings, to remind students of peculiar characters or tales, or to convey specific meanings, such as portraits of holy figures, legends, episodes taken from the scriptures, icons, and others. To define the role of imagination in shaping an aesthetics of Zen, I intend to show how conventional pictorial elements were rendered in unexpected and unconventional ways. In particular, a painting can be unconventional in relation to two components: either the subject or the style (or both). The first painting to be considered in this chapter portrays an unconventional subject; the second expresses an unconventional style. The first image is a colored ink painting by Hakuin Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 (1686–1768), known as Ofuku’s Moxibustion (Figure 3.1). The subject represents an old man whose buttock affliction is being healed by an old lady who is applying moxa on the wound.7 The man wears a jacket with the character 金 (money) inscribed; the lady wears a multi-colored robe decorated with the character 壽 (long-life). The inscription on the left part of the composition reads: “It seems he has haemorrhoids—So I give him a touch of fire.” Although the subject is indeed trivial, there seems to be an important message lurking beneath the surface. It is a common belief, for Zen practitioners, that a prolonged time of meditation may cause hemorrhoids. And moxibustion hurts, but it also gives immediate relief. Therefore, the scene may be a visual metaphor to describe the process of learning Zen, in which zealous and diligent practice is the necessary and yet not sufficient condition to experience the “awakening”; in fact, with awakening one gets immediate relief from all psychological constraints—for instance, from the concerns about money or death. Thus, the act of “giving a touch of fire” would correspond to the moment of awakening, when all defilements and discriminations are transcended in the radiant light of the perfection of wisdom. Perhaps it is not by chance that the Chinese master Zhongfeng Mingben 中峰明本 (1263–1323), a greatly influential exponent of the Rinzai School, compared this experience to “a great fire that consumes all who come near it” (Mingben 2005: 13).

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Figure 3.1  Hakuin Ekaku, Ofuku’s Moxibustion (detail), ink and colors on paper, 55.7 × 64 cm, Eisei Bunko Foundation.

Furthermore, the triviality of the scene, which would normally be almost obscene and unpleasant to watch, recalls the well-known advice of Jōshū to his student, “wash your bowl.”8 In other words, it means that there is not any condition or activity that prevents one from walking on the path of Zen. Hakuin’s painting shows that an unconventional subject, such as a lady applying moxa on hemorrhoids, can nonetheless be employed to convey articulate meanings which belong to a shared heritage of conventional notions and values, revealing thus the great imaginative talent of the author.

Imagination and Zen art: Unconventional style However, the role of imagination is not necessarily limited to the subject of a painting; it can likewise mark a significant change in relation to the style of a traditional pictorial representation. This is the case in the Daruma painted by Nakahara Nantenbō 中原南天棒 (1839–1925) (Figure 3.2).

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Figure 3.2  Nakahara Nantenbō, Daruma, ink on silk, 201 × 34.5 cm, Erik Thomsen Gallery.

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In fact, Daruma (Bodhidharma), the First Patriarch of Zen, is the subject of thousands of representations, since the earliest origins of the Chan movement. According to the legend,Daruma meditated nine years in front of a wall, without ever saying a single word. Consequently, the traditional iconography depicts him while he is sitting zazen in front of a wall, wearing a large monk robe, the legs crossed, the head covered by a cowl, the austere expression absorbed in meditation under the thick beard. Through an operation of visual distillation, Nantenbō extracted from the conventional iconography of Daruma all the essential elements and condensed them into a single brush stroke. The zazen position, the softness of the clothing, the shape of the cowl, in summary all fundamental traits of conventional elements shared by most portraits of Daruma are re-elaborated in a minimal style that could be compared to a peculiar form of abstract expressionism. Actually, the single-stroke Daruma was not an original creation of Nantenbō. To some extent, the drawing of ippitsu 一筆 (one-stroke) daruma became a pictorial convention (although it maintained its “unconventionality” in relation to the dominant style of portraiture). Nevertheless, the present image was chosen because of its clear pedagogical relevance. In fact, the inscription reads: “When he faced the wall/did our founder look just like/melons or eggplants/that grow in the Yawata/fields in Yamashiro?” This faceless, weightless figure challenges one’s common assumptions about the appearance and the purpose of the First Patriarch and, by extension, about the nature of holiness. As in the famous advice given by Rinzai, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him,” the present image encourages the viewer to get rid of all reified conceptions of “Patriarch,” “Daruma,” “Buddhahood,” or “holiness,” since any of these ideas strengthens the illusory belief in a self-subsistent identity of those conceptions. Instead, the figure of the Patriarch, as an overturned glass, reverses its identity in the surrounding blank space. He does not look like a god or a demon, but as simple and familiar as a melon or an eggplant: as long as a Patriarch is venerated as a divine being, the experience of “awakening” will be as far-off as a heavenly kingdom. Once more, the imaginative talent of a skilled master combined conventional elements (the figure of Daruma, a few stylistic traits, a traditional teaching) and expressed them in innovative forms.

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The faculty of imagination, an inexhaustible source of stylistic and thematic freshness, thus played an important role in the evolution of Zen aesthetics—not merely in relation to the subjects and styles of the paintings executed by Zen monks, but especially in relation to the pedagogy employed by Zen masters, whose teachings must be adapted to the students’ capacities, character, and past experience by means of unexpected and unconventional means.

A few concluding remarks The Lankavatara Sutra repeatedly employs an evocative metaphor to describe its own content: the “truth of imagelessness.” And it is not by chance that the “truth of imagelessness” assumed a visual form precisely in the tradition of Zen Buddhism, known for its extensive recourse to paradoxical and apparently incoherent methods. In this chapter, imagination has been defined as “a faculty which allows for the representation of conventional elements, either symbolic, visual or conceptual, in unexpected and unconventional ways.” Indeed, this is only one among the many possible definitions. This interpretation describes the imaginative process as a dialectics between mimesis and poiesis. And since the traditional modus operandi of Zen masters consists in conveying conventional teachings in unconventional ways, tirelessly re-elaborating an immense heritage of tales, notions, ideas, legends, and theories, it is not surprising that imagination played a significant role in relation to this pedagogical context and gave a relevant contribution to the formation of a peculiar aesthetics of Zen.9 Greatly unconventional subjects, as in the case of Hakuin’s Ofuku’s Moxibustion, and extreme or bizarre stylistic choices, as in the case of Nantenbō’s Daruma, are often indicated as the distinctive features of Zen aesthetics. Yet, these fruits have common roots, plunged in the fertile, inexhaustible soil of imagination.

Notes 1 The well-known notion of phantasia is discussed in De Anima, III 3, 414b33–415a3. 2 J. Derrida (1967: 208) defines the concept of supplément as an element that is at the same time an addition and a compensation for something that is not present anymore.

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3 Final, because the experience of awakening constitutes the utmost attainment in the Buddhist practice; not definitive, because even after the awakening one requires further cultivation, as indicated by the notion of satori 悟り. 4 T. Izutsu (1977) expounds extensively on the topic of consciousness in Zen Buddhism. 5 In particular, the relation between an entitative or reifying use of the language, and the arising of delusive thinking, is clearly explained in Y. Wang (2003). 6 This distinction does not always apply; even the Sōtō School produced a great number of artworks and contributed to the diffusion of several ritual and creative activities. 7 Moxa is a powdered medicine that is pressed into cones and burned on the skin. 8 Jōshū Jūshin 趙州従諗 (778–897), among the greatest Chan masters of the Tang dynasty, is the protagonist of Case 7 of the Gateless Gate (mumonkan無門関). Asked by a novice for instructions on the way of Zen, he answers “wash your bowl” bringing the novice’s attention to the actual reality of the present moment and on the importance of carrying out one’s own daily routines with a pure, non-defiled state of mind. 9 It may be objected that imagination is always at work in the domain of artistic creation. Or even that the whole history of art relies on a gradual imaginative reelaboration of canonic elements into original forms, which subsequently become canonic and are in their turn re-elaborated and recombined.  Nonetheless, not all aesthetic traditions and art movements are equally “imaginative.” For instance, there are aesthetic traditions founded on a mimetic principle (Greek art and hyperrealism, for example) or characterized by a chiefly symbolic approach (Egyptian art and Byzantine art, for example).

References Bond, G. (1993), “The Gradual Path as a Hermeneutical Approach to the Dhamma.” In Buddhist Hermeneutics, edited by D.J. Lopez, 29–46. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Currie, G. and I. Ravenscroft (2002), Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Derrida, J. (1967), De La Grammatologie. Paris: Minuit. Hisamatsu, S. (1971), Zen and the Fine Arts. Tokyo: Kodansha. Kant, I. (2007), Critique of Judgement. Translated by J.C. Meredith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Izutsu, T. (1977), Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Levine, G.P.A. (2006), Daitokuji: The Visual Culture of a Zen Monastery. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

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Linji, Y. (2009), The Record of Linji. Translated with commentary by R.F. Sasaki. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Mingben Z. (2005), “The Definition of a Koan.” In Sitting with Koans: Essential Writings on Zen Koan Introspection, edited by J. Daido Loori. Translated by R.F. Sasaki, 13–16. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Preston, D.L. (1998), The Social Organization of Zen Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sekida, K. (1977), Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku. New York andTokyo: Weatherhill. Stevenson, L. (2003), “Twelve Conceptions of Imaginations.” British Journal of Aesthetics 43(3): 238–259. Strawson, P. (1970), “Imagination and Perception.” In Experience and Theory, edited by L. Foster and J.W. Swanson, 31–54. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Wang, Y. (2003), Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism. New York: Routledge.

Part Two

Comparative Studies on Imagination

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The Imaginary and the Real in Zhuangzi and Plato May Sim

This chapter compares the imaginary and the real in Zhuangzi and Plato to show how each thinker’s view of the imaginary is traceable to his account of ultimate reality. Despite their different philosophies of what is ultimately real, there is a place for the imaginary as a path to the real. Because of the relation between the imaginary and the real, I conclude by showing what each philosopher could learn from the other.

Ultimate reality as the cause of the visible world, knowledge, and virtue At first blush, it may seem that Plato and Zhuangzi would disagree about the imaginary and the real. One reason is that their views of reality differ. Whereas what is real must be unchanging and eternal for Plato, what is constantly changing and coming into existence is no less real for Zhuangzi. While each of Plato’s Forms is definite and distinct from others, causing and accounting for sensible objects that only temporarily exist, Zhuangzi’s Dao (Way) is an indefinite, formless cause of everything (wanwu 萬物/ten thousand things) in this world. These things, like Plato’s sensible objects, are also always going out of existence and temporary. Plato denies that visible things are fully real because they are, and then are not—that is, they are not permanent; for Zhuangzi, such visible and changeable things are not less real. The reason for each author’s view of why visible and sensible objects are real or unreal is traceable to each of their accounts of ultimate reality, the Forms for Plato and the Dao for Zhuangzi.

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Apart from sensible and temporary objects, images or imaginary things are also included in the visible world for Zhuangzi and Plato. For Plato, the imaginary would be even further removed from the real when compared to sensible things. Contrariwise, Zhuangzi would put the imaginary on a par with the visible as real. One reason for their disagreement is that images depend on sensible things, which are not fully real for Plato; but the priority of the sensible over images and the correspondingly lesser degree of reality of the images does not hold for Zhuangzi. Despite their different views of sensible and imaginary things in the visible world, and their differences regarding ultimate reality, (e.g., the definiteness and distinctness of the Forms as opposed to the indefiniteness and formlessness of the Dao), Plato and Zhuangzi agree that the world of sensible and imaginary things is one of change, and agree too that the visible world escapes knowledge, if knowledge is about an ultimate reality or source of everything. However, because their views of reality and knowledge are different, their reasons for why visible things are not knowable are also different. Zhuangzi and Plato would agree that the Dao and the Forms, respectively, are knowable, even though they would disagree about the degree to which their respective sources can be known. Besides determining what is real and the degree to which visible things are knowable, Plato’s and Zhuangzi’s sources are also intimately bound up with virtuous actions. Plato would insist that only one who knows the distinct Form of each virtue has that virtue. Contrastingly, Zhuangzi would deny that one must know something definite and distinct to be virtuous. Rather, like the Dao that is empty and formless, being virtuous is the ability to go with the “flow” and do what is right for the present moment. Contrary to an intellectual knowing as in Plato, Zhuangzi’s emphasis is on the practical know-how that fits a particular situation. Perhaps most surprising in comparing the two as regards the real and the imaginary is that in spite of their different accounts of the imaginary and the real, there is a place for the imaginary in their respective paths to the real. I’ll show that attending to these issues in each thinker and comparing their accounts can alert us to the weakness in each, and can offer the resources for strengthening each author’s view.

Plato’s Forms as ultimate reality Let me begin with Plato’s first principle or ultimate reality. Ultimate reality for Plato consists in the Forms, each of which is invisible, immaterial, definite, distinct, eternal, and is the cause of everything that shares in its characteristics.1

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For example, the Form of justice is the cause of justice in particular actions, states, and people, and the Form of Man is the cause of particular men in the visible world. Whereas the Form of justice is eternally just, the particular just actions, states, and people are not eternally just—for they come to be just and go out of being just. Since everything in the visible world is subject to change, the Forms do not exist in the physical world. Because things in the visible world are always perishable, Plato thinks that there must be unchangeable causes of everything in the visible world and that these are the standards/principles of the visible world. To be able to implement just actions and build just cities, one must be a philosopher who can know the invisible, transcendent, and eternal Form of justice.2 Similarly, to know the cause of man’s existence, and the necessary qualities for being a man, knowledge of the Form of man, which for Plato is the nature of the human soul, is necessary.

Definite Forms versus formless Dao Just as Plato’s Forms make up reality, Zhuangzi’s Way/Dao 道is also reality; for it is said to have reality and truth (有情有信you qing you xin) (Ziporyn, trans. 2009: 6.29).3 However, unlike Plato’s Forms, each of which is definite and causes visible things to be what they are, or to have the qualities they possess, the Daoist Way/Dao does not act for preconceived purposes (wuwei 無為) or bring about the same effects for the same things, nor does it have a specific shape (xing 形) (6.29). More elaborately, because Zhuangzi’s Dao is empty and formless, and is the source of everything (heaven and earth) (6.29–32), it does not have a particular purpose or goal at which it aims, causing only certain things to exist while excluding others, nor does it support the flourishing of certain things and not others. Rather, the same Dao is the source of generation and destruction of all things.4 Zhuangzi says: So no thing is not right, no thing is not acceptable. For whatever we may define as a beam as opposed to a pillar, as a leper as opposed to the great beauty Xishi, or whatever might be [from some perspective] strange, grotesque, uncanny, or deceptive, there is some Dao that opens them into one another, connecting them to form a oneness. Whenever fragmentation is going on, formation, completion, is also going on. Whenever formation is going on, destruction is also going on. (2.19)

For Zhuangzi, instead of each thing being discrete from another, and all things being ranked or ordered on a scale of better and worse, they are all one because they come from the same Dao, are transformed by it so that they do not remain

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the same things eternally.5 Everything is united in the Dao because it does not give preferential treatment to any particular thing or perspective. The great beauty and attraction of Lady Li from the human perspective is also the source of repulsion from the perspective of fish, birds, and deer for Zhuangzi (2.38). The same thing is both attractive and repulsive, right and wrong. Thus opposites, things presumed to be extremes and exclusive of one another, are actually united and one because of the Dao for Zhuangzi. Another way of looking at how Zhuangzi unites everything with his Dao is this: Even though Zhuangzi’s Dao is like Plato’s Forms in being the source of everything, in that the Dao is its own basis and root (zi ben zi gen自本自根), existing firmly prior to, and is the cause of the existence of heaven and earth (wei you tian di未有天地 … shen tian shen di 生天生地) (6.29–32), it is unlike Plato’s Forms because it is not transcendent. Unlike Plato’s Forms, which must exist outside and beyond the changing, visible world, Zhuangzi’s Dao is immanent in everything in this world. Zhuangzi says, “Where does Dao go and doesn’t exist?” (道惡乎往而不存？) (ctext 2.4, my trans., see also 6.27–29).6 Because Dao is the condition of everything, it exists in this world instead of separately; one cannot go to a place where Dao does not exist. Thus, it is not transcendent and separate like Plato’s Forms. Rather, Zhuangzi’s Dao unites the ten thousand things by being inseparable from them. Contrariwise, each of Plato’s Forms unites visible things by being separate from them and by being an individual reality that is eternally one.

Definition and speech Plato emphasizes the definiteness and unchangeability of the Forms because they are separate from this world of change, so that they can be grasped by the mind and defined; Zhuangzi’s Dao, on the contrary, is formless, empty, and defies absolute knowledge and explicit definition. More specifically, consider Plato’s insistence on the necessity of speech and the ability to classify multiple objects under the same concept in order for one to be a human being. He says, “a human being must understand speech in terms of general forms, proceeding to bring many perceptions together into a reasoned unity” (Phaedrus 249b6–249c2).7 Plato’s reason for this assertion is that only the Forms are fixed and stable enough to be grasped and defined by speech; they offer the reality of which the perceptible things are mere approximations. Thus, knowledge consists in knowing the distinctions between the changeable particulars of perception

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and the fixed Forms that unite these perceptions through our reasoning.8 Put otherwise, it is through reasoning about the oneness of a Form, say, the Form of justice, that we can understand that the just man, his action, and the situation in which he acts, are all just, because they satisfy the conditions of what Justice is, which its definition encompasses. In contrast to Plato’s insistence on the possession of reasoning and speech to be human and thus have access to the real, Zhuangzi is skeptical about using speech to refer to things and of the mind’s ability to grasp things that are objectively right and wrong. This is because Zhuangzi’s view is that the things to which speech refers, and which the mind tries to grasp, are constantly transforming so that the fixed names that are used in speech and understanding are incapable of capturing these unfixed things.9 Concerning speech, Zhuangzi says: “Speech has something of which it speaks, something it refers to. Yes, but what it refers to is peculiarly unfixed. So is there really anything it refers to? Or has nothing ever been referred to? You take it to be different from the chirping of baby birds. But is there really any difference between them? Or is there no difference?” (2.13– 14). Plato solves the problem of persistent flux by positing transcendent Forms that are perceived by disembodied souls beyond this physical world, and these Forms are then recollected through speech and reason by embodied souls in the Phaedrus. In contrast, Zhuangzi eschews the possibility of grasping things in flux with fixed speech and thought. Reminiscent of Laozi’s claim, “the name that can be named is not the constant name” (Laozi 2003 “Daodejing,” my translation), Zhuangzi says: Great Dao is not named, great disputation is not spoken, great humaneness is not humane, great honor is not held up, great courage is not aggressive, Dao that is illustrious is not the Dao, speech that is argumentative does not succeed, humaneness that is constant is not complete, honor that is clear (qing 清) is not trustworthy (xin信), courage that is aggressive is not complete. These five are round but they tend to be squared. Therefore, knowledge that stops in what it does not know is utmost. Who knows the argument without words, this Dao that is not a Dao. One who can know this is the same as what is called heaven’s realm. (ctext 2.10, my trans.)

Whereas the Phaedrus is about the art of rhetoric, in which the emphasis on knowledge of the truths/Forms of the whole world is key to success in arguing against or persuading someone of anything, Zhuangzi advocates arguments without words, that is, no arguments at all. Unlike Plato’s stress on knowledge of specific Forms, Zhuangzi recommends knowing when to stop, namely, at what one does not know, because of what is not intellectually knowable: the great Dao

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is neither nameable nor can it be illustrated. While Plato would recommend striving for the virtues, Zhuangzi speaks against pursuing and honoring virtues like humaneness, honor, and courage. Such pursuits are signs that one does not have the virtues; one is incomplete, untrustworthy, and has not succeeded. For Plato, definite Forms lend themselves to be the ultimate standards of objects about which one can speak and argue. Contrary to the sophists who argue for relativism, holding that man is the measure of what exists and what does not exist, because there is not an objective reality that is the truth, Plato argues for the constancy of the Forms as objects that can be pursued, grasped, and are the bases for truth in speech and rhetoric. As tempting as it may be to relate Zhuangzi to the sophists because his Dao is formless, empty, and defies absolute knowledge and explicit definition, which knowledge and definition would in turn correspond to fixed truths and realities, Zhuangzi is not a sophist because he admits the reality of a Dao that governs everything. Unlike the sophists who think that there is no objective reality beyond the social conventions men dictate, Zhuangzi does not privilege the human perspective over those of non-human creatures, nor does he privilege the perspective of sages over fools.10 Even though Zhuangzi is like the sophists in denying that there are fixed realities, he is unlike them in admitting an ultimate, unfixed reality. As unfixed Zhuangzi denies that the Dao is something that we can grasp in such a way that it constitutes a truth that can be used to adjudicate between rival claims. He says: The mind comes to be what it is by taking possession of whatever it selects out of the process of alternation—but does that mean it has to truly understand that process? The fool takes something up from it too. But to claim that there are any such things as “right” and “wrong” before they come to be fully formed in someone’s mind in this way—that is like saying you left for Yue today and arrived there yesterday. This is to regard the nonexistent as existent. The existence of the nonexistent is beyond the understanding of even the divine sage king Yu—so what possible sense could it make to someone like me? (2.12–23)

In contrast to Plato’s preexistent truths prior to the mind’s knowledge, Zhuangzi denies any fixed eternal truth. Because Dao is the source of all things and is formless, Zhuangzi maintains that “Dao are formed by someone walking them. Things are so by being called so. … Each … necessarily has some place from which it can be affirmed as thus and so” (2.19). For Zhuangzi, all things have the possibility of existing, thus “no thing is not right,” or not acceptable (2.19), making them one because they are all based on the indefinite and indefinable Dao that is the reason for the way they are. Instead of striving for ultimate knowledge of the Forms, Zhuangzi advocates knowing when to stop

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by knowing the limits of what is knowable, because even though the Dao is not transcendent like the Forms, it transcends absolute knowledge because of its emptiness and formlessness. Plato and Zhuangzi could not be more opposed in their views. In contrast to Plato’s account of the fullness of existence and completeness of knowledge, Zhuangzi’s first principle is empty and nonexistent,11 thus defying the sort of complete knowledge pertaining to Plato’s Forms.

Images of reality: Hierarchy versus equality As regards the images that correlate to their respective ultimate realities, Plato offers the image of philosophers who are distinct from sophists/fools in knowledge as well as in their grasp of reality. Contrariwise, Zhuangzi lumps the sage king in with fools for their lack of knowledge and their inability to grasp any fixed reality. Moreover, instead of a hierarchy illustrated by the ascent up Plato’s divided line, in which one moves from visible images and sensible objects to what is more intelligible or real, to truthful reasoning, and finally to noêsis (an immediate grasp) of the ultimate truths, Zhuangzi offers the image of an axis around which what accords with clarity (yi ming 以明) is the equal interdependence of shi/yes and fei/no, rather than the mutual exclusiveness of opposites. Zhuangzi says, When “this” 是 (shi) and “that” 彼 (bi) —right and wrong—are no longer coupled as opposites—that is called the Dao of the axis (Dao shu 道樞). When one gets this axis, and is in the center of this ring, one must be without impoverishment, right/yes 是 is not impoverished, wrong/not 非 (fei) is not impoverished. … Nothing compares with what accords with clarity (莫若以明 mo ruo yi ming). (2.16–18, my trans. in italics)

More elaborately, for Plato, the image is that of a vertical line that is first proportionately divided into two sections representing the visible realm beneath the intelligible realm (Plato 2006: Book VI). Next, each of these two sections is in turn divided into two sections according to the same proportion that divides the visible and the intelligible realms.12 The difference in proportion corresponds to the degree of clarity and truth; the longer the section, the greater the degree of truth and clarity. To illustrate the greater degree of clarity and truth of the intelligible realm, the intelligible section is not only longer, but set above the visible part. Accordingly, one could imagine a line that is proportionately longer at the top representing the intelligible realm, compared

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to the shorter, lower section representing the visible realm. Beginning with the visible realm, it is in turn divided into imagination at the lower level, a line that is proportionately shorter than the section directly above it, which represents belief. The intelligible realm that is proportionately longer than the visible is in turn divided into a proportionately shorter section that represents reason (directly above the visible section of belief), and a longer section above it that represents noetic understanding. The objects that correspond to the activities of the soul (imagination, belief, reason, and noetic understanding, respectively), as represented by each section of the line, ascending from the lowest to the highest parts are images, visible objects in the natural world, mathematical and scientific objects, and the eternal Forms. Plato’s ideal is to move up the divided line and reach a noetic grasp of the Forms, since the higher one ascends the line, the more clarity and truth one achieves. Contrarily, the more one descends the line, the less clarity and truth one encounters from visible things and images because they are increasingly less perfect copies of intelligible objects. In stark contrast to the vertical divided line applied to Plato, on which things are sharply and hierarchically distinguished, the image for Zhuangzi is of a wheel spinning on an axis, where all things are on the same level so that opposites such as right and wrong are no longer antithetical to each, but constantly turn into each other so that there is a continuity from the one to the other. Zhuangzi’s ideal is not to move from one side of the wheel to another, as if one side represents what is right and the other what is wrong, but to remain in the middle of the axis and embrace the clarity and truth of the constant spinning and changing of one thing into another, right into wrong, and so forth. In contrast to a static line on which the states of the soul and their corresponding objects remain on their designated levels for Plato, Zhuangzi’s image is a spinning wheel around an axis from which the subject is open to all perspectives because he is not partial toward any particular perspective.13

Images of human nature Just as their different sources lead to different images about reality and ideal knowledge, likewise their views of human nature and virtues are expressed in different images. Consider the tripartite structure of the soul in Plato’s Republic and the Phaedrus, and the priority accorded to the intellectual part as the ruler of spirit and appetite. Here again, the hierarchical view of reality over appearances is

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reflected in a similar hierarchy in the part of the soul that grasps truth. Much as Plato posits the functions of the states of the soul that grasp truths (dianoia and noêsis) above the functions that are responsible for belief and imagination on the divided line, his accounts of the tripartite soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus also prioritize reason over spirit and appetite. More specifically, Plato divides the soul into reason (perfected in wisdom), spirit (perfected in courage), and appetite (which together with reason and spirit are perfected in temperance and justice) in the Republic. Reason is the highest part because it is capable of achieving wisdom, which provides, among other truths, the content for what is to be feared and not to be feared in courage. Perfected reason also provides the content about what is good for the whole soul so that appetite is informed about the bodily desires to control. In short, both the spirit and appetite are informed about how being ruled by reason is the best for the whole soul. By the same token, in the Phaedrus, Plato divides the soul into a charioteer (who represents the intellect) and two winged horses—a white horse (which represents an honorloving part that is the ally of reason) and a black horse (which represents the desiring part that if untamed, contradicts reason and the honor-loving part).14 Again, it is the intellect/charioteer in the Phaedrus that is responsible for leading the soul to the realm of the Forms beyond the visible world. In the aforementioned Platonic dialogues, Plato prioritizes the intellectual part of human nature in his divided line and tripartite accounts of the soul, which corresponds to the priority accorded to the greater degree of clarity and truth in intellectual objects (as opposed to visible objects). The significance of the truth for human nature is shown in the various images that he uses to illustrate the human soul. Consider, for instance, his analogy between the rulers and the reasoning part of the soul in the Republic. Despite the fact that rulers make up the smallest of the three classes of people in the city (warriors and craftspeople make up the other two classes), the significance of their role in providing wisdom to the whole city is analogous to reason’s role in providing wisdom to the whole soul. These images of the leadership role of the rulers, and emphasis on the role of individual’s reason in leading the whole soul, convey the significance of truth and knowledge in both the city and the human soul. Thus, just as reality and truth take precedence over opinion and imagination, respectively, the part of human nature that corresponds to reality and truth plays the leading role in an individual’s well-being. Unlike Plato’s accounts of the hierarchical and fixed essential structure of the human soul, Zhuangzi’s view of the human form is that it is accidental, being merely one of ten thousand transformations a thing undergoes. Accordingly,

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unlike Plato’s human soul that comes with its specific norms for behaving (i.e., the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and the virtues) so as to preserve its (divine) nature, Zhuangzi does not think that the human form is superior to any other forms (e.g., animals), nor is it one’s goal to preserve it. He says: Human form is merely a circumstance that has been met with, just something stumbled into, but those who have become humans take delight in it nonetheless. Human form in its time undergoes ten thousand transformations, never stopping for an instant—so the joys it brings must be beyond calculation! Hence, the sage uses it to roam in that from which nothing ever escapes, where all things are maintained. Early death, old age, the beginning, the end—this allows him to see each of them as good. Instead of modeling on him, better are those who bind themselves equally to each and all of the ten thousand things, making themselves dependent only on each transformation, on all transformation. (6.27–29)

What is clear from this passage is that unlike Plato’s fixed human soul, the parts of which (reason, spirit, and appetites) are to be hierarchically ordered, Zhuangzi’s human form is not only itself one of ten thousand transformations, but qua human, is always undergoing transformations so that there is not a particular state or stage of life (e.g., youth, old age, early death, or longevity) that is preferable, better or brings more happiness. Instead of privileging reason as Plato advocates, Zhuangzi holds that no state or stage of the human form is privileged over any other transformation. Rather than a hierarchical ordering of one transformation over another, Zhuangzi asserts that one is to bind oneself equally to each transformation, to depend on every transformation, for each and every transformation enables one to experience the Dao—the sustainer of everything, the source from which everything originates. Unlike the image of Plato’s human soul, the goal of which is to transcend this world of change to achieve knowledge and truth about the Forms, culminating in the Form of the Good, to thus achieve immortality so that it never has to return to the visible world of change, Zhuangzi’s image is one in which there’s no difference between one form of existence and another, human/non-human, life or death; each is equally good. In contrast to Plato’s celebration of immortality, Zhuangzi illustrates the Daoists’ indifference toward death by comparing their outlook with the Confucians’ elaborate funeral rituals honoring their ancestors who continue their existence in human form in heaven as follows: They look upon life as a dangling wart or swollen pimple, … death as its dropping off, its bursting and draining. … What would they understand about which is life and which is death, what comes before and what comes after? …

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They forget all about their livers and gallbladders, cast away their eyes and ears, reversing and returning, ending and beginning, knowing no start or finish, … drift uncommitted beyond the dust and grime, … unfettered in the great work of doing nothing in particular (wuwei 無為). Why would they do something as stupid as practicing conventional li 禮 to impress the eyes and ears of the common crowd? (6.29)

Rather than Plato’s image of death as the soul’s journey to a higher realm in eternal life with the divine Forms, Zhuangzi offers the image of death as the timely bursting of a swollen pimple, a returning and reversing, and a muddling of beginning and ending. In contrast to the Platonic soul’s ending its embodied existence and beginning its divine existence with the Forms, for Zhuangzi death is not the end of a bodily existence and the beginning of a disembodied existence that is better or worse. Instead of Plato’s philosopher who uses his intellect or reason to control his desires and emotions so that he can lead his soul toward the eternal Forms, Zhuangzi asserts that doing nothing (wuwei/not acting for a specific goal) is “great work.”15 Since Zhuangzi’s human being is simply a shape into which one stumbles, and all transformations one undergoes are equally welcomed, there is no ultimate goal or transformation to pursue but to simply go with whatever transformations one undergoes, for all are equally supported by the Dao. Thus, Zhuangzi’s sage is not distinct from the fool in being a better judge of what is right or wrong, of what exists or does not exist, but in his ability to simply wander or roam freely in all transformations, to be free from any preconceptions that limit him from experiencing the limitless Dao. Again, the image of human nature for Zhuangzi is not one of trying to achieve anything in particular, let alone one of striving to transcend an embodied existence to reach a higher, disembodied existence.16 Just as Plato and Zhuangzi differ in their accounts and images of their respective ultimate realities governing what is real and unreal, as well as the knowledge of reality and the nature of the human being who possesses knowledge, it is no surprise that they differ in their accounts and images of the moral virtues.

Images of moral virtues To begin, being morally virtuous for Plato is intimately bound up with knowledge of the eternal Forms. Consider how the philosopher king’s knowledge of the Form of Justice in the Republic enables him to be a just individual and rule the city justly by pursuing what is good for the whole city. By the same token,

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the erotic lover’s recollection of the Form of Beauty in the Phaedrus, initiated and inspired by his beloved’s beautiful face, leads to his knowledge of the other virtues such as temperance and justice, which in turn leads to his educating his beloved, attempting to model him after his own favorite God, be it Zeus or Apollo. Finally, consider Diotima’s account of ascending the ladder of love in the Symposium. There, one starts by loving an individual body and moves up the ladder to loving all beautiful bodies and souls. Above these steps of the ladder is the love of all beautiful productions (such as customs and laws), followed by the love of virtues that govern them. The highest and final rung of the ladder is the love of the Form of Beauty. Only when one gets to the Form of Beauty is one able to produce real virtues in the city instead of mere imitations of virtues.17 Repeatedly, the images of virtues that Plato offers involve the active pursuit of certain goals, striving to know the truth, reality, and goodness, and to perform virtuous actions that are intimately bound up with the beautiful, not only beautiful physical appearances but actions. In contrast, for Zhuangzi, given the indeterminateness of the Dao and how everything is constantly transforming so that there is not a clear distinction between what is good and bad, virtue does not consist in the pursuit of knowledge of absolute truths (such as the Forms) followed by the execution of the corresponding virtues. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there is no knowledge or virtue for Zhuangzi. Consider this account that contrasts two clans: the Youyu clan which presumably represents the Confucians and the Tai clan which represents the Daoists. We are told that the Youyu clan still believes in the virtue of ren (humaneness) which is used to constrain and criticize others. In contrast, someone from the Tai clan behaves as follows: “Sometimes he regards himself as a horse, sometimes he regards himself as an ox, his knowledge of reality is trustworthy, the extent of his virtue is real, and he has not yet begun to enter into what contradicts man” (一以己為馬，一以己為牛，其知情信， 其德甚真，而未始入於非人) (7.1, my trans.). This passage illustrates that Zhuangzi would agree with Plato insofar as he holds that a Daoist possesses knowledge of reality and has real virtue. However, the fact that the Tai person could regard himself as various animals and, unlike the Youyu person, does not contradict or criticize others, shows that his knowledge is not of something fixed. Rather than being in conflict and contention with others like the Confucians, the Daoists would go by what is right for the present moment (2.15, 2.33). Zhuangzi says: “The sage uses various rights and wrongs to harmonize with others and yet remains at rest in the middle of Heaven the Potter’s wheel” (2.23). By not having preconceptions that certain things are always right or good as opposed

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to others that are always wrong or bad, the sage is able to do what is right in any situation by harmonizing with others (harmony being a characteristic of virtue). Illustrating this point with an anecdote about Wang Tai, a one-footed ex-con, we are told that he takes the perspective of seeing everything as one and the same, so that he is free of all preconceptions. Consequently, he would “just wander (you 遊) in the virtue (de德) of harmony (he 和).” Nothing would be perceived as a loss for him so that Wang Tai “viewed the chopping off of his foot as nothing more than the casting away of a clump of soil” (5.5–7). Whereas Plato proposes an account of virtues being superior to vices, intimately bound up with knowledge of the truth being superior to ignorance, Zhuangzi’s account of virtue equalizes virtues and vices by having an ex-con exemplify the virtue of impartiality by regarding his own foot as a clump of soil, and a sage who harmonizes rights and wrongs rather than prioritizing the right over the wrong. More elaborately, in sharp contradiction to Plato’s images of the definite steps of a ladder someone has to ascend in order to achieve knowledge of the Forms to become completely virtuous, Zhuangzi seems to dismiss knowledge to reach the Dao. He says: “Genuine Human beings … did not aspire to completeness, did not plan their affairs in advance … they could be wrong or right without being affected … their knowledge was able, in its very demise, to ascend through the remotest vistas of the Dao” (6.5, my modifications in italics). However, Zhuangzi does not dismiss all knowledge. By “knowledge” in this passage, Zhuangzi means the knowledge of definite virtues to which the Confucians and Plato subscribe. As we have seen, Zhuangzi believes that the Daoist has trustworthy knowledge of reality. So he does not reject all knowledge; only knowledge that is about the definite and unchanging objects, since he denies that such things exist.18 Moreover, Zhuangzi maintains that the sage is able to do what is right for the present moment by using various rights and wrongs to harmonize with others. Thus, the sage’s ability to transcend conventional preconceptions about the good and bad, and harmonize with others instead of antagonizing them is a sort of knowledge of the unfixed Dao that harmonizes things rather than being partial. To appreciate the difference between Zhuangzi and Plato, consider the contrast between Zhuangzi’s image of the virtuous person who wanders in the virtue of harmony, so frequently compared to wandering in the realm of nonexistence (7.3, 7.4),19 with Plato’s image of the virtuous person who consorts with the gods in the realm of the fully existent Forms. Another way of viewing the contrasting images of the virtuous for Plato and Zhuangzi is to consider the role of the mind or intellect in each. Whereas it is clear that knowledge of the Forms guides the virtuous person to perform the

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appropriate actions for Plato, one might ask how an empty Dao could guide someone to virtue for Zhuangzi. Put otherwise, how is one to know what is right for the present moment for Zhuangzi? A contrast with Plato’s emphasis on the role of the intellect illuminates Zhuangzi’s view. Instead of using the mind, which knows definite truths to guide one’s actions, Zhuangzi offers his response through a nameless man: “You let your mind wander in the tasteless/insipid, join with qi (氣material energy) in indifference, follow the natural condition of things (ziran 自然), have no appearance of selfishness, and everything under heaven will be governed” (無名人曰：「汝遊心於淡，合氣於漠，順物自 然，而無容私焉，而天下治矣) (7.3, my trans.). Instead of using one’s mind (xin心) to pursue knowledge of definite things like the virtues, Zhuangzi again uses the word “wander,” which when combined with the realm of the insipid and indifferent qi, denotes aimlessness. By not letting one’s mind pursue one’s preconceptions of what is good or bad (which Zhuangzi views as selfishness), one can then be guided by the natural (ziran) things and do what is right for them and for everything under heaven.20 Put otherwise, one can trust the virtuous person’s knowledge and action because he is not pursuing a fixed purpose that could blind him to the natural conditions of things and what they require at any particular moment, which is always in flux. His action is nonaction or effortless action (wuwei) because he goes by the flow of the natural. Illustrating the sort of knowledge and effortless action of the virtuous person, Zhuangzi says: Wuwei presides over name, wuwei is the government of plans, wuwei is entrusted with affairs, wuwei is the chief knowledge. … A perfect person uses mind as mirror, not leading not receiving, deals with necessity but does not hoard, thus, it can be victorious over things but does not injure. (無為名尸，無為謀府，無為事任，無為知主。 … 至人之用心若鏡，不 將不迎，應而不藏，故能勝物而不傷。) (7.6, my trans)

Wuwei contrasts sharply with the purposeful actions of the virtuous one for Plato. Not only is the virtuous philosopher striving to perfect himself by knowing and practicing the virtues, he is also striving to make others around him and the community virtuous. With such preconceptions of what is excellent, these goals come at the expense of other things for Plato. The virtuous one for Zhuangzi on the contrary, being free from any preconception, is not trying to achieve a certain set of purposes at the expense of other things. Rather, his openness is the very virtue that enables him to see what is natural in things and not injure them while attempting to pursue a specific interest.21

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The stark contrast between Plato and Zhuangzi can be seen in how Plato’s virtuous person fills his mind with fixed Forms, which in turn enables him to pursue definite actions that are regarded as virtuous. For example, consider the philosopher kings who know the virtue of justice and thus can rule the city with justice. Contrariwise, Zhuangzi’s virtuous person empties his mind so that like a mirror, his mind could reflect all things around him that have their own necessities. Yet, these necessities are never fixed and so cannot be dealt with by holding on to fixed knowledge. Zhuangzi has another one-footed ex-con, Shen Tujia, utter, “only one who has virtue (you de zhe 有德者) can know what is unavoidable and find peace in it as his own fate” (5.11, my trans.). Again, for Zhuangzi, the power of accepting one’s fate and harmonizing with everything, which leads to the wholeness of virtue, is reiterated when he uses Confucius as the mouthpiece: Death and life, surviving and perishing, failure and success, poverty and wealth … are the transformations of things, the actions of fate. Day and night they come to us, one replacing another and yet our knowledge can never rule their beginning. So there is no need to let them disrupt our harmony, and we must deny them entrance into our spiritual realm. That is what allows the joy of its harmony to open into all things without thereby losing its fullness, what keeps it flowing on day and night without cease, taking part everywhere as the springtime of each being. Receiving this, your mind thus gives birth to time. This is what is called wholeness of innate powers/talent (cai quan 才全). (5.14–16, italics are my trans.)

This image of harmonizing with everything by letting things transform, rather than trying to rule them in Zhuangzi, is the antithesis of Plato’s philosopher who rules his own soul by subordinating his spirit and appetite to reason, who then proceeds to rule the city by limiting everyone’s behaviors by certain customs and laws. Even though Plato’s well-governed city and virtuous individual exhibit harmony too, each comes at the expense of limiting what is natural to certain parts. For example, the appetites and emotions are stripped of knowledge because they pertain to the changeable world. Thus, they are subordinated to reason which takes its truth from the invisible realm and has nothing to learn about the visible world. As long as the bodily and the mental remain in their respective realms and the former takes orders from the mind, there is a harmony between the superior and inferior. In contrast, Zhuangzi’s image of virtue is one that warns about the interference of the mind if it gets hung up on fixed truths and proceeds to act according

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to these presuppositions. Rather than subordinating the natural, bodily realm to the mind, the mind is to empty itself so that it can mirror everything, let everything transform and exhibit the goodness of the infinite possibilities of the Dao. Zhuangzi’s harmony, unlike Plato’s, is not one that separates things into distinct categories of good and bad, or right and wrong, so that they are mutually exclusive; nor is it one that advocates that one extreme is to be pursued and the other shunned. Since everything stems from the same Dao, none is superior or inferior to another; everything is one and the same. Thus, instead of favoring and pursuing the beautiful as Plato does, by repeatedly associating the true and the good with it, Zhuangzi bestows complete virtues and powers to the deformed and grotesque, to the ex-cons and human beings with monstrous appearances, like horsehead humpback and jar-sized goiter.

