Classical Chinese Philosophy

Wang Shouren affirmed that "the teachings of the sages are nothing but the teaching of mind" . He believed that Lu Jiuyuan, in proposing the formulation that the mind equals principle, continued the legacy of the teaching of the mind that had begun in China with the teaching of Yao, Shun, and Yu and which was exemplified in the saying "The human mind is always in peril; the mind of the natural Way is always hidden; emphasize essentiality, emphasize unity; maintain (...) equinanimously the Middle Internal Path." He thought that this was the correct orthodoxy passed on by Kong , Meng , Zhou , and Cheng . In Mencius's time, Mo Zi advocated reciprocal and mutual compassion and benevolence and principledness and asked of people only that in their external actions they attain the goals of sacrificing themselves to benefit others. At the same time Gao Zi advocated maintaining benevolence internally and maintaining principledness externally-thus severing the internal from the external. Wang Shouren believed that the popularity of these ideas "greatly devastated the teaching of the mind," and therefore they were criticized by Mencius. When Mencius criticized them, he affirmed that "Benevolence, principledness, propriety , and wisdom are all not added onto me from the outside . I have these qualities already; it is just that I have not given thought to them" . He also advocated: "There is no other principle of learning save seeking the liberating and opening of the mind " . Wang Shouren felt that this meant that Mencius had already proposed the idea that "the mind equals principle"; that Mencius taught that the principles of benevolence, principledness, propriety, and wisdom were nothing but the mind as it already was; that he advocated that the method of learning should not be restricted to seeking an exhaustive understanding of principles from without but should instead be "an inward search in the mind." Wang then believed that when Lu Jiuyuan advocated the idea of "the mind equals principle" he was precisely and directly following through with this fundamental idea of Mencius! When some people thought that Lu Jiuyuan's ideas were different from those of Zhu Xi and "derogated Lu as Chan" i.e., as a form of Buddhist dhyana, or meditation theory, Wang believed, they were entirely ignorant of the actual circumstances of Lu Jiuyuan's writing and merely followed the rumors and joined in a misguided chorus of fools: "like short people watching a play performed on a high stage; they couldn't understand why people were crying or laughing," but were merely following along with whatever they observed as the responses of the audience in the front rows. (shrink)

Western physics in the 18th century was fundamental in establishing basic concepts in the study of economics. However, this form of physics has now been comprehensively displaced by progress within Western science, notably the rise of the new paradigm of science formalised as systems theory. This utilises new mathematical techniques incorporating Newtonian science within a far larger field of understanding that also includes the complex, unpredicateble and fluid aspects of the real world. However, the institutions of the modern world, especially (...) industrial globalisation, remain based on the principles of the Newtonian world view that sees the universe as ultimately stable and ordered, and human activity fundamentally separate from nature. Environmentalism and green economics are focused on redressing the imbalances between humanity and nature that are being caused by the success of the industrial revolution created by Newtonian physics. The awareness of other cultures made possible by modern globalisation has, however, produced opportunities to understand alternative ways of thought. The ancient Chinese system of Daoism is one which in many respects has an approach that can be usefully contrasted with the new paradigm of science and environmental issues. (shrink)

The now-global phenomenon of Asian martial arts traces back to something that began in China. The idea the Chinese communicated was the dual cultivation of the spiritual and the martial, each perfected in the other, with the proof of perfection being an effortless mastery of violence. I look at one phase of the interaction between Asian martial arts and Chinese thought, with a reading of the Zhuangzi 莊子 and the Daodejing 道德經 from a martial arts perspective. I do not claim (...) that the authors knew about martial arts. It was not Daoist masters who took up martial arts, but martial arts masters who, at a specific time, turned to Daoism to explain the significance of their art. Today, though, Daoist concepts are ubiquitous in martial arts literature, and a reading of these classics from a martial arts perspective shows how they lend themselves to philosophical thinking about this practice. (shrink)

Where Western philosophy ends, with the limits of language, marks the beginning of Eastern philosophy. The Tao de jing of Laozi begins with the limitations of language and then proceeds from that as a starting point. On the other hand, the limitation of language marks the end of Wittgenstein's cogitations. In contrast to Wittgenstein, who thought that one should remain silent about that which cannot be put into words, the message of the Zhuangzi is that one can speak about that (...) which cannot put into words but the speech will be strange and indirect. Through the focus on the monstrous character, No-Lips in the Zhuangzi, this paper argues that a key message of the Zhuangzi is that the art of transcending language in the Zhuangzi is through the use of crippled speech. The metaphor of crippled speech, speech which is actually unheard, illustrates that philosophical truths cannot be put into words but can be indirectly signified through the art of stretching language beyond its normal contours. This allows Eastern philosophy, through the philosophy of the Zhuangzi to transcend the limits of language. (shrink)

In his new book, Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times, Joseph Chan observes that Confucianism from its inception has suffered from a gap between its lofty aspirations and its historical reality—that is, there has been a severe discrepancy between its strong and resilient regulative ideals and a persistent pattern of traditionally weak social and governmental institutions and their practices. To overcome this historical disparity, Chan argues that contemporary Confucians should draw upon Western liberal institutions to the extent that (...) they can provide effective measures of governance. At the same time, these modern democratic resources should be modified in such a way... (shrink)

I approach this encounter with Joseph Chan’s important work on Confucian perfectionism from a fundamentally sympathetic standpoint. Most basically, I agree with two of his key premises. Confucianism is more than a rich historical tradition: it is a live strand of political theory, able to criticize and contribute to our lives today. But for modern Confucianism to be plausible and attractive, it must find a way to embrace the idea of limited government or constitutionalism in a deeper fashion than it (...) did historically. There are many other issues that Joseph covers in his book, and on many of these I am also in agreement with him. But my interest here is in the grounding of limited... (shrink)

How important is Jiang Qing, whose extraordinary proposals for political change make up the core of the new book A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future? In his Introduction to the volume, co-editor Daniel Bell maintains that Jiang’s views are “intensely controversial” and that conversations about political reform in China rarely fail to turn to Jiang’s proposals. At least in my experience, this is something of an exaggeration. Chinese political thinking today is highly pluralistic, (...) and for many participants Jiang is simply a curiosity—if indeed they are aware of him. Still, for three reasons Jiang is very much worth our attention. First, there is a vibrant and .. (shrink)

Talion and the Golden Rule are usually considered expressions of successive historical stages in the development of morality. The conventional wisdom is that talion-lex talionis-is a form of social control corresponding to a fairly early stage of the development of human communities. From a purely historical point of view, talion is a rule of punishment for crime according to which the retribution should strictly correspond to the harm inflicted. The rule goes back to the archaic custom of blood vengeance which (...) it supplanted. In contemporary normative research, talion is frequently interpreted more broadly as a rule of equal recompense. This is historically incorrect, but in theoretical analysis it is permissible as a general idea of a special type of control of human interrelations. It is precisely in this context that we understand the accepted opinion that as social relations develop and become richer talion is pushed to the periphery of human relations by another, more refined normative form, the Golden Rule, the appearance of which marks the emergence of morality in the contemporary sense of the word. Thus, talion is seen as a premoral form of social control, although if it is taken in the indicated strict sense then, historically, it antecedes not so much morality as institutionalized law. (shrink)