Conclusion: Lessons each can learn from the other Despite Plato’s deprecation of imagination and its objects in comparison to other states of the soul (conviction, reasoning, and noêsis) notice that he repeatedly uses images to convey his views. Consider the powerful images of the charioteer and his winged horses representing the tripartite soul in the Phaedrus, and the ladder of love and the simile of the line illustrating the ascent of the soul from lesser to greater degrees of reality and truth. Given how important such images are for explaining one’s progress to the truth for Plato, his position would be stronger if he had offered a way of moving from imagination to the truth. Such a move would also make sense given that he maintains that the Form of Beauty, of all the Forms, is the most accessible to vision. Since images are imitations of sensible objects, if vision is allowed access to the Form of Beauty, imagination too should not be far behind as a way to the truth. Such a logic would also seem to be reasonable given Plato’s view in the Symposium that we can ascend the ladder of love from loving an individual body to loving the ultimate Form of Beauty. Zhuangzi has again and again blurred the lines between the imaginary and the real by not prioritizing what we call “truth” over “falsehood.” Giving more significance to the imaginary then is a lesson that Plato could learn from Zhuangzi. Just as Plato could learn how to value imagination more from Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi could learn how to value naming and making distinctions from Plato. Zhuangzi’s aversion toward both naming and making distinctions is due to the transience of everything. Nevertheless, Zhuangzi’s own account of how one is to

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access the Dao by letting one’s mind wander aimlessly in the insipid and indifferent qi, in accord with the natural conditions of things (shun wu ziran 順物自然), presupposes that things are different and have different natures even though their transformations cannot be known and labeled. Consider Zhuangzi’s well-known example of his dream about being a butterfly and awaking to doubt if he was the one dreaming that he was a butterfly or if the butterfly was dreaming that it was Zhuangzi. He says: “Surely, Zhuangzi and a butterfly count as two distinct identities! Such is what we call the transformation of one thing into another” (2.48–49). For Zhuangzi to make his point about how things transform into one another, he needs to presuppose that those things are distinct. Furthermore, for him to maintain that we are to follow the natural way of things, he needs to presuppose that different things have different natures, for example, that the nature of fish is different from that of human beings, and that a horse is different from an ox. Accordingly, Zhuangzi should not be entirely averse to naming and making distinctions since such activities are required for him to make his point about how things can transform into one another and how the mind needs to act like a mirror to follow such transformations. Again, that Zhuangzi should allow for naming and making distinctions is also warranted when he maintains that sages harmonize various rights and wrongs to do what is right for particular situations. Put otherwise, to be able to harmonize the rights and wrongs to do what is right for the present moment, one must be able to name and distinguish the rights and wrongs and grasp the right for the present, just as one must be able to grasp the natural in things. Given Plato’s emphasis on the importance of naming and making distinctions, the lesson of according significance in these activities, no matter how temporary they are, is one Zhuangzi could learn from Plato. In conclusion, I have compared Zhuangzi and Plato as regards the real and the imaginary. Despite differences in their accounts of the imaginary and the real, I have shown that there is a place for the imaginary in their respective paths to the real. I also argued that Plato could learn to accord more significance to the imaginary from Zhuangzi, and that Zhuangzi could learn to accord more significance to the real, though temporary, distinctions in things from Plato.

Notes 1 For details of Plato’s Forms, see Sim (2015: 508). 2 For the relation between theory and practice according to Plato, see Sim (2015: 505–506).

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All parenthetical chapter references and quotations from Zhuangzi are from Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, translated by Brook Ziporyn (2009). 4 For an explanation of how Dao rules everything by an innate spontaneity or what is natural (ziran 自然) to each thing, see Xu (2011: 445–462) and Sim (2011a, 2011b, 2014b, and 2017). 5 For an account of the oneness of all things because they issue from an undifferentiated one that in turn issues from the Dao, see David Chai (2014: 363–364 and 371). For Chai’s account of how they are the same because they incline toward rest, timelessness, and non-exclusiveness, see pages 366–368. 6 The Chinese text for my translations of Zhuangzi is from http://ctext.org/zhuangzi, but I use Ziporyn’s text (2009) for the chapter references. 7 See Plato (1995) for all references to and citations from the Phaedrus. 8 See Republic V: 475d-476c for Plato’s (2006) distinction between philosophers who can distinguish the eternal truths of the Forms from the changeable particulars that resemble them, and the lovers of sights and sounds who mistake the changeable particulars for the truths. 9 Instead of using speech to understand things, Livia Kohn (2014: 39) explains Zhuangzi’s view by saying, “instead of having an internal matrix of what reality should look like and fitting objects and situations into it, we allow life to come to us from the outside and appreciate it for what it is…. we can reach a playful and easy state characterized by a [quoting from Wong] ‘continuous willingness to be surprised, an openness to and even enjoyment of being jolted.”’ 10 For how Zhuangzi doesn’t privilege the human perspective, but treats the perspectives of all beings equally, see Kohn (2014: 27). 11 By “non-existent,” I don’t mean that the Dao does not exist, but rather, that it does not exist as any particular thing. Another way of making sense of the Dao as no-thing is to distinguish its being a first cause of everything from its being a proximate cause. See my explanation of how such a non-existent Dao is the first cause/source of all possibilities in Sim (2011a: 304–323, especially, 307–308) and footnote 6, and Sim (2011b: 43–62). 12 For a visual image and detailed account of Plato’s divided line, see Sim (2014a: 183–196). 13 See Kohn’s (2014: 37) discussion of the legitimacy of different perspectives on happiness in Zhuangzi’s account of the happy fish, and my discussion of how the Dao can manifest itself in different ways for different people in the Liezi (Sim 2011a: 321). 14 For details of the tripartite soul in Plato’s Phaedrus, see Sim (2014b, especially pages 58–59). 15 For an account of how the Liezi takes wuwei rather than desiring certain things to happen in life (e.g., desiring joy over sorrow, or life over death) as the

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proper attitude, because everything in the world is dictated by the Dao, see Sim (2011a, especially pages 305–306 and 310). See Daniel Fried (2012: 434) for how the ethic of non-action is bound up with the Daoist view of true knowledge. See also Sim (2014b: 61). See Xu Keqian (2011: 456) for how Zhuangzi’s ethics of difference respects the uniqueness and different natural tendencies of different individuals and things, and pages 457–458 for how the ethical norm for any individual is to release his mind to an emptiness and be totally free and open to all possible individual development. For more on Plato’s view of the relation between Beauty and virtue, see Sim (2014b: 61–62). For a defense of the existence, nonetheless, of a “greater” as opposed to a “lesser” type of knowledge for Zhuangzi, and perspectivism as a method of increasing the former, see Tim Connolly (2011: 498) and following. See also Donald Sturgeon (2015: 892–917), and my distinction between genuine knowledge and conventional knowledge in Liezi’s Daoism (Sim 2011a: 313). See too my discussion of how the concept of knowledge is equivocal for Laozi, in Sim (2015: especially page 490). For how Dao’s non-being is bound up with our inability to speak it and the related epistemic problems, see Daniel Fried (2012: 427 and 429–430). For an illustration of following the natural condition of things, how preserving unhewn wood rather than carving it for Laozi is to accord with the Dao, and behave with wuwei (effortless action), see Sim (2015, especially pages 491–493). For how wuwei harmonizes opposites because everything arises from the Dao in Laozi, see Sim (2015, especially page 492). Note the affinity of this harmony of opposites in Laozi with Zhuangzi’s image of how the Dao of axis supports the interdependence of opposites rather than their exclusiveness. See Sim 2019 (forthcoming) for more on the interdependence of opposites in Laozi, which view is shared by Zhuangzi.

References Chai, D. (2014), “Zhuangzi’s Meontological Notion of Time.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 13: 361–377. Connolly, T. (2011), “Perspectivism as a Way of Knowing in the Zhuangzi.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10: 487–505. Fried, D. (2012), “What’s in a Dao: Ontology and Semiotics in Laozi and Zhuangzi.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 11: 419–436. Kohn, L. (2014), Zhuangzi: Text and Context. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii, Three Pines Press. Laozi (2003), “Daodejing.” http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.php

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Plato (1995), Phaedrus. Translated by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Plato (2006), The Republic. Translated by R. E. Allen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sim, M. (2011a), “Being and Unity in the Ethics and Metaphysics of Aristotle and Liezi.” In How Should One Live? Comparing Ethics in Ancient China & Greco-Roman Antiquity, edited by Richard A. H. King and Dennis Schilling, 304–323. Berlin and Boston, MA: de Gruyter. Sim, M. (2011b), “The Question of Being, Non-Being, and ‘Creation Ex Nihilo’ in Chinese Philosophy.” In The Ultimate Why Question: Why Is There Anything at All Rather Than Nothing Whatsoever? edited by John F. Wippel, 43–62. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press. Sim, M. (2014a), “The Divided Line and the United Psychê in Plato’s Republic.” In Ancient Ethics, edited by J. Hardy and G. Rudebusch, 183–196. Göttingen: V&R Unipress GmbH. Sim, M. (2014b), “Travelling with Laozi and Plato.” In Landscape and Travelling East and West: A Philosophical Journey, edited by Hans-Georg Möller and Andrew Whitehead, 53–70. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sim, M. (2015), “From Metaphysics to Ethics, East and West.” Review of Metaphysics 68: 487–509. Sim, M. (2019), “Laozi and Zhu Xi on Knowledge and Virtue.” In Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Justin Tiwald. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming). Sturgeon, D. (2015), “Zhuangzi, Perspectives, and Greater Knowledge.” Philosophy East & West 65(3): 892–917. Xu, K. (2011), “A Different Type of Individuation in Zhuangzi.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 10: 445–462. Ziporyn, B., trans. (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.

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Is There Imagination in Daoism? Kant, Heidegger, and Classical Daoism: Rethinking Imagination and Thinking in Images Steven Burik

It is abundantly clear that both Martin Heidegger and the classical Daoist thinkers are “imaginative” in their own right, when we use the term imagination in that sense in which it seems to mean “to combine knowledge in unusual ways,” or “to think about old problems in novel ways,” or when we see imagination as “thinking with or in images.” Out of the multiple definitions that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives us, there are two which point in this direction. Imagination is first “the mind considered as engaged in imagining; a person’s mind, or a part of it, represented as the place where images, ideas, and thoughts are produced and stored, or in which they are contained”; and secondly, “the mind’s creativity and resourcefulness in using and inventing images, analogies, etc.” (OED). Under the second definition, both Heidegger and the Daoists surely classify as imaginative since, although in different ways, they both use their respective traditions in creative ways and have shaped the direction of their respective intellectual environments in new and exciting ways. And, with regards to this second definition, it is true that both Heidegger and the Daoists are apt users of images for purposes of analogy. Heidegger is fond of using the imagery of forests and peasants, ground and root, among others, and it would be hard to argue that the Daoists do not use a wide range of imagery, so they both seem to be fond of images and imagination. But when it comes to the philosophical use of the notion of imagination since Kant, a case for the importance of imagination in Heidegger and Daoism becomes less convincing. It is not so sure that they think of, or are even interested in, the idea of a faculty of imagination as a storing or containing facility for

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images, as mentioned in the first definition. And the third definition that the OED gives us, expanding on the first one, is: The power or capacity to form internal images or ideas of objects and situations not actually present to the senses, including remembered objects and situations, and those constructed by mentally combining or projecting images of previously experienced qualities, objects, and situations. Also (esp. in modern philosophy): the power or capacity by which the mind integrates sensory data in the process of perception. (OED)

When seen as such a philosophical concept, imagination is very different from what the colloquial understanding of the term would have us believe. As such, I argue that the Kantian notion of imagination is not specific to Kant but has become the standard notion of imagination in philosophical modernity. Aside from that, this understanding also conveys how imagination is in large part understood in the OED. So this is the understanding of the notion that any contribution taking imagination as a philosophical concept should engage with. As can be seen from the entry above, the standard OED entry of imagination understands the term in largely the same way as Kant does. Employing the notion along both these lines ensures that imagination is not understood randomly in popular fashion or ill-defined, but is taken seriously as a philosophical concept, as it should be in a philosophical article on imagination. For Heidegger and Kant, who will be my two main Western protagonists, imagination is first and foremost this modern philosophical concept of a synthesizing faculty located between sense perception and conceptual understanding. As such a faculty, it has a creative function as well as a bridge function and a storing function. My main contention is not only that such a faculty would be unheard of in the Daoist system of thought, which does not make a clear distinction between mind and matter, or between mind and perception, but also that the Daoists, and especially Zhuangzi, argue against such storing and identifying functions of imagination. Yet this chapter will also argue for ways in which both imagination and thinking in images can and do play a role in Heidegger and Daoism, and this in connection to another understanding of imagination, as anticipation and reflection. I will proceed in the following way: In the first section I look at Heidegger’s reinterpretation of Kant’s work on the imagination, in which Heidegger argues that Kant had to shrink back from imagination to maintain the distinction between pure knowing and the senses. Based on this reinterpretation I will argue here that Daoism has no such philosophical concept of imagination as providing a link between senses and cognition or knowing. Thinking with

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Heidegger, who problematizes this distinction, might give us fresh avenues for a renewed appreciation of the unity of these distinct fields, a unity which we can also observe in Daoism, for example in the heart-mind (xin心). In the second section I argue that while Heidegger did attempt some kind of rehabilitation of the idea of imagination in his Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, he still thinks the concept is metaphysical in its core and unsuitable for “thinking.” This perspective will be connected to Heidegger’s Zeit des Weltbildes (The Age of the World-Picture) to argue that thinking in images does not get us very far and that such thinking is a mainstay of the metaphysical orientation typified by the idea of “re-presentation” that Heidegger seeks to overcome. Although such a metaphysical orientation was absent in classical China, I argue that the Daoist ideas about thinking in images show a remarkable similarity in their disapproval of such thinking in images, and this in spite of the rich imagery that Daoists use. So, although Laozi and Zhuangzi use a lot of images (mostly as analogies), in the end (at least in the case of Zhuangzi) they are against thinking in images; and one of their major contributions lies in the fact that they seek to point to, and overcome, the obvious limitations that are present in thinking in images. The stories of the bird Peng and the fish Kun, and even of Liezi, all depend on imagery, but to move beyond this imagery is the real way of knowing/living. The key criticism here is that imagination as a philosophical concept is concerned with the sorting that categorizes and puts fixed meanings to the flow of the experience. This means that imagination is not the way to go for the sorting that evens out. In the third and final section, I will explore some ways in which imagination could still play a role in Daoism and Heidegger, but it will be a concept of imagination that may have endured some changes through my exposition. Here it will be shown that only one of the different kinds of understandings of imagination may really be applicable to both Heidegger and Daoism.

Kant, Heidegger, and the problem of imagination in Daoism Kant and Heidegger on imagination. Both Einbildungskraft and Vorstellungskraft mean imagination in German, but Vorstellungskraft is tied to vorstellen, which is what Heidegger calls “representation.” For those who are familiar with Heidegger, it should be clear that this “representative” thinking is a core tenet of metaphysical thinking. And Einbildung is connected to bilden, to form, to build, and Bild, image. So, in what follows, when representation or formation

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are mentioned, think about the strong connections these terms have to the idea of imagination. Heidegger’s main work on imagination occurs in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. There Heidegger painstakingly lays bare the framework of knowledge that Kant builds in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the place of imagination in that framework. Kant calls imagination an indispensable function of the soul, the synthesizing force between the manifold of the intuitions and the concepts of knowledge. He does this in the tradition of Descartes, who had also considered imagination to be the mediator between mind and body. Kant says: “Synthesis in general … is the mere effect of the imagination, a blind though indispensable function of the soul, without which we would have no cognition at all, but of which we are seldom ever conscious” (Kant 1998: 211). Although we may not be conscious of it, imagination plays a large part in our framework of knowledge. In the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that: There are, however, three original sources (capabilities or faculties of the soul) which contain the conditions of the possibility of all experience, and cannot themselves be derived from any other faculty of the mind, namely, sense, imagination, and apperception. … In addition to their empirical use, all of these faculties have a transcendental one, which is concerned solely with form, and which is possible a priori. (Kant 1998: 225)

So the imagination is not purely receptive as the senses are, because it does things. Imagination has a formative role; as a category, it imposes conceptuality on perceptions. According to Kant: “The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my imagination can specify the shape of a four-footed animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can exhibit in concreto” (Kant 1998: 273). This means two things: first of all, it is not the case that imagination is limited purely to interpreting sense data. The imagination can conjure up things that are not present to the senses. Second, imagination is active in that it is the application of conceptuality to particular situations. Heidegger explains this as follows: “Thus in the immediate perception of something at hand, this house for example, the schematizing premonition [Vorblick] of something like house in general is of necessity already to be found. It is from out of this pro-posing [Vor-Stellung] alone that what is encountered can reveal itself as a house” (1997: 71). So imagination is the first step in making meaning out of the sense data. Yet it is, as we have just seen, not necessarily connected to any real experience, or at least not directly. The object that is imagined need not be present or even exist. As Heidegger puts it:

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Thus we find in the power of imagination, to begin with, a peculiar nonconnectedness to the being. It is without strings in the taking-in-stride [hinnehmen] of looks [Anblicke], i.e., it is the faculty which in a certain way gives itself such [looks]. The power of imagination can hence be called a faculty of forming [Vermögen des Bildens] in a peculiar double sense. As a faculty of intuiting, it is formative [bildend] in the sense of providing the image [Bild] (or look). As a faculty which is not dependent upon the presence of the intuitable, it fulfils itself, i.e., it creates and forms the image. This “formative power” is simultaneously a “forming” which takes things in stride (is receptive) and one which creates (is spontaneous). In this “simultaneously” lies the proper essence of its structure. But if receptivity means the same as sensibility and if spontaneity means the same as understanding, then in a peculiar way the power of imagination falls between both. (1997: 91, German added)

The problem for Kant is how to understand this in-between. He himself says that he finds it “strange” (befremdlich) that imagination can fulfil this mediating role. It is therefore certainly strange, yet from what has been said thus far obvious, that it is only by means of this transcendental function of the imagination that even the affinity of appearances, and with it the association and through the latter finally reproduction in accordance with laws, and consequently experience itself, become possible; for without them no concepts of objects at all would converge into an experience. (Kant 1998: 240)

Building on this “strangeness,” Heidegger then shows that Kant is sort of at a loss as to where to place the faculty of imagination, or whether to subsume it under one of the two other faculties, pure sensibility and pure understanding. At first Kant seemed to suggest that the imagination is an “indispensable function of the soul” (1998: 211). But later he puts the imagination firmly back to the sensible side. Yet according to Heidegger, Kant runs into problems here: If Kant has earlier said that imagination has a formative power, that it is categorical and transcendental in that sense that it first produces concepts, he now shrinks back from this and says in the Anthropology that imagination is “not powerful enough to bring forth a sensible representation which previously was never given to our sensible faculty, but rather we can always point out the stuff of that same [representation]” (Quoted in Heidegger 1997: 92). But in the Critique of Pure Reason it is argued, at least according to and in the words of Heidegger, that “the pure productive power of imagination, free of experience, makes experience possible for the first time. Not all productive power of imagination is pure, but what is pure in the sense just characterized is necessarily productive. To the extent that it forms transcendence, it is rightly called the transcendental power of imagination” (1997: 93).

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So the problem Heidegger sees in Kant’s description of the faculty of imagination is that, on the one hand, Kant seems to suggest that there are three faculties or three elements of knowledge—pure sensibility, pure understanding, and, in-between, pure imagination—and each of these have basic transcendental abilities, they do things to shape our experience and knowledge. Yet on the other hand he says that there are but two of those faculties: “Our cognition arises from two fundamental sources in the mind, the first of which is the reception of representations (the receptivity of impressions), the second the faculty for cognizing an object by means of these representations (spontaneity of concepts)” (Kant 1998: 193). Kant also says that “we have no other sources of cognition besides these two” (1998: 384–385). The first Kant calls “sensibility” and the second “understanding.” Imagination as the third source is now left out and subsequently subsumed under the understanding, which is synthesizing, and as such imagination also loses its relation to sensibility. As Heidegger put it: “All pure synthesis and synthesis in general must, as spontaneity, fall to the faculty which in a proper sense is free, the acting reason” (1997: 118). But then again and as mentioned earlier, in the second edition of the Critique, Kant seems also to locate imagination on the sensibility or intuition side: imagination, he says, “belongs to sensibility” (Kant 1998: 257). And in the Anthropology, he says that “the power of imagination (facultas imaginandi) [is] a faculty of intuition, even without the presence of the object” (quoted in Heidegger 1997: 90). Having committed to the two-and-only-two “sources of the mind” idea, Kant struggles to locate the imagination, but in the end opts for the side of cognition or the understanding, where the imagination is seen as a productive faculty, while he also locates some other part of the imagination on the sensible side, which he calls the reproductive imagination, thereby effectively splitting imagination up into different segments to preserve the dualism. Thus in the end Kant comes up with this construction of imagination: “That which connects the manifold of sensible intuition is imagination, which depends on understanding for the unity of its intellectual synthesis and on sensibility for the manifoldness of apprehension” (1998: 263). Why is this a problem? Because it is exactly here that the dichotomy between mind and matter, between senses and thought, between intuition and reason, is perpetuated and strengthened. This is so because, although Kant seems aware that the imagination is the root of both intuition/sensibility and cognition/ understanding, that is, imagination makes both possible, this perspective in itself would ruin the hierarchy and dichotomy of the two, a hierarchy that has been carefully built up over two millennia, and of which Kant is in the end a

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staunch defender. So Kant shrunk back from his own findings to perpetuate the dualism inherent in Western philosophy. Heidegger of course thinks this is not the right move to make. And he spends the rest of his book on Kant exploring the options that Kant shrunk back from, by arguing that imagination is the root of both, understood as a “pre-forming of the horizon of unity which represents ‘from out of itself ’” (Heidegger 1997: 106). Or in other words: “As representing which forms spontaneously, the apparent achievement of the pure understanding in the thinking of the unities is a pure basic act of the transcendental power of imagination. … This occurs however, in a forming representing, i.e., one which brings forth” (Heidegger 1997: 106). This is where imagination is tied to forming as bilden, which is connected to Bild, image, and representation, hence the connection between imagining and forming. Heidegger wants this kind of thinking to be no longer just connected to judgment, at least not solely, but rather to be thought of as “thinking in the sense of the free, forming, and projecting (although not arbitrary) ‘conceiving’ [‘Sichdenkens’] of something. This original ‘thinking’ is pure imagining” (Heidegger 1997: 106, German added). Yet this thinking is always also receptive, sensible: We must point out that spontaneity constitutes but one moment of the transcendental power of imagination and that, accordingly, while thinking indeed has a relationship with the power of imagination, this is never indicative of a full coinciding of their essences. For the power of imagination is also and precisely a faculty of intuition, i.e., of receptivity. And it is receptive, moreover, not just apart from its spontaneity. Rather, it is the original unity of receptivity and spontaneity. (Heidegger 1997: 107, italics added)

So Heidegger has no problem with imagination playing the role of intermediator, as he is not committed to the metaphysical dualism of the Western tradition. Heidegger is quite content to reduce the transcendental subject of traditional metaphysics to the finite Dasein of the fundamental ontology. And he is happy to see imagination as the original unity which makes the two other sources of the mind, understanding and sensibility, possible in the first place. And this he ties to his own understanding of receptivity and spontaneity at that time, that of Geworfenheit and Entwurf, or “thrownness” and “projection.” Here Heidegger is getting close to the mirroring idea of Daoism, of which more later, and the ziran 自然 and wuwei 無為 sensibilities. Mirroring would be creatively forming our world based on a receptive attitude, which would mean, in Heidegger’s words, it would be Gelassenheit or “releasement.” But this is exactly what I think the Daoist may agree to. In acting ziran and wuwei, we do indeed

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bring a world about, we form. But we form based on the inherent dispositions of things themselves. Yet we must be careful here, because in the end Kant and Heidegger are really talking about the process of knowledge gathering, intuition, and reason, and this is probably not exactly what the Daoists had in mind. No philosophical imagination in Daoism. Let me go back to the first definition of imagination: “The mind considered as engaged in imagining; a person’s mind, or a part of it, represented as the place where images, ideas, and thoughts are produced and stored, or in which they are contained.” To me it seems abundantly clear that such an understanding or use of imagination is absent in Daoism, and especially in Zhuangzi. In fact, one could argue that it is absent from classical Chinese philosophy in general. When there is no real dualist differentiation between mind and senses, and this is what the Chinese tradition (e.g., in the xin as “heart-mind”) suggests, we should not expect there to be a problem of trying to connect the mind to the senses when we want to make sense of knowledge generation in Chinese thought. Knowledge in classical China was seen rather differently. In the words of Brook Zyporin: “Correct knowledge is a skill in making distinctions, and applying the proper names, to masses of sensory data. It is not the matching of a set of sense data to a mental idea that represents them, or to a universal form in which they participate” (2012: 51). Although obviously a rather large generalization, this may hold for classical Chinese philosophy in general, but even this kind of knowledge will be criticized by Zhuangzi, who, as we all know, is not too keen on this kind of “distinction-making.” I will not deal with other classical Chinese thinkers here, but will focus on the Daoists. When looking at classical Chinese thought, and especially at Daoism, could one candidate for a “middle” between thinking and feeling along the lines of “imagination” be the heart-mind (xin 心), or rather as both thinking and feeling, a link between sense perception and cognition? I believe that even asking this question in this form might set us off in the wrong direction, since it would already assume that there are two things which need a bridge. What xin does point to is that there is never the objective or abstract distancing from the world that happens in Western philosophy. Does this xin, being both thinking and feeling, mean that in classical Chinese thought we do not have the need for a bridge, in the form of imagination, between senses and thought? I think it does, since in the classical Chinese world, in the words of Ames and Hall: “The mind cannot be divorced from the heart. There are no altogether rational thoughts devoid of feeling, nor any raw feelings altogether lacking in cognitive content. Having said this, the prejudice to which Daoism is resolutely resistant is the

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dichotomy between the cognitive and the affective that would privilege knowing as some separate cognitive activity” (2003: 26). So the struggle of Kant does not arise in the first place, and that means that a “faculty of imagination” as perceived in modern philosophy makes no sense to the classical Chinese thinkers. An analogy to this can be found in the role played by language. In one of the standard Western interpretations, language is considered the intermediary between thought and sense data. It has been argued by Chad Hansen that (classical) Chinese writing might play a role at least analogous in function to that of imagination in Western theories. “Chinese writing tempts us to describe it as ideographic or pictographic because it plays the interlanguage role that Western theory envisions for its pictographic mental ideas. Chinese graphs give a model that explains how to relate the sounds of different spoken languages. But the model is a social-conventional model, not a mental, abstract, or metaphysical one” (Hansen 1992: 38). So, analogous to the role of imagination, language, in providing a picture “in-between” sense perception and concepts could be seen, and with quite a bit of imagination, as playing a similar role. But as stated, the role is not mental, but social or conventional. Of course, this is far from explaining it or saying they are the same, and I have no wish to pursue this analogy any further. The problem for imagination has always been that it seems a very private thing, and there is no way of showing how it can be shared. The Chinese language theory has no such problem; because the pictographic characters are conventional to start with, they do not presuppose some private realm of imagination that would provide us with “pictures” of the things themselves, even if etymologically this is how a lot of the characters came about. The Chinese accept from the beginning that language does not give us access to the things themselves, but functions according to conventions. The Western problem has always been to make those links between things in themselves and our ideas; and imagination, in the philosophical sense I have presented it, has been one of the ways of dealing with this gap. (This may also have been the reason Kant shied away from it, thinking that there is no access to the things themselves.) Hansen has another way of saying this: “If we do not attribute a belief in a subject-predicate distinction to Chinese philosophers, then we would have no reason to attribute its elaboration in ontology or theory of mind to them. … We need not assume that they share the psychological theory of subjectivity versus objectivity” (1992: 43). Chinese theorists are not drawn to any of the details of our familiar mind-body view of ourselves. So we find little trace of the ways Western thinkers spell out the rest of mentalist

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Imagination psychology: experience, consciousness, inner pictures. … Chinese thinkers do note the phenomenon of mental imagery in both memory and imagination. But they had little reason to assign it the role of explaining meaning. (Hansen 1992: 52)

The short story is really this: in a system of thinking in which there is no strict distinction between subject and object, between mind and matter, between knowing and the senses, we should not expect the same problems to arise in dealing with, and especially bridging that distinction. No distinction, no problem. And especially in the Daoist system, in which the making of distinctions is criticized on many levels, we find a way of thinking that actively seeks not to store or produce images of the world, since such storing would amount to an arbitrary halting of the process that is the world; and in a system that encourages reflection on the world as process without storing, the kind of bridging and storing function described earlier for the faculty of imagination is quite literally inconceivable.

Thinking in or through images and Heidegger’s rehabilitation of imagination? Is Heidegger really interested in rehabilitating imagination? Heidegger’s Kant book is an attempt to reformulate what Kant had to be committed to in his exposition of the imagination as an intermediary between pure sensibility and pure knowledge. Heidegger managed to show how these latter two rest on the foundation of the transcendental power of imagination, and thus how imagination forms the root or the unity by which the other two, pure apperception and pure knowledge, are even possible in the first place. Yet, when he is done with this exposition, Heidegger continues the book by saying that a real foundation of metaphysics as Kant intended should proceed differently, as the reader may guess, through Heidegger’s way of thinking: being as time, the focus being on temporality and finitude. So it really turns out to be the case that Heidegger is not so interested in a true rehabilitation of imagination but that he uses the shortcomings of Kant in shrinking back from the imagination for his own purposes, which is showing the shortcomings of metaphysics in general and providing an alternative approach. Kant’s falling back before the ground which he himself unveiled, before the transcendental power of imagination, is—for purposes of the rescue of pure reason, i.e., of holding-fast to the proper foundation—that movement of

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philosophizing which makes manifest the breaking-open of the foundation and thus makes manifest the abyss of metaphysics. (Heidegger 1997: 150–151)

Kant had to shrink back from seeing imagination as the foundation and root of knowing, since seeing it in that fashion would undermine the independence of reason, and indirectly then undermine the core of Western metaphysics. Heidegger points out that the only logical conclusion Kant should have drawn is exactly this undermining move, and Heidegger is quite willing to make it on Kant’s behalf, because this enables him to put forth his own approach to the finitude of human thought and being. “If the essence of transcendence is grounded in the pure power of imagination, or more originally in temporality, then precisely the idea of the ‘Transcendental Logic’ is something inconceivable” (Heidegger 1997: 171). Heidegger’s rehabilitation of imagination, if we can call it that, thus has its limitations. In fact, one would have to say that Heidegger was not really that interested in rehabilitating imagination. Although some of the tenets of imagination can be seen to be at work in what Heidegger calls “projection” (Entwurf), he himself in turn shies away from conflating projection and imagination. In The Origin of the Work of Art he puts it in the following terms: If we fix our vision on the essence of the work and its connection with the happening of the truth of beings, it becomes questionable whether the essence of poetry, and this means at the same time the essence of projection, can be adequately thought in terms of the power of imagination [von der Imagination und Einbildungskraft]. (Heidegger 1978: 197, German added)

Yet, there is one place where Heidegger does use imagination positively. In the Contributions to Philosophy he says the following: As grounding the openness of self-sheltering, Da-sein appears to the view accustomed to a “being” to be not-being and simply imagined [eingebildet]. Indeed: As thrown projecting-open grounding, Da-sein is the highest actuality in the domain of imagination [im Bereich der Einbildung], granted that by this term we understand not only a faculty of the soul and not only something transcendental (cf. Kantbook) but rather Enowning [Ereignis] itself, wherein all transfiguration reverberates [worin alle Verklärung schwingt]. (Heidegger 1999: 219, German added)

Here Heidegger explicitly says that imagination is Ereignis, but we can see that imagination is no longer purely understood as a faculty of the soul or understanding of the subject, but is subsumed by Heidegger to the Ereignis, to the very Being of Da-sein. This means that Heidegger has changed the concept

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of imagination to suit his purposes. From his interpretation of Kant, Heidegger understands that there is a “bringing forth” character to imagination, a productive or projecting force, but he is reluctant to see that force as something within a subject, but rather as something that is present within the Aletheia structure of revealing-concealing of the Ereignis. As such, my guess is that he himself did not really fancy this change in the meaning of the term imagination proposed here, as the term no longer plays any important role in his later thinking. Again, the reason Heidegger is so reluctant to rehabilitate the notion of imagination, even in its changed form, may be that he puts it squarely within the metaphysical tradition which he seeks to overcome. It just has too much of a subjective tone to it. Another way of seeing how this is so is in his thinking about images and views, which can be most clearly understood by looking at Der Zeit des Weltbildes. Images are bad. Let me start by saying that I do not believe that either Heidegger or the Daoists were sense-skeptics. Although some hesitation with regards to the senses is always there, the core of what they think is not related to this. So when I argue in this section that images are bad, I am not saying that sense perception cannot be trusted. Instead, what I will argue is that in some way which is similar, but definitely not the same, both Heidegger and the Daoists believe that thinking in terms of image, or imaging, does not really get one to the “right” way of thinking. It leaves something out, and focusing on it too much risks missing the point. Starting with Heidegger again, the best places to see this are in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology and The Age of the World Picture. In the first book, building on his ideas in the Kant book, Heidegger applies this kind of thought to perception, and as we saw earlier, he thinks the common and mistaken way of thinking about perception involves the elaborate Kantian theories of imagination. Heidegger here is rather the phenomenologist, who does not believe in subjective perceptions, but thinks that the primary situation is our dwelling in the world: The statement that the comportments of the Dasein are intentional means that the mode of being of our own self, the Dasein, is essentially such that this being, so far as it is, is always already dwelling with the extant. The idea of a subject which has intentional experiences merely inside its own sphere and is not yet outside it but encapsulated within itself is an absurdity which misconstrues the basic ontological structure of the being that we ourselves are. (Heidegger 1982: 64)

So maybe there is a mistrust of the senses in both Heidegger and the Daoists, but in Heidegger the solution lies not in retreating to the inner circle, but in understanding ourselves phenomenologically as primarily embedded in the world. And I think this understanding also applies to Daoism.

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The more important place where we can shed light on how Heidegger perceives thinking in images is in The Age of the World Picture. Here Heidegger, after a long introduction on how the sciences function, comes to the conclusion that when humans start understanding themselves as subjects, the world becomes their object. This subject-object thinking is something that Heidegger is deeply suspicious of, and he sees as one of its consequences, or maybe even as one of its causes, the fact that we start seeing the world as picture, as image. “That the world becomes picture is one and the same event with the event of man’s becoming subiectum in the midst of that which is” (Heidegger 1977: 132). When we see ourselves as subjects opposed to the objective world, then the only way that world can be intelligible is by seeing it as representation (Vorstellung). Remember that Vorstellung has the connotation of setting something in front of us, or creating an image of it. “Wherever we have the world picture, an essential decision takes place regarding what is, in its entirety. The Being of whatever is, is sought and found in the representedness of the latter” (Heidegger 1977: 130). Humans understanding themselves as subject means the world is objectified, and the meaning of whatever is, is sought in this objectification. And that in turn means that the world becomes seen as something the subject builds from out of its inner circle. And that in turn is done by understanding the world in terms of images or imagination. This Cartesian way of thought is so embedded in the Western tradition that we can scarcely conceive of anything else. Thus we talk about medieval world pictures or views, and ancient Greek world pictures, and Chinese world pictures. But the fact that the world has become picture, or that we can have a worldview, is, according to Heidegger, a Western modern invention: In the Greek world, says Heidegger: Man can never be subiectum because here Being is presencing and truth is unconcealment. In unconcealment fantasia comes to pass: the coming-intoappearance, as a particular something, of that which presences—for man, who himself presences toward what appears. Man as representing subject, however, “fantasizes,” i.e., he moves in imagination, in that his representing imagines, pictures forth, whatever is, as the objective, into the world as picture. (Heidegger 1977: 147)

Imagination is only a functionary of the Western bias of separating the subject and object, and functions again largely as trying to fill the gap. Presumably, Heidegger thinks that in other places or eras such a form of dualism would not have been the case. So when Heidegger talks about the world being conceived of as world picture, he is speaking specifically about the Western metaphysical tradition, and only in this tradition can something like a world picture even

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begin to arise: “Hence world picture [Weltbild], when understood essentially, does not mean a picture of the world but the world conceived and grasped as picture” (Heidegger 1977: 129). And there are other places where Heidegger indicates that images are not really conducive to “real” thinking: In Mindfulness, (which itself is not a good translation of the book’s German title Besinnung), there are the following passages: “Philosophy does not deal ‘with’ something, neither ‘with’ beings in the whole nor ‘with’ be-ing. Philosophy is the imageless saying ‘of ’ be-ing itself ” (Heidegger 2006: 53). “To philosophy belongs the serenity of the mastery of imageless knowing-awareness. … Thinking of be-ing does not fit into the role of a world-view” (Heidegger 2006: 42). In short, these passages show that the kind of thinking needed to challenge the dominance of Western metaphysics is not the kind that thinks in images or pictures of the world as something. The subject-object distinction is the main culprit for the Western tendency to think that “imagination” is important in this sense. If this is correct, then I think a similar move takes place in Daoism. The artificial distinction-making processes so reviled by both Laozi and Zhuangzi are the result of starting to think of the world in certain categories. And such thinking tends to obstruct the full richness of our possible experience. In the words of Ames and Hall: “We can easily and at real expense overdetermine the continuity within the life process as some underlying and unchanging foundation. Such linguistic habits can institutionalize and enforce an overly static vision of the world, and in so doing, deprive both language and life of their creative possibilities” (Ames and Hall 2003: 45). Is this what Heidegger means by saying that seeing the world as a picture, having a worldview, already entails the idea of object and a subject before it? Maybe not precisely, and there are definite differences in emphasis present, but I think the link is close enough. So while we usually think of imagination as something which frees us, or enables us to understand ourselves as beings that are free in some way, at least as productive forces and not just as receptacles, what Heidegger and the Daoists argue is that imagination, and thinking in images, traps us in a worldview, quite literally. Once we start cutting up the world and start cutting ourselves from it in some way, we become stuck in thinking in these distinctions and categories so much that we do not see even how to get out of them anymore. The strength of the Daoists is that they point to ways in which we can try to escape from this predicament. Let us look at some examples of this in Daoism. The Daodejing and even more the Zhuangzi are replete with imagery, which can be very rich, but is ultimately metaphorical. So the Daoists do indeed use a lot of images to convey

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their messages, but does this mean that they think in images, or more precisely, that they think thinking in images is good? I would argue not. We have already seen that the fact that the Daoists use a lot of imagery does not mean they have imagination in the modern Kantian sense. In their use of imagery, one of the recurrent themes is the preference for the larger or wider view, and this would suggest that the Daoists do think in images. Yet in the end, even such a larger or wider view is exactly that—a view. And this is the thing to be transcended: the idea of thinking in “viewpoints” of this and that, in smaller and larger pictures. The character usually translated as “image” (xiang 象) is used in a number of chapters of the Daodejing, namely, chapters 4, 14, 21, 35, and 41. In chapter 4 it seems to be used in the meaning of likeness or resemblance. In all the other chapters we find corroboration for the idea that sense perception, which leads to thinking in images, is not the way to go. In chapter 35, when asked to “seize the great image,” we are immediately cautioned that there really is no image, “look for it and there is nothing to see” (Ames and Hall 2003: 132). This kind of understanding is repeated in the other chapters which use xiang in the Daodejing. For example, in chapters 14 and 21, where although there are images within the vagueness and indefiniteness of the process of dao 道, it is the vagueness or indefiniteness of the entire process that we should concentrate on, and not the concrete images which may be present at any one time. And in chapter 41 it is said that “the greatest image has no shape” (Ames and Hall 2003: 141). I take all these indications to point to the fact that using the senses is no good to get you to dao, that thinking in terms of an actual image is always immediately complicated, and so by extension it would then seem that even when using the term image (xiang), we are not looking for a bridge between the senses and pure cognition, but for something else altogether. More importantly, though, than this actual usage of the term xiang is the fact that distinction-making in general is discredited. In chapter 48 this is nicely summarized: “In studying, there is a daily increase, while in learning of waymaking (dao), there is a daily decrease” (Ames and Hall 2003: 151). With each case of distinction-making, more distinctions surface. The trick is to move back from this way of thinking into something else, where continuity and process are more important. Chapter 65 conveys a similar message: do not make or teach too many distinctions, it can only go wrong. In the Zhuangzi we find a similar discrediting both of the use of images, and obviously of the use of distinction making. In chapter 2, aptly named the “sorting which evens things out” we find: “That as ‘Way’ it can be walked is true enough, but we do not see its shape; it has identity but no shape” (Graham

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2001: 51). And in chapter 32, there is this part, which Graham (2001) actually transferred to chapter 3: The sight of the eye is only something which it employs, it is the daemonic in us which tests. It is no new thing that the sight of the eye does not prevail over the daemonic; and is it not sad that fools should depend on what they see and confine themselves to what is of man, so that their achievements are external? (Graham 2001: 63).

In Graham’s interpretation, Cook Ding says just after this in chapter 3: “I am in touch with the daemonic in me, and do not look with the eye” (Graham 2001: 63). Cook Ding does not see himself as a subject opposed to an object, but he sees himself as continuous with the ox, he sees the situation rather than the objectification. If you “expel knowledge from the heart, the ghostly and daemonic will come to dwell in you” (Graham 2001: 69). The move to abstraction through the senses and into cognition—how one normally perceives the acquisition of knowledge (at least in the West)—is seen as negative, but the direct reflection (perceive and respond) of the situation in mirror-like fashion is good. In other words, we should not be “allowing the thinking of the heart to damage the Way” (Graham 2001: 85). This kind of denial of the prominence of visual perception, and with that of images and imagination as thinking in images, is found in many places in the Zhuangzi, both in the inner and outer chapters. In chapter 6 for example: “As for the Way, it is something with identity, something to trust in, but does nothing, has no shape. It can be handed down but not taken as one’s own, can be grasped but not seen” (Graham 2001: 86). The ones that roam beyond the guidelines are “leaving behind their own ears and eyes” (Graham 2001: 89). Also of importance here is the story of Hundun in chapter 7. Giving him the opportunity to think in images kills him. Outside of the inner chapters, in chapter 23, we find the following admonition against using the shaped to fix the shapeless: “The extinguished persisting as solid is a One which is a ghost; it has used the shaped to image the shapeless and has become fixed” (Graham 2001: 103). Using imaging and shaping kills off the process of dao. Elsewhere, in chapter 13, we find: “The visible to sight is shape and colour, the audible to hearing is name and sound; how sad it is then that worldly people think shape and colour, name and sound, sufficient means to grasp the identity of that!” (Graham 2001: 139). And in chapter 22: “The Way is invisible, whatever you see is something else” (Graham 2001: 163). In short,

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there are plenty of examples where sight, sound, and by correlation thinking in images and imagination are discredited. But again, it is distinction-making in general, of which the imagination or visualization is merely an initial aspect, that is discredited most, in a way analogous to how Heidegger discredits imagination as being a part of the metaphysical dualism. For example, in chapter 2 Zhuangzi says: The men of old, their knowledge had arrived at something: at what had it arrived? There were some who thought that there had not yet begun to be things—the utmost, the exhaustive, there is no more to add. The next thought there were things but there had not yet begun to be borders. The next thought there were borders to them but there had not yet begun to be “That’s it, that’s not.” The lighting up of “That’s it, that’s not” is the reason why the Way is flawed. (Graham 2001: 54)

In Zhuangzi, we would have to say that imagination, as the willful synthesizing effort of our heart-minds, is not something that would be considered good. It would fall under the “artificial distinction”-making, or at least would lead up to such distinction-making. Imagination understood in this way suggests agency, a subject-object distinction that is bridged, whereas the Daoist does not think in these terms. The Daoists may not have had the same metaphysics as in the West, but the threat of something akin to the subject-object distinction, through the artificial distinction-making processes, seemed very much one of Zhuangzi’s concerns. And as the Daodejing already suggested, thinking in images tends be one of the first things to set up this distinction, and that is where better ways of living in accordance with dao get lost. But in the Zhuangzi, we have to also acknowledge that using a certain type of imagination is something which can be good, while the previously mentioned types of imagination are to be understood as something bad. If using our imagination means we search for novel approaches to things, try to see different options, then although that would keep us firmly within the realm of discrimination, Zhuangzi does speak highly of such forms of imaginative use, for example with regards to Huizi’s massive gourds in chapter 1. But again, we should be careful and realize that this kind of imagination is only a stage to be overcome. And I have not argued that Daoists are not imaginative in this sense, I have only tried to show that the philosophical use of the term imagination or any equivalent is not present in Daoism. And this is because the Daoists understand that making the artificial distinctions prevalent in their times

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limits the possibilities of engagement with the myriad things, wanwu 萬物. In fact, the quieting of the xin and the blankness, darkness, and muddledness often mentioned approvingly seem to suggest that the faculty of imagination is not up to the Daoist task. Imagination in the “novelty” sense can be used to see something greater and to shift one from one’s current perspective, to unshackle, but we must then move on to see great and small as the same, still in the realm of “weighing” things. If a thing has a form, imagination can capture it momentarily, but we need to move beyond form and fixation. “We can use words to talk about the coarseness of things and we can use our minds to visualize the fineness of things. But what words cannot describe and the mind cannot succeed in visualizing—this has nothing to do with coarseness or fineness” (Watson 2003: 100–101). Anything associated with forms, shapes, sounds, and so forth, and thus things that can be “seen” with the imagination, are at best a stage, necessary to see the bigger picture, yet still a picture that needs to be overcome. I see this in connection to the previously mentioned Daodejing chapter 21, where although it is admitted that the process of dao is “indefinite and vague,” it is indeed still the case that “there are images within it” (Ames and Hall 2003: 107). But these images are never stable. So even if we were to say that there is imagination in Daoism, this kind of imagination would never be able to be the “middle man” between our sense experience and the conceptual world, since it is recognized that the senses and indeed the world change, but the concepts do not. Or at least, in the Western interpretation they do not, but again, in Daoism even the concepts are not static. Instead, Daoists recognize that concepts are fluid and can only momentarily halt the process of change, after which we have to let them go or at least re-evaluate their meanings, which have changed with the processes. To the extent that it is the nature of language to arrest the process of change and discipline it into a coherent, predictable order, there is the likelihood that an uncritical application of language might persuade us that our world is of a more stable and necessary character than it really is. The assumption, for example, that there is a literal language behind the metaphorical can introduce notions of permanence, necessity, and objectivity into our worldview that can have deleterious consequences. (Ames and Hall 2003: 113)

The images within the process should not be held to be eternal or permanent; they shift according to context and situation, and should therefore not be held in any great esteem.

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Can we rescue imagination? Imagination as mirroring and anticipation Mirroring the world. I have shown how imagination in a certain sense is not present in the Daoists, or in Heidegger for that matter, and that thinking in images is seen as a corollary of the kind of thinking that leads us astray. Instead of thinking in terms of distinction-making (with or without the help of images), both Heidegger and the Daoists talk in terms of vagueness, muddledness, concealedness, as they want to say that imagining does not bring clarity. But is not clarity concerned with vision and image? Does Zhuangzi not say that the best thing to use is ming 明, “illumination”? (Graham 2001: 53). Maybe, but this clarity is only gotten by unlearning the artificial distinctions that we have inserted into our “view” of the world. The clarity is not found by trying to make ever finer distinctions, but by mirroring the process-character of the world. And this mirroring may be one of the ways in which a different kind of imagination could still play a role. Besinnung is one of Heidegger’s words here to consider. The book Besinnung by Heidegger has been translated as Mindfulness, which is unfortunate because it seems to be one of the buzzwords of today, but this is not what Heidegger has in mind. Although some of the connotations of “mindfulness” resonate with both Heidegger and the Daoist position of mirroring, a better translation would be “reflection,” with the caveat that the German Besinnung has nothing to do with mirrors or mirroring. When talking about reflection elsewhere, Heidegger says the following: “Reflection [Besinnung] is the courage to make the truth of our own presuppositions and the realm of our own goals into the things that most deserve to be called in question” (1977: 116, German added). Reflection or mindfulness is thus a receptive but at the same time a questioning attitude, whereas imagination is traditionally part of an asserting attitude. In Heidegger as well as in Daoism, the asserting attitude is criticized, and the questioning attitude that searches for a true understanding of our being is celebrated. Other words in Heidegger conveying the same idea are Gelassenheit (releasement) and Ereignis (enowning, or event of appropriation). In Daoism this is reflected in characters such as ziran 自然 and wuwei 無為. That Heidegger has something in mind similar to Zhuangzi, when the latter urges us to give up this distinction-making inclination, can be seen from the following quote:

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This long quote shows how Heidegger, although maybe not in the same terminology, has an idea similar to Zhuangzi’s. As in most of his other work, the rational and calculative approach is discredited, and the attitude of Dasein should rather be one that wishes nothing to do with such assertive or discriminative approaches: “We stay in the leap ahead of any yes and no. Certainly we are never the knowing ones” (Heidegger 2006: 5). But such a reflective attitude is more than passive, in the same way that Heidegger’s Gelassenheit is more than passive. Gelassenheit is the proper way of being in the world, where we understand the profound ways in which we are always already inserted in to this world. This happens in Ereignis. These are ways of being in which the clarity that comes with distinction-making is criticized in favor of a more holistic or comprehensive account in which there is a fundamental interplay between ourselves and the world: “In accordance with the mirroring [Widerspiel] of enownment [Ereignung], every foundational word (every ‘saying’) is ambiguous” (Heidegger 2006: 17, German added). Mirroring is not the pure and simple passive reflection of the way the world is, but consists in an understanding of the reciprocity of humans and their world, of our embeddedness in the world and our belonging to it as a process; and such understanding comes with the acknowledgment that words are not unequivocal tools to fixate meaning, but have a necessary ambiguity within them. In thinking in terms of form and formation (Bildung), an immediate correlate is found in the ideas of form and matter. And it is also these ideas that obscure our understanding of the world, while seemingly making it easier to understand. This mode of thought of form and matter “preconceives all immediate experience of beings. The preconception shackles reflection on the being of any given entity” (Heidegger 1971: 30). Reflection is “shackled” by preconceptions, but it is precisely these preconceptions that are part and parcel of the imagination understood as a philosophical concept. But we also saw in the long quote of Heidegger earlier in this chapter that he ties imagination to both a receptive

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and a spontaneous attitude. As such, imagination as mirroring is a good thing. We thus need to unshackle ourselves from the modern philosophical idea of imagination and rethink it in terms of receptivity and spontaneity, that is, in terms of “reflection.” And this is where I see a connection to the mirroring attitude of the Daoist. We know that such a mirroring attitude is not the simple thing it seems to be at first sight. Mirroring is an image-like thing, or at least the metaphor has resonances with images and imagination, but it is first of all not the medium between senses and cognition. In fact, one would rather say that it should refuse to be this intermediate, since if it is, then it would send the wrong artificial structures for fixation into the xin. It should stop with reflection, and reflection should really bounce back the images into the world, instead of storing them into the mind. And this may be connected with Heidegger’s Besinnung. In the words of Zhuangzi: “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” (Graham 2001: 98). This is repeated in the Huainanzi: “The sage is like a mirror, neither holding onto nor welcoming [anything], responding but not storing up. Thus he can undergo ten thousand transformations without injury. To [claim to] get it is indeed to lose it” (Major et al. 2010: 220). To get it means to store it, and this would be the inclination of the mind if the imagination were to perform its function in the way Kant suggested. But since the Daoist does not want to store it, she must use the imagination in a different way, so that the images are not stored, not petrified into fixed formations. This attitude is stated by Ames and Hall in the following way: “The optimum posture of the heartmind (xin 心) is to achieve and sustain an emptiness and equilibrium that will enable it to take in the world as it is without imposing its own presuppositions upon it” (Ames and Hall 2003: 100). The function of imagination as Kant sees it is exactly to aid in the formation of presuppositions (with the help of, or by imposing the categories), abstractions, ideas, and generalizations that the Daoist seeks to discredit and avoid. Daoist skill and wisdom are found in the direct reflecting of the situation without the intermediate steps of discrimination and “sorting.” Of course, the sorting which evens out is good, which is sorting which is not mediated by “reason” and which does not cut up the world into artificially distinct things. This is why the Daodejing says: “Cut off learning” (Ames and Hall 2003: 105). One should literally cut it short before it gets too artificial. Although we cannot avoid knowledge and images totally, we should know when to stop relying on them too much, and instead focus on aligning ourselves with, or mirroring, the world

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as it unfolds: “We understand and function within the field of experience most effectively if we can resist the discriminating and judgmental attitude toward things that comes with a partial view of them, and instead relate to them on the basis of the wholeness implicated within any phase of their process” (Ames and Hall 2003: 111). Or in Heidegger’s words: “To this end, however, only one element is needful: to keep at a distance all the preconceptions and assaults of the above modes of thought, to leave the thing to rest in its own self ” (1971: 30–31). Imagination as normally understood aids in preconceptuality and distinctionmaking, mirroring or Besinnung should not. What I see as the key tenet of Gelassenheit and mirroring is nicely reflected in this quote on the Greek world as Heidegger sees it, which could equally well apply to the Daoists: To be beheld by what is, to be included and maintained within its openness and in that way to be borne along with it, to be driven about by its oppositions and marked by its discord—that is the essence of man in the great age of the Greeks. Therefore, in order to fulfil his essence, Greek man must gather (legein) and save (sozein), catch up and preserve, what opens itself in its openness, and he must remain exposed (aletheuein) to all its sundering confusions. (Heidegger 1977: 131)

The preserving that Heidegger talks about is not the same as the storing. Although the German Bewahren does mean preserve, this should rather be understood as “making come true” in the sense of keeping, maintaining, and protecting of what comes to us as it is. In the same way to “‘know’ as the mirror ‘knows’ is not reduplicative, but is to cast the world in a certain light” (Ames and Hall 2003: 41–42). It is in this way that imagination as Besinnung and mirroring can be seen to have a function. Anticipating the world. Maybe there is also room for yet another kind of imagination to deal with the world of change and becoming. In Daoism such a sense of imagination as anticipation is readily found. After all, the Daoists are constantly in the process of dealing imaginatively with ever-changing circumstances and situations. This ties in with the anticipatory idea of imagination, as spontaneity, which is actually also to be found in the West, as there is a fourth definition in the OED that tells us that imagination is also “The mental consideration of future or potential actions or events” (OED). And in Daoism in general, seeing the continuity between the self and the rest of the world, and living the ziran and wuwei life, definitely entails some kind of imaginative processes that revolve around dealing with change and novelty. But we should hesitate to argue that the Daoist is really interested in “mentally considering”

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the future. Such considering, when understood in a different context, smacks of deliberation and scheming, and the Daoist would rather mirror things as they are, and blend in with the changes, than think too much about the future. Yet there is a form of anticipation that may not be tied to deliberation and scheming. As Ames and Hall mention: “The ongoing shaping of experience requires a degree of imagination and creative projection that does not reference the world as it is, but anticipates what it might become” (2003: 46). Imagination as anticipation is thus present in Daoism, but it is not the imagination as Kant or Heidegger used it. So imagination does have a place, as our relation to the world, which should not be clouded (mirror) by artificial constructs that pretend to be eternal. Imagination lies in recognition and anticipation of change. As Graham has it, mirroring is “responsiveness in the impersonal calm when vision is most lucid” (2001: 14). It is there that imagination has a place, and where a connection to Heidegger’s Gelassenheit is clear. The Daoist version lies in wuwei: “The way to optimize the creative possibilities of all the elements in any particular situation is to allow them to collaborate in doing what they do noncoercively (wuwei)” (Ames and Hall 2003: 145). Imagination as anticipation may take the form of the realization of relationality and the letting be of things as they inherently are, but should guard against becoming too much of an “expectation,” which in a process-world of change should continually be reconstructed.

Concluding remarks It seems that “imagination” is a multifaceted word with different meanings, some of which I have argued definitely do not fit in with Daoist sensibilities, while some others may. We should also take note of the fact that for a Western audience these four definitions are linked to each other quite naturally, but that in Daoism this may not be the case. If Kant is right in the idea that we are always thinking according to categories, then the imagination will be no different in that it provides an abstraction based on categories, rather than a “pure” seeing of things as they are, or in Daoist terms, a “mirroring of the world.” There seems to be a discrepancy then. In one way, we could say that Daoists are an imaginative bunch, in another, we can say that they should not be. The conclusion may only be that although we obviously think that Daoists are imaginative, the Western philosophical use of the term “imagination” and the related thinking in images are either not really present in classical Daoism or not thought highly of. Although in the final section I have argued that we can also

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understand “imagination” to involve something else, we have to stay aware of the fact that this latter interpretation of imagination would not necessarily match most of its stated definitions and regular use, and we must thus be careful when employing the terminology of “imagination” in a Daoist context.

References Ames, Roger T. and David L. Hall (2003), Daodejing, Making This Life Significant. New York: Ballantine Books. Graham A. C. (2001), Chuang-tzǔ; The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Hansen, Chad (1992), A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1971), Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by A. Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row. Heidegger, Martin (1977), The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by W. Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row. Heidegger, Martin (1978), Basic Writings. Translated by D. F. Krell. London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Heidegger, Martin (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by A. Hofstadter. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1997), Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. 5th edn. Translated by Richard Taft. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1999), Contributions to Philosophy: (from Enowning). Translated by P. Emad and K. Maly. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Heidegger, Martin (2006), Mindfulness. Translated by P. Emad and T. Kalary. London and New York: Continuum Books. Kant, Immanuel (1998), Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Major, John S., Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth, eds and trans. (2010), The Huainanzi. New York: Columbia University Press. Oxford English Dictionary Online. s.v. “Imagination,” http://www.oed.com Watson, Burton, trans. (2003), Zhuangzi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press. Zyporin, Brook (2012), Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought: Prolegomena to the Study of Li. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

6

Daoism, Utopian Imagination, and Its Discontents Ellen Y. Zhang

Utopia has been a long-standing political concept and a literary genre in the Western tradition. The word “utopia” was coined from the Greek by Thomas More in his 1516 work, Utopia. It has a twofold meaning: (1) ou-topia (a nonplace) and (2) eu-topia (a good place). In the past five centuries, the title of More’s book has been perceived as a synonym for “utopian socialism,” and its secular and rational dimensions differentiate it from alotopia, represented by the Christian notion of “Heaven.” By means of fantasy and imagination, utopia creates an alternative to reality, an ideal world set apart from reality, which is yet immanent in the known world. In the West, a utopian worldview has traditionally signified the ideal future: large-scale social, political, ethical, and religious spaces that have yet to be realized. In his essay “Utopia—The Problem of Definition,” Lyman Tower Sargent, a political scientist, defines utopia as a “fairly detailed description of a social system that is nonexistent but located in time and space” (Sargent 1975: 143). This paradoxical definition points to a non-existent “place” that is somehow represented by space and time: it implies both a non-reality or an imagined reality and an actual reality. Utopia, according to this definition then, refers to a reality that is a non-reality, and a non-reality that is a reality, simultaneously. Does traditional Chinese philosophy or literature have a similar idea? In his paper “Utopia: Secular Ideas and the Chinese Tradition,” Longxi Zhang, a wellknown scholar of comparative literature, points out that the utopian idea finds articulation in the Chinese tradition, well expressed through concepts such as “grand unity” (datong 大同) and “great peace” (taiping 太平). Zhang maintains that although the philosophical and literary works of ancient China lack a detailed description concerning the institutional structure of a perfected system,

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the notion of an ideal society is by no means absent from the Chinese tradition (Zhang 1999b: 95–103). A good society was well represented by the political fantasy of “humane governance” in Confucianism and by literary images in early recluse poetry. Nevertheless, Zhang does not distinguish between political imaginations (i.e., utopia as a political agenda) and literary fantasies (i.e., eutopia as a personal and spiritual quest); and the latter, I will argue, characterizes the Chinese concept of utopia. In other words, the ideal state tends to be internal in terms of a spiritual home rather than external in terms of a political reality. In this chapter, I will first explore various imaginative ideas of “a perfected harmonious social order” and “grotto heavens” in early Daoist philosophy, religion, and subsequent literary tales inspired by Daoism. Secondly, I will discuss an anti-utopian or even dystopian stance in Daoist philosophy that is especially expressed in Zhuangzi’s philosophy and show that Daoists question imaginative processes by which a set of social morality is mobilized in view of achieving political aims. Finally, I will employ Robert Nozick’s concept of “meta-utopia” to explain some key points of the Daoist notion of an ideal state. The chapter aims to show how Daoist utopianism, in which political visions and mythical imaginations are intertwined, offers a stimulating portrait of a highly varied but distinctive political ideal, tradition, and practice arising from the enduring human impulse to be free. I hope that the discussion of Daoist utopianism will be brought into conversation with contemporary discourse on utopia and its discontents, in which one sees a dynamic interplay between the reality of here-now and the imagination of there-then, as well as a tension between the affirmation of a possibility and the negation of its fulfillment. The chapter will conclude that utopian imagination is better understood as a political orientation rather than a political destination.

Utopias in philosophical Daoism Various concepts of an ideal society are implied in ancient Pre-Qin texts, such as “a small state with a minimal population” (小國寡民) in the Laozi 老子, “the state of gentlemen in the East” (東方君子之國) in the Huainanzi 淮南子, and “the State of Huaxu” (華胥國) in the Liezi 列子. Yet, different from the concept of non-place suggested by utopia, the Chinese concept of a good place points to an ideal world that is believed to have been truly existent in antiquity. The most famous one, found in chapter 80 of the Laozi, offers a picture of a pacifist villagestate with a minimal government:

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There is a state that is small with a minimum population Even though there are ships and chariots, There is no occasion to use them. Even though there are armor and weapons, There is no occasion to display them. Even though there are ships and chariots, There is no occasion to use them. Even though there are armor and weapons, There is no occasion to display them …. The people there enjoy fine delicacies and find beauty in their garments, They are happy with their residences and pleased with their customs. Although the neighboring states are within eyesight, And the sounds of their dogs and cocks are within earshot, The people there live their whole life without traveling to and fro. (Laozi 80)1

Here Laozi raises a question concerning an ideal state. The chapter offers a vision of a Daoist utopia with the free and communal life of a small state. Three points need special attention here: (1) The idea of a free society with a small state expresses a distinctive political philosophy in terms of an ideal state, even though the concept of the state may not be the same as in the modern sense.2 (2) The pastoral lifestyle depicted in the passage does not simply mean that the author advocates a return-to-nature romanticism, or suggests a nostalgic dream of a lost paradise, or that the Laozi promotes an attitude of primitivism and a reactionary disposition to human progress. And (3) the notion of “antiquity” can be a form of political imagination rather than a historical narrative; as the historian K. S. Hsiao has observed, the early Daoist philosophers “adduced an ideal of a free society of a kind that never existed in history,” and thus it is one which functions as a major inspiration for insurgency (Hsiao 1979: 20). Despite the fact that we should not over-emphasize the differences in political views between Daoism and Confucianism and other philosophical schools, it is important to point out that Daoist philosophy is known for its critique of excessive imposition of law, punishment, and moral doctrines. It prefers a lifestyle that goes along with the spontaneous order. Yet at the same time, the simple and natural life does not mean that the Laozi promotes a primitive past that is remote from civilization. As we read, in Laozi’s ideal state, labor-saving machinery exists, such as ships and chariots, and weapons for self-defense. The

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problem, according to the author’s acute observation, lies in people’s mishandling of technological tools, particularly when they are used for the purpose of military aggression. As Chang Chung-yuan puts it in his commentary on the Laozi: When the Great Tao [dao] prevails, people enjoy their lives. They are well satisfied with their food, their clothes, their lodgings, and their cultural traditions. When people are really able to enjoy their lives, their being and their thinking are totally identified. It is through this deep, underlying harmony that people are freed from the intention of war. Therefore, their weapons are put aside. (Chang 1975: 194)

What Laozi attempts to show is, therefore, an ideal society of peace, both internally and externally. As for a perfect political model, neither chapter 80 nor elsewhere in the Laozi offers a detailed and systematic description concerning the form of state and system, nor does it argue for an Aristotelian notion of “common good” or for the Confucian idea of unity under the leadership of a “benevolent government”; Daoist philosophy is rather based on a non-fixed notion of spontaneity with less control and coercion from bureaucratic and economic centrism. I will return to this point later. In comparison with the Laozi, ideal societies or utopian elements described in the Zhuangzi tend to be more individualistic and anarchistic. Zhuangzi’s Daoism advocates life at the margin of society, being left alone. For example, in chapter 29 of the Zhuangzi, the statement by Robber Zhi presents a utopian world that embodies the Daoist idea of freedom and individualism: Moreover, I have heard that in ancient times the birds and beasts were many and the people few. Therefore the people all nested in the trees in order to escape danger, during the day gathering acorns and chestnuts, at sundown climbing back up to sleep in their trees. Hence they were called the people of the nestbuilder. In ancient times the people knew nothing about wearing clothes. In summer they heaped up great piles of firewood, in winter they burned them to keep warm. Hence they were called “the people who know how to stay alive.” In the age of Shen Nong, the people lay down peaceful and easy, woke up wide-eyed and blank. They knew their mothers but not their fathers, and lived side by side with the elk and the deer. They plowed for their food, wove for their clothing, and had no thought in their hearts of harming one another. This was Perfect Virtue at its height! (Zhuangzi: 29)3

As a matter of fact, such “primitivism” in the concept of the Daoist golden age has been discussed in Daoist scholarship.4 For instance, John Rapp notes that A. C. Graham connects this chapter to the “Yangist” (the disciples of Yang Zhu 楊 朱) ideal of individualistic hermitism, while Xiaogan Liu interprets the chapter

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as an argument for Daoist anarchism (Rapp 2012: 56). It is not surprising that Graham links the utopia chapters in the Zhuangzi to the philosophy of Yang Zhu since the most well-known passage associated with the idea of a lost utopia is found in the chapter entitled “Yang Zhu” in the Leizi; here Yang argues for individual freedom in terms of self-ownership and anarchism, a kind of view accepted, to a certain extent, by the Zhuangzi and fully embraced by Neo-Daoists in the Wen-Jin 魏晉period (265−420 CE) such as Ruan Ji 阮籍and Liu Ling 劉 伶.5 Yang’s argument for placing the interest of the individual above that of the state is drastically different from the position held by Confucianism. This is the very reason that Mengzi/Mencius regards Yang as a dangerous person. Apart from Daoist philosophy, early literary works inspired by Daoism also reflect a kind of utopian imagination. One of the most famous is a poetic piece entitled “Peach Blossom Spring” (Taohuayuan ji 桃花源記) written by Tao Yuanmin (also known as Tao Qian) (365–427) in the Eastern Jin period. Tao was well known for his Daoist-oriented poems in which he offered an account of his carefree and happy life in the country after retiring from his government service. “Peach Blossom Spring” tells a story of fisherman who sailed down a stream through a cave by accident and discovered a hidden place in the forest where people had escaped the tyrannical rule of the Qin emperor long ago and founded a new society with a perfect peace and order without government. This poetic prose has been regarded throughout Chinese history as one that epitomizes a Daoist vision of an ideal community. One passage goes like this: Some, noticing the fisherman, started in great surprise and asked him where he had come from. He told them his story. They then invited him to their home, where they set out wine and killed chickens for a feast. When news of his coming spread through the village everyone came in to question him. For their part they told how their forefathers, fleeing from the troubles of the age of Qin, had come with their wives and neighbors to this isolated place, never to leave it. From that time on they had been cut off from the outside world. They asked what age was this: they had never even heard of the Han, let alone its successors, the Wei and the Jin. The fisherman answered each of their questions in full, and they sighed and wondered at what he had to tell. The rest all invited him to their homes in turn, and in each house food and wine were set before him. It was only after a stay of several days that he took his leave. (Birch 1965: 167–168)

Like More’s utopia, this community in Peach Blossom Spring is isolated from the rest of the world by its remote and mystical geographical location. The village seems to be a perfect and egalitarian society in which everyone is happy all the time and no one wants or suffers. Before the fisherman departed,

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people in the village asked him not to tell what he saw to the people outside. But the fisherman did not keep the secret and told the local authority. They tried to find the place repeatedly but in vain. There was no trace of it, no matter how hard the fisherman tried to re-trace his steps. At first glance, Tao’s narrative seems to fit the image of utopia in most literary works, that is, a good place turns out to be a non-place.6 But if we consider the story further, we find that the author has suggested something else. The reason that the place could not be traced again by the fisherman and the government official is not because it did not exist but because they were “looking for it” with an effort. This very gesture of action goes against the Daoist idea of non-action (wuwei 無為). The story can also be interpreted in light of Tao Yuanming’s (as well as a Daoist) anti-government stance. That is, the village of “Peach Blossom Spring” is antithetical to the conventional form of society in which people are controlled by the government. Obviously here, Tao’s anarchic community is not exactly the same as the “small state” depicted in Chapter 80 of the Laozi, where there is a minimum of government guided by a sage-ruler equipped with military troops reserved for self-defense if deemed necessary. Nevertheless, “Peach Blossom Spring” has political implications shared by the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. To put it otherwise, there is a clear vision of an ideal society in which individuals are free and people are treated equally, even though there are no institutions and rituals to regulate people as to how to behave morally.

Grotto heavens and mountain paradises in religious Daoism In contrast to philosophical Daoism, religious Daoism seeks longevity and immortality, which in turn, influences its utopian imagination, illustrated in its various images of grotto heavens and mountain paradises, such as Mount Kunlun (Kunlun shan 崑崙山), the Immortal World of Pengying (pengying xianjing 蓬 瀛仙境), and the Queen Mother of the West (Xi Wangmu 西王母). All of these images indicate a paradisiacal realm where the major issue is physical longevity rather than an ideal political situation. The concept of a “realm of immortality” (xianjing 仙境), depicted in both Daoist religious texts and Daoist-inspired recluse poetry, points to a spiritual journey into the realms of gods, celestial beings, and immortals, and is described as a “far-off journey” (yuanyou 遠遊). Yet at the same time, the far-off journey has never been separated from the secular world of right here and right now.

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According to Daoist religion, grotto heavens and mountain paradises are “good places” (eutopia) yet remote and hidden from the real world, and special self-cultivation is required to “locate” those mystical places. Such thinking has highly influenced literary creations about a better state of existence since the Wei-Jin period. Utopia as a literary genre, known as “recluse poetry” (yinyi shi 隱 逸詩), becomes a means of expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo and the desire for transformation. The recurring theme of recluse poetry is not only about the tranquility and peacefulness of the pastoral life, but also about the desire to experience the life of the immortals in the Daoist paradise, as one sees in A Call for Hermits (Zhao yinshi招隱士) by Zhang Hua (張華, 232–300) and Roaming into Immortality, A Collection of Nineteen Poems (Youxian shi shijiushou遊仙 十九首) by Guo Pu (郭璞, 276–324). It should be noted, however, that the transcendent experiences expressed in recluse poems are also immanent and characterized by a secular orientation, and hence they reflect authors’ particular attitudes toward life in this world. Wolfgang Bauer has made a good point when he says that recluse poetry has brought the transcendent realm of immortals into the everyday life of common people (Bauer 1976: 190). Nevertheless, the secular dimension of recluse poetry is consistent with that of religious Daoism. In other words, religious Daoism has always been linked to this world, even in its most extreme of utopian imaginations and fantasies. Jörn Rüsen argues that “despite its fictive nature … utopia has a particularly realistic character that make[s] the genre more important as an articulation of social and political ideas rather than the manifestation of artistic ingenuity” (Rüsen 2005: 226). As a matter of fact, some descriptions of grotto heavens and mountain paradises refer to internal space, that is, the inner mind of a Daoist practitioner rather than a physical place somewhere beyond the world. For example, there is a story in the Lingbao text entitled Scripture of the Five Talismans of the Lingbao (Lingbao wufujing 靈寶五符經), also known as “The Grotto Passage.”7 In the story, a Daoist hermit, upon the request of King He Lu of the Wu, looked for a sacred text hidden in a grotto in the middle of Lake Tai. It is said that the text had been transcribed by Yu, the sage-ruler in antiquity, and kept in the cave for later revelation. Within the narrative, the author presents a fanciful setting of an ideal place in which one finds palaces, phoenixes and dragons, springs, gorgeous trees and flowers, and other supernatural wonders. On the one hand, it resonates perfectly with the concept of the “realm of immortality” believed in by the cult of immorality of Daoist religion; on the other hand, it fits into the Daoist idea of “seeking in not-seeking.” In the story of the grotto passage, the hermit finally found the sacred text and presented it to the King. However, the King could not

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understand the text. After failing to have Confucius explain the text to him, the King attempted to read it himself, only to find that the characters of the text had disappeared. Other people who tried to do the same also encountered ominous events. Obviously, the story has a similar theme of “found and lost” described by Tao’s “Peach Blossom Spring.” It is interesting to see that in the Lingbao text, there is a detailed illustration of what is called “the mystery of the grotto” (dongxuan 洞玄). According to religious Daoism, the grotto is identified with the void or emptiness, while the mystical is within the hidden and the profound. The mystery of the grotto does not suggest merely a geographical location, but more importantly, a state of the mind in religious cultivation in order to reach the realm of immortality. This idea is repeated in Daoist practice known as “attaining the dao through selfemptying” (xuhua dedao 虛化得道). Nevertheless, for some Daoist believers, the grotto or cave is perceived to be a better place for practicing meditation, similar to the idea of “pure land” in Buddhism. It follows that the “good place” as eutopia could be understood both internally and externally. According to Stephen Bokenkamp, Tao’s “Peach Blossom Spring” was influenced by the “The Grotto Passage” of the Lingbao text (Bokenkamp 1986: 65–77), and both “Peach Blossom Spring” and “The Grotto Passage” criticize “the single-minded pursuit of [T]Daoist wonders” which somehow fits the Daoist teaching that the dao that can be pursued is not the dao itself. In fact, stories similar to “Peach Blossom Spring” are by no means unusual in early literary works inspired by philosophical and religious Daoism. For example, there is a story collection that was popularized a bit later than “Peach Blossom Spring” entitled A Garden of Strangeness (yiyuan 異苑) complied by Liu Jingshu 劉敬叔 (405–471).8 It tells a story of how a barbarian (manren 蠻人) hunting for deer followed his prey into a stone grotto. After he managed to get into a small cave, he saw a ladder next to the entrance. He climbed up and found the space above yielding to a vast profusion of mulberry and fruit trees. There were human travelers flying freely in the air as if this was their normal way of being. On his way back, the barbarian made tree cuttings and marked the path. However, the cave was lost and there was no trace back. Here “no trace back” (wufu無復) refers to the failure of making a return to the paradise because of the “deluded mind” of the seeker.9 In this case, the mystical place refers to a utopian state of mind rather than a geographical location. In addition, some religious texts in Daoism also present strong political implications. In this case, the notion of an ideal society is associated with the Daoist theology of the “end of the world” or to be exactly, the “end of the world

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cycle,” denoting a significant social transformation. At this stage, the world is viewed as in a terrible state of chaos, a sign of a loss of cosmic balance, and is characterized by omens such as droughts, floods, famines, epidemics, and other natural disasters. Although Daoist eschatology became more popular much later, a utopian vision of a religious movement and social change was articulated in The Classic of Great Peace (Hendrischke 2015) (Taipingjing太平經), one of the key texts in early religious Daoism. The text divides antiquity into three eras: High Antiquity, Middle Antiquity, and Late Antiquity, claiming that it was only High Antiquity which pointed to a time of Great Peace. The second section of the text, entitled “The Peace That Will Save the World,” offers a specific definition of peace, that is, peace is attained after the destruction of the evil existent in the current political structure. The concept of “great peace” denoted an ideal world where social harmony is maintained through a hierarchical but also egalitarian system. Unlike the utopian society in the Laozi and the “Peach Blossom Spring,” the vision of a perfect world in religious Daoism is closer to More’s version of utopia, in which one sees law, order, and central planning and designing. Meanwhile, The Classic of Great Peace is viewed in religious Daoism as a guide book that reveals “the proper methods” to bring forward an era of great peace, equality, and social justice.10 Different from The Classic of Great Peace, The Yellow Emperor’s Hidden Talisman Classic (Huangdi Yinfujing or Yinfujing 黃帝陰符經) (Xiao 1996) is a Daoist text that “internalizes” the Daoist utopian vision in a more direct fashion. It is an anonymous and esoteric text popularized in the Tang dynasty (618–907) which combines Daoist onto-cosmology and the technique of the internal alchemy of meditation with the art of political and military strategies.11 What is intriguing about this text is that it associated the ideal state with an ideal leader with what is believed to be the embodiment of peace and the cosmic order. The word yin in the title of the Yinfujing implies the notion of “hidden” or “secret,” and the word fu means correspondence (qi 契) and unification (he 合); like the Lingbao text, the Yinfujing is related to the genre of fulu, talismans. Thus the title suggests the idea of secret correspondence and unification, both in terms of Dao-humanity relationship. Hence the concept of utopia, according to some Daoist believers, refers not only to a good place, but a secret place, known only to those who have attained this wisdom or insight. In a certain sense, this kind of esoteric text resembles those of the mystical tradition in other religions, as one sees in the Gospel of Thomas, which states that only those who have received secret knowledge will experience no death and enter the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e., the promise of a happy and eternal afterlife).12 In this regard, a “good

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place” functions as a means of expressing alternative solutions to reality. Yet for outsiders who are skeptical of the existence of such a good place, it is perceived as nothing but fantasy and imagination.

Anti-utopian and dystopian views in philosophical Daoism Before approaching the anti-utopian and dystopian standpoints in philosophical Daoism, let us first take a look at the idea of an ideal society in the Confucian tradition. In Confucian sociopolitical thinking, “humanness” (ren 仁) is the key ethical idea, as both personal virtue and the way of governance. In the chapter of “Liyuan” of the Record of Rites (Liji 禮記), there is a well-known passage explaining the Confucian vision of an ideal society of the grand unity: When the Grand Dao was pursued, a public and common spirit ruled all under the sky; they chose men of talents, virtue, and ability; their words were sincere, and what they cultivated was harmony. Thus men did not love their parents only, nor treat as children only their own sons. A competent provision was secured for the aged till their death, employment for the able-bodied, and the means of growing up to the young. They showed kindness and compassion to widows, orphans, childless men, and those who were disabled by disease, so that they were all sufficiently maintained. Males had their proper work, and females had their homes. They accumulated articles of value, disliking that they should be thrown away upon the ground, but not wishing to keep them for their own gratification. They labored with their strength, disliking that it should not be exerted, but not exerting it only with a view to their own advantage. In this way selfish desires were repressed and found no development. Robbers, filchers, and rebellious traitors did not show themselves, and hence the outer doors remained open, and were not shut. This was the period of what we call the Grand Unity. (Legge 1885: Section I)

This portrayal of Confucian political utopia emphasizes the virtue of the ruler which will influence the people with a spirit of harmony that creates a flourishing society. From the perspective of the Confucian philosophy, returning to rituals and morality from the ruler to the common people is the only way to keep the social order. Sinologist John K. Fairbank calls the Confucian way of governance “the myth of rule by virtue” (Fairbank 1972: 100). In Confucian ideal society, the ruler is the central figure who oversees the healthy functioning of the system. On this point, P. J. Ivanhoe rightly observes that:

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Confucians strongly believed in the power of Virtue [de 德]. The example of the good person was thought to have a magnetic, motivating, and uplifting effect. It draws people to the sage-ruler and inspires them to be good—like the sage. Daoists believed in a very different concept of de. For them the sage’s Virtue had a therapeutic effect on those around him. The force of the sage’s Virtue was more centripetal; it allows people to settle down and be comfortable where they are and find peace and contentment in their individual lives. (Ivanhoe 2011: 38)

Different from the Confucian notion of governing by the ultimate virtue, Daoist philosophers talk about the idea of self-governance and self-transformation of the people. In the Laozi, we read: Of the best of all rulers, People will only know that he exists. The next best is the one they will love and praise. The next is the one they will fear. And the worst is the one they will disparage … When the work is accomplished and the job completed, People all say: “We have done it naturally.” (Laozi: 17) The natural dao does not do anything yet it leaves nothing undone … All things will be self-transforming, And self-transforming, should their desires be stirred, I could make them still by the nameless uncarved wood, they would leave off desiring. In not desiring, they would be at peace, And the world would be self-ordering. (Laozi: 17)

The statement “We have done it naturally” best represents Daoist political thought. The word “naturally” (ziran 自然) indicates the idea of “self-so,” “so-ofits-own,” and “so-of-itself.” According to Ivanhoe’s understanding, the Daoist ideal of a sage-ruler is more “centripetal,” allowing more freedom for people to find the “Dao” in their own ways. It follows that the political leader à la the Confucian model is one who draws people “upward” through the excellence of his moral charisma “like a polar star.” The political leader à la the Daoist model is one who puts himself in a low and humble position “like a valley” that is more nourishing and accommodating, thus allowing people to focus on their own spontaneous tendencies which, in turn, lead them to live in a greater harmony and peace. The “polar star” and “valley” metaphors best illustrate the two ways of the art of ruling. This explains why Laozi advocates the idea of “not daring to be the first,” and

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seldom talks about the role of a “father-like” or “sage-like” king envisioned by Mencius. Therefore, a sage-ruler by a Daoist definition rests in non-action (wuwei) and practices the principle of non-interference. In this sense we say that Daoist philosophy prefers a “laissez faire” model to a paternalistic Confucian model. Meanwhile, compared to the traditional concept of utopia in the West, both Daoist philosophy and Daoist-inspired literary work like the Peach Blossom Spring have a distinctive understanding of an ideal society that can be summarized in four aspects: (1) The ideal world cannot be construed consciously through perfected social engineering. (2) There is no single notion of utopia guided by a priori design. (3) The ideal world does not seek a coherent unity marked by a form of organized collectivism. And (4) the ideal world does not promote a centralized planning and paternalistic governing. From the minimum government in the Laozi and anarchism in the Zhuangzi and the Peach Blossom Spring, what Daoists attempt to emphasize here is the spontaneous order, because the ideal society cannot be a fixed model that is pre-designed and perfected forever. Regarding such kinds of thinking, both Laozi and Zhuangzi warn against the potential danger when we try to design and build an ideal society with a perfect order. According to Daoist philosophy, such conscious action will bring a reaction. As chapter 55 of the Laozi tells us: Whatever has a time of vigor also has a time of decay. Such things are against the dao. Whatever is against the dao will soon be destroyed. (Laozi: 55)

In chapter 51, the self-transformative and self-ordering nature of the dao is linked to the ultimate principle of the cosmological creation: Therefore, the ten thousand things honor the dao and cherish the de (virtue) The dao is honored and the de is cherished without anyone’s order. So it just happens spontaneously. (Laozi: 55)

It is in the notion of spontaneous order that Daoists see utopia as a doubleedged sword that cuts both ways. That is, any perfect idea needs to be selfdeconstructing in order to prevent it from going to into a reversal. The following passage from the Laozi describes a Daoist view that stands in marked contrast with the Confucian teaching:

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When Dao is lost, then arises the doctrine of virtue (de); When the doctrine of virtue is lost, then arises the doctrine of humaneness (ren); When the doctrine of humaneness is lost, then arises the doctrine of justice (yi); When the doctrine of justice is lost, then arises the doctrine of rituals (li). The doctrine of rituals is the merest husk of the doctrine of loyalty (zhong) and the doctrine of fidelity (xiao), It is the beginning of all disorder (luan) (Laozi: 38)

Hans-Georg Moeller has made an insightful argument when he points out that instead of cultivating human morality, the Laozi speaks of “cultivating a more natural way of being that is void of Confucian adornments” (Moeller 2006: 48). For Moeller, the “social ills” spoken of in Daoism are more specific, directing us toward the Confucian value system and the institutions that endorse this system.13 Clearly for philosophical Daoists, all moral dichotomies, if dogmatized, can be vicious rather than virtuous. The method of negation in the passage above thus offers a structure of a “systemic decline” of a society from the most natural order (dao) to the most cultivated yet artificial order (rituals) which, as Laozi sees it, marks the beginning of all disorder. This explains why Laozi insists that “the highest virtue is that there is no virtue” (Laozi: 38). This skeptical position clearly shows an anti-utopian stance in Daoism. Zhuangzi goes even further. He is more anarchistic and more cynical about politics and social order; as he puts it, “the sage is the sharp weapon of the world, and therefore he should not be where the world can see him” (Zhuangzi: 10). Some passages in the Zhuangzi that are viewed traditionally as utopian descriptions are in fact dystopian ones, that is, a total negation of utopia. For instance, in the Zhuangzi the author seems to talk about an ideal state in the far South: In the southern state of Yue, there is a place called “the State of Virtue Established.” Its people are foolish and simple, few in thoughts of self, scant in desires. They know how to make, but not how to lay away; they give, but look for nothing in return. They do not know what accords with right, they do not know what conforms to ritual. Acting in a wild and eccentric way as if they were mad, they yet keep to the grand rules of conduct. Their birth brings rejoicing, their death

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a fine funeral. So I would ask you to discard your state, break away from its customs, and, with the Way as your helper, journey there. (Zhuangzi: 20)

Here, we see a description of the people of Southern Yue who lived in a blissful harmony with the dao, although they did not follow mores, custom, and conventions as understood in the Warring States period. It is not accidental that Zhuangzi puts the location of this good place in Southern Yue which is, according to Confucianism, a place where “everything goes,” in contrast to the Zhou culture, the bonafide marker of Confucian model society.14 As Erica F. Brindley points out: The peripheral location of the Southern Yue kingdom provides this author [the Zhuangzi] with distance enough to grant his description of fairy-tale like quality, while at the same time positioning its real existence in a known world. At the brink of physical geography and the edge of the imagination, this wondrous place occupies a world of its own, much like islands of the immortals outlined in other passages and texts. (Brindley 2015: 130)

The Zhuangzi is well-known for its harsh critique of Confucian morality through metaphorical inversion and parody. Therefore, rather than speaking of “the State of Virtue Established” as an ideal society, Zhuangzi is mocking the Confucian understanding of the state of virtue, since the utopian state described here is from the far South, which is viewed as the place of “barbarians” (manyi 蠻夷), in contrast to the central place of the civilized Chinese (huaxia 華夏). The humorous act of reversal of values is quite noteworthy when Zhuangzi uses the “barbarian state” as the model of an ideal place. Thus, “the State of Virtue Established” is a parody of a Confucian version of an ideal society. In a similar manner, chapter 4 of the Zhuangzi, entitled “In the World of Men,” offers a description of the situation when sage-rulers intended to build utopian governments, which led to tyrannical disasters: In ancient times Qian put Quan Long-feng to death and Chou put Prince Bi Gan to death. Both Quan Long-feng and Prince Bi Gan were scrupulous in their conduct, bent down to comfort and aid the common people, and used their positions as ministers to oppose their superiors. Therefore their rulers, Qian and Zhou, utilized their scrupulous conduct as a means to trap them, for they were too fond of good fame. In ancient times Yao attacked Cong, Zhi and Xu-ao, and Yu attacked You-hu, and these states were left empty and unpeopled, their rulers cut down. It was because they employed their armies constantly and never ceased their search for gain. All were seekers of fame or gain—have you alone

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not heard of them? Even the sages cannot cope with men who are after fame or gain, much less a person like you! (Zhuangzi: 4; Watson 55–56)

According to the Zhuangzi, sages who desired fame and honor could bring harm to people no less than thieves and robbers. Such radical comparisons can be found also in chapter 10 of the Zhuangzi, in which Zhuangzi says: What the ordinary world calls a wise man is in fact someone who piles things up for the benefit of a great thief, is he not? And what it calls a sage is in fact someone who stands guard for the benefit of a great thief, is he not? How do I know this is so? … When men hold on to their eyesight, the world will no longer be dazzled. When men hold on to their hearing, the world will no longer be wearied. When men hold on to their wisdom, the world will no longer be confused. When men hold on to their Virtue, the world will no longer go awry. (Zhuangzi: 10)

For Zhuangzi, utopia is a mode of thinking characterized by a gesture of resistance, instead of a grandiose program of totality and completeness or an argument for a pre-civilized primordium in which a state of chaotic wholeness is prioritized. As such, I contend that Zhuangzi’s utopia is neither a place nor a nonplace, but “taking place,” if I can borrow a Derridean term here. In other words, utopia is the place of the impossible as well as the experience of the impossible, as Jacques Derrida says, a placeless place of a “there is,” or “the place of taking place” (Derrida 1999: 67). Daoist philosophy advocates value-pluralism, and its epistemic and moral humility.

Daoism in light of meta-utopia Since the publication of More’s book, there have been various interpretations and models of utopia in the West. Yet utopian theories or utopian movements have been questioned from a liberal point of view, particularly from those who are skeptical about the potential moral and political hazards of top-down designing, as well as on optimistic views of rationalism, collectivism, and state-ism, under which a perfect system could be built. Many questions remain to be answered: Is it actually possible to construct a utopian world? What is the boundary between utopia and dystopia? Does it make sense to suppose that there is a single vision we should all follow? One critique of the traditional understanding of utopia is offered by Robert Nozick in his famous book Anarchy, State and Utopia, in which he promotes the

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idea of a minimal state (what he calls a “night watchman state”). Intriguingly, Nozick speaks of three types of utopian models: imperialistic utopianism, missionary utopianism, and existential utopianism. He prefers the third one and uses meta-utopia as a “framework for utopia” to resolve the tension among the conflicting values of different models. Meanwhile, Nozick uses his analysis of utopia as the basis for an argument in favor of the minimal state. For Nozick, there is no single utopian world; the utopian world is, rather, a meta-utopia in which many different worlds can be constructed and joined. Nozick offers three steps to argue for his points: (1) to provide a conceptual analysis of what is meant by “utopia”; (2) to show that there is no single utopia; and (3) to argue that a meta-utopia is the only stable structure that can accommodate the fact that there is no single utopia. The conclusion is also threefold: (1) the minimal state is inspiring because it is a meta-utopia that counts as a realization of the possible-worlds model of utopia; (2) the minimal state is the common ground of all possible utopian conception; and (3) the minimal state is the means for approximating utopia (Bader 2011: 1). Obviously Nozick’s framework for utopia is based on individualism and liberalism. Yet different from Rawlsian liberalism, Nozick’s liberalism (or libertarianism) accentuates self-ownership and freedom of choice. For Nozick, an omnipotent state with its arbitrary will and design theories could lead to a totalitarian society such as that we find in George Orwell’s anti-utopia novel 1984.15 As Bader puts it, Nozick’s model of utopia is “based on the idea of individuals having the power to create worlds as well as their inhabitants by imagining them, whereby each person has the same powers of imagination” (Bader 2011: 2). For Nozick, minimal state is a “meta-association” that provides a framework within which free associations operate. Thus, Nozick summarizes his utopian vision as follows: What corresponds to the model of possible worlds is a wide and diverse range of communities which people can enter if they are admitted, leave if they wish to, shape according to their wishes; a society in which utopian experimentation can be tried, different styles of life can be lived, and alternative visions of the good can be individually or jointly pursued. … Under [this] framework, each individual chooses to live in the actual community which … come[s] closest to realizing what is most important to him. (Nozick 1974: 307, 309, 312)

Similar ideas are found in Daoist utopian imagination. Both Laozi’s small government and Zhuangzi’s anarchism attempt to set limits to the central power of the ruler who is “purposive” and “coercive.” To illustrate this point, Laozi

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employs a plethora of negative terms such as non-action, non-business, and noninterference to advocate the idea of following a “spontaneous order,” and thus questions the “paternalistic model” of Confucian governance and its doctrine of “the way of ancient kings.” These negative expressions resonate with Nozick’s argument when he maintains that the minimal state is primarily conceived of in negative terms. That is to say, the purpose of the state is concerned with placing restrictions on the central power rather than identifying an inspiring positive role that the state is meant to fulfill. As mentioned above, chapter 38 of the Laozi uses the method of negation, demonstrating a structure of a “systemic decline” in a society from the most natural/spontaneous order (dao) to the most cultivated yet artificial order (rituals) which, as Laozi sees it, marks the beginning of all disorder. The problem for Daoists is not virtue per se, but the tendency of people to absolutize moral principles for the sake of meeting an imagined political order. This is the reason Daoist philosophy talks about spontaneity, change, and transformation while opposing any form of doctrine or dogma implemented by a single model of utopia. For Daoists, there is nothing that is perfect and ideal for all and forever since “things always reverse upon reaching an extreme” (wuji bifan 物極必反). John Rapp has observed that for Laozi, “ those who try to consciously build a perfect order will only bring about a reaction of nature that will destroy their creation” (Rapp 2012: 61). What Rapp has pointed out here reflects the yin-yang way of thinking (or correlative way of thinking) in Daoist philosophy. To put it differently, rather than considering a good place as the opposite of a bad place, Daoists see that the two concepts are mutually dependent on each other, and mutually transform each other. From this perspective, any utopia entails the dimension of dystopia, as we read in chapter 55 of the Laozi: What expands too much is bound to collapse. This is not the way of the dao. What goes against the dao soon declines.

This dialectic position of the affirmation of a possibility and the negation of its fulfillment is also well-expressed in the Zhuangzi when it uses the concept of “forgetfulness” (zuowang 坐忘), another word of negativity, to explicate the Daoist challenge to doctrinal rules and moral norms. We may consider here a famous dialogue between Confucius and his favorite disciple Yanhui, fabricated by Zhuangzi as a parody of the Confucian value system:

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Yan Hui called to Confucius and said: “I’ve progressed.” Confucius asked: “How so?” “I’ve forgotten humaneness and rightness.” “Good! But that’s not enough.” On another day he returned to see him and said: “I’ve progressed.” “How so?” “I’ve forgotten rituals and music.” “Good. But that’s not enough.” On another day he returned to see him and said: “I’ve progressed.” “How so?” “I sit in forgetfulness.” Confucius became uneasy and asked: “What is sitting in forgetfulness?” Yan Hui said: “I let my limbs and body fall away, attenuate my faculties of hearing and seeing, separate from my form and cast off my knowledge, and unite with the Great Interface. This is sitting in forgetfulness.” Confucius said: “If you are united [with the Great Interface], then you are without preferences. If you transform, then you are without habitual ways of acting. You truly are an outstanding person. I, Qiu, beg to follow after you.” (Zhuangzi: 6)

The conversation highlights an anti-Confucian stance in the Zhuangzi. It is used to reverse how a relation is conventionally perceived. He tells us: “When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. When the heart-mind is right, ‘for’ and ‘against’ are forgotten” (Zhuangzi: 19). When the self-egoistic judgment is suspended, the distinction between “this” and “that” is forgotten. The Chinese word wang 忘 (to forget) is also a cognate for another word, wang 亡 (to perish, to destroy, and to die). For Zhuangzi, every ego-self is a solipsist in need of overcoming by the method of deleting and forgetting. The concept of forgetfulness, therefore, denotes a deconstructive aspect of Daoist thinking. Although the concept of forgetfulness in the Zhaungzi is an apolitical one, it can be applied to the political thinking in terms of the relation between identity and difference. Zhuangzi is more concerned with questions concerning what makes things what they are and how they are constituted. For Zhuangzi, any attempt to impose one standard and one ideal will lead to an authoritarian power that reinforces moral corruption and political totality. All the radical claims in the Zhuangzi, such as “If the sage is dead and gone, then no more great thieves will arise,” and “If we fashion humanness and righteousness to reform people, they will steal with fashioned humanness and righteousness” (Zhuangzi: 10), are meant to disseminate an authoritarian understanding of morality in the Confucian tradition. The purpose of this, according to Zhuangzi, is to avoid reducing difference to sameness, diversity to singularity, and uniqueness to conformity. Zhuangzi’s philosophy respects the differences of each individual and grants each person the true autonomy that defines his/her own paths (dao/s). It is in this sense that we say that Daoist philosophy, and Zhuangzi’s thought in particular, is more pluralistic and liberal. When Nozick insists that there is no single utopia, he intends to show that there are only different

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individual people, with their own individual lives. It is upon this understanding that Nozick contends that the true liberal position does not aim at a utopia; instead, it aims at a utopia of utopias. This position, I think, is very close to the position maintained by Daoist philosophy. In his book Libertarianism: A Primer, David Boaz considers Laozi a libertarian in ancient China (Boaz 1998: 27–28). This claim may be far-fetched, for Laozi’s Daoism in many respects is incompatible with the full-fledged individualism and laissez-faire market economy advocated by Nozick and libertarianism, despite the policies of less state tax and non-interference mentioned in the Laozi. Nevertheless, the Daoist ideas of following spontaneous order, promoting self-transformation, and avoiding non-coercive action would allow them to be sympathetic with Nozick’s objection to a single notion of utopia guided by a priori design and planning. Rapp has an insightful observation when he points out that Daoist utopianism “can perhaps serve today as a warning and counterweight both to neotraditional forms of authoritarian rule in East Asia and to those who would revive elements of the Confucian political culture as a guide to democratization” (Rapp 2012: 67).

Conclusion In this chapter, I have endeavored to show how Daoist utopias are presented through its philosophy and religion. The discussion indicates not only various Daoist visions of an ideal world, but also elements of anti-utopianism or even dystopia in the Daoist philosophical tradition. Daoist utopias, with their critical and prescriptive registers, seek the possibility of a peaceful world where people enjoy freedom that is both transcendent and immanent, and both internal and external. I submit the idea that a Daoist utopia should not be viewed as a “perfect” place that requires no challenge and transformation. In addition, I use Nozick’s concept of meta-utopia to argue that philosophical Daoism would reject a utopian society in which individual freedom and flourishing has to be subjugated to the common good envisioned by a totalitarian state, as we have seen in a series of so-called utopian movements in the last century of China.16 From the point of view of Daoism, the loss of utopia is often caused by the attempt of a centralized and bureaucratic state to dominate and coerce, whether militarily, economically, or culturally. Very often, the utopian vision is not of the probable, but of the “not-impossible” which involves a dynamic interplay between what is the here-now and what is the

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there-then, as well as a tension between the affirmation of a possibility and the negation of its fulfillment. Thus, utopia cannot be simply reduced to solutions to the problem of reality, because there is always a dimension of undecidability and indeterminacy; it is a non-metaphysical dimension that marks the slippage between place and non-place, between reality and non-reality, and between the ideal world and the end of the world. For Daoist thinkers, the impossible possibility is meaningful because it has opened up a new horizon of the world of unlimited potential so people can act freely and spontaneously. In the West, it is often said that utopia is the best possible world and that it is the best imaginable world. After all, utopia is about the human dream and imagination. As Orwell puts it, “it is the dream of a just society which seems to haunt the human imagination ineradicably in all ages, whether it is called Kingdom of Heaven or the classless society, whether it is thought of a Golden Age that once existed in the past and from which we have degenerated” (Bagchi 2012: 1). Nevertheless, for Daoists, this temporal and spatial journey is always the dao in a sense that it is always a journey on the way. What matters is joyfulness of the journey itself rather than its final destination. As Zhuangzi tells us, traveling to a “place of non-place” is an exciting experience.

Acknowledgment This chapter is part of the project “Early Daoist Philosophies of War and Peace and Its Contemporary Explications.” I would like to express my gratitude to the Hong Kong government for the GRF grant (2015–17) I have received.

Notes 1 The translations of the Laozi in this paper are my own. I have consulted the translations by Ames and Hall (2003), Ivanhoe (2003), and Lynn (1999). 2 According to Xiaogan Liu’s reading of the Laozi, the idea of a “small state” (xiaoguo 小國) should be understood as a “small family-state” or “chiefdom” (xiaobang小邦), and the latter refers to the combination of political power with feudal families. See Liu (2006: 779). 3 Translations of the Zhuangzi are based on Watson’s The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (1968). Wording was modified to be consistent with the major themes of the paper.

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The notion of the Daoist “golden age” refers to an imagined age of harmony in antiquity and the “paradise lost” started by the end of the reign of the legendary Yellow Emperor. Such understanding of utopia is in contrast with most versions of utopia in the West, which tend to be future oriented. The Neo-Daoists of the Wei-Jin period were highly influenced by the Daoist philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, who cared more about inner spirituality than honors and power. For further discussion on the anarchistic orientation of Ruan Ji and Liu Ling, see Zhang’s (1999a) “Love and Death: The Dionysiac Spirit of Juan Chi and Neo-Taoists” (295–321). According to Zhang Longxi, the fact that the fisherman could not find the place indicates that the good place (letu 樂土) is very difficult to find (Zhang 1999b: 101). This interpretation fits the idea that utopia is a good place but also a non-place. The original name of the text is Tianguan libao yuan taipingjing (天官歷包元 太平經). The compilation date can be traced back to the second century CE. It should be noted that the Daoist utopian vision of the heaven depicted in the text is not totally transcendent, but reflects various affairs in the human world. For instance, the heavenly courts function in modes analogous to the imperial systems in reality, which is, in fact, a Confucian one. For more information on the text, see Hendrischke’s (2015) translation, The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping Jing and the Beginning of Daoism. The collection of A Garden of Strangeness belongs to a literary genre known as “narratives of the supernatural and the strange” (zhiguan 志怪) that became popular during early medieval China. This literary genre was also highly influenced by religious Daoism and Buddhism. See Chiang (2009: 97–120). According to Sing-Chen Lydia Chiang, the barbarian main character signifies the idea of “otherness” that emphasizes the foreignness and inaccessibility of the mystical place (see Chiang 2009: 104). Nevertheless, the image of “flying people” (yuren 羽人) is not unknown to the cult of immortality, since it appears already in the Classic of Mountain and Seas, and it is usually linked to the image of immortals. Daoist eschatology was directly linked to two sociopolitical movements with a messianic character in the late Han dynasty. Yet many scholars, including the translator of the text, Barbara Hendrischke, do not think The Classic of Great Peace should be read as a “revolutionary text.” See Hendrischke (2015: 40). For detailed information, see Xiao (1996). Some scholars contend that the projection of an ideal into “afterlife” (such as The City of God by Augustine) should be better understood as creating an alotopia rather than a utopia. See (Claeys 2010: 6). Moeller argues convincingly that in times of social conflict, moral codes can become rigid and dogmatic, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality thus can be a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool

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that is used and abused as a harmful weapon (Moeller 2009). I think the same thing can be applied to a single notion of utopian design. 14 In the Analects (Lunyu 論語), Confucius claims, “with King Wen, already gone, is not culture present with me?” (Lunyu 9:5). According to Confucius, culture was transmitted exclusively through Zhou traditions since the time of king Wen. Xunzi, another Confucian, once argued, “the people of the Yue take their abode in Yue; the people of the Chu take their abode in Chu; and the gentlemen take their abode in refinement” (Brindley 2015: 127). Here, both the Yue and the Chu as southern states are perceived as uncivilized people vis-à-vis the refined gentlemen in the central state. 15 Anti-utopia or dystopia is also called “pseudo-utopia” and “negative utopia” because it creates an imaginary community that is transformed from an ideal society to a nightmare. Apart from 1984, other famous literary works include Aldous L. Huxley’ Brave New World, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin’s We, all of which are marked by secularism and rationalism. 16 Political movements such as “The Great Leap Forward” and “The Cultural Revolution” in contemporary Chinese history showed strong utopian sentiments which turned out to be total disasters.

References Ames, Roger T. and David L. Hall, trans. (2003), Daodejing: “Making This Life Significant.” New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group. Bader, Ralf M. (2011), The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. London: Cambridge. Bagchi, Barnita (2012), The Politics of the (Im)Possible: Utopia and Dystopia Reconsidered. New Delhi and London: Sage Publications. Bauer, Wolfgang (1976), China and the Search for Happiness: Recurring Themes in Four Thousand Years of Chinese Cultural History. Translated by Michael Shaw. New York: Seabury Press. Birch, Cyril (1965), Anthology of Chinese Literature, Volume I: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century, 167–168. New York: Grove Press. Boaz, David (1998), Libertarianism: A Primer. New York: Free Press. Bokenkamp, Stephen R. (1986), “The Peach Flower Font and the Grotto Passage.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106: 65–77. Brindley, Erica Fox (2015), Ancient China and the Yue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chang, Chung-yuan, trans. (1975), Tao: A New Way of Thinking, with an introduction and commentaries. New York: Harper & Row. Chiang, S. C. Lydia (2009), “Visions of Happiness: Daoist Utopias and Grotto Paradises in Early and Medieval Chinese Tales.” Utopian Studies 20(1): 97–120.

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Claeys, Gregory, ed. (2010), The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1999), “On the Gift.” In God, Gifts and Postmodernism, edited by John D. Caputo and Michael Scanlon. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Fairbank, John K. (1972), The United States and China 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hendrischke, Barbara, trans. (2015), The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping Jing and the Beginning of Daoism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hsiao, K. S. (1979), A History of Chinese Political Thought. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. Ivanhoe, Philip J. (2011), “Hanfeizi and Moral Cultivation.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38(1): 31–45. Ivanhoe, Philip J., trans. (2003), The Daodejing of Laozi. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Legge, James, trans. (1885), Li Chi: The Book of Rites. Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, LLC. Liu Xiaogan劉笑敢, (2006), The Laozi: Past and Present (《老子古今》; two volumes). Beijing 北京: China Society Science Academy Press中國社會科學院出版. Lynn, Richard John, trans. (1999), The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te-ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press. Moeller, Hans-Georg (2009), The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality. New York: Columbia University Press. Moeller, Hans-Georg (2006), The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press. Nozick, Robert (1974), Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell. Rapp, John A. (2012), Daoism and Anarchism: Critiques of State Autonomy in Ancient and Modern China. London and New York: Continuum. Rüsen, Jörn, et al. (2005), Thinking Utopia: Steps into Other Worlds. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Sargent, Lyman Tower (1975), “Utopia–The Problem of Definition.” Extrapolation 16(2): 127–148. Watson, Burton, trans. (1968), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press. Xiao Dengfu 蕭登福 (1996), Huangdi yinfujing, Translation and Commentaries (《黃帝 陰符經今著今譯》). Taibei台北: Wenjin Chubanshe文津出版社. Zhang, Ellen Y. (1999a), “Love and Death: The Dionysiac Spirit of Juan Chi and NeoTaoists.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 26(2): 295–321. Zhang, Longxi 張隆溪 (1999b), “Utopia: Secular Ideas and Chinese Tradition” (). 21st Century 2(51): 95–103.

Part Three

Post-Comparative Conceptions of Imagination

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Imagination beyond the Western Mind Julia Jansen

The imagination, at least as we have been thinking of it in Western philosophy, does not lend itself easily to comparative conversations. Understood as a special “mental” faculty—an ability to forge and manipulate private images stored in a typical Western individual and disembodied mind—the imagination hardly inspires dialogue with philosophers who do not rely on such epistemological and ontological commitments. However, there are resources for alternative understandings of imagination, or better, of imagining, available in Western philosophy. In this chapter, I discuss models of mind in contemporary philosophy that—even though the philosophers advancing those models are typically not interested in comparative issues—in fact go beyond a typically Western model of the mind. Applying these models to our understanding of the imagination lets us see imagining as an embodied, worldly, and social practice that is precisely not individual, but collective in several senses. This approach highlights aspects of imagining traditionally ignored in Western approaches and potentially opens new avenues for comparative dialogues on the imagination. The new models of mind that I am thinking of here are (1) “the embedded mind,” (2) “the socially distributed mind,” and (3) “the extended mind.” After first discussing each one of these in terms of its possible application to imagining, I conclude this chapter by exploring yet another phenomenon, (4) “joint imagining,” which I propose augments the three new conceptions of imagining gained from (1) through (3), by considering an interpersonal mode of imagining that is irreducible to functionalist or subpersonal readings. “Embedded,” “extended,” and “socially distributed” models of mind are included in a wider paradigm shift in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, which, together with “embodied” and “enactive” models, are often grouped under the title of “situated cognition” (Robbins and Aydede 2009). The model of situated cognition maintains that cognition does not (exclusively) depend

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on mental representations understood as internal symbols, but also on the mind’s embeddedness in the surrounding environment (Rupert 2009); and on extensions of the mind beyond the skull, for example, in aspects of its activity (Varela et al. 1991; Noë 2004; Hurley 2008), in its embodiment (Haugeland 1998; Gallagher 2005; Thompson 2007), and/or in material vehicles or cognitive processes that literally extend into the world, such as notebooks and computers (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008).1 Elsewhere (Jansen 2013) I have argued against two biases that, in my view, have hampered research on the imagination in current Western scientific and philosophical discourses: the “perception bias,” which enforces the primacy of perception for models of the mind by committing research into the mind to the observation of adaptive behavior in the presence of a tangible target; and the closely related “naturalist bias,” which is motivated by the reliance of science (and of naturalist philosophy) on the investigation of observable objects or processes. Letting go of these two biases, I argue, enables an application of embedded and extended models of mind to imagination, and thus results in an alternative understanding of what it means to imagine. In order to demonstrate the potential of such an application, I have advanced a Husserlian account of imagining (Husserl 2005; Jansen 2016), which rejects any “image theory” of imagination. Following Husserl, I understand such image theory to hold on to the idea that imagining involves some sort of viewing of mental images in the imaginer’s mind, and that these represent absent or unreal imagined objects. In opposition to such a theory, Husserl gives a phenomenological account of imagining that grasps imagining (which he refers to as Phantasie) not only as an engagement with an “irreal” object, that is, an object which we refrain from positing either as real or unreal (and not with its image), but also as a simulation (reproduction) of the relevant experiencing. When, for example, I imagine a beautiful beach, I am not left to imagine an image of a beach (although I can do that, too, and might do so while trying to decide what kind of image to hang in my living room). Instead, I imagine perceiving the beach.2 This means that I am situated in relation to the beach. I may imagine looking at it, for example, from afar and above (as from a plane, or from a hotel balcony), or I may imagine walking on it, feeling the warm sand under my feet, or I may imagine sitting at it, perhaps looking at the ocean in the warm evening breeze while the sun is setting. What’s more, what I am imagining, as well as my imagining itself, have a temporally and spatially horizontal structure. My imagining unfolds in time, but there is also the time internal to my fantasy, which may or may not be in sync with the time (duration) of my act of imaging (e.g., it can be longer or shorter, faster or slower). Thus, rather than

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involving a mental state of imagination and an image of an imagined object, imagining is a temporally unfolding activity that correlates not to a static image but to a horizontal scene (which can be more or less elaborated, more or less temporally extended). We can relatively easily see how imagining understood in this way is embedded in an environment, in the sense that it is facilitated by environmental, bodily or technological features. This does not make any of these features part of cognition; they may be merely externally, that is, causally, supporting activities of imagining. An “extended” approach demands more than that. It holds that cognitive processes themselves extend beyond the skull and that environments or external objects “are not merely noncognitive accompaniments that facilitate the ‘real’ process of cognition that occurs inside the head,” but “are genuinely cognitive components of the overall cognitive process” (Rowlands 2010: 129). For example, it has been argued that memory is not merely facilitated by notebooks, but actually includes notebooks in the process of memory (Clark and Chalmers 1998). Along these lines, I have argued that imagining may extend in the same way, for example, across paper models or digital simulations, even including “imagined environments and situations,” which may contribute to cognition, “e.g., through complex feedback loops that involve simulated scenes not only as products of prior imagining but also as transformative elements of further imagining” (Jansen 2013: 75). Similarly, aspects of the activity of imagining and aspects of the embodiment of the imaginer may play not only a causal but a constitutive role for imagining. For example, it is fair to say that a fantasy unfolds in the dynamic interaction of acts and an imagined environment. To put it simply, I do not merely project an image in fantasy; rather, what I imagine at one moment in the course of imagining may prompt me to continue my fantasy in this or in that way, and so forth until I stop. Moreover, even though we need not actually move while imagining (although we may, in acting or play), it is still true that our embodiment is constitutive of our fantasies. Usually, I visually imagine in accordance with my actual visual and motor systems, and it takes a lot of effort to simulate the vision or movement of a different creature (let’s say a reptile or insect). Even when, as a super-heroine in my fantasy, I fly at light speed over Earth, I am still imagining what I see with eyes like mine, and what I feel with a nervous system like mine. This idea can be pushed further. Initially, embeddedness and extension were considered in terms of perceptual environments and physical objects (such as the notebook). However, more recently, the mind has also been considered as embedded in and as extending into social environments and institutions, and

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thus not as an individual, merely cognitive, system, bus also as a collective, socio-cultural activity. Again, this move involves a departure from “the idea that imagining occurs (exclusively) ‘in the mind’ and is as such essentially a private mental operation that deals with internal representations rather with sharable objects” (Jansen 2017: 341). And, again, the least controversial understanding of imagining as a collective, socio-cultural activity is the understanding of imagining as “embedded,” namely now as socially embedded. This is to say that imagining is enabled and constrained by social and cultural conditions and institutions, such as languages, myths, ideologies and other shared narratives (political, historical, scientific, and so forth), as well as social systems (like a legal system, an education system, or an art world). The social environments in which imaginings and fantasies are embedded externally regulate what is imaginable and what is unimaginable at any given time and in any given culture or system. However, according to this more moderate claim of social embeddedness, they do not thereby have a constitutive function in the sense that they are considered part of the activities of imagining. Models of “socially distributed cognition” take this idea much further by not only considering social and cultural institutions as external possibility conditions but also considering the mind as a collective process, which may be distributed across individual members of a group who do not instantiate this process individually, but only collectively—as parts of a system.3 Applied to imagining, this model suggests that imagining may be grasped, at least in some cases, as a collective activity that unfolds without any one individual consciously imagining anything, and without any individual possessing the content of the distributed fantasy. To make this idea more palatable, we might think of “social imaginaries” as examples of such cases of distributed imagining, “which can be encountered and shared; anonymous daily creations in which everyone participates” (Lennon 2015: 73–74). With Castoriadis (1988, 1993), for instance, these cases take on a crucial political role because they result in shared meanings, upon which any social understanding and sense of community depend.4 However, we need not necessarily think of cases of distributive imagining in such an overtly macropolitical sense. Many instances of community spirit (that community may be a sports team, a family, a circle of friends, and so forth) may be examples of this case.5 Their operations and effects can be made more intelligible when we think of them as engendered by anonymous, distributed processes of imagining, in which the individual members of that group are usually entirely unaware of the concrete content of what is thus imagined. It is only in the encounter with other communities and in the exposure to, comparison with, and even conflict with

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other “imaginaries,” that such anonymous and tacit distributed imaginings can come to the fore and become explicit for individuals. In fact, until and unless such contact with other imaginaries takes place, those individuals involved are typically unaware of social imaginaries qua imaginaries, and instead take them simply as facts about reality, as the way things “really” are. Even though phenomenally conscious episodes of imagining in individuals may occur, social imaginaries are most robustly sustained and perpetuated by the repeated use of conventional conceptions and figures of thought, by habitual practices of framing, by the preservation of rituals and the transmission of myths and narratives, and so forth (Jansen 2017: 346). Besides the notions of social embeddedness and social distribution, a thesis of socially extended cognition is also in circulation (Gallagher 2013). According to this thesis, minds are extended by institutions such as the law, in the sense that cognition supervenes on social institutions and cultural artifacts. In short, if “we think that cognition supervenes on the vehicle of the notebook, it seems reasonable to say that it supervenes on the vehicle of the museum—an institution designed for just such purposes” (Gallagher and Crisafi 2009: 49). This makes social institutions, cultural artifacts (and possibly other persons) literally part of the cognitive process. Applying this idea to imagining suggests that imagining does not only extend to include objects, such as paper models or digital simulations, which are used for the sake of simulation, but also, for example, to traditions, practices, and art objects. These are then understood not merely as the products of (individual) imagining but as the very vehicles and fields of socially extended imagining, which might be free of any sort of functionalism that the “extended mind” thesis is usually beholden to. This brings us to a tension that should not go unnoticed, a tension between the liberating tendencies of the new models of mind I have mentioned and their potential for new discoveries regarding the imagination on the one hand, and their functionalist legacies on the other (Jansen 2013). Due to the behaviorist ancestry of cognitive science, researchers are mostly concerned with subpersonal processes associated with adaptive-flexible, not necessarily human, behavior and action. Cognition tends to be immediately linked to a local environment and taken to involve task-relevant inputs and outputs (Wilson 2002) for the sake of exploiting “the continuing presence of some tangible target” (Clark 2005: 234). In fact, situated models of cognition are typically driven not only by an underlying functionalism, but also by an underlying idea of “efficiency” (so much so that the vocabulary found in an article on situated cognition sometimes sounds very much like the vocabulary found in a memo written by an HR administrator).

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Cognition is always considered “target-related,” such that cognitive systems are designed to “minimize” their representational efforts and to “maximize” their “successful outputs,” such as predictions and actions. The principle of efficiency has been most succinctly expressed in Andy Clark’s “007-Principle”: In general, evolved creatures will neither store nor process information in costly ways when they can use the structure of the environment and their operations upon it as convenient stand-in for the information-processing operations concerned. That is, know only as much as you need to know to get the job done. (Clark 1989: 64)

It is relatively easy to think of not only perception, but also some other types of cognition in terms this kind of functionalism and efficiency. For example, Robert Wilson thinks of memory as “a locationally wide ability that creatures like us have that allows us to make use of the past in acting for the future” (Wilson 2004: 196)—an ability that need not be encoded representationally in any one individual, but that can—as Michael Cole (1998) and Paul Connerton (1989) have argued, for example—be collectively performed in social rituals and practices. While it seems obvious that we remember the past not only in order to act for the future, this functionalist model, which views remembering as making use of the past in acting for the future, may still be appropriate for some modes of memory. Such modes have also been addressed in the phenomenological tradition, for example, in thinking of habits as embodied and performative modes of memory, so in thinking of memory “beyond the mind, and beyond any one mind.” However, is it possible to think of imagining along the same lines? Again, this idea conflicts with common assumptions about imagining as mentalist and individualist in the ways I have outlined above. What’s more, it conflicts with an idea that most Western discourses are very attached to: the idea that the imagination is free from constraints of effectivity and function, and instead a human capacity for play and creativity, an exercise of freedom, no less. It is interesting in this context that Castoriadis “insists on what he calls the defunctionalization of the imagination” (Lennon 2015: 75). For him, the imagination, as Kathleen Lennon has aptly put it, “is not tied to the Kantian Ideas of Reason, but neither is it determined in other ways. It is not fixed by biological needs, fundamental psychic drives or (in the social realm) by material and economic necessity” (Lennon 2015: 75). It is what it is precisely through its irreducibility to any such sources or purposes. Does this render imagining a purposeless activity after all, which therefore does not fit into the economy

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of an extended and distributed cognitive system? Not necessarily. Castoriadis, for one, was convinced of the political power of social imaginaries—for him, a point of departure from the Marxist orthodoxy that he criticized precisely for pitching “realism” against ideology. He criticized Marxism for having expelled the imagination from political critique, by asserting the false dichotomy between realism on the one hand, and ideology on the other hand, which therefore also, and emphatically, includes the imagination. (In my view, this Marxist move tragically played into the hands of a neoliberalist politics whose supposedly post-ideological realism makes us believe now that things can’t really be any different from what they are, but that’s a topic for another article.) Be that as it may, I here only note that it remains important to challenge any reduction of the imagination to functionalist readings, especially when one uses the embedded and extended models of the mind, which always harbor functionalist tendencies, to unlock hitherto concealed aspects of imagining. Holding such tendencies at bay is considerably easier when we think of yet another phenomenon of collective imagining: genuinely shared or joint imagining in which two (or more people) imagine together (Jansen 2017). As long as we think of imagining as involving mental images “inside” somebody’s mind, such a notion seems impossible (or else requires the improbable practice of telepathy). However, as soon as we open ourselves to the senses of imagining discussed above and divest ourselves of (Western) individualism and mentalism regarding the imagination, we might be able to grasp this elusive phenomenon. Here I would like to return to Husserl’s account of imagining (phantasy), which, again, considers imagining not as the manipulation of internal content (such as mental imagery), but as the simulation of possible experience (quasi- or “as if ” experience). According to Husserl, when I am purposelessly, playfully getting lost in my fantasies, my imagining remains in the mode of the “as if,” a metaphysically neutralized mode, in which I am not interested in the existence or non-existence of that which I imagine. What I imagine, I then neither take as real nor unreal, nor do I take it to be anything at all; it is, irreal. However, I may also imagine without being metaphysically neutral. In that case, I may take what I am imagining as possible, and I can even imagine in order to explore possibilities. We can, for example, imagine what it could be like to love, or to be hurt; we can simulate different possible actualizations of that type of experience. Therefore, it is not strange at all to speak of two or more people imagining the same thing, even though they are not sharing any mental content or any mental states, and even though they are not undergoing the same psychological or neurological process. Two people can together imagine ways to love, ways

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to hurt, and so forth, even though they will manifest psychologically distinct experiences and even though it is ultimately not possible for one person to verify that the other person is actually joining in. (Although, come to think of it, this might be difficult even when one is talking about walking together, or doing anything together in the emphatic sense of the word, in which “together” is not simply the same as “alongside.”)6 What Husserl is pointing to with his insight into the link between imagining and the awareness of possibilities is that we are able to engage in shared imagining, to imagine together (and not merely alongside) when we jointly entertain and explore a possibility—a possible object, a possible world, a possible experience, a possible way to be, and so forth. However, Husserl himself warns us that “one must be rather cautious … here” (Husserl 2005: 567) not to rush to conclusions. He warns us that we can never establish the identity of such a possibility we jointly imagine. We can only take one another to be imagining like the other, in ways that overlap but of which we can never say that they are identical. And in this we do not imagine simply objects but, as he says in the same text, “we present ourselves that we are both in a common world” (Husserl 2005: 567), in which this imaginary object, or this possibility makes its appearance. With this, Husserl points out another way in which we can meaningfully say that two or more people are jointly imagining without having to share the same content or without undergoing the same psychological event: We can jointly move in a common world of fantasy, a common field of possibilities, even explore this field together, simulate various experiences within that field, without ever having to, and without ever being able to know to, imagine the same object, let alone the same object in the same way. However, we may jointly imagine experiencing the same object in the shared simulation of a possible world. Husserl speaks here of “intersubjective phantasy” (Husserl 2005: 567–568). For this to occur, Husserl claims, we need to engage with our imaginings in this joint way. The term Husserl uses—engagement—is, I take it, an engagement in a we-perspective, and it is on the basis of an engagement in this we-perspective that we have the ability to jointly imagine, a case that is significantly different from the case in which we tacitly participate in a distributed, social imaginary. Accordingly, joint imagining does not deny the subjective character of imagining; in fact, it enriches and complexifies it (from static to dynamic, from a singular I, to a plural we-perspective). I have not said much about the body here, so let me give you an embodied example of such joint imagining that we are familiar with, an example that often works without any linguistic or otherwise symbolic communication and without

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other props or aids: dancing, which may, and often does, follow rules and involve bodily memory, but which also may involve inter-corporeal and inter-enactive imagining, in which two or more dancers spontaneously and jointly constitute, embody, and enact a field of possibilities which and through which they are continuously moving together. Certain modes of musical improvisation can be described similarly as joint embodied imaginings, in which the embodiment of the joint imaginers and the affordances and material nature of the instruments work as constraining and enabling factors. I say “certain modes” of dancing or musical improvisation because, again, different engagements are possible. We cannot simply name a practice and determine whether it is a case of memory, rule following, or joint or individual imagining. It depends on the mode of engagement by the participants. For example, rituals may be described as embodied cultural memories, but they may also be understood as enacted joint imaginings of possible, perhaps desired, ways of living, or as enacted social imaginaries, something like preconceptual, pre-symbolic ways of interpreting or understanding something (life perhaps, or death). Joint imagining thus puts us in touch with shared possibilities—in fact, sometimes it is playful joint imagining that lets us find new possibilities even though we weren’t after them, just as purposeful imagining can fail to do so, no matter how hard we try. However, in either case, our experience is enriched and our scope of possibilities widened when we join each other in imagining. In general, individual modes of modes of imagining can never substitute for the socially extended, distributed, or joint modes because they lack the enriching, amplifying, constraining, and correcting contributions made by our fellow imaginers from their perspectives.

Concluding remarks: Imagination beyond the Western mind in the context of comparative philosophy Experiences of shared imagining can be powerful reminders that a different world is possible. Their power, I believe, may affect not only our “phenomenology” of reality, not only ontological and epistemological questions we may have regarding actual reality and how we know it, but may also stir up sociopolitical questions regarding possible alternative realities and how to bring them about. This kind of experience is indispensable not only for intercultural understanding more generally, but also for comparative philosophy in particular. First, such experiences can open the imaginary space of possibility within which we can

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jointly engage in and practice comparative philosophy. Secondly, they can unlock new senses of imagining from Western philosophies of the mind and of imagination—senses that, once and for all, leave behind individualist and mentalist conceptions. Such conceptions leave us with an “image theory” lacking in potential not only for understanding our own imaginative practices, but also for understanding those of others. What exactly we can find then, remains to be discovered in concrete analyses of phenomena of embedded, distributed, extended, and joint imagining that we might now be able to identify in cultures that have never fallen prey to Western ideologies of the imagination.

Notes 1 In what follows, I use the term “extended mind” as a short-hand that includes enactive and embodied approaches, even though these are often distinguished in the literature. 2 According to Husserl, acts of imagining can be reiterated. For example, I can imagine remembering or even imagine imagining something. Here I am only considering the simplest and most frequent mode: imagining perceiving something, or, more generally, imagining experiencing something first-hand. 3 Consider the example of the nautical navigation team. Cognition—in this case: knowing how to navigate a ship—cannot be attributed to any one member of the team and is not a content that is tokened in any one mind. Rather, cognition is here understood as a process that is distributed across the whole cognitive system, which includes the team as much as the relevant nautical instruments, maps, and so forth (Edwin Hutchins 1995). 4 For example, the instituting of capitalism by the bourgeoisie is, for Castoriadis, not reducible to materialist conditions, but also depends on what we may call the “distributive imagining” of a new social imaginary that brought about “a new definition of reality, of what counts and of what does not count—therefore, of what does not exist (or nearly so: what can be counted and what cannot enter into accounting books)” (Castoriadis 1993: 179). 5 What’s more, such communities may be made up by participants who do not share a common space or a time: distribution may be local, but need not be, especially given contemporary social technologies and virtual spaces, and may, but need not be, synchronic, but could also be trans-historical. 6 I cannot get into this here, but I do believe that certain modes and measures of trust are requisite for the enjoyment of joint activities of this kind and for the exploitation of their potential personal, cognitive, and political benefits.

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References Castoriadis, Cornelius (1993), Political and Social Writings, vol. 3. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Clark, Andy (1989), Microcognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clark, Andy (2005), “Beyond the Flesh: Some Lessons from a Mole Cricket.” Artificial Life 11: 233–244. Clark, Andy (2008), Supersizing the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Clark, Andy and David Chalmers (1998), “The Extended Mind.” Analysis 58: 10–23. Cole, Michael (1998), Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Connerton, Paul (1989), How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gallagher, Shaun (2005), How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gallagher, Shaun (2013), “The Socially Extended Mind.” Cognitive Systems Research 25–26: 4–12. Gallagher, Shaun and Anthony Crisafi (2009), “Mental Institutions.” Topoi 28 (1): 45–51. Haugeland, John (1998), Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hurley, Susan (2008), “Understanding Simulation.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(3): 755–774. Husserl, Edmund (2005), Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898-1925). Translated by John Brough. Dordrecht: Springer (Hua 23). Hutchins, Edwin (1995), Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jansen, Julia (2013), “Imagination, Embodiment and Situatedness: Using Husserl to Dispel (Some) Notions of ‘Off-Line’ Thinking.” In The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity, edited by Rasmus Jensen and Dermot Moran, 63–79. Dordrecht: Springer. Jansen, Julia (2016), “Husserl.” In Routledge Handbook of Imagination, edited by Amy Kind, 69–81. London and New York: Routledge. Jansen, Julia (2017), “Shared Imagining: Beyond Extension, Distribution, and Commitment.” In Imagination and Social Perspectives: Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology, edited by Michela Summa, Thomas Fuchs, Luca Vanzago, 247–264. New York: Routledge. Lennon, Kathleen (2015), Imagination and the Imaginary. London and New York: Routledge. Noë, Alva (2004), Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Robbins, Philip and Murat Aydede (2009), “A Short Primer on Situated Cognition.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, edited by Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede, 3–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowlands, Mark (2010), The New Science of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Rupert, Robert (2009), Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Evan (2007), Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Varela, Francisco, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1991), The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wilson, Margaret (2002), "Six Views of Embodied Cognition." Psychon Bull Rev. 9(4): 625–36. Wilson, Robert (2004), Boundaries of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Time, Habit, and Imagination in Childhood Play Talia Welsh

Not everyone is interested in children. But it is rare to find an individual who sees her own childhood as a set of tedious memories. One’s sense of self originates in those memories that one returns to again and again when considering one’s self, one’s relationships, and one’s passions. As much as who I am is a result of who I was, the memories can also appear strange in their salience, as when I remember the intensity of attachment to a toy or my anger at my brother, neither of which sentiments I feel anymore. What maturity brings is not a different reality so much as a different hue to one’s everyday experiences. Waiting during a long car ride is no longer the end of the world as it was long ago, but I’ve also lost the immediacy of the moment that made such waiting interminable. This chapter argues that considering childhood imaginative play reveals a lost part of our connection to the world. It further suggests that perhaps our own adult sense of a constant real and our mature autonomy are neither as complete nor as solid as we intuit. Little has been written on the topic of the development of childhood imagination and its possible relevance for philosophy. This chapter takes up how the development of physical agency permits childhood imaginative play. Instead of being a subspecies of adult creative imagination, childhood imaginative play better explains our sense of meaning construction as an activity. The chapter concludes with a phenomenological account of imagination that does not pit imagination against the real, but as part and parcel of its constitution. In the Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty states that he views the first twenty-five years of his life as “a prolonged childhood that had to be followed by a difficult weaning process in order to arrive finally at autonomy” (2012: 361). Certainly this idea meshes well with our intuitive understanding that if there are agents that can be held responsible for their actions, adults have

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this burden in a way that children do not. In Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity a similar disjunction exists between the agency of an adult and that of a child. For Beauvoir, while children are not free in the same sense as adults, we cannot compare them to non-free adults. Children are not oppressed in their lack of relative freedom with adults, but rather they are ignorant because they have not had sufficient time to acquire the knowledge needed to see a situation as malleable instead of as a given fact (Beauvoir 1976: 141). The oppressed person has had time “refused to him,” whereas the child has not had enough time to understand her agency (141). Beauvoir does not conclude that therefore the child is to be treated as being without agency, as perhaps one might treat an animal. She writes that although children have not acquired enough time to be free in the way adults are, “the child has a right to his freedom and must be respected as a human person” (141); she continues that childrearing itself is a practice of opening freedom to the child (142). While Beauvoir’s thoughts about children were intended to create an agent capable of taking up her freedom and to avoid the kinds of inauthentic roles that tempt adults, if one considers what childhood looks like prior to this formation of such adult autonomy, it is first and foremost bodily training. Being capable of holding a cup is prior to being capable of authentic, or inauthentic, action. To open up freedom to a child is initially to help the child become capable of performing basic movements—eating, dressing, walking, sitting, toilet training, and speaking. These basic self-care routines are fundamental skills required for the later, more agency-oriented choices one imagines Merleau-Ponty is thinking about when considering his mature autonomy. Some philosophers have thought that what must be occurring in any kind of willed, free, intentional action is what is called a “representation” or a type of thought that then is relayed to the relevant neurological network to initiate the action. So when I have a drink, some kind of fairly complex, but largely unconscious, set of thoughts occurs that are connected to the kinds of willed movements it takes to have a drink, such as “move coffee cup to face.” This makes deciding to have a cup of coffee and deciding who to vote for the same kind of free action. One can explain reasons I’m more likely to drink coffee a certain way or choose a certain candidate by other representations that I have experienced. What Merleau-Ponty’s work on embodiment labors against is thinking that bodily freedom can be explained in the same way as choosing one concept or politician over another. Merleau-Ponty’s alternative is to not see the body as an obedient object the mind moves around, but rather as having its own intelligence. While mental

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representation may be appropriate for considering some of my actions and many of my judgments, mental representations are poorly designed to explain my everyday bodily, agency-driven movement or my earliest willed movements. Consider the following example from Komarine Romdenh-Romluc in which she intends to go for a picnic by bicycle. On her way, her mind wanders and she bikes to work before remembering her original destination (2013: 5). Many of us are familiar with such experiences as an example in which a conscious thought is interrupted by the body reproducing its habitual action; I often find myself driving to my school when I mean to go somewhere else, since it is my most common destination. Romdenh-Romluc uses this everyday example to ask what is going on in the distracted bike riding. It doesn’t seem that one can say she had two sets of unconscious mental representations—one saying to her “ride your bike to the picnic!” and the other “ride your bike to work!” and somehow the “ride your bike to work!” thought won in a battle of mental representations. Instead, alongside Merleau-Ponty, she argues that a different kind of intelligence—that of bodily habit, took over when she got on her bike. When one plays an instrument with some facility, one needs to put one’s hands on it to “find” the song one has memorized. It isn’t in one’s mind as much as in the physical connection between body and instrument. However, this isn’t to suggest that when the body is doing the work of habitual action we have become automatons. In continuing her story, Romdenh-Romluc writes, “suppose, e.g., that in turning down the road toward work, I knock over a small child. I am worthy of blame” (2013: 7). Her point is to argue that agency is not only mental, but also physical. If we reverse the ages and the characters and suggest the small child is the one who inadvertently knocks Romdenh-Romluc over, we would not hold the child accountable. The right to hold someone accountable for her actions suggests we consider her capable of some kind of control—both mental and physical. An adult has both the mental wherewithal to pay attention and the physical capacity to control his or her movement. The habit in bike riding is not an unconscious reflex in which the adult loses all culpability under the defense “I wasn’t paying attention.” After all, when one drives accidentally to work instead of the store, one attends to all the normal varying signs—traffic, lights, and so forth—suggesting a capacity for attention and the responsibility to attend to such matters. In another example, while I might think to myself “shall I have some coffee?” once the coffee is made, I don’t need to think about the matter of drinking. Rather my body intuitively knows how to manage a cup and I can attend to other matters. I’m not engaging in

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some complex unconscious representations that direct my hand to the cup and the cup to my face alongside my conscious representations about what to write. My body knows how to use a coffee mug as part of its habitual routine; I’m free to think about other things. My facility with coffee drinking is because I have drunk coffee for over twenty-five years not only every day, but typically for most of the day. I drink about four cups of coffee a day which means I have successfully negotiated the drinking of tens of thousands of cups of coffee (give or take a few that I managed to spill). However, the world acquires its hues of salient affordances over time. I was not always so expert at drinking from cups. As every parent will testify, young children are completely inept at drinking and eating without making a gigantic mess. Developing the skill set to help them become expert enough so that the object of cup and spoon and plate do not need to be attended to directly requires the formation of a certain kind of deliberate bodily control. Just as it seems hard to imagine that one is representing to oneself one’s everyday intuitive actions in the world to, Merleau-Ponty additionally argues against the idea that the complex kind of reasoning of someone who believes in representational theories of action could be present in the young infant. It cannot be that I learned to drink from cups by having some kind of mental representation—as I was hardly capable of such reasoning. Already in his early work The Structure of Behavior, Merleau-Ponty argues against thinking that the child is representing objects, or in some fashion “cross-checking” objects in some “logical” fashion to determine the use of an object (1983: 166–167; Welsh 2013: 8). An infant explores the world without needing to represent objects and intellectually determine their use-value. Infants explore the world both by design, when they have greater motor control and spot a compelling object to grab, and also randomly, when their movements cause them to encounter something they can fix upon. Teaching an infant to hold a spoon to eat, one works with the autonomous innate releasing mechanisms—the grabbing—to build upon increasing muscle control. This repetitious social experience is always accompanied with a caretaker to aid the child who is usually mimicking opening her mouth in tandem, saying some version of “open up!” Extensive discussion in developmental literature considers the importance of the other’s behavior for healthy development and basic cognitive development. In particular, the formative role of imitation in development has been stressed to indicate how, from the very beginning, prior to language or even most gross motor control, we are responding to the other’s actions with our own (Meltzoff 2002; Meltzoff and Prinz 2002).

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The responsibility to control oneself is predicated on the capacity to control one’s body. Yet, Merleau-Ponty also suggests that his autonomy is not simply won by overcoming the lack of motor coordination in childhood. The plasticity of children that suggests a color of childhood freedom is lost in the formation of bodily control. It is true that my motor coordination makes it possible for me to hold spoons, drink from cups, and ride a bike. Yet, I also find that my habitual manner of interacting with the world narrows my connection with it. Just after Merleau-Ponty writes that he finds his past to be the grounding for his current autonomy, he notes that he is never quite acting either voluntarily or rationally—“voluntary and rational life thus knows itself to be entangled with another power than prevents it from being completed and that always gives it the air of a work in progress” (2012: 362). This other is natural time. Unlike the child in Beauvoir’s account, who has not yet grasped time, adult time has agency, but at the same time this time has become normalized. The formation of bodily habits, the accumulation of habitual modes of thought, and the capacity for normal social integration all mean our natural state is reified and hardened, unlike the softness of the child whose horizon remains open. Merleau-Ponty calls this lost freedom the child’s spontaneity. If our primary and primal bodily agency is largely non-representational, we must look not toward adult autonomous behavior to find our initial freedom, but toward the haphazard behavior of a child. The child’s physical movement, her interaction with objects in the environment, and her connection with others are quite free, even if they often fairly awkward in execution. Consider witnessing in horror a toddler licking a public handrail or eating a pebble. She might choose to gnaw on your finger or babble loudly in the middle of a moment of silence. Her gait appears like that of a drunken person, and her capacity to learn to speak a language with a perfect accent is due to her polyphonic capacity to make sound. An adult would be quite challenged to mimic a child—revolted by the idea of licking public handrails, not interested to find out the taste of a pebble, highly habituated to his style of walking, and able to only learn foreign language with a heavy accent. The malleability of young children is not just about their lack of development, lack of time in Beauvoir’s words, but also their lack of sedimented behavior. Merleau-Ponty finds the idea of imagining different roles in the psychodramatic therapy of J.L. Moreno not just therapeutically helpful, but a method that can enable adults to recover their own lost spontaneity. Moreno developed the notion of structured role-play as a way in which individuals could overcome personal neurosis and relationship conflicts, and also believed

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society could benefit from such role playing. For instance, in New York he would set up strangers to participate in role-playing exercises surrounding issues of race and prejudice. Merleau-Ponty praises Moreno’s work saying “we must consider as an acquisition of child psychology to have learned, with Moreno, to reveal the avatars of spontaneity in social integration” (2010: 130). Later in his discussion of method in child psychology, Merleau-Ponty argues that we must stop seeing the child as a reflection of our adult state and instead “awaken our proper spontaneity” in order to understand how our behavior is not fated (2010: 381). We must try and imagine being different—but in order to be spontaneous we should not adhere to an alternative ideology of how one should socially interact. Rather, to change our social behavior in this manner would require a radical immersion in the “now” as bodily agents. We would need to try as much as possible to remain ignorant like infants, remove ideas of what we should do, what we usually do, and simply allow the situation to present itself. Many have argued that what one witnesses in childhood behavior is a kind of desire to construct a reality different than the one we know to exist. Jean Piaget saw children as “natural metaphysicians” with tendencies to build fake worlds and believe in imaginary beings like Santa Claus and fairies. Adults, by comparison, he believed, are so much more realistic in their models. Yet, is it really the case that children are more “disconnected” from reality or that as adults we are more connected to the now? Consider the complete delight that children experience in witnessing a coin being pulled from behind their ear. Their hands fly to the back of their ears. They want to understand how this thing that should not happen happened. If it were the case that, for children, magic is understood as real, then magic would be no more interesting than setting the table for dinner. Children are naturally quite intrigued by basic sleights of hand and rabbits coming out of hats because they are intimately connected with their physical experience and have a sense of object permanence in which things appearing from nothing violates such groundedness. Likewise, it is only slowly that children can come to appreciate an abstract religion—God at first must be someone and be somewhere—perhaps in a cloud or on a mountain or in the ground. I remember some surprise that our plane could fly through a cloud on a trip to see the grandparents. It made the location of heaven more curious: it was clearly on clouds, since clouds were often in the pictures; but if a plane could fly through a cloud, then the good dead people would fall through the cloud to earth; and since that didn’t happen, heaven must be on some different kinds of clouds. A God and a heaven who occupy a

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metaphysically distinct reality from this reality, surely that is something only an adult could imagine. Citing the work of I. Huang, Merleau-Ponty observes that children give reasonable explanations of magic tricks when one does not force their conclusions. Merleau-Ponty writes that “Huang does not want to show a separation between the child’s thought and that of the adult. His goal is a positive one; he asks what happens within the mind of the child. The responses of children, despite their naiveté, can be ‘rational’” (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 409–10). Huang draws attention to the child’s economic and social circumstances, allowing him to understand when “magical explanations” are the result of class traditions. Children from the middle and upper classes are more likely to suggest fantastical explanations given their larger exposure to fairy tales and children’s stories, whereas workingclass children tend to provide grounded responses. Piaget, on the contrary, fails to take into account the child’s socioeconomic situation. One benefit of Huang’s analysis is that he allows the child’s explanation to come forth without asking leading questions. He focuses on the child’s natural responses and not on her linguistic immaturity: Huang’s goal is a descriptive and normative model. Since Huang allows the child to speak, his method is very different from Piaget’s. He tries to capture the child’s implicit view of the world … to catch them “dealing with things,” rather than “dealing with thoughts.” Huang places the child before “a real event involving concrete and tangible objects (as opposed to a situation created by language), an event capable of evoking responses similar to those that child presents in his everyday life.”1 Piaget, on the other hand, interrogates the child with regard to subjects with which the child has never been confronted. The result of Piaget’s interrogations is that the child responds in reaction to a verbal situation. (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 410)

When most children are presented with a simple experiment that seems curious—like a pencil that seems “bent” in a glass of water—children offer very reasonable explanations—“the water made the pencil soft” and rarely adopt “magical” responses. It seems that the formation of bodily habit that permits the richness of adult autonomy also encourages the capacity to distance oneself from experience in a manner difficult for a child. One of the most common existential conflicts between parents and children is the child’s lack of comprehension of waiting. The younger the child, the more intolerable discomforts are—long car trips, having to wait in line, being hungry before the meal is ready—to which the common reply is trying to provide the child some temporal perspective to explain that this discomfort is a small matter.

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Obviously, this is rather useless until one has acquired enough time to put such matters in relative order. To a young child, it is true that nothing worse has ever happened than waiting. Our desire to give them perspective is in a certain sense a matter of preparing them that life has so many other larger discomforts in store for them. For a young child, time is perceived as a vague horizon around an all dominant now. Thus, the child inhabits a much more intense, immediate real than the adult who is habituated to constantly projecting life into the future and tying it up with the past. There are two ideas of what adult reality is that are often confused in drawing distinctions between mature and immature experience. One is of the real as a resistant background—the hardness of the floor, the heat of the sun, and my itchy eyes—the present lived real. In this idea of the real, the question is if children are more prone to exit it in flights of fancy. I would argue alongside Merleau-Ponty that this is not the case. In play, children are deeply connected to this real; while their games might seem nonsensical to us, they do not depart from their situation. The other understanding of the real is akin to “things that have happened and can happen,” which is the result of a long education about history and science and requires a certain grasp of time. Some perspectives on this second idea of the real I have fairly firmly, like the basic elements of the US Civil War, the position of the planets, and the basic theory of evolution, but in many cases I have only the sense that experts understand such matters, such as when I go to the doctor when I am sick or a history professor tells me about the Western theater. The imagination one witnesses in children’s play isn’t that the child invents imaginary beings, like gods, but rather a degree of intensity with the “now” of the experiential real that we have been habituated out of. It is our sedimentation that resists understanding the child. In drawing out how the real “is to be described, and neither constructed nor constituted,” Merleau-Ponty points out in the Phenomenology that while “I weave dreams around the things, I imagine objects or people whose presence here is not incompatible with the context,” I still never confuse these dreams with the present world. Rather they stay “on the stage of the imaginary” (2012: lxxiii–lxxiv). This might be interpreted as drawing a standard idea of that which is real as that which resists, that which is objective, and the imaginary as standing separate, inside, and pliable. In such a view we can place the child as “making things up” in the imagination, whereas the adult limits herself to the description of the real. Instead of this thesis, I will argue that child’s imaginative play can be seen to reveal more what Annabelle Dufourcq calls the imagareal, which allows for a separation in Merleau-Ponty’s

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work between perception and imagination but refuses to separate the real and imagination. For Dufourcq the dream is the archetype of reality, not waking life. She notes that the themes of dreams, oneiric being, and haunting fill Merleau-Ponty’s work with descriptions of how fragile our grasp on the historical and scientific real is. Rather, we have but a patchwork of fragmented variations that attach us to such a sense of reality, and we require the work of the imagination to stitch them together. Dufourcq argues that we must not see the imaginary and the real as distinct, but rather as joined in what she calls “the imagareal,” to evoke the imaginary dimension of being that Merleau-Ponty draws our attention toward (2015: 47). In a similar vein, David Morris argues for the “synthesis” of the imagination in being (2008: 140). For Dufourcq, it is the imaginary and the perceptual that are distinguished. After all, as full as my memory of my childhood home is, I could not tell you how many layers of bricks rose to the ceiling around the fireplace or how many cupboards are in the kitchen, which I could do quite easily if I stood now inside it. Dufourcq summarizes this point by saying that “the advantage of such a thesis is that it permits us to preserve a distinction between the perceived and the imaginary, no longer as a distinction between presence and absence but, rather, between two modalities of presence itself ” (2015: 140). She continues to assert that while we can distinguish the difference between the imaginary and the perceptual, we cannot make such an ontological claim between the distinctness of the real and the imaginary, making dreams a continuum rather than a radical break from waking life. Consider how I “know” that life has certain truths and certain things happened in the past—it is a result of a sedimented education rather than a coherent whole that I could explain clearly. I have some sense of the past, both my personal past and the cultural past, that is linked in important ways to the present and will extend into the future. This temporal sense provides my life with a solidity that I have imagined and that permits me adult freedom. In a dream, time is loosened and our education works less effectively to make us assume there is a universal, constant real that subtends our experience. Merleau-Ponty’s lecture, Structure and Conflicts in Child Consciousness, acknowledges that in the child’s imaginative play there can appear to be a type of disconnection from reality, but argues that this draws a false dichotomy between real and imaginary. The real and the imaginary are not “antinomies, as different as day and night” (2010: 181). Rather, the child has an oneiric experience where she does not exit the real, but is able to integrate it with her imagination. MerleauPonty points out that children are neither internally preoccupied, such as argued

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in Melanie Klein’s work, nor are they empiricists simply collecting information from the world. “The child does not live in the bipolar world of the waking adult but rather he inhabits a hybrid zone of oneiric ambiguity” (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 181–182). The “bipolar” nature of adults permits us to abstract from our experience whether in a religion, in a science, or in a projection of the future and remembrance of the past. We can thus create a coherent worldview even if such a worldview means exiting the reality of the now. Our actual momentary experience of the flux of sensory information and vacillating internal sensations happens like a dream in a manner that defies easy insertion into a temporal narrative. To try and be spontaneous, like a child, is decentering since one is trying to not organize but allow. The dreamlike nature of child’s play is its happening rather than its production. A child deep at work talking to her imaginary friend, or the strength of a child’s frustration at ruining an incomprehensible game, do not simply appear as the delightful witnessing of childhood innocence. In play, the seriousness of children is that the play must occur this way. It is not about chance or invention; it could not be any other kind of play. Children will correct you if you try and enter certain games, and they resist the reframing of their stories. It seems too adult to assume that a grand narrative was dreamt up by a young child and then, like a playwright, the child is acting out his creation. Instead, it seems the child is having an experience rather than directing an experience. Dreams have a similar structure: upon waking I can remark upon how such events would be impossible or funny or frightening if they were real, but the dream happened like life happens—without my express consent or will. Is the disjunction between the reality of life and the reality of dreams as strong as we might imagine, even in adult experience? Merleau-Ponty provides an analysis of imagination, in Eye and Mind, with the painter drawing out “the imaginary texture of the real” (1964: 164). After all, as Cézanne shows us in his repetitious but always variable paintings, what is Mount Saint-Victoire in the richness of the now? Its weight? Its capacity to be climbed? Where it is? What does it mean to say there is a real Mount Saint-Victoire separate from these perspectives? Even history seems to have this dreamlike binding that ties one narrative together rather than another. As Merleau-Ponty notes in Adventures of the Dialectic, the historical imagination is like the work of a painter that weaves together the past, not an act of reason that has isolated certain facts and ordered them appropriately: At the start, however, it is not an all-powerful idea; it is a sort of historical imagination which sows here and there elements capable one day of being integrated. The meaning of a system in its beginnings is like the pictorial

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meaning of a painting, which not so much directs the painter’s movements but is the result of them and progresses with them. (1973, 17)

Our own histories sown with childhood memories are such imaginative products. One ages and rewrites memories to suit one’s new status, one draws upon them as needed, discarding some when they are no longer relevant. Merleau-Ponty writes that the meaning of a painting is not directing the painter, but comes from the painter’s movements. Likewise, one might surmise our history’s meaning comes from those early spontaneous movements and the early dreamlike play to compose what we later integrate into our sense of a temporal, historical self.

Note 1 For further discussion, see Welsh (2013: 107–113).

References Beauvoir, Simone de (1976), The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Citadel. Dufourcq, Annabelle (2015), “The Fundamental Imaginary Dimension of the Real in Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy.” Research in Phenomenology 45: 33–52. Meltzoff, Andrew N. (2002), “Elements of a Developmental Theory of Imitation.” In The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases, edited by A. Meltzoff and W. Prinz, 19–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meltzoff, Andrew and Wolfgang Prinz, eds. (2002), The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), “Eye and Mind.” Translated by Carleton Dallery. In The Primacy of Perception, 159–192. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1973), Adventures of the Dialectic. Translated by Joseph Bien. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1983), The Structure of Behavior. Translated by Alden L. Fisher. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2010), Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952. Translated by Talia Welsh. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2012), Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald Landes. Routledge: London. Morris, David (2008). “Reversibility and Ereignis: On Being as Kantian Imagination in Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger.” Philosophy Today 52: 135–143.

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Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine (2013), “Habit and Attention.” In The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity, edited by R. T. Jensen and D. Moran, 3–19. Springer: Dordrecht. Welsh, Talia (2013), The Child as Natural Phenomenologist: Primal and Primary Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

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Images of Me in the Roles I Live: An Existentialist Contribution to Confucian Role Ethics Andrew K. Whitehead

Reconciling the wide range of roles and the dispersed identities that we encounter as having to fulfill or wanting to be is no easy task. Asserting who we are, as well as who we are becoming, across those diverse and often even conflicting roles and identities in fact demands, as I argue here, a projection into an imagined possible being. The following is motivated—at least in part—by an effort to reconcile the unique, divergent, and therefore seemingly irreconcilable roles encountered in situated existence by means of the imagination. It is a work concerned with describing how we become, as persons. I take as my starting point the idea of person found in what Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr. have called “Confucian role ethics” (Ames and Rosemont 1998, 2011, 2016; Ames 2011; Rosemont 2015). They put forward an account of persons as performing roles that are either appropriate or inappropriate in relation to their correlative emergence. However, I also believe that the theory of role ethics fails to account for how these different roles can be integrated in a distinct individual subject.1 I believe that existentialism, insofar as it also takes up the idea of persons, as discovered in concrete situations, points toward a conception of an integrated subject; it also articulates the function this integration serves in manifesting freedom and enabling transcendence toward possible futures. Following from this, and in turning to existential phenomenology, I consider the existential self as imagined, as a nothingness arising from the unifying and integrating passive synthesis of consciousness’s self-intuition. This chapter can therefore be understood to take up what might be called a Sino-Existential philosophical anthropology. In other words, it attempts to offer an understanding of human

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becoming developed out of classical Chinese and existential sources in light of the role and function of the imagination. This chapter has three sections. First, I very briefly describe Confucian persons in terms of roles. Specifically, I consider these roles as particular customs and behaviors that, on the one hand, must be deferred and adhered to in a “typical” way, and, on the other hand, amended and re-written in an “idiosyncratic” way that is performed in a unique and meaningful fashion such that it can become the concrete individual taking up that role. Second, I translate both the deference to and the amendment of a role into the language of existential situatedness. Drawing from the works of Søren Kierkegaard, and his understanding of the dual nature of subjectivity as being and becoming, I propose an account of how the plurality of roles is unified and becomes “the self,” which in turn is in need of being transcended. In order to account for the integration of such a self, the third section of this chapter turns to the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl, specifically as these pertain to imagination and passive synthesis. I argue that the self, as a unique object for consciousness, is a product of the irrealizing function of consciousness: the imagination which produces an image that is able to integrate all of the various roles performed in the fragmented experiences of existential situatedness.

Ames and Rosemont’s Confucian person The Analects of Confucius, by virtue of the classical Chinese language, expresses its meaning correlatively. It is imbued with what Ames and Rosemont (1998: 42) call “semantic overload.” As such, it emerges correlatively, as a specific relation in which text and reader are found.2 Classical Chinese language is the reflexive performance and self-validation of what has been taken to be one of its principle philosophical contributions, that of a metaphysics of intrinsic relatedness. Accordingly, this language represents a non-substantial, non-essential, and anti-atomistic worldview. Intrinsic relatedness suggests that distinct meaning emerges for the sake of particulars or participants out of given relations and that these particulars or participants can therefore be understood as mutually constitutive. This position is brought to its fullest maturity in what might be called social philosophy, insofar as persons discover their personhood, both in the descriptive and in the prescriptive sense, always and only in social relations. As Rosemont has often said, there is no such thing as a human being unless we take for granted that there are human beings.3 It is from this starting point that persons are able to

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express themselves meaningfully, either appropriately, in accordance with their role as given in the relation, or inappropriately, failing to express themselves in accordance with their role as given in the relation. However, by reflecting on this type of emergence, and focusing on the person instead of the relation, we are also able to discover a novel understanding of human being. Human being is that type of being that discovers itself in and through meaningful relations, and is able to undertake the performance of a role for the sake of such relations. There are “pre-given” constraints for such performances, insofar as their meaningfulness is tied to tradition, culture, and history, and not only the specificity of the interaction in which the correlative elements discover themselves. According to this account, freedom is then no more and no less than the ability to perform the role in an original fashion, deviating from the established constraints within a reasonable margin of amendment. As an example, we can think of the relation between a teacher and a student. A teacher discovers herself as teacher in the relation she has with her student. This relation is fundamentally different from her relation to her spouse, to her children, to her banker, to her mentor, and so forth. She therefore only discovers herself as a teacher in the specific relation she has with her students. In so discovering, she also intuitively discovers herself as occupying a specific role in and for the relation, namely, the role of teacher. In accordance with this role, there exists a set of established customs and behaviors with which she is able to express herself meaningfully as performing her role of teacher appropriately. The relation, entailing socio-historical situatedness in its emergence, concedes a rather limited set of customs and behaviors that accord with the role taken up in the relation. There is a way to perform the role of teacher for this teacher, and performing her role meaningfully requires her deference to this way. Her unique individuality results from how she performs this role in relation to established customs and behaviors. This individuality, however, is forever contained within the relation; it is limited to the person of the role. In this way, the teacher is not the wife, or the mother, or the customer. Each role rests within a particular relation, and the correlative constitution of the person is not carried over into other relations. Relations do not emerge between persons, but persons are found in relations. One of the fundamental philosophical problems arising in light of this view, which stresses the plurality of relations and thus of roles, is how self-integration is possible. While Ames and Rosemont argue that the self is the sum total of their relations (Ames and Rosemont 1998: 27–28; Rosemont 2015: 49; Ames and Rosemont 2016: 12, 52), this sum total is never manifested in any given relation.

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The self is never a role to be occupied, but is instead one to be inferred. And yet, there is an existential experience of a, however loosely, unified whole; there is an existential experience of “oneself.” In other words, I find myself related to myself in such a way that I imagine my performance of different roles to issue from an integrated self that provides for my role as me. I contend that one way to think through this problem is by using existential phenomenology and the imagination.

Existentialism, phenomenology, and imagined integration A minor caution as we proceed: the language of existentialism will obviously not always prove compatible with that of classical Chinese philosophy. I will try my best, where needed, to retrieve and translate this language back into the language of role relations. One way that we might think about the sum total of relations that constitute the individual subject is through Kierkegaard’s emphasis on authentic individual existence: a life-view. A life-view, according to Kierkegaard, is always more than experience, which is fragmentary; it is always more than the sum of roles (Kierkegaard 2000a: 13). A life-view is that through which the self chooses itself, and in so choosing makes itself its objective. At the same time, however, in choosing itself, the self also situates itself in its immediacy. According to Kierkegaard, “the self that is the objective is not an abstract self that fits everywhere and therefore nowhere but is a concrete self in living interaction with these specific surroundings, these life conditions, this order of things” (Kierkegaard 1987: 82, emphasis my own). As such, the life-view, insofar as it arises out of the immediacy of the objective self, is always distinct and different from any specific role. The integrated self is never manifested in concrete relations; and it is never manifested in any given specific role. My authenticity, to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, exists as a continually renewed upspringing and overpassing that is opposed to the fixed reality of things (Beauvoir 2004: 212). In this way, the self, in its multifaceted composition, is not the self that is discovered in any given relation. Instead, the integrated self is always underway as the making of the self, which is tied directly to the making of the culture that informs and occasions how roles are made meaningful. This making is “a question at the source of both action and its truth” (Beauvoir 2004: 217).

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A life-view—the image of the self that informs the living of roles—is therefore something apart from the specific roles taken up in relations. It is, in the poetic language of Kierkegaard, “the transubstantiation of experience; it is an unshakable certainty in oneself won from all experience” (Kierkegaard 2000a: 13). This transubstantiation of experience affords certainty in oneself as subject, which, for existentialists, always exists uniquely as a starting point. It represents the transubstantiation of my experiences, my concrete relations and the roles emerging from them, into me; into my objective subjectivity. And, if we are to agree with Beauvoir, “I cannot conceal from myself the fact that all my acts have their source in my subjectivity” (Beauvoir 2004: 212). As the source for all of my engagements, my subjectivity encompasses the ground of freedom. However, this subjectivity is also understood as selfdistinguishing, as presenting itself both as me and as I. These two dimensions are radically different, but both are ultimately, I contend, products of imagination. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the two as follows: “The esthetic in a person is that by which he spontaneously and immediately is what he is; the ethical is that by which he becomes what he becomes” (Kierkegaard 1987: 77). This distinction, presented by Kierkegaard under the pseudonym “Judge Williams,” highlights an interesting facet of role ethics (albeit without intending to do so). Through the aesthetic, I discover myself as occupying a particular role within a relation, and through the ethical, I perform the role according to my unique situation. In so performing, I find “myself ” resurfacing again and again as different roles to be performed according to a particular set of customs and behaviors. These customs and behaviors are developed and amended in light of previous performances, including my own. Following from each choice, I find myself re-transubstantiated, as a new amalgam, taken to inform both my role and my performance upon rediscovering myself in the situated role anew. In taking up any given role, I discover “me” as the consolidated personality faced with choice. In this way, it is only in looking backwards that I discover myself, and it is only in moving forward that the me is brought to bear on an indeterminate future. “I throw myself without help and without guidance into a world where I am not installed ahead of time waiting for myself ” (Beauvoir 2004: 212). How one is to be a teacher, though socio-historically defined ahead of time, is always free to amendment within a limited scope. I understand myself as me, and perform the role as mine. In this way, consciousness integrates, and I am myself. However, this integration, this transubstantiation, this unification, is an image; it is a product of the imagination. I encounter, make use of, and integrate images of me.

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Imagination and self-integration These images of me perform two different yet correlatively constituted functions in establishing the image of me as it is to be deferred to and amended in given relations as specific roles. There is both the image of me that I encounter upon finding myself in relations and also the image of me that I encounter upon projecting myself in and through relations. In other words, one encounters both the image of oneself as a teacher, encountered upon the recognition of the student-teacher relation and one’s relative role within this relation, and one also encounters the image of oneself actually teaching, as the projection of oneself in and through this relation, living a specific role. These images of me differ to the extent that one informs my undertaking of a role as me and the other informs my reconciliation of the first image with the performance of the role, the me who is performing. Rather than understanding self-integration in terms of transubstantiation, however, greater insight can be gained through reflection on the irrealizing function of consciousness, the imagination. According to Sartre, reflection allows us to determine the characteristics of the image qua image.4 This reflective turn is necessary because “the image as image is describable only by a second-order act in which the look is turned away from the object and directed at the way in which the object is given” (Sartre 2004: 4). For the sake of this chapter, the object is the self as an integrated unity, and this last section of the chapter therefore aims to describe how the integrated self is given as image. For starters, Sartre determines that image consciousness differs from other types of consciousness. It takes up its own method of synthetic organization. One of the difficulties we encounter is that the self is conceived, which seems to automatically exclude it from perception or imagination. I endeavor to show that this is not the case. As has been conceded, I always encounter myself as taking up a role within a relation, and make my way through such relations by deferring to extant customs and behaviors that qualify my performance as either appropriate or inappropriate. I never encounter myself in any of these roles as an integrated whole; I never encounter the sum total of my relations in any given relation. However, this is no different from how I encounter and discover all particulars within a relation. Listening to Husserl, I am inclined to agree that “no matter how completely we may perceive a thing, it is never given in perception with the characteristics that qualify it and make it up as a sensible thing from all sides at once” (Husserl 2001: 39). Instead, perception only gives the object

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in a series of profiles.5 I encounter myself in profile—that is, the image of me emerges as the synthesis of all role-specific profiles. In this way, objects are never finished, but are instead always seducing me to increase the profiles that allow for a more thorough and integrated conception of them. And yet, every “aspect, every continuity of single adumbrations, regardless how far this continuity may extend, offers us only sides” (Husserl 2001: 39). The conscious act of self-integration is therefore not to be found in perception. Perception, however, is required for self-integration to take place in the imagination. This is, to paraphrase Sartre, because the image of me is a synthetic act that links to the concrete, not imaged, knowledge of me in specific roles (Sartre 2004: 9).6 These roles, in their own turn, are also developed in a synthetic act that links to the concrete customs and behaviors from which they stem. They, like the me who undertakes them, involve “a non-intuitive pointing beyond or indicating [that] characterizes the side actually seen as a mere side, and what provides for the fact that the side is not taken for the thing, but rather, that something transcending the side is intended in consciousness as perceived, by which precisely that is actually seen” (Husserl 2001: 41). I am not the teacher, but am myself as teacher. The individual role is not taken for me, but I am taken as something transcending the role, by which I am actually discovered. Following from Sartre’s understanding of imagination, however, in discovering myself as that which transcends my concrete particularity in the profile of a role, I discover myself to be nothing. The imaging consciousness of the object includes … a nonthetic consciousness of itself. This consciousness, which one could call transversal, has no object. It posits nothing, refers to nothing, is not knowledge: it is a diffuse light that consciousness emits for itself, or—to abandon comparisons—it is an indefinable quality that attaches itself to every consciousness. (Sartre 2004: 14)

There is no role that occasions all other roles. The sum total of my roles does not produce an image of me that corresponds to how I emerge in and for relations. Instead, in choosing myself, the image of me is given whole. In the image, knowledge is immediate (Sartre 2004: 9). But no knowledge of me is possible outside of the images of me, as profiles of myself, that emerge in my concrete situations in accordance with particular roles. As such, the unified image of me is the only means by which I arrive at a self-conception that posits me as integrated. However, as image, the integrated self does not ever engage in the world. As Sartre maintains, “the different elements of an image maintain no relations with the rest of the world” (Sartre 2004: 9). In fact, “the world of

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images is a world where nothing happens” (Sartre 2004: 11).7 The image of me is never discovered in any given relation, but is instead the synthetic organization of conscious experiences in terms of the diffuse light that consciousness emits for itself. The image of me is the synthetically organized role player—the inexhaustibly free and spontaneous means for assuming roles—and is therefore an image that depends on the certainty of others encountered in relations. It depends on others to the extent that we have assumed correlativism, and any emergence of me as performing a particular role must therefore be discovered in a specific relation. Sartre also understands the image to include a positional act. He finds that these acts can take one of four forms: “It can posit the object as nonexistent, or as absent, or as existing elsewhere; it can also ‘neutralize’ itself, which is to say not posit its object as existent” (Sartre 2004: 12). This positional act is taken as constitutive of image consciousness. In examining the image of me, it is therefore prudent to determine which of these four forms is at work. Curiously, in the performance of role ethics, I believe we can see all four forms being used at different stages. Turning back to Kierkegaard’s distinction between being and becoming, this should become clearer. In choosing myself in my concrete situation, I make use of an image of me that is nonexistent—at no point emerging in relations. And yet, this nonexistent image of me contains profiles of me that are absent or are existing elsewhere. Insofar as intentionality, which simplifies the complexity of the world, makes assuming situated roles possible, it is therefore blind to other roles held in different relations simultaneously. There are profiles of me emerging out of different relations for which I am not performing my role, images of me that are posited as existing elsewhere. In choosing myself, I then also discover that these elsewhere-existent images of me indicate their absence in my concrete situation. My non-existence, existing elsewhere, is absent from me as I find myself in situations. This same structure holds for projections of myself in and through roles. There too I discover the intentional object of the imagining consciousness to be the image of me. The image of me posits me as not there, or as not existing, or does not posit me at all. To understand myself as integrated, I make use of the image of me. This image, insofar as it is the sum total of my relations, is never present in any one given relation, and yet it is the source for the discovery of myself in relations. It represents an inexhaustible freedom to the extent that it is never complete; it is always being seduced into discovering itself related anew. It informs the customs and behaviors with which I perform my roles by situating my performance as mine, thereby occasioning the full use of my socio-historical situation. To

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paraphrase Kierkegaard one last time: the image of me is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation (Kierkegaard 2000b: 127). This is how I am. There is a way to be me. I must imagine how to make this way mine.

Notes 1 It is worth noting that neither Ames nor Rosemont would take any issue with this absence of account. In fact, both go to great lengths to argue against conceiving of ourselves as individuals, and would therefore likely be quite happy to leave the problem addressed in this chapter aside. See especially Ames and Rosemont (2016, especially Rosemont’s chapter on “Rights-Bearing Individuals and Role-Bearing Persons”) and Rosemont’s Against Individualism (2015), the latter focusing almost entirely on this problem. 2 For a more extensive treatment of this issue, I refer readers to the introduction of Ames and Rosemont’s translation of the Analects (1998), especially the sections on “Metaphysics, with Reference to Language,” 20–35, and “Language, with Reference to Metaphysics,” 35–45. 3 Ames and Rosemont also make this claim in the introduction to their translation of the Analects (1998: 48), attributing the position to Herbert Fingarette (1983: 217). 4 It is important to note that while Husserl distinguishes image consciousness from imagination, Sartre does not. Specifically, in The Imaginary, Sartre simply distinguishes between different kinds of images, among them “mental images.” 5 I am here drawing an analogy—an analogy that Husserl himself arguably makes elsewhere—between “real” objects (as objects of possible sense experience in space and time), which necessarily give themselves in such perspective/profiles, and the “imagined” object that is my Self. Encountering my Self, in situ as role, can here be understood to constitute a perspective, profile, or adumbration, which is not unlike the experience of a “real” object. 6 Sartre (2004: 9) explicitly makes the claim regarding perception—the concrete, not imaged, knowledge of something—and imagination—the synthetic linking act. 7 This does not imply that my image of me never changes, only that it does not concretely affect anything in the world. The image of me continuously evolves, emerging episodically in relations as a role.

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References Ames, Roger (2011), Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Ames, Roger and Henry Rosemont Jr. (1998), The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Random House. Ames, Roger and Henry Rosemont Jr. (2016), Confucian Role Ethics: A Moral Vision for the 21st Century? Göttingen: V and R Unipress. Beauvoir, Simone de (2004), “Pyrrhus and Cinéas.” In Simone de Beauvoir: Philosophical Writings, edited by Margaret A. Simons with Marybeth Timmermann and Mary Beth Mader. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Fingarette, Herbert (1983), “The Music of Humanity in the Conversations of Confucius.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 10: 331–356. Husserl, Edmund (2001), Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcendental Logic. Translated by Steinbock. New York: Springer. Kierkegaard, Søren (1987), Either/Or: Part II. Translated and edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren (2000a), “From the Papers of One Still Living: Published against His Will (September 7, 1838).” In The Essential Kierkegaard, translated and edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren (2000b), “Sickness unto Death.” In The Essential Kierkegaard, translated and edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosemont, Henry, Jr. (2015), Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion. New York: Lexington. Sartre, Jean-Paul (2004), The Imaginary. New York: Routledge.

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Imagination, Formation, World, and Place: An Ontology John W. M. Krummel

The faculty of the imagination has long been recognized as playing a role in our interaction with the world, both in its creativity and in its relation to a communal sensibility or “common sense.” This recognition, however, has a long and precarious history in Western philosophy. In modernity it is Immanuel Kant who develops the productive role of the imagination in positive terms, allowing for its further subsequent development in communal terms as ontological and semantic. In the following I would like to unfold the ontological role of the imagination as a faculty of formation, and its implications vis-à-vis our sense of place, making use of the ideas of contemporary philosophers of both West and East, including Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur, Cornelius Castoriadis, Charles Taylor, Miki Kiyoshi, and Nakamura Yūjirō. By drawing on their insights, I will unfold the imagination’s ontological implications that connect the dynamic of form and formlessness on the one hand, and place on the other hand, in the construction of the world or web of meanings. In ancient Greek terms, we may understand this world-formation in terms of the chōrismos of chōra. The abyssal freedom underlying this creative process however also raises questions about the autonomy of the human will in shaping the world. We will begin with a short history of the concept of the imagination.

Aristotle For the historical inception of the productive imagination, we can look back to Aristotle’s discovery of phantasia (φαντασία). The imagination here is passive (pathos, πάθος), functioning in response to sensation.1 Because the sensible object’s

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activity upon the imagination is mediated by the senses, the imagination escapes its full constraint, making it potentially deviant, a source of error, which however is also a source of creativity. Ever since Aristotle the imagination throughout Western history has also been closely connected to the concept of common sense. In Aristotle’s De Anima (On the Soul), common sense (koinē aesthēsis, κοινη αἴσθησις; sensus communis) brings together the five senses to constitute perception. This allows the imagination to work on the gathered sensory impressions to produce mental images (phantasma) with which the mind can think, even in the absence of the sensory object (Aristotle 1941: 608).2 But in founding memory and recollection with its mental images, imagination in turn informs common sense in its synthesis of the senses. There is thus involved here a creative and hermeneutical reciprocity between the two. This relationship between imagination and common sense is something that comes up again in Kant. And it becomes developed further in postKantian philosophy, first in Arendt’s notion that common sense is a communal sensibility that adapts the senses to the world, and then implicitly in the notion of the social imaginary belonging to several contemporary philosophers. What is foreshadowed here is the imagination’s relation to place and world, but also, if common sense were attributable to the imagination itself, the imagination’s general ontological function in its formation of the world.

Productive imagination in Kant It was Immanuel Kant, however, in both his first and third Critiques, who recognized the productive function of the imagination as something positive and necessary. In his Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft) Kant characterizes the imagination as an a priori faculty of intuition (Kant 1965: A118, A120, 144–145). But in the Deduction of the first (A) edition he also characterizes the imagination in its threefold synthesis—apprehension, reproduction, and recognition—as one of the original sources of all experience that itself cannot “be derived from any other faculty of the mind” (A94, 127), and grounded in spontaneity (A97, 130). He speaks of its a priori transcendental synthesis as antecedent to and “conditioning the very possibility of all experience” (A101,133). In the second (B) edition Kant attributes that threefold synthesis to the productive imagination, as distinguished from merely reproductive imagination (B152,165) and makes the implicit suggestion that it is the “common, but to us unknown, root” of sensibility and understanding (B29, 61; and B863, 655).

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In relation to this function as the source of synthesis, Kant speaks of the imagination as “the faculty to represent in intuition an object even without its presence” (Kant 1965: B151, 165). This can refer to the reproduction of the image of what one has seen. But it can also refer to its productive aspect, if what is produced is something one has not perceived. There is an activecreative component here belonging to the side of spontaneity.3 The process of the schematism in the second edition underscores this formative or productive feature that delineates a general figure without delimiting it to the determinate image presented by a particular experience—for example, of a specific dog or a triangular shape—to represent instead that which is not itself present, not an image but rather the schema—of “dog” or “triangle.”4 Kant mysteriously describes this work of the schematism that allows the application of conceptual categories to spatio-temporal appearances as “an art concealed in the depths of the human soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever to allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze” (Kant 1965: A141/B180–181, 183). In the end, though, as some have noted, Kant in the second edition retreats from that primacy of the imagination as a productive power, a potentially unbounded creativity which may entail uncertainties, and relegates it to a more secondary status, submerging it under the dictates of reason. But what was circumscribed within cognitive bounds in the first Critique is given a somewhat looser rein in the third of the Critiques, the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft), within the realm of aesthetics, for example, in the productive capacity of genius to create the unseen in the creation of art works (Kant 1952: §§46–47, 49). Exceeding the bounds of conceptuality, the aesthetic product of genius cannot be fully translated into language or symbols, and it induces in its audience an experience that likewise exceeds linguistic and conceptual boundaries. Genius thus underscores the imagination’s productivity irreducible to concepts and language. An additional essential characteristic of genius that Kant had already proposed in his pre-critical Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht) is originality (1974a: §6, 19), one aspect of which is “non-imitative production” (1974a: §30, 48) and another aspect of which is “discovering what cannot be taught or learned” (1974a: 180n). That is, genius does not imitate, and invents or discovers what cannot be taught or passed on. In the third Critique Kant describes this originality as the “talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given” (1952: §46, 168). And yet it must serve as exemplary for others (1952: §46, 168). These characteristics have certainly implications extending beyond the realm of aesthetics and into politics that are developed by later thinkers

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like Arendt, Castoriadis, and Lyotard.5 But alone, that creative originality and abundance of the imagination in genius is lawless, without discipline. In the Anthropology Kant attempts to limit this by adding the condition that imagination is genius only when it “harmonizes with concepts” (1974a: §30, 48). And in the third Critique, as well, the “aesthetic ideas” presented by the products of genius are said to be produced by, and also to provoke in others, a harmony of the imagination and understanding (1952: §49). Somehow what is irreducible to concepts must allow for harmony with them. In the third Critique, Kant goes on to fetter this creativity of genius with the notion of taste socialized for “permanent and universal approval” under the faculty of judgment (1952: §50, 183) and subordinates it to the criterion of instrumentality or reason’s purposive order (Castoriadis 1997: 214). We will return to this notion of taste in a later section.

Productive imagination in twentieth-century post-Kantian philosophy In recognition of that creativity or productivity, let us recall how the etymology of the German for imagination, Einbildungskraft, encompasses the sense of “formation” (Bildung) and how the German for “image” also means “form” (Bild). The recognition of this formative function of the imagination, with ontological as well as sociopolitical implications, blossoms in post-Kantian twentieth-century philosophy, but accompanied with a recognition of its contingent nature. We see how in producing a series of forms or images (Bilder) for a community, it forms a world-constitutive picture for human co-being. Yet many have recognized this world-formation to be contingent and no longer transcendental, as Kant believed. We notice the imagination as world-constitutive yet contingent in Martin Heidegger’s late-1920s works, including his Kant-reading of the period. Heidegger understands Kantian imagination, especially as indicated in its timeformation and the schematism, to be derivative of—in some sense even identical with—the temporality (Zeitlichkeit) of human existence; this temporality constitutes the horizon of comportment in the sense that our cognitive concerns are tacitly guided by our existential concerns, ultimately by our being-towarddeath. The latter guides our projection of a world-Bild as the contextual horizon or “pre-form/view” (Vor-Bild) in light of which things can manifest and be meaningful.6 Einbildungskraft in its Bildung of a Bild is thus broadened

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as ontologically constitutive of our being-in-the-world. But its creativity in the formation (bilden) of the horizon is inextricably linked to—even derivative of— human finitude. One Second World War-era Japanese philosopher who had studied with Heidegger and worked upon Heidegger’s notion of an ontological imagination constitutive of human social existence and the world is Miki Kiyoshi (三木 清). Influenced by Heidegger, Miki had also recognized what he called the creative imagination (kōsōryoku 構想力) lying in the depths of human nature.7 Concerned with the subject-object dichotomy in Neo-Kantian epistemology and recognizing the imagination’s synthetic function in Kant of bringing together sensibility and understanding (Miki 1967a: 5), Miki in his Logic of the Imagination (Kōsōryoku no ronri 『構想力の論理』)8 took the imagination’s creation of images out of pathos—emotion, passion, or impulse—in dialectical unity with logos—the intellectual element—to culminate externally in the production—poiēsis—of “formed images” (keizō 形像)” (from the Greek eidos and German Bild) (Miki 1967a, v.8: 4, 46; v.11: 473). He takes Kant’s schematism to show that the imagination mediates sensibility and understanding—or in Miki’s terms, pathos and logos—only because it is their originary root. But form and formation for Miki extend well beyond the merely epistemic or cognitive and aesthetic domains. The images the imagination produces as formed images (keizō) are embodied images. Miki thus had something broader in view than Kant’s concerns, and he recognized the importance of the practical and historical dimension. As media of such forms, Miki mentions myth, technics, and the institutions of society, all of which undergo change through the history of human action. Objects are worked upon, trans-formed, and given new form (Miki 1967a: 7). Thereby the environment is transformed into culture, giving shape to the very reality of the world wherein we dwell (41). And this transformation is historical. Human history involves the trans-formations of forms in the logic of forms (katachi no ronri 形の論理) rooted in the imagination (6). In the meantime, in the Francophone world, two post-Kantian and postHeideggerian philosophers have focused on the productive capacities of the imagination: Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis. For Ricoeur, the imagination is an “indispensable agent in the creation of meaning” (Kearney 1998: 142). Like Miki he inherits and develops Kant’s notion of the schematism. For him, the schematism has “the characteristics of a tradition” and is thus culturally bound and “constituted within a history” (Ricoeur 1984: 68). Moreover, in orienting us, it can also manifest concretely and externally in human action. As such it is inseparable from the practice of being-human. Through the elaboration

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of myths, metaphors, narratives, and so forth, it gives meaning to the world and history, and thereby guides and orients human beings within their life-world. Castoriadis thematizes the imagination’s creativity more explicitly in its ontological significance. “Creative imagination” for him serves as an umbrella term for the more specific, radical imagination of the psyche on the one hand and the radical imaginary of the social-historical (as social imaginary significations) on the other. The radical imagination/imaginary in both cases is the elementary creative force that creates figures, forms, images, meanings or significations, institutions, worlds ex nihilo,9 a spontaneity at the root of the human psyche that escapes subordination to any predeterminate end: “ the unceasing and essentially undetermined (social-historical and psychical) creation of figures/ forms/images” (Castoriadis 1998: 3). The images it creates are forms—forms of being, whether language, institutions, art, and so on.10 Thus Castoriadis, some decades after Miki, also speaks of the products of the imagination as forms (2007: 73). As imaginary significations, their role is to provide answers to fundamental questions about our identity, origin, place, purpose, needs, relationship to the world, and so forth—questions that neither “rationality” nor “reality” can answer (Castoriadis 1998: 146–147). As in Ricoeur, the imagination’s formations here provide society an orientation, a Stimmung or mood (Castoriadis 1998: 150), and “construct (organize, articulate, vest with meaning) the world of the society considered” (Castoriadis 1991: 42).

Imagination, common sense, and the social imaginary Now what we notice in all of these post-Kantian thinkers is that the imagination’s products have collective significance, and in that regard, they constitute the shape of the world for a society. This brings us back to the concept of common sense, which by the time of Kant’s third Critique had taken on a meaning quite distinct from what Aristotle meant by the term. As I stated above, Kant in the third Critique attempts to fetter the creativity of genius with his notion of taste as socialized for “universal approval.” Taste is the discriminating and discerning activity of a trained and cultivated mind11 to judge something as beautiful or not. But in so doing it decides not only how the world is to look but, as Hannah Arendt points out, is also a principle of belonging that decides who belongs together in that world: “Taste is the political capacity that truly humanizes the beautiful and creates a culture” (Arendt 1954: 224).12 If genius is a matter of creative originality, the judgment of taste adjusts the lawless freedom of genius

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to the understanding. Taste disciplines genius and gives it guidance, bringing it clearness and order, making its ideas agreeable and capable of being followed by others, estimating the universal communicability of its product (Kant 1952: §40, 153; §50, 183). So as genius exceeds, taste fetters; as genius invents, taste institutes; as genius produces, taste judges—the latter for the sake of a communal sensibility. Kant thus refers to aesthetic judgment and taste as a “public sense” he calls sensus communis or “common sense” (Gemeinsinn) (Kant 1952: §§20–22). Or more precisely, with this notion of a “common sense,” Kant searches for a certitude to ground judgments of taste that he claims to find in the free harmonization of the imagination to the understanding (Kant 1952: §35, 143). And this experience of harmonization, for Kant, is what allows for judgments of beauty to be shared and be “universally communicable” (Kant 1952: §40, 153–154): “We are suitors for agreement from everyone else, because we’re fortified with a ground common to all” (Kant 1952: §19, 82). The significance of common sense here is distinct from Aristotle’s as a consequence of its historical evolution, through figures like Cicero and Vico and the Renaissance humanist tradition. “Common” here no longer refers to the bringing-together of the distinct senses but rather to a communal discernment of what makes sense. The point is that the act of judgment is inherently social and refers to a shared world; and in the case of taste, it implies a commitment to communicate one’s judgment with a view to persuading others within an “imagined community of … collocutors” (Beiner 1992: 120). Kant thus provides the following criteria for common sense: (1) the critical ability to think for oneself (maxim of enlightenment or unprejudiced thought) but also (2) to think from the standpoint of others beyond the parameters of one’s perspective (maxim of enlarged mentality) and (3) the capacity to think consistently while combining the first two capacities (maxim of consistency) (Kant 1952: §40, 152).13 Common sense (gemeinschaftlicher Sinn, Gemeinsinn) here, in Kant’s positive account, as “enlightened, critical, and public,” thus needs to be distinguished from the “vulgar” kind of common sense (gemeinen Menschenverstand).14 Nevertheless Kant confines this meaning of common sense to aesthetic taste, while “de-ethicizing” and “depoliticizing” it.15 Arendt, while underscoring this aspect of human sociability, however, makes a connection to the original Aristotelian sense of common sense (koinē aisthēsis) by taking its gathering of the five senses to signify its adaptation of each sense with its sense-data to the world common to everyone, fitting them into the reality of the common world (Arendt 1998: 208–209; 283, 283n).

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More recently in postwar Japan, Nakamura Yūjirō (中村雄二郎) has been developing a philosophy of common sense (kyōtsū kankaku 共通感覚) that he associates with Miki’s concept of the creative imagination, while also taking off from Aristotle’s koine aisthēsis and Vico’s sensus communis and referring to Kant’s Gemeinsinn as well. In On Common Sense (Kyōtsū kankaku ron 『共通感 覚論』) Nakamura begins with the point that human beings exist always within a “world,” a meaningful framework of social relationships (Nakamura 1979: 1–4)—an intersubjective horizon of experience that is the working of “common sense.” Common sense usually has this meaning of a faculty of judgment—a sense—that people possess in common within a society, in Japanese jōshiki (常 識) (Nakamura 1979: 7). It is our common understanding based on what has become self-evident within the common semantic field of a particular society, shaping our thought and behavior, but which we hardly ever notice (Nakamura 1979: 5, 280). But Nakamura also looks back to the original Aristotelian sense of common sense (koine aisthēsis, kyōtsū kankaku) as the synthesizing sense that gathers and arranges, coordinates and integrates, the five senses (Nakamura 1979: 7). He traces the social meaning of common sense on the other hand to the humanist lineage stemming from the Roman classics, including Cicero, and extending up to the Renaissance (1979: 7, 152–153). The two senses— Aristotelian and humanist—meet at the point when Cicero took Aristotle’s common sense and changed its meaning from the integration of the five senses to the faculty of sound judgment common to a people; for this faculty, Cicero also underscored the importance of ceaseless inquiry, open debate, the value of probability, consensus among a people, and a rhetorical form of knowledge that deals with concrete practice (Nakamura 1979: 240–241, 288–289). Giambattista Vico then inherits this concept of sensus communis from Cicero and develops it as the criterion of practical judgment over which a community is in consensus and also advocates rhetoric as a form of knowledge (Nakamura 1979: 161 and following, 271–276, 289, 300). But in addition to this historical tie, there is also the semantic connection that Arendt herself noticed, as we mentioned above, since the gathering of the senses adapts them to the common world. Nakamura points out, however, that while common sense adapts the senses to the communal world, it can also become socially habituated so that its mode of synthesis becomes congealed (Nakamura 1979: 28–29). When social habituation becomes so fixed to the extent that it loses, even obstructs, its ability to deal with the abundant diversity and alterations of reality (Nakamura 1979: 30, 188), we need to attend to the operation of common sense to rearrange and reactivate the senses.16 The point, in other words, is that the common sense’s

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constitution of the world horizon can become congealed and habitual but is also flexible and capable of self-reflection. In its ideal function, common sense ought to be able to take the whole picture into view and respond spontaneously to the ever-changing demands of the world, relative to time and place, epoch and society. Common sense as such leaves room for self-reflective critique to counter its own atrophy. This in turn requires the “rhetorical form of knowledge,” as advocated by Cicero and Vico, that deals with concrete practice, a prudential and situational knowledge such as of contexts, including that of probabilities. While common sense constitutes and perceives the horizon of the world, rhetorical knowledge cognizes the possibilities of that horizon. This allows us to make practical decisions within specific communal contexts and also permits the uncongealing and rearrangement of the senses in response to the changing and diverse demands of our environment. In this way Nakamura counters Kant’s “depoliticization” of sensus communis by bringing back its Roman, humanistrooted, ethical and political communal connotations. Furthermore, reminding us of the connection in Aristotle between the imagination (phantasia) and common sense (koinē aisthēsis),17 Nakamura associates that collective worldorientational function of common sense with the creativity of the imagination in Miki and Kant, and in this association, we can find resonance with contemporary discussions of the social imaginary. Resonating among these thinkers we have been examining is the sense that the imagination is the capacity to make images, pictures, forms, constructions (Bilder) that in fact turn out to be not simply mental but social, cultural, and even physical. The imagination operates collectively within a community to constitute the horizon of the world, a world-picture. Thinkers like Miki, Ricoeur, and Castoriadis thus extend the term imagination beyond its merely epistemological or aesthetic significances and apply it to the human social collective as meaningconstitutive. Ricoeur, Castoriadis, and Charles Taylor, in particular, speak of the social imagination or imaginary as responsible for the communal network of meanings. Even for Nakamura, Aristotelian imagination informs common sense to make the communal horizon of meaning possible. And it was no accident that Nakamura views himself as standing in the same intellectual current as Miki, connecting his understanding of common sense with Miki’s notion of the imagination (Nakamura 2001: I, 58). For Miki the imagination works collectively to establish our sociocultural environment that is the world, historically formed and involving institutions (seido 制度). Institutions, including “language, custom, morality, law, politics, art, myth, and so on” (Miki 1967a: 102) are prime examples of what Miki means by forms

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that the imagination produces in the constitution of our world. Once produced, these forms become customary or traditional to possess normativity18 similar to common sense in Nakamura’s analysis. The forms of the imagination then are not merely imaginary, but they shape the very reality of the world wherein we dwell— reality despite being “fictions” (Miki 1967a: 41). However, as working adaptations, they are historical, thus constituting a world of transforming forms (Miki 1967a: 7, 159). And as externalized products of human embodied and collective praxis (Miki 1967a: 15), they are social. In Castoriadis’s terms they are the socio-historical. For Ricoeur as well the imagination’s creativity facilitates the creation of “cultural patterns” that “provide templates” for the sociocultural formations of reality (Ricoeur 1986: 12). It can play a conservative role that maintains the social world as well as a critical role that opens the possibility for remaking the social world—a dialectic he discusses in Lectures on Ideology and Utopia in terms of ideology and utopia as both imaginative endeavors (pratiques imaginatives) of the social imagination (l’imaginaire social). Ideology on the one hand reenacts the contextual platform of social practices, preserving order through integration or identity; and utopia on the other hand imagines another social reality, contesting or critiquing the given one and serving to disrupt and break through the old to produce the new.19 Like the imagination’s production of institutions in Miki, the imagination as social for Ricoeur unfolds a complex cultural, symbolic framework for our practical life, on the one hand elaborating symbols, myths, metaphors, narratives, and so forth that give meaning to the world and to history, and on the other hand guiding and orienting human beings within their life-world. The social imaginary (imaginaire social) in this context is the ensemble of meaningful discourses, bounded by ideology and utopia, that mediate human activity and lived social reality.20 But that ensemble is never static, as the imagination remains unceasingly dynamic in dialectical tension between the already given world and its re-constitution. Similar to how common sense was broadened from its Aristotelian significance in which it was confined to the psyche to instead encompass a social collective significance, the imagination for Castoriadis as well gets broadened beyond its psychic-somatic dimension to encompass the socio-historical, constituting our collective sense of identity and relationship to the world. Like Miki, Castoriadis speaks of the products of the imagination as forms which provide society with an orientation, as we saw above, and shapes its very world. The institutions incarnating the imaginary—government, laws, customs, norms, morality, sensibility, taste, judgment, and so on—in their functioning come to constitute the “real” in the human world in its meaningfulness.21

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Most recently Charles Taylor has developed an understanding of the social imaginary as a kind of “background” or “framework” informing all thought and action, so that it “enables, through making sense of, the practices of a society” (Taylor 2004: 2).22 He defines social imaginary as the ways people collectively imagine their social existence or life pre-theoretically, for example, in images, stories, and legends (Taylor 2004: 23, 50). It is the “implicit map of social space” enabling us to get around a familiar environment and our grasp of “the common repertory” enabling us to function without a theoretical overview (Taylor 2004: 25–26). The understanding is both factual and normative, involving the sense of how things usually go, but also how they ought to go, a sense of moral order, presupposing a wider grasp of what makes our norms realizable, images through which we understand human life and history, our communal origins, how we relate to each other and others beyond our group, and so on (Taylor 2004: 23–25, 28). As such it is constitutive of the world wherein we live.23 All of these recent theories of the productive imagination in its collective function—the social imaginary—remind one of the intimate relationships between the imagination and common sense in Kant. Note that the imagination in Kant’s third Critique in its unfettered wildness accounts for the productivity of genius, but in its free harmonization with the understanding it in turn disciplines and orders that wildness, turning it into something communicable and hence of collective significance. Especially the second condition or maxim of common sense that compares one’s judgment with the possible judgments of others and places oneself in the place of others (Kant 1952: §40, 151)—imagining the situation from an other’s position—is an accomplishment of the imagination’s “enlargement of the mind” or “enlarged mentality.” This appeal to the judgment of others, according to Arendt, involves what Aristotle called phronēsis and orients one in the public realm or common world (Arendt 1954: 221). So the impasse of imagination’s pure spontaneity, its arbitrary freedom, is to be overcome by an appeal to this faculty of judgment qua phronēsis rooted in common sense (Arendt 1978: 217). Common sense here is the basis for judging things as right or wrong—beautiful or ugly in the context of the third Critique. But in turn this raises the question of the historicity underlying the alleged universalizability of its values or the communicability of taste. Thus in John Rundell’s Kant-reading, the universalizable value horizon that orients us is, despite Kant, neither transcendental nor teleological nor secure but contingent. Its orienting values are historical creations—what in Castoriadis’s terms are “imaginary significations” (1994: 112, 113). And as such they are specific to a particular community and belong to a specific communal context

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or horizon. Thus specific to the communal horizon is the danger—recognized by both Arendt and Nakamura—of the ossification or habituation of common sense, rigidified into self-evident eternal universals that ignore the wealth of diversity and alterations of phenomena. But common sense for both also leaves room for the capacity of critical reflection that loosens the hold of entrenched moral habits ossified into inflexible universals. It is the very claim to universality that leads to the ossification of common sense, but which can be undone. The very capacity for opening those congealed communal habits appears to be inherent to the imagination itself with its “enlargening” of our “mentality” beyond the immediate social horizon to other possible communities. In the theories of the social imaginary/imagination, it is the imagination that institutes the institutions of the imaginary. If imagination is what allows us to engage voices that speak from places other than our own—as suggested by Anthony Appiah in Cosmopolitanism (2006: 85)—the imagination as what both constructs and conserves the world horizon is also what opens up possibilities of further horizons beyond the familiar world. As Ricoeur noted, it can conserve the status quo as well as critique it. And in that opening of the horizon, a surge of the original creativity of wild and free imagination can erupt through that ossified horizon to restructure it, if only to subsequently discipline its own inner chaos. It is as if the imagination via the medium of common sense is fettering its own inherent wildness just as we saw in the relationship of taste to genius in the institution, however, of a new communal sensibility. In that sense the instituting capacity of the imagination involves both its creative and critical aspects. Arendt noted that “we are doomed to be free by virtue of being born … whether we like freedom or abhor its arbitrariness … or prefer to escape its awesome responsibility ….” She finds the proper response here to be an appeal to what is “no less mysterious … the faculty of judgment” (1978: 217). My suggestion here however is that that mystery of judgment, no less than that of freedom, belong together to the spontaneity of the imagination, which had already been hinted by Kant to be the hidden root of the faculties of intuition and understanding. If phronēsis and rhetorical knowledge, practical and contextual understanding as distinguished from conceptual or theoretical understanding, are functions of the imagination itself—the imagination ideologically and critically in Ricoeur’s terms and the imaginary as both instituted and instituting in Castoriadis’s terms—then common sense in both its congealed and critical senses, in both its closure and opening, qua social imaginary may be said to be the self-determination of the imagination in its abyssal freedom. The notion of the social imagination/ imaginary in a certain sense implies this bringing together of what in Kant were

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genius and taste, while extending their significance into the sociopolitical realm. This world-constitutive and shaping function of the imagination brings us in turn to the topic of place.

Imagination and place The connection between the imagination and place is noticeable in the imagination’s formation of our ways of communal co-being and its construction of the very world wherein we are emplaced. Nakamura makes explicit the connection between common sense and the constitution and perception of a meaningful place.24 He discusses the world-constituting function of common sense in direct relation to place by developing Nishida Kitarō’s (西田幾多郎) notion of place (basho 場所) in the concrete terms of the sociocultural world. As mentioned above, Nakamura sees his own project concerning common sense as inheriting Miki’s legacy. On this basis he looks to Miki’s mentor, Nishida, and the latter’s idea that the place of nothing (mu no basho 無の場所) unfolds a place of being (yū no basho 有の場所) or that a formless place becomes a formed place.25 Nakamura develops his understanding of place as a lived place, wherein we are interrelated with one another and with environing things. He understands lived place in various ways, such as ontological ground (encompassing ecological, social, and psychological senses of place), somatic place (the body and its external spatial surroundings), symbolic place (sacred, mythical or religious space as distinguished from ordinary or secular space), and discursive or contextual place (for topical issues under discussion).26 For the last kind of place, for example, Nakamura refers to Vico’s view (in New Science of 1744) that common sense provides and uncovers (contextual) places—topoi or loci—wherein concrete issues possess coherence for our communal understanding.27 Lived place as such, and as the world-horizon wherein we dwell, is what common sense deals with (Nakamura 1979: 269–270). In Nakamura’s relating of common sense with the notion of place, we find interesting parallels with the notion of the social imaginary as constitutive of a collective space of meanings or a semantic space for co-being, an association furthermore supported by the relationship between common sense and imagination, and by the fact that Miki’s imagination as the faculty of the formation of forms was a development of Nishida’s notion of a self-forming formlessness that is the self-determining place of nothing.28 The implicit connection between imagination and place here is something that can and ought to be drawn out. We might then say that the imagination, as a

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faculty of formation (Bildung), is the faculty that recognizes, or co-participates in, the differing, differentiation or determination of place—in Greek terms, the chōrismos (χωρἰσμὀς) of chōra (χώρα)29—in its manifold sense to institute the world, the web of imaginary significations. We will return to this later.

Abyss of creation For the moment let us return to the question of the radical free creativity of the imagination—what Arendt referred to as the “abyss of pure spontaneity.” Several thinkers hint that this spontaneous creativity of the imagination is indicative of an ontological indeterminacy, for example Miki’s mu and Castoriadis’s nihil. That is, the imagination’s creativity contains an element of the unpredictable and incalculable, irreducible to human rationality—what was referred to above as the unfettered wildness of genius. For Arendt, it is the will as the organ of spontaneity that freely interrupts any causal chain of motivation (Arendt 1992: 3–5). It exceeds, and is irreducible to, the dictates of reason. At the heart of creativity lies an indeterminacy behind its determinations, formlessness underlying the formation of forms, a creation ex nihilo of order out of chaos. Hence the question arises: To what extent are we in control—as conscious intentional and rational beings—of our productive imagination? In some of his later works, Heidegger, for example, broadens the ontological significance of the imagination as no longer a mere faculty of human subjectivity, but instead as the poiēsis of being that opens both the world and human existence. He explicitly states in Contributions to Philosophy (Beiträge zur Philosophie) of 1936–8 that the imagination is not a transcendental faculty of the soul, “ but rather event [Ereignis] itself, … as the occurrence of the clearing [Lichtung] itself ” (1994: 312; 1999: 219). No longer confined to the human subject, the imagination here is the process of ontological formation in the configurings of unconcealing-concealing. And during the 1950s, Heidegger speaks of imagings or imaginings—Ein-Bildungen (“in-formations”)—as the poietic occurrence of being that brings to man the measure of dwelling and to which poetry responds (1971: 225–226; 2000: 204–205). The imagination here as ontological or “poetic”—dichterische Einbildungskraft—sounds from a source beyond human subjectivity (Heidegger 1971: 197; 1985: 17). In general this reflects Heidegger’s move away from the projection (Entwurf) of the world on the part of man that would dictate the appearance of things in advance—furthering his rejection of representation (Vorstellung) belonging to the calculative mode of modern

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thinking—and instead toward a greater openness in letting-be (Gelassenheit) to the alterities and alterations of being itself that shape the world’s appearances (Heidegger 1976: 337, 350; 1998: 257, 266).30 But this also points to the abyssal root of the imagination extending beyond, and in excess to, the human subject. Heidegger’s Japanese student Miki, as noted above, took that abyssal source of the imagination in terms of his other mentor’s, Nishida’s, concept of the place of nothing as a self-forming formlessness. Miki describes the imagination’s productivity as giving form to the formless, a movement from nothing to being or darkness to light (1967b: 473). Faced with the nothing (mu 無) deep within and faced with indeterminacy and disorder all around, man is driven by a “demonic” (demonisch) urge to give it order, determination, form, to make it into something. At the very root of the imagination’s creativity, indetermination demands determination (Miki 1967a: 72). The imagination attempts to give form to the pathos in the depths of human existence, demanding outward selfexpression, by unifying it with logos, gathering the chaos to give it form. Thereby it transforms the natural environment into culture that is a world and produces a cosmos out of the chaos. All creation as such, Miki tells us, is a “creation from nothing” (mu kara no sōzō 無からの創造), a creation ex nihilo, which however is a natura naturans (Miki 1967a: 245; 1968: 340, 348–349). Although for most of Miki’s Logic of the Imagination, the imagination as such is unique to human beings, distinguishing man from other living beings, by the end of the book, the tone changes. He begins to claim that the creative logic of the imagination is not confined to humanity but is already operative within nature itself, that is, nature as a whole possesses imagination as well, whereby natural life in itself is technical and form-creating (Miki 1967a: 236). And in another work, Philosophy of Technics (Gijutsu tetsugaku 『技術哲学』), published in the same period when he was composing the second part of Logic of the Imagination, he takes “transformation” (tenkei 転形)—trans-formation [alteration of forms])— to be the fundamental act in both nature and humanity (Miki 1967c: 253–254.). He thus comes to claim that both natural history and human history are united in the history of transformation as both involving the alteration of forms (katachi no henka 形の変化) (Miki 1967a: 237). Human technics is an extension of the technics of nature, inheriting, imitating, and completing nature, taking up the construction of the universe at the point it has been abandoned by nature (Miki 1967a: 237). Borrowing a Nishidian motif, Miki states that man as such is a “creative element of the creative world” (Miki 1967c: 223) and that “as formative elements of the formative world, we participate in the self-formation of the historical world” (Miki 1967c: 236). Both the nothing at the root of

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the imagination’s formative capacity and the broadening of the imagination’s productive nature point to an abyss in excess of any human subjective faculty. And for Castoriadis, likewise there is nihil at the groundless ground of the creative imagination that creates forms, figures, meanings, worlds ex nihilo31— “an initial and infinitely fertile indistinction” (1998: 163)—which he also begins to speak of in terms of “chaos” as the vis formandi of creation ex nihilo.32 The imagination as such is a “spontaneous, creative, afunctional force” (2007: 205) the ordering of which can thus never be reduced to the “rational” or “utilitarian,” or “functional.”33 Its afunctional spontaneity—like genius for Kant—needs to be tamed, but the taming is never fully accomplished. “Infinitesimal alterations” that escape calculation and prediction are thus introduced into the instituted imaginary significations (2007: 109) to account for the undeterminable alterities and alterations of the socio-historical. In turn this permits creativity, novelty, and breaks. Institutions are therefore never stabilized, and the radical imaginary deploys itself through the dimensions of the instituted and the instituting and hence as the socio-historical (Castoriadis 1991: 143). We thus see how in both Miki’s imagination, which forms the social world out of the formless nothing, and in Castoriadis’s imagination, which creates ex nihilo, the formlessness or chaos or nothing is internal as well as environmental, both the root and the fruit. The groundless ground of human creativity as such, within and without, is other to the subject.

World and chōra, imagination and chōrismos Now the rooting of the imagination upon an abyssal chaos or nothing, both within the depths of the human psyche and in the exterior surroundings of the world in nature, points to an implicit connection between the imagination and place—place that is the world and also that from out of which the world is erected. The nothing (mu, nihil) that is the inner radix of the imagination’s creativity is also an exteriority beyond the horizon of the constituted world. Had Kant already recognized this intuitively, when he spoke of the sublime as the unassimilable excess imagination that confronts outwardly in nature, and genius as the unassimilable excess that imagination confronts from within to give birth to the imagination’s creativity? For the same excess felt inwardly in genius is sensed outwardly in the sublime. Both the sublime and genius, in exceeding the bounds of conception and communicability, point to that excess that is of the wild, whether within the depths of the psyche or externally in the surrounding

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wilderness. The sociocultural world, the world of the social imaginary or common sense, subsists only vis-à-vis what encompasses, and is in excess to, it. Castoriadis recognized this “nature” that is both within us and outside us as always something other and more than what consciousness constructs (1998: 56). The world as such is erected, instituted, upon the space cleared within an amorphous and unassimilable wilderness. We might understand what Miki saw as the formless nothing or what Castoriadis saw as the chaos of nature, in ancient Greek terms as chōra, etymologically related to chaos. Miki’s mentor Nishida referred to Plato’s notion of chōra as an inspiration for his own concept of place (basho). Heidegger was also inspired by the Greek notion of chōra when developing in his later works his understanding of the “region” (Gegnen) of “that-which-regions” (Gegnet), as ontologically prior to, and in excess of, the horizon. If human existence is necessarily emplaced within the world of meanings—the contextualizing web of imaginary significations—the latter is further emplaced within an ever-receding and amorphous chōra permitting the world’s formations. In that sense the world in its disclosure or formation— even when taken as the collective imaginary projection of humanity—stands in reference to “nature” or what Heidegger in the 1930s calls “earth.” The unfolding of the world vis-à-vis nature, and the latter’s appropriations by and resistance to our imaginary constructions, defines our existence. The praxis that would found a world must start with the imagination, not reason. According to Gadamer, we touch upon chōra prior to identifying what a thing is (1980: 174). This kind of awareness is not the cognitive or rational identification of an object, not the activity of theoretical reason. As Plato in the Timaeus recognized, its logic is neither “sensible” nor “intelligible” (Plato 1997: 1225; Derrida 1995: 89–127, esp. 89). And if we take chōra to be the place of chōrismos, in the Heideggerian sense of difference that lets beings emerge into their own,34 or in the Nishidian sense of the self-differentiation of the place of nothing, Plato’s designation of “dreaming” as what co-responds to chōra35 may give a clue as to the faculty that recognizes, or co-participates in, its subsequent chōrismos, its differing, differentiation, determination,36 so as to disclose, make, institute the world.37 Could that faculty be the imagination—Einbildungskraft—as the faculty of formation (Bildung) that constructs an alternative to the mere thatness of the real by investing it with meaning? Jacques Derrida (in Dissemination) remarks that “the primordial milieu [medium] in which differentiation in general is produced” is analogous to the space “reserved for transcendental imagination, that ‘art hidden in the depths of the soul’” (Derrida 1972: 69–197, especially 144; Derrida

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1981: 61–171, especially 226). In its capacity to form, this creative faculty thus faces the alterity of chōra in its withdrawal into the earth while at the same time co-participating in its unfolding of beings in their differentiation—chōrismos— and thereby instituting the human milieu, the world, in tense partnership with the environing earth. In the chōrismos of chōra, the chasm of chaos becomes the chiasm of differentiation, giving rise to the web of imaginary significations. The chasm opens onto the abyss, the chaos from and against which all figures take shape, from which the forms of the imagination arise. Here the creative imagination is the “mysterious interplay of natura naturans and natura naturata, of the instituting and the instituted” (Roberts 1994: 177). And here chōra as chasm, as chiasm, separates out figure and ground, world and earth, the sociohistorical and nature. But “earth,” in Heideggerian terms implies withdrawal. In the Nishidian terms that Miki inherits, this is the nothing—mu—that un/ grounds the world, for Castoriadis, the chaos or nihil behind creation. To what degree then can the clearing of the world be an autonomous construction of man’s free act? Broadened beyond the human faculty, creating out of chaos or ex nihilo, the imagination hence becomes an “organ” of nature, while the disclosure of its depths has led us to the temporality, historicity, and contingency of the transcendental and the a priori. Where then do we stand in the building of our world? We are free yet contingent, and freedom is an abyss. The abyss finitizes us. We are faced, within and without, with the alterity and alteration of the real. We need, at least, to acknowledge—perhaps with what Reiner Schürmann called “tragic sobriety”—that abyssal freedom in the face of that abyssally real—the alterity and alterations of the real that in its abyss conversely gives us the very freedom, but also responsibility, to create, critique, and recreate, to partake in the ongoing ontological dynamic of form, formlessness, and forming.

Notes 1 See Aristotle (1941) De Anima (On the Soul), Book III, chapter 3. 2 Here “phantasia” is translated as “presentation” rather than “imagination.” And also see De Somniis (On Dreams) II, 459b6–8, 460b1–9 in Aristotle (1941: 620, 621); and De Anima (On the Soul) III, vii, 431b2–432a17 in Aristotle (1941: 594–596). 3 Wayne Waxman, for example, suggests Kantian imagination to be the non-discursive form of spontaneity in contrast to the understanding that is the discursive form of spontaneity. See Waxman (1991: 285–286).

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Kant calls this creative act of the productive imagination in the schematism, “figurative synthesis” in Critique of Pure Reason, B151, 164. 5 Jean-Francois Lyotard’s works (1988, 1994) are relevant in this regard. But I will refrain from discussing Lyotard as well as the important topic of the sublime in this chapter and save these for another occasion. 6 See (Heidegger 1991: 144–145, 150–151); and Heidegger (1990: 99, 103–104); Heidegger (1976: 158); and Heiddeger (1998: 122–123). 7 In Bungeiteki ningengaku (Literary Anthropology) of 1942, in Miki (1967b: 477). 8 Miki composed this work from 1937 until 1943 and was unable to finish it before his death in prison in 1945. The work was published as Kōsōryoku no ronri, Part I (1939) and Part II (1946) by Iwanami Bookstore. 9 See Cornelius Castoriadis (2007: 73; also 1998: 127, 388n.25). 10 See also Castoriadis (1994: 140). 11 See Arendt (1954: 197–226, especially 219, 224). 12 Also see Beiner (1992: 89–156, especially 105–106). 13 Also see Kant (1974b: 63). 14 On this see Arendt (1992: 70–72). 15 See Gadamer (1994: 32, 34, 35). 16 See Nakamura (1979: 30, 280). 17 For example, Nakamura (1979: 228). 18 See Akamatsu (1994: 262–265) and Tanaka (2000: 203–204). 19 See Ricoeur (1986: 3) and G. Taylor (1986: xxviii). 20 See Ricoeur (1991: 463–481, especially 470, 475). 21 See Castoriadis (1998: 160–161). 22 See also C. Taylor (2007: 387), where he speaks of “frameworks” and “complex environing backgrounds of our thought and action.” 23 See C. Taylor (2004: 30). 24 See Nakamura (1979: 258, 266–270). 25 See Nakamura (2001: I, 68; II, 30). 26 Nakamura (1979: 258, 262–163, 266–270, 295; 1995: 5–22, 20–21; 2001: I, 68–70; II, 30). 27 See Nakamura (1979: 165–166, 275, 300–301). 28 See Nakamura (1995: 7, 10). 29 By chōra I am referring to the Greek sense of place or region that also appears in Plato’s Timaeus. By chōrismos I understand “difference” but as the process of differentiation whereby beings emerge in mutual differentiation from one another. In this I am inspired by Heidegger’s reading of the Greek term (Heidegger 1954: 174–175; and 1968: 227). Also see my discussion of this in Krummel (2016: 489–518, especially 511–512).

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30 In “Letter on ‘Humanism’” (Brief über den “Humanismus”) Heidegger (1976: 337 and 1998: 257) tells us that the projection is thrown and what throws it is not man but being itself. 31 See Castoriadis (2007: 73). 32 See Castoriadis (2007: 171, 240–241; 1991: 103–104, 117–118); also see my “Reiner Schürmann and Cornelius Castoriadis between Ontology and Praxis,” Krummel (2013: 31–65). 33 See Castoriadis (1998: 149–150). Castoriadis reminds us here that in fact there is no society in which food, dress, dwellings, etc. obey strictly “utilitarian” or “rational” considerations. 34 On this see Heidegger (1992: 476; 1997: 329; 1954: 174–174; 1968: 227). Also see my discussion of these passages in “Chōra in Heidegger and Nishida,” Krummel (2016). 35 In the Timaeus (52a–52b) itself Plato calls this a kind of “bastard reasoning” or “spurious inference” (logismō tini nothō) that is “like dreaming” or “dream interpretation” and aided by “non-sensation” (or: not involving sense-perception) as in the roving of a dim dream (oneiropoloumen blepontes). Plato (1997: 1255). 36 See Gadamer (1980: 174). 37 And in this, there may or may not be an etymological connection between chōrismos and hōrismos, the latter of which is the de-limitation or marking out of a boundary that leads to the horizon.

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Castoriadis, Cornelius (1997), World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination. Edited and translated by David Ames Curtis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Castoriadis, Cornelius (1998), Imaginary Institution of Society. Translated by Kathleen Blamey. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Castoriadis, Cornelius (2007), Figures of the Thinkable. Translated by Helen Arnold. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Castoriadis, Cornelius (1994), “Radical Imagination and the Social Instituting Imaginary.” In Re-Thinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, edited by Robinson, Gillian and Rundell, John, 136–154. London: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques (1972), “La Pharmacie de Platon.” In La Dissémination, 69–197. Paris: Seuil. Derrida, Jacques (1981), “Plato’s Pharmacy.” In Dissemination, 61–171. Translated by Barbara Johnson. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Derrida, Jacques (1995), On the Name. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1980), Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Translated by P. Christopher Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1994), Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum. Heidegger, Martin (1954), Was heißt Denken? Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Heidegger, Martin (1968), What Is Called Thinking? Translated by J. Glenn Gray. New York: Harper & Row. Heidegger, Martin (1971), Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row. Heidegger, Martin (1976), Wegmarken (Gesamtausgabe Band 9). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, Martin (1985), Unterwegs zur Sprache (Gesamtausgabe Band 12). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, Martin (1990), Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated by Richard Taft. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1991), Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Gesamtausgabe Band 3). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, Martin (1992), Platos: Sophistes (Gesamtausgabe Band 19). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann. Heidegger, Martin (1994), Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (Gesamtausgabe Band 65). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994. Heidegger, Martin (1997), Plato’s Sophist. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1998), Pathmarks. Translated and edited by William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1999), Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning). Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

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Heidegger, Martin (2000), Vorträge und Aufsätze (Gesamtausgabe Band 7). Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann. Kant, Immanuel (1965), Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kant, Immanuel (1974a), Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Kant, Immanuel (1974b), Logic. Translated by Robert S. Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Kant, Immanuel (1952), Critique of Judgment. Translated by James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kearney, Richard (1998), Poetics of Imagining: Modern to Post-Modern. New York: Fordham University Press. Krummel, John W. M. (2013), “Reiner Schürmann and Cornelius Castoriadis between Ontology and Praxis.” Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies 2013(2): 31–65. Krummel, John W. M. (2016), “Chōra in Heidegger and Nishida.” Studia Phaenomenologica XVI: 489–518. Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1988), “Sensus communis.” Paragraph 11(1): 1–23. Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1994), Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Miki Kiyoshi (1939 and 1945), Kōsōryoku no ronri. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Miki Kiyoshi (1967a), Kōsōryoku no ronri (Zenshū dai hachi maki) [Logic of Imagination (Collected Works of Miki Kiyoshi vol. 8). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Miki Kiyoshi (1967b), Bungeiteki ningengaku (Literary Anthropology). In Zenshū dai jūichi maki (Collected Works of Miki Kiyoshi vol. 11), 464–478. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Miki, Kiyoshi (1967c) Zenshū dai nana (Collected Works of Miki Kiyoshi vol. 7). Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, Miki Kiyoshi (1968), Philosophy of Technics (Gijutsu tetsugaku), Zenshū dai jūhachi maki (Collected Works of Miki Kiyoshi vol. 18.) Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Nakamura Yūjirō (1979), Kyōtsū kankaku ron. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Nakamura Yūjirō (1995), “Nishida tetsugaku to nihon no shakai kagaku” (“Nishidian Philosophy and the Social Sciences of Japan”). Shisō (Thought), November: 5–22. Nakamura Yūjirō (2001), Nishida Kitarō I and II. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Plato (1997), “Timaeus.” In Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Ricoeur, Paul (1984), Time and Narrative vol. 1. Translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, Paul (1986), Lectures on Ideology and Utopia. Edited by George H. Taylor. New York: Columbia University Press. Ricoeur, Paul (1991), “The Creativity of Language: Interview with Richard Kearney.” In A Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination, edited by Mario J. Valdés. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Roberts, David (1994), “Epilogue: Sublime Theories: Reason and Imagination in Modernity.” In Re-Thinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, edited by Robinson and Rundell, 171–185. London: Routledge. Rundell, John (1994), “Creativity and Judgement: Kant on Reason and Imagination.” In Re-Thinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, edited by Robinson and Rundell, 87–117. London: Routledge. Tanaka Kyūbun (2000), Nihon no “tetsugaku” o yomitoku: “Mu” no jidai o ikinukutame ni (Reading Japanese “Philosophy”: To Survive the Epoch of “Nothingness”). Tokyo: Chikuma shobō. Taylor, Charles (2004), Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Taylor, Charles (2007), A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, George (1986), “Editor’s Introduction.” In Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, edited by Paul Ricoeur. New York: Columbia University Press. Waxman, Wayne (1991), Kant’s Model of the Mind: A New Interpretation of Transcendental Idealism. New York: Oxford University Press.

11

Imagination and the Lives of Others Victoria S. Harrison

The guiding idea of this chapter is that we can regard the imagination as an instrument, or a tool, which can be employed to achieve practical results. Here I explore some of the ways in which we can deliberately use this tool in the context of reflecting on the lives of others, and I explain why it might be useful to do so. The ability to engage imaginatively with the lives of others—specifically, with the beliefs, values, commitments, motivations, and cultural assumptions that inform those lives—is an important skill that can support the practice of both intercultural philosophy and interreligious dialogue. It can also lead to profound personal transformation. The title of this chapter, “Imagination and the Lives of Others,” was inspired by the 2006 film Das Leben Der Anderen [The Lives of Others].1 Set in 1984, the story concerns the monitoring of a number of residents of East Berlin by members of the Stasi, the East German secret police. It movingly portrays the moral transformation undergone by one of the observers in response to his passive and hidden observation of the life of someone else. I have no intention, of course, of advocating the kind of state-sponsored voyeurism that is the subject of this film. Rather, I appeal to it as a witness to the transformative potential of careful attention to the lives of others, especially in cases in which those others hold beliefs, values, commitments, motivations, or cultural assumptions that differ from those of the observers. Imaginative engagement with the lives of others can yield a sharpened understanding of other people’s beliefs and values, and of the ways in which those beliefs and values are related to their commitments, motivations, and, ultimately, actions. It can thereby generate insight into how a person’s beliefs and values have informed their significant life choices. Imaginative engagement with other people’s beliefs, values, commitments, and motivations, as these are found embedded and expressed in actual lives, constitutes a means to understanding that can complement understanding acquired in more traditional, theoretical

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ways. Understanding thus acquired is more experiential than theoretical; to use another vocabulary, it is closer to the understanding of an insider to a tradition than it is to that of an outsider. This route to understanding can be especially useful in cases in which the others whose lives are being scrutinized do not come from the same philosophical, religious, or cultural tradition as that of the scrutinizer. The understanding that can be reached primarily concerns what it feels like to live a life shaped by the beliefs and values of a tradition. I will later propose that systematic reflection on people who are regarded as exemplary can allow one to explore the beliefs and values, commitments, and motivations that are expressed in their lives and thereby to gain some understanding of what it is like to allow those beliefs and values to exercise a shaping force on one’s life. Many of the religions of the world have recognized the potentially selftransformative power of imaginative engagement with the lives of others, and have encouraged its use to facilitate spiritual growth and discernment. The central religious texts of many traditions, such as the Torah for Jews, the Gospels for Christians, or the Bhagavad Gita for Hindus, are replete with colorful stories about both real and fictional individuals and their exploits. These stories directly engage the imagination of their readers, and this effect can be amplified when the stories are interpreted and performed for audiences. In many parts of the world, the traditional practice of publicly performing stories from these religious texts is now less common than it used to be. In some places, however, it is still not unusual to come across such performances in parks and other public places. While traveling in South East Asia, for example, one might be treated to a performance portraying a selection of well-known tales from the Bhagavad Gita. Within many religious traditions, both Western and Asian, imaginative engagement with others’ lives, as these are portrayed in sacred texts, has been explicitly encouraged and techniques have been developed to direct its use. The Spiritual Exercises, which were created in the sixteenth century by the Spaniard Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Roman Catholic religious order of the Society of Jesus, are an example of one such technique deploying a directed use of the imagination. Since their inception, the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises have been used by many Catholics associated with religious orders, as well as by increasing numbers of lay Catholics. The Exercises have been especially important for members of the Jesuit community, as well as for those in other communities within the broad stream of Ignatian spirituality. Within these communities, the primary use of the Exercises is to provide people with a focused opportunity to engage in rigorous and systematic self-investigation,

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with a view to allowing them to become clearer about what level of commitment to the community they are called by God to make. In their original form the Spiritual Exercises were taken over a period of thirty continuous days, during which the exercisant would maintain silence (except for occasional consultations with a spiritual director) and live in retreat from the company of others. Many imaginative activities are included within the Exercises, but the core of these involve the exercisant imagining him or herself within scenes depicted in the Christian Scriptures, usually scenes involving Jesus, but other figures are also likely to be present. The exercisant explores a scene imaginatively, and in doing so engages with whichever people are within it (Jesus, Lazarus, or Mary Magdalene, for example).2 Once the imaginative insertion into the scene has taken place, the exercisant can then systematically investigate his or her own emotional and intellectual responses to Jesus and to the other individuals in the scene. The Exercises thus provide a structure within which the participant can deepen his or her relationship with and commitment to God through Jesus, with the further aim of clarifying his or her important life choices.3 Since Vatican Council II (1962–5), and encouraged by the reforms that the Roman Catholic Church underwent as a result of the Council, the popularity of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises has been gradually extending among nonCatholic Christians. The twenty-first century has even seen the use of the Spiritual Exercises spreading beyond the borders of Christianity, with other religious groups taking them up and adapting them for their own contexts.4 The appeal and durability of the basic form of the Spiritual Exercises is evidenced by the ways in which they have proved to be adaptable to the range of people who are now using them.5 Imagination that is directed toward others also plays a prominent role within certain forms of Buddhist meditation. This is especially evident in meditation practices that have as a key component the visualization of specific others as objects of compassion.6 During such meditation a practitioner might, for example, enter into detailed visualizations of themselves giving to others first their possessions and then even parts of their body, such as their liver or an eye. The purpose of this highly imaginative practice is to ensure that cultivation of compassion toward others remains a central plank of Buddhist spirituality. Other similarly imaginative practices, while not other-directed, are widespread among Buddhists; in the context of meditation a Buddhist might, for example, visualize the rotting or dismemberment of their own body. A central purpose of this type of practice is to encourage the practitioner to develop detachment

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from their current bodily form. These practices are not new innovations within Buddhism, but are already described in several early Buddhist texts. The examples briefly considered above demonstrate that the imagination has long been recognized within religious traditions as an effective resource for personal transformation and spiritual discernment. Such examples, moreover, indicate that employing the imagination within the framework of a repeatable and structured method is not only possible but that it also has a history of results. Given the potency of the imagination, it seems highly unlikely that all the potential ways in which it might be employed have been exhausted by the well-tested methods for its use found within established religious traditions. I now turn to consider another, more recently developed, repeatable, and structured method of deploying the power of our imagination—one that does not come from within a religious tradition, yet can be used by people within any tradition as well as by those who are not affiliated to any tradition. As we shall soon see, imagination deployed following this method can be a route into deep engagement with others’ beliefs, values, commitments, and motivations. This method, known as “Exemplar Reasoning,” will be the focus of the rest of this chapter.7 It is based on face-to-face contact among peers, and at its heart is a process of thinking with others in conversation about the lives of particularly impressive individuals. Exemplar Reasoning involves a structured series of conversations during which individuals within small groups imaginatively investigate the lives of people who can be regarded as exemplifying some facet of a philosophical, religious, or cultural tradition. Exemplars are figures who are generally thought to have lived up to the ideals of a tradition to an exceptionally high degree. Such individuals are rich fodder for imaginative reflection; they can provide people with potentially new ways of imagining human possibilities while stimulating their thinking about how their own futures might be shaped. Exemplar Reasoning takes as its starting point the basic potential of exemplary figures as fruitful objects of imaginative reflection. It is a method that channels and intensifies imaginative engagement with the lives of exemplary individuals so that participants can become conscious of the possibilities of different ways of living, of their own potential and, perhaps, of new ways of relating to others. The overall goal of this practice is to facilitate deeper understanding among individuals who possess different philosophical, cultural, religious, moral, or even political beliefs, values, commitments, or motivations. Identifying an exemplary figure to be the focus of discussion is obviously an essential step in any Exemplar Reasoning conversation, and it is usually done collaboratively. For instance, a group might be composed of three Muslims

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and three Christians. The Christians would agree among themselves on an exemplar and so would the Muslims. These two exemplars would then be treated consecutively either during a single Exemplar Reasoning session or over two, or more. The figures chosen are usually relatively well known and widely regarded as exemplary in some determinate respect (although, depending on the context, participants may feel more comfortable beginning the conversation by talking about someone they know or have known). Imaginative exploration of these exemplars’ lives—and of the ways in which their beliefs and values are expressed in those lives—then remains the focus of the conversations to follow. Exemplar Reasoning is an extremely versatile method, suitable for use in any situation in which the primary aim is to increase mutual understanding among people.8 It was originally developed as a method to be used in interreligious encounters; however, it quickly became apparent that its potential uses were much more extensive. One explanation for the wide applicability of the method is that at its heart lies an experience familiar to many people from childhood: the experience of admiring certain individuals and wanting to be like them. A wealth of recent research on children’s moral development has revealed the centrality of this experience within the normal trajectory of a person’s moral maturation.9 It is obvious that children gradually learn how to react to situations, and how to behave more generally, by observing and imitating what those around them do and say. This is how people begin to acquire what we might call moral understanding (it also explains why some individuals may fail in its acquisition). Not only moral understanding but also religious understanding seem to be acquired (or not) though this means. Religious and moral beliefs and values are initially learned from observation of what those around us do and say, rather than from reading books of theology, spirituality, or moral philosophy.10 As we move from childhood to adulthood, most of us tend to lose interest in what might be learned through observation of others. Our curiosity about the words and behavior of others gradually diminishes as we acquire a greater range of experience and become more confident about the parameters of appropriate speech and behavior within the context of our own lives. Curiosity about others may even be extinguished as we increasingly notice less variation among the people we come into contact with during our daily lives. In short, people cease to surprise us, and so we lose our interest in them. The practice of Exemplar Reasoning requires that participants recover some of their earlier curiosity about others, so that they might once more become receptive to others as potential sources of insight and understanding. Hence, a typical initial Exemplar Reasoning session begins with a simple exercise

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that attempts to reawaken the curiosity about others that fueled so much of our learning as children. In a guided meditation, participants are invited to remember a time when they were curious about something. They are encouraged to remember how that curiosity felt and then to imagine that feeling becoming increasingly intense. Once they have recovered the feeling of being burningly curious, they are instructed to maintain their awareness of that feeling while applying it deliberately to different objects of attention. If the curiosity training is successful, participants will have learned how to turn on their curiosity at will, and will henceforth be able to use it for accelerating their learning about any subject. For the purposes of Exemplar Reasoning, once participants’ curiosity about others is rekindled, it will be targeted primarily on those impressive individuals who are put forward for discussion, but also on the other people within the Exemplar Reasoning group. Reflecting on and asking other people questions about impressive or exemplary figures can allow individuals with different religious, philosophical, or cultural backgrounds to explore any potentially common interests and values that are found in the shared imaginative world created by engagement with an exemplar. Exemplar Reasoning is moved forward by curiosity-driven questioning. People are invited to talk about the exemplar by being asked a series of questions by other members of the group. Depending on the composition of the group (they may be children, or academics, or anyone in between), the questions may be spontaneously generated or guided by a facilitator. Rather than individuals being asked to talk directly about their own beliefs and values, commitments and motivations, they are invited to discuss and explain these in relation to the exemplary life that members of the group have together chosen to be the focus of the Exemplar Reasoning session. The emphasis in the discussion is on providing answers to the questions asked that will allow others to understand whatever the speaker is highlighting about the exemplar’s life. The method gives participants strikingly direct access to what other people believe and value, and puts within reach an understanding of the meanings those beliefs and values might have for others. Within a few minutes participants can find themselves talking about things that really matter to them with people who were previously strangers. Exemplar Reasoning provides an effective structure within which people can talk about things of existential importance without either having to talk about themselves directly or first discussing potentially contentious beliefs or values put forward as abstract or universal principles. Exemplar Reasoning conversations should never begin with statements about

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belief or value that are abstracted from a life that someone has lived or is living. By concentrating the discussion on selected exemplary figures, the beliefs, values, commitments, and motivations of those exemplars become determinate by being considered in the context of specific lives. Focusing attention on the ways in which beliefs and values can be expressed within actual lives, and on the various meanings they might have in the context of these lives, allows Exemplar Reasoning to bypass the kind of abstract discussion that can quickly lead to fundamental disagreement and thereby so often stalls attempts at interreligious or intercultural dialogue. Exemplar Reasoning allows people whose diverse backgrounds might normally make it rather difficult for them to have conversations together about anything that matters to join in a shared imaginative process; and it does so without requiring that all cultural differences or ideological disagreements be set aside before that process can begin. Participants do not need to agree to disagree about abstract philosophical or theological principles, such as whether or not God exists and, if he does, whether he is a trinity or a unitary being, or whether or not the universe requires us to posit a creator to explain its existence, or whether enlightenment is reached suddenly or incrementally. According to the Exemplar Reasoning approach, such questions will be most effectively addressed only after people have reached the more experiential understanding of one another that the method fosters. Shared reflection on exemplary figures allows people to explore ways of thinking, feeling, and valuing that are not their own, without presuming that underlying them there will be any common abstract beliefs or principles to be found. Nonetheless, this exploration may disclose previously unsuspected commonalities on a more emotional, or even on an aesthetic, level that can be brought to light by careful consideration of what people find impressive about others. In Canons and Consequences: Reflections on the Ethical Force of Imaginative Ideals, Charles Altieri (1990) articulates a view of the role of literary canons in humanistic education that bears a remarkable affinity to the approach to exemplary figures outlined above. According to Altieri: [Canons] provide sharable alternative modes of thinking and feeling that allow us to explore idealizations we might hold in common. Yet we do not need to posit explicit universals for these interactions. Rather than develop abstract principles, canons rely on the root of ethics in cultural ethos, and they demonstrate the degree to which these cultural circles remain flexible and shareable. (1990: 17)

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Altieri argues that works within a literary canon serve to make accessible for reflection and discussion the range of ways of thinking and feeling that are possible within the culture to which the canon belongs. Items in a canon are there, he holds, because they have been perceived to express some important element within a culture’s repertoire. A literary work within a canon opens to readers the shared imaginative world of thought and feeling that is found within, while inviting readers to engage in imaginative projections and extrapolations using the fodder for thought that it provides. It thereby allows readers to engage with a range of possible ways of choosing, judging, and living, and ultimately to envision and explore different possible futures for themselves. Exemplary figures function in a somewhat similar way within Exemplar Reasoning as texts within a literary canon function in humanistic education, according to Altieri’s view of the latter. Participants in Exemplar Reasoning use exemplary figures as objects of shared imaginative reflection, just as the members of a reading group might use a book.11 In the same way that a common consensus (perhaps even given some dissent) supports the place of a literary work within a canon, some individuals are widely agreed to be exemplary by many within a tradition or culture. Saint Francis of Assisi, for instance, is held by many Christians (and indeed by some of other faiths) to be an exemplar of Christianity because of the striking way he expressed something close to the heart of that tradition in the way that he lived. Those within a tradition or culture are well placed to recognize such outstanding individuals as embodied expressions of some set beliefs and values central to that tradition or culture. Just as attentive reading of a literary work, such as Virginia Woolf ’s (1925) Mrs. Dalloway, can draw readers into imaginary worlds, creative engagement with especially impressive individuals, like Saint Francis of Assisi, can allow people to experiment with alternative ways of thinking, feeling, and valuing, while exploring with other members of a group potentially common normative ideals. Discussion that ranges over several such figures, if they are well chosen, can allow exploration of a wide spectrum of whichever beliefs and values are widely shared by people within a given tradition. After all, one would not expect to understand an entire culture through one literary work, so it would be unrealistic to expect a single exemplary figure to provide a window onto an entire philosophy, religion, or culture. It should, perhaps, be underlined here that the goal of Exemplar Reasoning is not to demonstrate that any individual exemplar held true beliefs or the uniquely correct set of values, and thus to persuade everyone else to adopt them; rather it is to interrogate the role the exemplar’s beliefs and values have played, and can

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play, in the context of a life. A consequence of this reflective process might be that a person comes to identify closely with the values, beliefs, and commitments of an exemplar; but this is not an intended outcome of Exemplar Reasoning. Nonetheless, if such identification does occur, it may turn out that beliefs, values, and commitments acquired in this fashion have more motivational force than they would if they had been arrived at in less personal ways. Part of the explanation for this is that the lives of those selected as exemplary are often perceived to be attractive. Given that exemplars typically express what is best within a tradition, it is perhaps understandable that their lives will strike many as attractive. The appeal often exerted by exemplary lives sheds light on why people can be drawn toward exemplary figures at an emotional level. Discussion of what is attractive, or occasionally repellent, about an exemplar’s life has a place within Exemplar Reasoning, as participants are invited to explain to others, in as much detail as possible, what they find attractive or appealing about this life. In the methodology of Exemplar Reasoning, exemplary figures are regarded as valuable cultural resources, just as within literary circles works belonging to a literary canon might be so regarded. A well-chosen exemplar, like a good book, such as Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, serves as a heuristic tool for the investigation of what people within some philosophical tradition, religion, or culture tend to think, feel, and value.12 Because the aim is to increase one’s understanding of those for whom a specific exemplar is important, rather than to learn about the exemplar as such, it is not usually a problem if imaginative engagement with an exemplar leads the conversation to stray from the known facts about that person’s life. Participants in Exemplar Reasoning may have misremembered some details, or may even be ignorant of whole dimensions of the exemplar’s life. They may also be reflecting on an ideal representation of the exemplar’s life that has been filtered and refined through several centuries of hagiological tradition (this will almost certainly be the case with a figure of the stature of Saint Francis of Assisi, whose life became the subject of legend even before his death in 1226). Such inaccuracies are unproblematic because what does the work in Exemplar Reasoning is whatever understandings of the exemplar those in the group hold, even though these may be ideal or otherwise distorted. It is how participants represent the exemplars to themselves and others that matters, not the degree to which this representation retains historical accuracy.13 The emphasis above has been on the effectiveness of Exemplar Reasoning as a tool for understanding others, but it is now time to consider its other main use. Participants have found that it can lead to an increase in self-understanding

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and act as a channel for potentially self-transformative moral and spiritual discernment. By means of imaginative and empathetic engagement with exemplars, people are presented with opportunities to consider and explore different ways in which someone, perhaps not too unlike themselves, may choose to live. They are also invited to make links between those ways of living and any challenges that might be facing them in their actual lives. Reflection on exemplars can help people overcome obstacles in their own lives by encouraging them to develop themselves in new, and perhaps unexpected, ways that are brought to consciousness by imaginative engagement with the exemplar. Within the imaginative world created by engagement with an exemplar, people can explore the possibilities of different lives that they might live, while probing the conceptual alternatives available regarding who or what they might be or become. All of this is possible because exemplars have contributed to what we might call a sharable cultural grammar. They provide examples of the types of lives possible within specific cultures at various times, while also furnishing models of what people today might become if they employ this culture’s grammar within their own contexts.14 In effect, well-known exemplars can serve as dialectical resources for discussions that range between the past in which the exemplar lived (people are advised to choose exemplars who are no longer living), the present in which the Exemplar Reasoning is taking place, and the future that is being imaginatively projected. Yet exemplars are not put forward as subjects for imitation; the idea is not that through imaginative reflection on the way that an exemplary figure lived, people will learn to do exactly what the exemplar did and thus to be more like them in the future. Exemplars are not regarded as directly guiding action at all, but rather as material for reflection. An important feature of exemplary figures is that they can generate imaginative projections whose implications can be explored, discussed, and debated. A point of discussion might, for example, concern what a given exemplar would have done in some specific situation. They thus provide participants with a way of exploring how they themselves might act in such situations. Different possible futures can thereby be articulated and examined, and these may go beyond what would have been easily accessible merely from within any of the participant’s initial cultural horizons. Exemplars, while not directly guiding action, may still be used indirectly to provide guidance on possible future actions. A person may be facing an important choice that will change the direction of their life along one of several possible trajectories. That person might be invited to consider how a specific exemplary figure would have approached the choice. What considerations would they have

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regarded as relevant? The person might also be invited to think about how the exemplar would have regarded the various reasons that might be advanced for and against alternative courses of action. In this type of imaginary scenario, the exemplar is being allowed to function as a judge of these reasons. Imaginative engagement with exemplars can thus contribute to a person’s deliberation about their future choices and actions. In this type of activity, a person is not simply allowing their imaginings about an exemplar to direct their actions—rather the exemplar is used to provide them with material for reflection that may not otherwise have been accessible. This kind of structured imaginative engagement with exemplars can help people to make important choices that may ultimately affect what kind of person they will become in the future. In the context of Exemplar Reasoning, when a person or group puts forward someone as an exemplar, they are claiming that engaging with this figure provides a way of interpreting specific experiences and, perhaps, of experimenting with new self-images that can have a significant impact on choices that might be made in the present or future. But if this activity really concerns significant choices that might impact future selves, then the question of which exemplars would be most useful to engage with imaginatively is of paramount importance. Here, however, we encounter a potential difficulty: for when a person selects an exemplar, he or she will probably do so by appealing, implicitly or explicitly, to whatever ideas they already hold about the forms that good human lives can take. These ideas may well be based on unreflective absorption of the beliefs and values of a philosophy, religion, or culture. Herein lies the problem: If a person chooses an exemplar based on the beliefs and values which they already hold, in examining the life of that exemplar they might find nothing more than these same beliefs and values mirrored back to them. If this were the case, it would be disingenuous to claim that Exemplar Reasoning could give people access to new possibilities of thinking, feeling, and valuing. Fortunately, however, the communal nature of Exemplar Reasoning works against this danger. The process of explaining to others, who probably do not share one’s culturally inherited beliefs and values, what one sees in the exemplar introduces the critical distance required to reevaluate those beliefs and values and the meanings they might have in the context of a life. Imaginative engagement with exemplars can thus provide people with a critical vantage point from which to view their own beliefs and values, commitments and motivations, even in cases in which these have previously been unconsciously at work upon them. If the process is successful, participants will develop more understanding of their own internal economies of belief and valuation.

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Imaginative engagement with the lives of others, then, can help people to reconsider and possibly adjust their own values and the goals that they might have formed on the basis of these values. This process of adopting the perspective of an exemplar as a tool for reflective discernment may involve a person projecting himself or herself into the exemplar’s life. He or she might then imagine how he or she would act if he or she had the exemplar’s values and commitments. If the exemplar comes from a tradition that is not the person’s own, this exercise can provide immense insight into what it feels like, from the inside, to live according to the grammar of possibilities operative within another tradition. We might note, though, that such imaginative projection may not always be easy or pleasant; it might in fact turn out to be rather harrowing. Someone might, for example, find themselves imaginatively projected into Christ’s experience of crucifixion. The dimension of Exemplar Reasoning that potentially leads to improved selfunderstanding might alert us to another very real danger that the process may seem to court. Persistent use of the imagination in the ways outlined above might seduce people into a world of fantasy where they lose touch with the facts about who they are and the lives that are their own. They may come to see themselves projected into the life of an exemplary figure to such an extent that they come to believe falsely that they have acquired some of the traits of that figure. Happily, the communal nature of Exemplar Reasoning protects participants against these and other dangers. Members of the group will provide a reality check for each other by bringing the attention of individuals back to focus on the exemplar if it has strayed too much onto themselves. A final potential problem to mention is that Exemplar Reasoning may be perceived as encouraging people to develop an ideal self (or an ideal selfimage), and this may lead them to de-value their actual self (or the actual selves of the other members of the group).15 However, while it is true that engaging imaginatively with exemplars is to work with ideals, in Exemplar Reasoning this is done self-consciously. Certain features of the exemplar are deliberately isolated, perhaps at the expense of other, less desirable features.16 Rather than encouraging people to focus on ideal selves, then, Exemplar Reasoning simply provides them with a convenient way of talking about ideals and aspirations. This chapter has had a very practical focus, to a degree that is unusual in an academic work. The goal has been to introduce readers to something that can be done in a group setting to harness the power of our imaginations. If this chapter has aroused your curiosity, I hope that you will consider trying the method for yourselves. With that outcome in mind, I conclude by providing some sample

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Exemplar Reasoning questions. These can be used as they are, or adapted for the specific context of an Exemplar Reasoning group. The first four questions are deceptively simple, for the discussions they are capable of generating can run deep. Why was this exemplar chosen? Of what is this person an exemplar? What beliefs, values, and commitments are expressed in this exemplar’s life? Why are these beliefs, values, and commitments important to you?

These questions can form the first stage of an Exemplar Reasoning encounter. The standard format would be a situation in which the group is composed of people from at least two philosophical, religious, or cultural traditions. As outlined above, group members from each tradition will have been invited to confer together to select a figure whose life exemplifies some facet of their tradition’s beliefs, values, or commitments. Each sub-group that has chosen an exemplar will then be questioned by everyone else in the larger group. This process might continue over multiple meetings in which several exemplars are discussed. At times during these meetings, making the questions more personal can be helpful to the participants. Potential questions to move the discussion forward in this direction, and which can be addressed to every individual within the group are: How has the exemplar inspired you? Can you talk about a time when you chose to imitate the exemplar? How has this exemplar made a difference to your life?

Exemplar Reasoning is a highly adaptable method that provides a clear structure within which meaningful conversations can occur. Within this structure individuals have wide scope for imaginative engagement with exemplary figures and with each other. They are encouraged to channel this imaginative engagement in a direction that fosters an experientially based mutual understanding that grows as people explore together conceptual spaces that may open onto transformed selves.17

Notes Von Donnersmarck, Florian Henckel, director (2006), Das Leben Der Anderen [The Lives of Others]. 2 In Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, Stump (2010) provides several very detailed accounts describing what can be observed during 1

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the process of imaginative, meditative insertion of oneself into certain of the scenes depicted in the Christian Scriptures. While Stump’s focus is academic, investigating what we might learn from this sort of exercise to enhance our theological and philosophical understanding, the book is a splendid example of the potential results of imaginative engagement with the lives of others, as these are presented in important religious texts. 3 The Spiritual Exercises were composed between 1522 and 1524. For a detailed commentary and guide through the Ignatian Exercises, written for both Christians and non-Christians, see Haight (2012). 4 Popular books offering spiritual guidance have done much to introduce the basic techniques of the Ignatian Exercises to the public. Some of the best examples of this genre are by Gerard W. Hughes, S.J. (1924–2014). His book God of Surprises (1985), for example, remains very influential and has been published in multiple editions. 5 See http://www.ignatiansspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/thespiritual-exercises. Accessed 29th June, 2018. 6 See Kamalashila (2012). 7 The first Exemplar Reasoning session was hosted by the interfaith Chaplaincy of the University of Edinburgh in 2008. Since then many workshops have been held using it and training sessions have been run for grassroots leaders who wished to use the method in their communities. It has been popular among local church communities in the UK. 8 For a discussion of Exemplar Reasoning in the context of Muslim-Christian engagement, see Harrison (2011). For another application of the method, see Harrison (forthcoming). 9 For example, see Banaji and Gelman, eds (2013). 10 In several works, Linda Zagzebski has persuasively argued that exemplary figures play a much larger role in most people’s moral understanding than traditional moral theories have recognized. See, for instance, Zagzebski (2010). 11 A comparison could also be made between exemplary figures and works of art that are especially expressive of some facet or dimension of a tradition or culture. 12 The Canterbury Tales, composed between 1387 and 1400, give vivid expression to the culture of medieval Britain by introducing us to some of the characters that were at home within it. See Chaucer (2011). 13 Retaining historical accuracy would be important, however, if academics were engaging in Exemplar Reasoning with the intention of making the conversations publicly available. 14 The Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88), held that each “great” Saint recognized by the Church was a crystallization of a distinctive way of living according to the Christian gospel. In his view, the Saints provided examples of the types of lives that are made possible by the truths of Christianity. Balthasar’s view was one of the main inspirations for Exemplar Reasoning, although the latter

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departs from Balthasar rather significantly by setting his central idea into a pluralist context. For an account of Balthasar’s understanding of saintly individuals, see Harrison (2000). 15 Since the publication of Isaiah Berlin’s Four Essays on Liberty in 1969, many have become rightly cautious about theories which invoke ideal selves. See Berlin (1990). 16 For instance, when using Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) as an exemplar, one might emphasize his commitment to nonviolence and his love of truth, while not discussing his arguably less appealing characteristics. This is allowable because the goal is not to reach a full understanding of Gandhi, but to use him as an exemplar of certain beliefs, values, commitment, or ideals. Like most of the people used in Exemplar Reasoning, Gandhi is best characterized as a “partial exemplar.” 17 I would be happy to hear from anyone who has experimented with Exemplar Reasoning, or who has questions about how to apply it.

References Altieri, Charles (1990), Canons and Consequences: Reflections on the Ethical Force of Imaginative Ideals. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Banaji, Mahzarin and Susan Gelman, eds (2013), Navigating the Social World: What Infants, Children, and Other Species Can Teach Us. New York: Oxford University Press. Berlin, Isaiah (1990), Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chaucer, Geoffrey (2011), The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haight, Roger (2012), Christian Spirituality for Seekers: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Harrison, Victoria S. (2000), The Apologetic Value of Human Holiness: von Balthasar’s Christocentric Philosophical Anthropology, chapters 1–3. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Harrison, Victoria S. (2011), “Embodied Values, Reason, and Christian-Muslim Dialogue: ‘Exemplar Reasoning’ as a Model for Inter-Religious Conversations.” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 21: 20–35. Harrison, Victoria S. (Forthcoming), “‘Exemplar Reasoning’ as a Tool for Constructive Conversations between Confucians and Catholics.” In Confucianism and Catholicism: Reinvigorating the Dialogue, edited by Michael Slater, Erin Cline and P.J. Ivanhoe. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Hughes, S.J. and W. Gerard (1985), God of Surprises. London: Darton, Longman and Todd. Kamalashila (2012), Buddhist Meditation: Tranquility, Imagination and Insight, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Windhorse Publications.

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Stump, Eleonore (2010), Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woolf, Virginia (1925), Mrs. Dalloway. London: Hogarth Press. Zagzebski, Linda (2010), “Exemplarist Virtue Theory.” Metaphilosophy 41: 41–57.

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Between Truth and Utopia: Philosophy in North America and the Narrowing of the Social-Political Imagination Gabriel Soldatenko

‘Truth’ is not just another term for philosophers, because it traditionally designates the goal of their discourse: it is what philosophers have always been after. … It is not too much to say that whoever controls the philosophical definition of truth controls philosophy itself. —John McCumber Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw closer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance. —Eduardo Galeano In the final year of the Second World War, Martiniquan philosopher Aimé Césaire published an essay in the journal Tropiques titled “Poetry and Knowledge”; in it, he drew a sharp distinction between scientific knowledge and poetic knowledge. Indeed, on the first page we find the following propositions: Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge … science affords a view of the world, but a summary and superficial view … In short, scientific knowledge enumerates, measures, classifies, and kills … To acquire the impersonality of scientific knowledge mankind depersonalized itself, deindividualized itself. An impoverished knowledge, I submit, for at its inception—whatever other wealth it may have—there stands an impoverished humanity. (1990: xlii)

As a result, and as a matter of method, Césaire turned away from science and analytic philosophy and toward prose and poetry, that is, as a colonial subject

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searching for the tools through which to achieve liberation he turned away from precisely that mode of thought that could only see him as an inferior species of man. Thus, in his famous Discourse on Colonialism (1950), Césaire quotes Ernst Renan’s La Réforme intellectuelle et morale (Intellectual and Moral Reform) (1871): “The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races by the superior races is part of the providential order of things for humanity” (2000: 38). Prose and poetry then, would give Césaire the critical tools necessary to imagine the world otherwise and anew. In this respect, we find through Césaire a methodological connection between the imagination and a better, not yet existing, world. This chapter therefore dwells on the ways that the imagination has been excluded and minimized in Western philosophical reflection and argues that such a result is not unsurprisingly related to a flattening in how we engage in social-political thought. That is, if Césaire could turn to the imagination to explode possibilities and undertake the surrealist search for the “marvelous,” then the narrowing of the imagination must also serve to reduce and constrain our capacity to imagine alternative futures. Taking Césaire’s insight as a starting point, we can therefore ask the following series of questions: What is the current status of the imagination in Western philosophy? More specifically, what is the imagination’s standing in social-political thought? Is there an identifiable strain in social-political thought that takes the imagination as being centrally important? Thus, professional or academic philosophy in the United States today can be described as being home to two uneven and distinct strains of social-political philosophy; on the one hand, there is a mainstream social-political philosophy that we could characterize as analytic-liberal, best exemplified by the work of John Rawls and Robert Nozick; and on the other, there is a much smaller and more diverse strain we could describe as continental-critical.1 This chapter takes the latter “minor” form of social-political philosophy as its frame of reference, in order to both account for its historical marginalization within the profession and give a general and schematic, methodological account that highlights the role of the imagination and the creation of utopias2 as its by-product. In addition to this division within North American social-political philosophy, there is also a longer-standing and more general philosophical ambiguity with respect to social-political work and its status within the Western tradition. That is, although social-political thought is an accepted and recognizable part of the field (most departments usually have at least one social-political philosopher and a socialpolitical class in their curriculum), it is also not formally or clearly part of the big four classical divisions in Western philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, or logic.

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Indeed, the traditional consensus has been that social-political thought is simply a permutation, subfield, or derivative of ethics and moral philosophy. However, although this description may work well for the analytic-liberal form of social-political philosophy, it is not very helpful or accurate in describing the continental-critical current that we are interested in here. So, for example, in the case of ethics and moral philosophy, the focus is on the formulation and definition of a code or rule for action and behavior, and similarly, in the case of analyticliberal philosophy, one finds an emphasis on the identification and establishment of foundational principles (rights, duties, and freedoms) for society. In both cases then, one finds a similar concern with defining and establishing some set of abstract principles that can either guide individual behavior or ground a society. This, however, is not the case for continental-critical philosophy; rather, its focus is on the analysis of a particular existing society, and its history, in order to make some set of critical claims about its chosen mode of existence and provide some suggestions about its future improvement. In a nutshell, ethics is concerned with the process of individual decision making in order to come up with a rule or code that can be universalized; analytic-liberal philosophy for its part is generally concerned with identifying and defining those universal principles that are best for society; and, in the case of continental-critical philosophy, it works through a particular critique of some present society in order to highlight its shortcomings and suggest a way forward. As a further point of contrast, in the case of ethics and analytic-liberal philosophy, the element of critique is implicit and understated, in that the search for the good need not be framed in the context of a present that is bad; it simply asks “what is the good?” Of course, the implication of that question is that the good does not yet exist in reality. Similarly, the search for foundational principles need not involve reference to any particular society or history. That is, the search for foundations can be an abstract and hypothetical exercise that assumes a “veil of ignorance” that evades and side steps the all-too-messy particulars of socialhistorical context. However, here again, the implication of such a search suggests that present societies do not have such ideal foundations. In contrast, and as the name indicates, for continental-critical philosophy, critique is explicit, in that it begins from the claim that the present, actually existing society is unjust and hierarchical, hence the need for improvement and change. Yet another factor to consider, particularly in the context of the United States, is the pervasive and entrenched division between analytic and continental philosophy, which in its own way has contributed to the uneven character of social-political philosophy. Thus, rather than the two strains

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of social-political philosophy working as equal and fecund partners, one finds that philosophers outside the mainstream who rely on a different set of sources ask a different set of questions and take historical experience seriously have been systematically marginalized since the start of the Cold War. John McCumber puts it this way, “it seems possible, in other words, that the choices American philosophy made in the 1950s enabled it to survive the McCarthy era. But they may have allowed it to survive only as a reduced and reticent discipline, able to see just a few stars in an intellectual firmament that was once much wider and more interesting” (2001: 57). Since the postwar period then, those philosophers who take Marx’s conclusion in his “Theses on Feuerbach”3 as a guide post for social-political philosophy have found themselves in a profession that is suspicious and even hostile to any philosophical practice that does not commit itself to reflecting on abstract universals, and more specifically on truth. In a general way then, what the continental-critical philosophical style gives us is an approach committed to existing society, its analysis and critique, and the promotion, creation, and deployment of ideas in the interest of improving society. At the same time, however, the ideas generated by such a philosophical project stand in an ambiguous and tense relation to truth, certainty, and universality. More specifically, what drives continental-critical philosophy is the desire for change, not because it has established certain knowledge of the best social model for all, but rather because it is certain that current social arrangements are inadequate and faulty. In other words, rather than having an abstract certainty of what should be the case, continentalcritical philosophy relies on a critical certainty of what should not be. As a result, the only thing this current of social-political philosophy can say with certainty is that social phenomena like, racism, sexism, and homophobia ought not be; but what it cannot provide with any certainty is a complete model or representation of that future ideal society. Therefore, continentalcritical philosophy identifies and critiques that which must change in order to come closer, and achieve in reality, the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice, but it leaves open both the method by which to achieve that change and the form which that future society will take. Of course, different continentalcritical philosophers, most famously Marx himself, argue and assert different practical methods and social forms. Nonetheless, and these differences notwithstanding, the overall commitment of this species of social-political philosophy is to the improvement of human existence by way of a critique of the present and its history.

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In this respect, the thrust of the distinction between ethics and analyticliberal philosophy on the one hand, and continental-critical philosophy on the other, seems to reside in their capacity for certainty; that is, on their ability to meet a desire for security and provide a guarantee that a rule for behavior, foundational principles, or a future social model may truly be the right one. Put another way, this investment in and desire for certainty seems to have the function and virtue of mitigating risk, the risk of “what if we’re wrong?” Ultimately, continental-critical philosophy’s relationship to certainty, or rather its embracing of uncertainty because it cannot claim to know the ideal society, and its commitment to begin from a critique of presently existing society and its history, rather than searching for abstract universal principles or foundations, has put continental-critical thought in an awkward position within professional American philosophy today. This position is distinct from, but analogous to, that of continental philosophy, insofar as it too dwells in the space of uncertainty and particularity. Thus, in a philosophical landscape where a specific definition and mode of analyzing truth and certainty in the interest of universality enjoys primacy, continental-critical thought is seen as suspect and less worthwhile because it cannot promise, or rather pretend to promise, either certainty or universality. For this reason we can suggest now, and unpack in the following pages, that the imagination is the key faculty for continental-critical work, because part of the project of creating social change is imagining that change—a projection into the future of what ought to be based on a critique of the present; this claim carries normative force without the security of certainty or universality, and it is this claim that takes the shape of a utopia. Broadly speaking, the rest of this chapter weaves three different threads of analysis together: first, it posits both a general historical account of how continental-critical philosophy was excluded from professional philosophy in the United States and a more specific conceptual account of how that exclusion was made possible by a Cartesian conception of philosophy that prioritized the search for truth and certainty. Second, and by way of contrast with a Cartesian philosophical program, we can sketch out a methodological description of continental-critical thought through Herbert Marcuse in One-Dimensional Man that emphasizes the use of the imagination as its tool of choice, and utopias as its conceptual by-product. Finally, and as a result of the foregoing, we can propose an addendum to the history of Western philosophy such that we could include the concept of utopia as an important marker in locating and tracing the development of continental-critical philosophy in the Western tradition.

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Mapping two historical exclusions: Continental-critical philosophy and the imagination We have thus far developed working definitions and descriptions for the two distinct strands of social-political philosophy in the US academy today. However, we have yet to explain how it is that this split occurred in the first place, and why it is that the split is uneven and imbalanced, such that critical-continental philosophers are badly outnumbered by their counterparts. Ironically, and as we will draw out shortly, the creation of this division was not by merit of a rational debate or argument, nor was analytic-liberal philosophy proven to be more objectively useful. Rather, as John McCumber (2001) shows in Time in the Ditch, this philosophical split had an unphilosophical ground, politics. That is, the political pressures and expediency of a particular moment in US history created the broad division between analytic and continental philosophy and by extension the division within social-political philosophy as well. More specifically, it was during the Cold War and the McCarthy era that academic philosophy in the United States took the analytic shape it now has. “Thus, the real fears and necessary accommodations of the McCarthy era—converted into prejudices by being left unspoken—seem to have transformed themselves into permanent features of the philosophical landscape” (McCumber 2001: 88–89). In this respect, McCumber asks the following questions: “Could it be that what holds [analytic philosophy] in place is political circumstance rather than philosophical merit? Is it possible that analytical philosophy, the most resolutely apolitical paradigm in the humanities today, is itself more a political than a philosophical phenomenon?” (2001: 13). In the end, the fight against communism in the United States provided the ground and impetus for the flourishing of analytic philosophy and its attainment of near monopoly status, and as a consequence shut out other traditions and thinkers, and profoundly affected the shape of philosophy in the United States through to the present. As McCumber points out, few other disciplines were as hard hit professionally by the McCarthy era as philosophy. For example, of ninety-eight professors at liberal arts institutions who were either targets of investigations or hostile witnesses, nine were philosophers; only English (15) and Physics (12) had more. “Philosophy, in fact, may be in first place in terms of the percentage of its practitioners who fell afoul of right-wing vigilantes, because philosophy departments are often half the size of those English and Physics” (2001: 25). As a result, nearly everyone in the field either knew or had heard of someone affected by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In this way, the pressure of

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the McCarthy era left a clearly identifiable mark on academic philosophy: the purging of professors, the exclusion of continental philosophy, the promotion of analytic philosophy, and perhaps most importantly in the long term, the experience of a whole generation (1950–60) of graduate students and junior faculty who would not only be trained in such a context, but would also enter a job market that was overtly avoiding new hires that could cause political problems for their departments and schools. Again, none of this had anything to do with philosophical merit; but it would in any event have a lasting effect on the shape of the profession and produce the analytic-continental divide. During this period the general criteria for raising concerns about the scholarship, and possible dismissal, of professors hinged on two questions: (1) Was, or had the professor been, a member of the Communist Party? and (2) did that professor commit herself/himself to the teaching of truth? Raymond Allen of the University of Washington and “foremost articulator of academic McCarthyism” put it this way in his 1946 inaugural address: “If a university ever loses its dispassionate objectivity and incites or leads parades, it will have lost its integrity as an institution and abandoned the timeless, selfless quest of truth. … It is for this reason that a teacher has a special obligation to deal in a scholarly and scientific way with controversial questions” (McCumber 2001: 39–40). Thus, we have a sketch of an educational paradigm grounded in dispassionate objectivity and the timeless quest for truth, which is best exemplified by science. Science and its methods therefore became the gold standard for all academic disciplines, insofar as their duty was the dispassionate discovery of objective truth. In this context then, a professor by definition could not be both a legitimate scholar and a socialist of any stripe, because the latter was assumed to be a mere propagandist, and not truly committed to an objective standard of truth. This general conception of higher education became so well established and accepted that as recently as 1993 we find the following in the American Scholar: “Academic freedom is only justified if it serves the causes of the discovery and transmission of truth by scientific and scholarly means. … The theory of academic freedom rests on the view that truth can be achieved” (McCumber 2001: 96). Philosophers then, have a freedom that is not really free at all; that is, philosophical “freedom” is circumscribed by the demand it only reflect on truth, otherwise it risks its credibility, and more specifically, by the demand that it seek a truth that emulates and supports, if not parrots, science. It is under such a demand that one could frame the rise of analytic philosophy as a response to the pressure to conform politically to a specific and narrow vision of scholarly freedom. Logical positivism therefore provided both an ideal

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philosophical framework for pursuing an objective conception of truth, and at the same time and perhaps more importantly provided political cover from McCarthyite suspicion. Not surprisingly then, W. V. O Quine gives us the following at the start of Methods of Logic: “Logic, like any science, has as its business the pursuit of truth. What is true are certain statements; and the pursuit of truth is the endeavor to sort out the true statements from the others, which are false” (Quine 1959: xi). We can make a few observations here: first, Quine seems to reduce philosophical reflection to logic, insofar as it is a scientific endeavor. This reduction is quite clearly at home and consistent with the kind of scholarship that the American political context was demanding at the same time of its publication in 1959. Quine’s description of philosophy as a science then, represents not only an important innovation and specialization in the field of philosophy, but also, at the very least, a certain professional adaptation to the social-historical context in which it came to prominence. Secondly, we could also recognize that, as a proper science, logic as philosophy is committed to the discovery of its particular slice of truth, true statements. As a result, philosophy as a scientific field is reduced to only reflecting on statements and propositions. In short, the achievement of scientific status for philosophy was proportional to the cutting out and elimination of all other philosophical forms that did not make the same commitment to a scientific method and its object of investigation. As a consequence, whole swaths of Western, not to mention all of non-Western philosophy, were tossed aside and dismissed as unscientific and unphilosophical. Thirdly, and practically speaking, the task set forth for philosophy as logical science was the sifting through of all statements to distinguish the true from the false. And, such work will necessarily require abstraction or simplification, “for it erases from the logical/scientific/ philosophical consideration of a statement all the social, historical, and cultural factors that contribute to its utterance” (McCumber 2001: 47); that is, all those things that make meaning possible in the first place. Stated differently, if language is always the product of a culture, then what Quine’s logic suggests is that statements be analyzed independent of their cultural milieu, as if culture had no bearing on the conditions of meaning-making. In short, the science of logic amounts to the acultural study of language, a cultural phenomenon. In the end, and as Bruce Wilshire argues, this commitment to a scientific model on the part of analytic philosophy amounted to a “scientism” and not science. To clarify, scientism is the claim that only science can know, and that its methods and claims are the best examples of truth, bar none. However, as Wilshire points out, “scientism cannot be supported by science itself. For to

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substantiate the claim that other ways of knowing are fraudulent, or at least unreliable, would require that science pursue those other ways of knowing and determine that they got us nowhere. But to pursue these other ways reliably would require science to abandon its own proven methods and scope of validity” (2002: 4). And, since such objective work has never been carried out, there is no legitimate support for the assertion scientism makes. Thus, Wilshire concludes, “scientism is ideology, not science. The simple fact is, not all questions or issues can be resolved by any single method, scientific or otherwise” (2002: 4). In this respect, Quine’s formulation of the philosophical project and the consequent dismissal of non-scientific and non-sentential truth, as if the matter had already been settled, amounts to an ideological move; because the matter had been settled politically by McCarthyite pressure, but that is hardly an objective or scientific standard of truth. To be sure, McCarthyite political pressure throughout the 1940s and 1950s from without the profession was a key factor in not only making analytic philosophy the face of US academic philosophy, but it also served to purge and exclude a broad range of alternative philosophical avenues. At the same time, however, there had historically been pressure from within philosophy as well; that is, since Descartes there had been an important axis in Western philosophy that understood the epistemological project as primary and central. Moreover, this “modern” philosophical-epistemological project was explicitly linked to the advance of science. Thus, Descartes the philosopher, mathematician, and geometer functions as an important reference for not only the analytic move toward truth and certainty, but how that move also minimized and dismissed as dubious the faculty of the imagination. We can therefore use Descartes to locate the beginning of a modernist and progressivist tendency in Western philosophy that links itself to scientific advance at the cost of narrowing the possibilities of human thought to a specific faculty, reason. In this way, we can say that Descartes anticipates an analytic sensibility through his mind-body distinction that defines knowledge as a strictly abstract mental exercise removed from experience and history. In The Mediations (1641), Descartes elaborates his epistemology by more fully developing what appears in only sketch form in the Discourse on Method (1637). Starting then, from the general premise that “humans are thinking things,” which Descartes established and universalized through his famous “I think therefore I am,” he goes on to explain how it is that through thinking we can know. Thus, in the “Second Meditation” Descartes gives a broad definition of thought that includes “sense perception, imagining, willing, doubting,

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affirming, denying, and understanding” (1984: 19), and he argues that among these different forms of thinking the most important with respect to truth and certainty is the understanding and the use of reason. Indeed, it is in the equally famous “wax example” that Descartes will specifically distinguish between the imagination and another form of thought that actually gives him access to knowledge and certainty. Descartes explains, “the perception I have of [wax] is a case not of vision or touch or imagination—nor has it ever been, despite previous appearances—but of purely mental scrutiny. … And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty which is in the mind” (1984: 21). Descartes critiques and minimizes the imagination more directly in the “Sixth Meditation” where he writes, “when I give more attentive consideration to what imagination is, it seems to be nothing else but an application of the cognitive faculty to a body which is intimately present to it, and which therefore exists” (1984: 50). Thus, within a Cartesian dualist metaphysics the imagination is that part of thinking that is reliant on, and deals primarily with, extended substance or bodies. We can also note that, for Descartes, extended substance is secondary to thinking substance, and therefore less reliable and more prone to error. In the same way, in the “First Meditation” he argues that arithmetic and geometry are more reliable than astronomy and medicine, because the former only deals with those ideas that are necessarily true (number and shape); and the latter applies those ideas to make sense of reality. Descartes therefore asserts that it is the move beyond the sure ground and certainty of the intellect and mind that introduces the possibility of error and makes astronomy and medicine less dependable. However, with respect to continental-critical philosophy, it is important to point out that it shares the same ground of the body and experience with the imagination. That is, we can locate that part of thinking within Descartes’s epistemology that is most useful for continental-critical thought, and it is not the certainty guaranteed by rationality, but the capacity to take in the external world through the imagination. In short, we can make the methodological suggestion that the imagination is central to a continental-critical philosophy because both are primarily concerned with the world of experience; and it is for that same reason that Descartes condemned the imagination to uncertainty, and it is from a similar commitment to abstract and objective truth that analytic philosophy will later frown on and marginalize continental thought. This assessment, however, reflects a complete misunderstanding of the continental-critical project, and judges it by the standards of analytic philosophy; for, as we saw earlier, certainty and universality are not the goals for continental-critical philosophy. Rather, it

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poses specific social-political critiques and then posits possible solutions in the interest of imagining a better future society. Descartes therefore goes on to explain that the imagination is dependent on experience or contact with extended substance in a way that the intellect is not, and again this is to distinguish their reliability with respect to certainty. The imagination, then, requires experience in order to function. Why? Because, for Descartes, the imagination is that human capacity to conjure images in the mind, and those images are composed through the raw material of experience. In other words, it is the experience of extended substance that makes it possible for us to imagine at all. For Descartes then, there is a necessary limit and dependence for the imagination that does not exist for the intellect; he explains it this way: So the difference between [imagination] and pure understanding may simply be this: when the mind understands, it in some way turns towards itself and inspects one of the ideas which are within it; but when it imagines, it turns towards the body and looks at something in the body which conforms to an idea understood by the mind as perceived by the senses. (1984: 51)

What Descartes is saying here is that the intellect relies on a different form of thought that is not anchored in experience in the way that the imagination is; rather, the intellect relies on the understanding and is hence directed inwardly or “towards itself,” and conversely the imagination is directed outwardly “toward the body” and the world. One way Descartes highlights the dependence and limit of the imagination is by using the simple thought experiment of a “chiliagon,” which he shows to be accessible to the intellect in a way that it is not to the imagination. A chiliagon then, is a polygon with a thousand sides. Now imagine it—are you having trouble? This difficulty in picturing a chiliagon in your mind is the limit Descartes highlights in the imagination, in that it is wholly reliant on experience such that, if you have never seen a chiliagon, you cannot imagine it even though you know what it is. This dependence on experience does not exist for the intellect, and for this reason Descartes will place the imagination in a secondary position: it is less useful for the acquisition of certainty because the imagination is dependent on, and limited to, experience. Thus, although both the intellect and imagination are aspects of thinking for Descartes, he clearly privileges the intellect in that it is not dependent or limited in the same the way the imagination is, and more importantly because the intellect provides a surer ground for accessing truth and certainty because of its independence from experience. For Descartes, this distinction between understanding and imagination, and mind and body,

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proves and merits the privileging of one form of thinking over another; but for our purposes, it highlights the methodological value of the imagination for continental-critical philosophy, insofar as it takes the body and experience as its point of departure in order to project a different and brighter future.

Sketching the imagination and locating the appearance of utopia as a social-political concept Contra Descartes then, it is precisely the imagination that is primary and central to continental-critical philosophy, because for this branch of philosophy indubitability and certainty are not the bar to which it is beholden; rather as Herbert Marcuse suggests in One-Dimensional Man, the quality of collective human existence is the ultimate focus of “social theory.” Moreover, Marcuse argues that it is precisely experience in the shape of history that provides the resources for the possibility of imagining a better future. As a result, whereas Descartes will use radical doubt as the way to establish reason and discover truth, and in the process diminish the philosophical value of experience and the imagination, continental-critical philosophy, in contrast, will rely on a radical critique of lived experience and history as the ground from which to provoke the imagination to do the work of offering an image or picture of an alternative future for human existence that we cannot ever be sure of in advance. In this respect the continentalcritical imagination is best described as utopic; that is, it becomes the essential and complementary tool to the negative account of rational critique by providing the positive vision that, as Eduardo Galeano suggests, keeps us advancing. Marcuse in the “Introduction” to One-Dimensional Man gives us the two value judgments that constitute the backbone of “social theory”: first, what he calls the “apriori of social theory”: “the judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can be and ought to be made worth living,” and second, “the judgment that, in a given society, specific possibilities exist for the amelioration of human life and specific ways and means of realizing these possibilities” (2002: xli). It is important to note that neither of these value judgements are moral or ethical, at least not in the modern technical sense of these terms; that is, in the case of the first judgement we have an epistemological claim about what makes social theory possible in the first place. Thus, just as Kant’s synthetic-a priori makes knowledge possible, Marcuse’s a priori makes social theory worth doing. The former creates the conditions for human truth and certainty, and the latter the conditions for the struggle for social justice and social improvement. The second

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judgment Marcuse provides is more obviously not an ethical or moral judgment, but a practical or political assertion that social justice and social improvement are always possible, and that although the perfect society may be the ideal, it is likely the case that imperfect humans will always have reason to improve their societies. Marcuse then concludes with the following thought: Critical analysis has to demonstrate the objective validity of these judgments, and the demonstration has to proceed on empirical grounds …. [Consequently,] Social theory is historical theory, and history is the realm of chance in the realm of necessity. Therefore, among the various actual models of organizing and utilizing the available resources, which ones offer the greatest chance of an optimal development? (2002: xli)

I take Marcuse to be making four interconnected points here: first, that “objective validity” can only hold in social theory relative to the two initial “value judgements”: human life can be made worth living, and the claim that the improvement of human life is always possible. This is a very different philosophical orientation that stands in stark contrast to the objective validity of science and its claims about the natural world. Stated differently, what Marcuse is hinting at is a difference in style and content; on the one hand the scientific method and the explanation of the natural world, on the other social theory and the creation of a better social world. Second is the claim that social theory is necessarily historical and takes specific societies and events as “empirical” resources for the possibility of thinking about the improvement of our collective existence. In this respect, the fundamental starting point, for Marcuse and social theory, is a society’s history, in the same way that individual experience is the starting point for phenomenology. Third, Marcuse emphasizes the fog that social theory has to work within insofar as there are no pre-given answers to the task of creating a better society. As a result, history, as a creation of collective human action, represents the “chance” within the “necessity” of everyday human life. Therefore, and this is the fourth and final point, the purpose of social theory is to make intelligible the social possibilities that exist in a given moment, and indicate which among these represents the best choice consistent with “making human life worth living.” Taking all this together, Marcuse claims that “social theory is concerned with the historical alternatives which haunt the established society as subversive tendencies and forces” (2002: xlii). For Marcuse then, social theory and continental-critical philosophy are about identifying those elements that exist in our present society in a muted and half-formed way that make it possible to imagine a different society. As we know, this capacity to imagine a

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different future does not come with the certainty that it is the best or ideal, but only indicates the ways that our present may be improved. Furthermore, this improvement is not based on an abstract ethical rule or principle, but on the “objective” and “empirical” experience of social phenomena like poverty, racism, homophobia, and ecological destruction. The imagination, then, plays a central role in social theory because it is that faculty that allows us to compose a picture and consider a better, even utopic, society based on experience and history. By way of conclusion then, we can make two general comments on the concept of utopia, the first along a historical register, and the second along a practical one. With respect to history and the concept of utopia, we can make three brief comments: first, the concept of utopia was coined by Thomas More in 1516, and the term collapsed and combined the Greek words for “no place” (ou-topos) and “good place” (eu-topos) to produce a new concept. In addition, however, and what sometimes goes unstated, is how More’s thinking about utopia is part of a general late medieval discourse produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that was provoked by the epistemological shock caused by the discovery of the “New World.” Consequently, a whole series of texts produced mainly by Iberian scholars attempted to explain the flora, fauna, and people of the New World according to traditional scholastic categories and techniques. The best example of this literature is Jose de Acosta’s, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, (Natural and Moral History of the Indies) published in 1590. More, although outside of the Iberian context, and without first-hand exposure to the new continent, must have been equally affected as a scholar by the epistemological implications of the historic event. The strongest evidence of this is in his choice of location for the island of Utopia in the Americas. Thus, for More, the discovery of the Americas makes possible the imaginary space for his “no place/good place,” which is paradoxically and at the same time a real place. Stated differently, the recent shattering of the known world made it possible for More to imagine the perfect society “over there,” which in turn reflected the general Western disposition toward the new continents as a tabula rasa, an empty space that made it the perfect place for More’s imagined Utopia. The second historical point is the general exclusion of the concept of utopia from the history of social-political philosophy itself. That is, even within Western scholarship, More is typically framed as either a prominent literary figure or a theologian and martyr. In either case, his contribution to social-political thought goes unrecognized and has only rarely appeared among social-political philosophers, Ernst Bloch being the most prominent example. This purging of utopia from social-political philosophy, however, was not accidental, and in the

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case of continental-critical thought, Marx and the establishment of a Marxist orthodoxy would be largely to blame. Briefly stated, as early as the Communist Manifesto, Marx would already mark a strong practical, political distinction between a proper communist position and the folly of the “utopian socialists”; this dismissal of utopia would become even sharper in Marx’s magnum opus Capital, where in the “Preface” to the first edition he tells us that “beginnings are always difficult in all sciences” (1990: 89).4 Thus, by 1917 and the creation of a formalized and formulaic Marxism, the conceptual legitimacy of utopia in social-political philosophy was left only to the anarchists. As a result, it would be important to recuperate and situate More and the concept of utopia within the history of socialpolitical philosophy broadly, and for continental-critical thought particularly. The third historical point then, is a rough sketch of this attempt at historical recuperation, and we can do this by analogy to Descartes. For instance, one way Descartes is framed within the history of Western philosophy is as a transitional figure between medieval and modern philosophy. Thus, on the one hand Descartes can be considered a modern philosopher for his emphasis on the use of reason and his commitment to the discovery of truth and certainty, and medieval for his retention and reliance on God.5 In a similar way, we can make two schematic points about More and his conceptual importance to the history of social-political philosophy and hence give some standing to his concept of utopia. So, like Descartes, More too was deeply invested in the medieval Christian tradition, and it plays a central role in his utopian vision, analogous to the Jesuit project of creating paradise on earth. In other words, the birth of the idea of utopia itself was in reaction to a social dissatisfaction More felt toward the society in which he lived. The island of Utopia, then, was More’s imaginary alternative to the criticisms he was making about existing English society. Moreover, and this is the second point, in his critique of English society we can also mark two general continental-critical moves that make More untimely: First, his rejection of a monarch, which anticipates the Enlightenment thinkers by roughly 200 years; and second, and perhaps more importantly, is More’s explicit rejection of private property, which neither Rousseau nor Locke would include in their conceptions of the modern state.6 Indeed, the state for them would guarantee the security of property. For these two reasons then, we can see how More could be framed as an important marker in the development of continental-critical philosophy, and, in an analogous way to Descartes, pivotal in the shift of socialpolitical philosophy that opens the door toward the Enlightenment. Finally, with respect to describing the practical dimensions of a political project informed by utopia, it would be best to describe it as asymptotic; utopia is

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an ideal and unreachable horizon that has the function of being a perpetual “not yet,” to borrow Ernst Bloch’s turn of phrase. A utopian horizon then, coaxes and provokes action without the promise of any final or settled end; rather it requires a commitment of constantly striving and working toward “making human life worth living.” In a curious and ironic way, we can compare this asymptotic conception of utopia to the perspective offered by Socrates in the early Platonic dialogues, where truth is sought but never achieved, but even in that failure progress is made by eliminating what a concept is not. Truth, for Socrates, is therefore incrementally approached by way of the Socratic dialogue but never do we see him have the hubris of saying he knows anything. In both the case of utopia and Socratic truth you have unreachable horizons that are nonetheless worth striving toward, and as we have seen with respect to utopia, it is continentalcritical philosophy that takes on this work through the use of the imagination. Ultimately, the purpose of this chapter has not been to say which of the two social-political strains mentioned at the start is best, but rather to highlight how one has been privileged over the other, and how that privileging has produced a skewed conception of social-political philosophy—a philosophical landscape that is all the poorer for being at the same time narrower in scope, and selfassured in its own methods and answers. How far has philosophy come from the ancient’s caution of hubris, and the Socratic mantra of “all I know is that I know nothing”? If it is the case that philosophy has made great strides and overcome earlier errors by making a commitment to science and embracing an analytic style, then why have the existential problems that humans face only seem to have gotten worse over the same period? Indeed, what is to be done in a present where even the crown jewel of Western civilization, science, is denied and cherry picked with respect to the environment and nature, and where people in positions of power can unblinkingly assert “alternative facts”? It is precisely in response to such concerns that a continental-critical philosophy has much to offer, and why it is urgent that we dwell on it and recognize its value today.

Notes 1 To add some substance to this admittedly broad distinction; by analytic I am describing a philosophical style that focuses its attention on the meaning and role of foundational abstract social principles, for example, justice, equality, and freedom, but does not deal concretely with any society in particular or history. By liberal, I am referring to a general philosophical commitment to the state-form as the best way

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to organize a society politically. In contrast, by continental I mean all those thinkers and traditions that take human experience and history as the point of departure for their analyses and reflections, and by critical I am thinking of all those philosophers who do not share the same commitment to the state-form and who range from tepid caution to outright rejection of that political mode. Also, see Hans Sluga (2014) Politics and the Search for the Common Good, in which he makes a similar kind of distinction between abstract-normative and concrete-diagnostic political philosophical projects. Utopia here is analogous to the Surrealist conception of the “marvelous.” As André Breton explains in his “Manifesto of Surrealism,” “Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. … Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can be, and this is enough to remove to some slight degree the terrible injunction; enough, too, to allow me to devote myself to it without fear of making a mistake (as though it were possible to make a bigger mistake)” (1986: 4–5). Thesis XI: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels (1999: 123). It is ironic to note that Marx’s appeal to science, as opposed to utopian projects, would be precisely the same political tool that would serve to exclude him from the philosophical mainstream in the United States. For example, Descartes’s famous proofs of God in the Discourse on Method, and God’s role as the guarantor of truth in his epistemology in The Meditations. For example, in “Book I” of Thomas More’s Utopia we find the following: with respect to a monarch, “‘Well said,’ Peter replied; ‘but I do not mean that you should be in servitude to any king, only in his service.’ ‘The difference is only a matter of a syllable,’ Raphael replied” (1996: 13). A little further on More adds, “In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither interest nor ability, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or crook than governing well those they already have” (1996: 14). With respect to property, take the following: “Severe and terrible punishments are enacted for theft, when it would be much better to enable every man to earn his own living, instead of being driven to the awful necessity of stealing and then dying for it …. There are a great many noblemen who live idly like drones off the labor of others, their tenants whom they bleed white by constantly raising their rents” (More 1996: 16). A few pages later More continues, “To make this hideous poverty worse, it exists side by side with wanton luxury. The servants of noblemen, tradespeople, even some farmers—people of every social rank—are given to ostentatious dress and gluttonous eating…. Banish these blights, make those who have ruined farmhouses and villages restore them or rent them to someone who will rebuild. Restrict the right of the rich to buy up anything and everything, and then to exercise a kind of monopoly” (1996: 20–21).

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References Breton, André (1986), Manifestoes of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Seaver and Helen Lane. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Césaire, Aimé (1990), Lyric and Dramatic Poetry 1946–1982. Translated by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. Césaire, Aimé (2000), Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press. Descartes, Rene (1984), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes vol. II. Translated by John Cottingham et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eduardo Galeano (1993), Las Palabras Andantes, con grabados de José Borges. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Marcuse, Herbert (2002), One-Dimensional Man. London: Routledge. Marx, Karl (1990), Capital: A Critique of Political Economy vol. I. New York: Penguin Press. Marx, Karl and Fredrick Engels (1999), The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers. McCumber, John (2001), Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. More, Thomas (1996), Utopia. Edited by George Logan and Robert Adams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quine, Willard Van Orman (1959), Methods of Logic. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Sluga, Hans (2014), Politics and the Search for the Common Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilshire, Bruce (2002), Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Index agency 95, 141–3, 145 Altieri, Charles 193–4, 201 anarchism 107, 114, 118, 125 Arendt, Hannah 163, 164, 166, 168–70, 173–4, 176, 181, 182 Aristotle 1, 46, 55, 78, 163–4, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 180, 182 De Anima of 54, 55, 164, 180 art 5, 7, 45, 49–50, 51, 53, 55, 89, 109, 132, 133, 165, 168, 171 autonomy 7, 120, 125, 141–2, 145, 147, 163 basho (place) 175, 179 Beauvoir, Simone de 142, 145, 151, 156–7, 162 beliefs 8, 187–8, 190–3, 194–5, 197, 199, 201 Besinnung (mindfulness) 92, 97–8, 99–100 bodily training 142 and motor coordination 145 Buddha 45, 48, 53 Buddhism 4, 5, 45, 47–8, 54, 55, 56, 110, 123 Castoriadis, Cornelius 132, 134, 135, 138, 139, 163, 166–8, 171–3, 174, 178–9, 181, 183 Cesaire, Aime 203–4, 220 childhood v, 7, 141–2, 145, 146–7, 149–51, 191 Chinese language, writing 87, 154 chōra 163, 176, 178–80, 181, 182, 184 chōrismos 163, 176, 178, 179–80, 181, 182 cognition 5, 13, 14, 80, 82, 84–5, 93–4, 99, 131–4, 138, 139, 140 situated 129 socially extended 132 common sense (Gemeinsinn) 163–4, 168–75, 179 community 72, 107–8, 118, 124, 132, 166, 169–71, 173

comparative philosophy 2–4, 8, 9, 137–8 conceptuality 82, 165 Confucius 38, 73, 110, 119–20, 124, 154, 162 Confucian tradition 41, 43, 112, 120 role ethics of v, 7, 153, 157, 160, 162 consciousness 7, 21, 36, 48, 55, 88, 139, 149, 153, 154, 157, 158–60, 161, 179 correlativism 160 creation 55, 114, 119, 132, 176, 177, 180, 204 ex nihilo 47, 78, 150, 176, 177, 178 of art works 165 of cultural patterns 172 of images 167, 168 of meaning 167 of utopias 81, 88 creative process 163 creativity 46–7, 79, 134, 163, 164, 165–6, 167–8, 171–2, 174, 176–8, 183, 184, 185 Daodejing 63, 77, 92, 93, 95–6, 99, 102, 124, 125 Daruma 51–4 as ippitsu (one-stroke) daruma 53 Descartes 82, 211–14, 217, 219, 220 Cartesian 91, 207, 212 chiliagon of 213 dream(s) 33, 75, 105, 122, 149–51, 179, 180, 182 dualism 84–5, 91, 95 Dufourcq, Annabelle 148–9, 150 embodiment 130–1, 137, 139, 142 Entwurf (projection) 85, 89, 176 Eschatology, Daoist 111, 123 ethics 78, 142, 151, 153, 182, 193, 204, 205, 207 Confucian v, 7, 41, 43, 153, 157, 160, 162 Zhuangzi’s 77

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excess 178–9 “Exemplar Reasoning” 190–9, 200, 201 exemplar(s) 41, 165, 190, 194–9, 201 exemplary figure(s) 8, 188, 190–4, 196, 198, 199, 200 existentialism 7, 153, 156 fantasy 1, 5, 13, 15, 29–31, 32–6, 38–42, 43, 103, 112, 131–2, 136 and literature 29, 31, 34–8, 42, 43 forgetfulness, Zhuangzi’s concept of 119, 120 freedom 25, 98, 106–7, 113, 118, 121, 142, 145, 149, 153, 155, 157, 160, 163, 168, 180, 205, 206, 218, 219 academic 209 and imagination 134, 173–4 Gelassenheit (releasement) 85, 97–8, 100, 101, 177 Gemeinsinn (common sense) 163–4, 168–75, 179 genius 47, 165–6, 168–9, 174–5, 176, 178 Geworfenheit (thrownness) 85 golden age 106, 122–3 government 38, 104, 106, 107–8, 114, 116, 118, 172 Guo Xiang 13, 14, 36 Hakuin Ekaku 6, 50–1, 54, 56 heart-mind (xin) 81, 86, 95, 120 Heidegger v, 6, 79–86, 88–92, 95, 97–101, 102, 163, 166, 167, 176–7, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184 historicity 173, 180 humaneness (ren) 63, 64, 70, 115, 120 human nature 66–9 Husserl 130, 135–6, 138, 139, 154, 158–9, 161, 162 identity 53, 93–4, 120, 136, 168, 172 image 1, 46, 60, 65–71, 73, 74, 76, 77 as imagareal 148–9 image consciousness 139, 158, 160, 161 and imagination 129–31, 135, 138, 139, 164–8, 171, 173, 213–14 in Daoism 13, 15, 16–17, 21–2, 40, 104, 108, 123 of self 153, 154, 157, 158–61, 197–8

thinking in images 79–83, 85, 86, 88, 90–7, 99, 101 imagination v, 1, 4, 5, 13, 29, 56, 103, 112, 149–50, 151, 163, 198, 201 and aesthetics 5, 45, 49, 50–1, 53–4, 55, 166 as a practical tool 187–90 Bildung 81, 98, 166, 176, 179 Chinese tradition of v, 15–16 collective 168, 171, 172–3, 179 creative 13, 20, 23–4, 47, 167–8, 170, 172, 174, 176, 177–8, 180, 185 Daoist ideas of v, 4, 6, 13, 79, 81, 86–8, 92–102, 104, 107–9 Descartes and 211–13 Einbildungskraft 81, 166, 179 empathetic 13, 14, 17, 18 and freedom 92, 134, 173, 174, 176, 180 Heidegger and v, 79, 80–5, 88–92, 95, 97–101 and human development 5, 7, 141 Kant and 47, 79, 80–5, 89, 90, 91, 101, 151 Marcuse and 198–9 and memory 19–20, 88 ontological implications v, 7, 163, 167, 176 philosophical concept of 2, 7, 45–6, 56, 66–7, 74, 79–102, 129–31, 133, 135, 137–8, 139, 156, 157–8, 161, 163–9, 171–9, 180–1, 183, 184, 204, 207–8, 211–13, 214, 218 and place 116, 163, 175–6, 178 Plato and v, 6, 66–7, 74 possibilities through 174, 188 productive 46, 90, 163, 164–7, 173, 176, 177, 181 and self-integration 7, 153–4, 158, 159 social-political 104, 105, 135, 171, 172, 174, 178, 183, 203–5 spontaneity of 99, 173–4, 178, 180 and the real v, 1, 4, 6, 15, 23, 32, 149, 158 transcendental power of 85, 88, 179 utopian v, 103–4, 107, 108, 109, 118, 122, 207, 214, 216, 219 and Zen Buddhism 5, 45, 49, 50–4 imaginative engagement 1, 8, 96, 157, 187–8, 190, 192, 194–200

Index imaginative play v, 7, 141, 148–9 immortality 68, 108–10, 123 intuition 48, 82, 84–6, 153, 164, 165, 174 judgment 85, 120, 143, 166, 168, 169–70, 172–4, 214–15 Kant, Immanuel v, 6, 47, 56, 79–90, 93, 99, 101, 102, 134, 151, 163–71, 173–4, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 198 Kierkegaard, Søren 154, 156–7, 160, 161, 162 knowledge 6, 34–8, 42, 59, 60, 61, 62–6, 67, 68, 69, 70–3, 77, 78, 79, 82, 84, 86, 88, 94–5, 99, 111, 120, 142, 159, 161, 170–1, 174, 203, 206, 211–12, 214 scientific and poetic distinguished 203 three faculties of 84 Liezi 17, 18, 27, 76, 77, 78, 81, 104 making distinctions 74–5, 86 Marcuse, Herbert 207, 214–15, 220 Marx, Karl 135, 206, 217, 219, 220 McCarthy era 206, 208–9, 210, 211, 220 McCumber, John 203, 206, 208, 209, 210, 220 meditation 50, 53, 110, 111, 189, 192, 201, 211, 212, 219 memory 19–20, 88, 131, 134, 137, 139, 149, 164 bodily 137 Mencius (Mengzi) 41, 43, 107, 114 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 7, 141–52 metaphor 1, 15, 50, 54, 92, 96, 99, 113, 116, 168, 172 metaphysics 78, 81, 82, 85, 88–9, 92, 95, 102, 139, 154, 161, 183, 204, 212 Miki Kiyoshi 163, 167–8, 170–2, 175–82, 184 mimesis 46, 47, 54 mimetic function 46 mind v, 1, 13, 14, 15, 18–23, 26, 48, 55, 62–4, 71–5, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84–8, 92, 95, 96, 99, 109–10, 120, 130–1, 133, 134, 139, 140, 142, 143, 147, 150, 151, 164, 168, 173, 182, 185, 211, 212–13

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embedded 129, 130, 131–2, 135 extended 129, 130, 131–3, 135, 140 philosophy of 1, 7, 129 socially distributed 129, 132 Western 129, 137–8 mirroring 85, 97–101 Mokkei 49 monsters 29, 39–42 More, Thomas 107, 111, 117, 216–17, 219, 220 Morris, David 149, 151 myth 20, 23, 34, 40, 104, 112, 132, 133, 167, 168, 171, 172, 175 Nakamura Yujiro 163, 170–2, 174, 175, 181, 184 Nantenbo 51–4 natura naturata/natura naturans 180 nature 14, 25, 48, 105, 119, 165, 177–80, 218 Nishida Kitaro 175–6, 179, 182, 184 Nozick, Robert 117–21, 124, 125, 204 ontology v, 77, 85, 87, 163, 182, 184 others v, 8, 14, 39, 61, 70–2, 138, 145, 160, 165, 166, 169, 173, 187–93, 195, 197–9, 200, 219 pathos 163, 167, 177 pedagogy 49, 54, 151 pedagogical means 6, 45, 48–9 perception 7, 23, 34, 46, 56, 62–3, 80, 82, 86, 87, 90, 93, 94, 130, 134, 139, 141, 149, 151, 158–9, 161, 175, 182, 211–12 perception bias 130 performance 48, 154–8, 160, 188 phantasy 135–6, 139 engagement with 130, 136–7 intersubjective 136 phantasia 54, 163, 171, 180 phenomenology 1, 7, 90, 102, 137, 139, 140, 141, 148, 151, 152, 153, 156, 215 philosophy 2–4, 7, 55, 78, 80, 87, 89, 92, 102, 130, 137, 139, 141, 151, 156, 164, 166, 170, 176, 177, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 191, 194, 197, 205, 207, 210, 218, 220

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Index

analytic 203, 205, 207, 208–9, 210–11 Chinese 6, 78, 86, 103, 125, 156, 162 comparative 2–4, 8, 9, 77, 78, 137–8 continental 7, 8, 205, 206, 207, 208–9, 211–12, 217–18 Daoist 104–7, 114, 117, 119–21, 123, 125 North American 203, 204 social-political 8, 105, 154, 204, 205–6, 208, 216–18 Western 1, 85, 86, 129, 163, 204, 207, 211, 217 Piaget, Jean 146, 147 Plato v, 1, 6, 59–75, 76, 77, 78 and Forms 60–6, 75 and noêsis 65, 67, 74 Phaedrus of 62, 63, 66, 67, 70, 74, 76, 78 Republic of 66–7, 76, 78 and sophists 64–5 Symposium of 70, 74 tri-partite structure of soul in 66–8, 76 projection 1, 7, 85, 89, 101, 123, 150, 153, 158, 160, 166, 176, 179, 182, 194, 196, 198, 207 qi 72, 75 qing (meanings of) 21–2 Quine, W.V.O. 210–11, 220 rationality 168, 176, 212 reason 62–3, 65, 66–9, 73–4, 82, 83–4, 86, 88–90, 98, 99, 102, 134, 150, 164–6, 176, 179, 181, 185, 201, 211–12, 214, 215, 217 recluse poems 109 relations 154–61 as constituting identity of person 154–6, 158, 159 plurality of 155, 160 role relations 7, 156–8, 161 relationships 111, 141, 145 social 154, 170, 172 with God 189 with others 160 religion 47, 104, 109, 111, 121, 146, 150, 162, 188, 194, 195, 197 ren (humaneness) 70, 112, 115 representations 29, 33, 49, 84, 132, 142, 144

as Einbildungskraft 81, 89, 166, 176, 179 mental 46, 130, 143 as Vorstellungskraft 81 responsibility 143, 145, 174, 180 Ricoeur, Paul 163, 167, 171, 172, 174, 181, 184, 185 Rinzai 5, 45, 47, 48, 49–50, 53 ritual 7, 47, 49, 55, 68, 108, 112, 115, 119, 120, 133, 134, 137 role ethics v, 7, 153, 157, 160, 162 Romdenh-Romluc, Komarine 143, 152 Sartre, Jean-Paul 154, 158–61, 162 science fiction 30 scientism 210–11 self-integration 155, 158–9, 179 sensation 14, 150, 163, 182 sensibility 83–5, 88, 163, 164, 167, 169, 172, 174 sensory impressions 164 society 2, 38, 39, 41, 42, 104–8, 111–12, 115, 116, 118–19, 121, 122, 124, 146, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 182, 183, 205–7, 213, 214–19 ideal 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 116, 207, 215 social imaginary 2, 136, 138, 164, 168 spirit journey 15, 16 spiritual exercises 188–9, 200, 201, 202 spiritual growth 188 spirituality 123, 188, 189, 201, 202 spontaneity 76, 83, 84–5, 99, 100, 106, 119, 145, 146, 164, 165, 168, 173, 174, 176, 178, 180 spontaneous order 105, 114, 119, 121 state 5–6, 61, 104–8, 110, 117–19, 121, 122, 124, 125, 187, 217, 218–19 ideal 5–6, 7, 104–8, 111, 115–16 strangeness 83, 110, 123 subjectivity 87, 139, 152, 154, 157, 176 subject-object distinction 91–2, 95, 167 suchness 48 Tao Yuanmin 107–8 taste 166, 168–9, 172–5 Taylor, Charles 163, 171, 173, 181, 184, 185 temporality 88–9, 166, 180 thrownness (Geworfenheit) 85

Index transcendental 40, 82–5, 88, 89, 162, 164, 166, 173, 176, 179, 180, 185 transcendent experience 109 transformation 21–2, 43, 67–9, 73, 75, 98–9, 109, 111, 113, 119, 121, 167, 177, 187, 190 truth v, 1, 54, 61, 63–8, 70–4, 76, 89, 91, 97, 98, 149, 156, 183, 200, 201, 203, 206–7, 209–14, 217–18, 219 in Chinese literature v, 13, 15, 20, 24 understanding 5, 8, 25, 35, 38–9, 47, 63–4, 66, 80, 83–6, 89, 91, 93, 97, 98, 137, 141, 164, 166–7, 169, 174–5, 179, 180, 187–8, 190–3, 195, 197–200, 212–13 utopia v, 6, 8, 103–12, 114–20, 122, 123, 124, 125, 172, 184, 185, 203–4, 207, 214, 216–18, 219, 220 utopianism 6, 104, 118, 121 virtue 26, 38, 41, 59–60, 64, 66, 68–74, 77, 78, 106, 112–17, 119, 125, 202, 207 visualization 95, 189

225

Weltbildes (world picture) 81, 90 Western individual 129, 135 Western mind v, 129, 137 Western philosophy 1, 85–6, 129, 163, 204, 207, 210–11, 217 wilderness 179 wildness 173–4, 176 wuwei 61, 69, 72, 76, 77, 85, 97, 100, 101, 108, 114 xiang (image) 16, 26, 93 xiangxiang 15–19, 22, 26 xin (heart-mind) 72, 81, 86, 96, 99 Zen v, 5, 45, 48–51, 53–4, 55, 56 aesthetics v, 6, 45, 49–51, 54 masters 6, 45, 49, 54, 55 Zhang Longxi 6, 103–4, 123, 125 Zhuangzi v, 5, 6, 13, 14, 15, 18, 26, 29, 31–4, 35–42, 43, 56, 59–68, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80–1, 86, 92–5, 97–9, 102, 104, 106–8, 114–20, 122, 123 ziran 72, 75, 76, 85, 97, 100, 113