Philosophy of Mind in China
Conceptual and Theoretical Matters
Historical
Developments: The Classical Period
Historical
Developments: Han Cosmology
Historical
Developments: The Buddhist Period
Historical
Developments: The Neo-Confucian Period
Bibliography
Introduction:
Conceptual and Theoretical Matters
Classical
Chinese theory of mind is similar to Western "folk psychology" in
that both mirror their respective background view of language. They differ in
ways that fit those folk theories of language. The core Chinese concept is xin
(the heart-mind). As the translation suggests, Chinese folk psychology lacked a
contrast between cognitive and affective states ([representative ideas,
cognition, reason, beliefs] versus [desires, motives, emotions, feelings]). The
xin guides action, but not via beliefs and desires. It takes input from
the world and guides action in light of it. Most thinkers share those core
beliefs.
Herbert
Fingarette argued that Chinese (Confucius at least) had no psychological
theory. Along with the absence of belief-desire explanation of action, they do
not offer psychological (inner mental representation) explanations of language
(meaning). We find neither the focus on an inner world populated with mental
objects nor any preoccupation with questions of the correspondence of the
subjective and objective worlds. Fingarette explained this as reflecting an
appreciation of the deep conventional nature of both linguistic and moral
meaning. He saw this reflected in the Confucian focus on li (ritual) and
its emphasis on sociology and history rather than psychology. The meaning, the
very existence, of a handshake depends on a historical convention. It rests on
no mental acts such as sincerity or intent. The latter may accompany the
conventional act and give it a kind of aesthetic grace, but they do not explain
it.
Fingarette
overstates the point, of course. It may not be psychologistic in its linguistic
or moral theory, but Confucianism still presupposes a psychology, albeit not
the familiar individualist, mental or cognitive psychology. Its account of
human function in conventional, historical society presupposes some behavioral
and dispositional traits. Most Chinese thinkers indeed appear to presuppose
that humans are social, not egoistic or individualistic. The xin
coordinates our behavior with others. Thinkers differed in their attitude
toward this natural social faculty. Some thought we should reform this tendency
and try harder to become egoists, but most approved of the basic
"goodness" of people. Most also assumed that social discourse influenced
how the heart-mind guides our cooperation. If discourse programs the
heart-mind, it must have a dispositional capacity to internalize the
programming.
Humans
accumulate and transmit conventional dao-s (guiding discourses�ways). We
teach them to our children and address them to each other. The heart-mind then
executes the guidance in any dao it learns when triggered (e.g., by the
sense organs). Again thinkers differed in their attitude toward this shared
outlook. Some thought we should minimize or eliminate the controlling effect of
such conventions on human behavior. Others focused on how we should reform the
social discourse that we use collectively in programming each other�s xin.
Typically, thinkers in the former group had some theory of the innate or
hard-wired programming of the xin. Some in the latter camp had either a
"blank page" or a negative view of the heart-mind�s innate patterns
of response.
For
some thinkers, the sense organs delivered a processed input to the heart-mind
as a distinction: salty and sour, sweet and bitter, red or black or white or
green and so forth. Most had thin theories, at best, of how the senses
contributed to guidance. While it is tempting to suppose that they assumed the
input was an amorphous flow of "qualia" that the heart-mind sorted
into categories (relevant either to its innate or social programming). However,
given the lack of analysis of the content of the sensory input, we should
probably conservatively assume they took the na�ve realist view that the senses
simply make distinctions in the world. We can be sure only that the xin
did trigger reactions to discourse-relevant stimuli.
Reflecting
the theory of xin, the implicit theory of language made no distinction
between describing and prescribing. Chinese thinkers assumed the core function
of language is guiding behavior. Representational features served that
prescriptive goal. In executing guidance, we have to identify relevant
"things" in context. If the discourse describes some behavior toward
one�s elder, one needs a way correctly to identify the elder and what counts as
the prescribed behavior. Correct action according to a conventional dao
must also take into account other descriptions of the situation such as
�urgent�, �normal�, etc. These issues lay behind Confucian theories of
"rectifying names."
The
psychological theory (like the linguistic) did not take on a sentential form.
Classical Chinese language had no "belief-grammar", i.e., forms such
as X believes that P (where P is a proposition). The closest grammatical counterpart
focuses on the term, not the sentence and point to the different function of xin.
Where Westerners would say "He believes (that) it is good" classical
Chinese would either use "He goods it" or "He, yi (with
regard to) it, wei (deems:regards) good." Similarly zhi (to
know) takes noun phrases, not sentences, as object. The closest counterpart to
propositional knowledge would be "He knows its being (deemed as)
good." The xin guides action in the world in virtue of the
categories it assigns to things, but it does not house mental or linguistic
"pictures" of facts.
Technically,
the attitude was what philosophers a de re attitude. The
"subject" was in the world not in the mind. The context of use picked
out the intended item. The attitude consisted of projecting the mental category
or concept on the actual thing. We distinguish this functional role best by
talking about a disposition rather than a belief. It is a disposition to assign
some reality to a category. The requisite faculty of the heart-mind (or the
senses) is the ability to discriminate or distinguish T from not-T, e.g., good
from bad, human being from thief. We might, alternately, think of Chinese
�belief� and �knowledge� as predicate attitudes rather than
propositional attitudes.
Predicate
attitudes are the heart-mind�s function. A basic judgment is, thus, neither a
picture nor representation of some metaphysically complex fact. Its essence is
picking out what counts as �X� in the situation (where �X� is a term in the
guiding discourse). The context fixes the object and the heart-mind assigns it
to a relevant category.
Hence,
Chinese folk theory places a (learned or innate) ability to make distinctions
correctly in following a dao in the central place Western folk
psychology places ideas. They implicitly understood correctness as conformity
to the social-historical norm. One of the projects of some Chinese philosophers
was trying to provide a natural or objective ground of dao.
Western
"ideas" are analogous to mental pictographs in a language of thought.
The composite pictures formed out of these mental images (beliefs) were the
mental counterparts of facts. Truth was "correspondence" between the
picture and the fact. Pictures play a role in Chinese folk theory of language
but not of mind. Chinese understood their written characters as having evolved
from pictographs. They had scant reason to think of grammatical strings of
characters as "pictures" of anything.
Chinese
folk linguistics recognized that history and community usage determined the
reference of the characters. They did not appeal to the pictographic quality or
any associated mental image individuals might have. Language and conventions
are valuable because they store inherited guidance. The social-historical
tradition, not individual psychology, grounds meaning. Some thinkers became
skeptical of claims about the sages and the "constancy" of their
guidance, but they did not abandon the assumption that public language guides
us. Typically, they either advocated reforming the guiding discourse (dao)
or reverting to "natural," pre-linguistic behavior patterns. Language
rested neither on cognition nor private, individual subjectivity. Chinese
philosophy of mind played mainly an application (execution of instructions)
role in Chinese theory of language.
Chinese
theory of language centered on counterparts of reference or denotation. To have
mastered a term was for the xin and senses working together to be able
to distinguish or divide realities "correctly." �Correctly� was the
rub because the standard of correctness was discourse. It threatened a
regress�we need a discourse to guide our practical interpretation of discourse.
Philosophy of mind played a role in various attempted solutions. Chinese
philosophers mostly agreed (except for innatists) that actual distinguishing
would be relative to past training, experience, assumptions and situation.
However, they did not regard experience as a mental concept in the classic
Western sense of the being a subjective or private content.
An
important concept in philosophy of mind was, therefore, de (virtuosity).
One classic formulation identified de as embodied, inner dao. De
though "inner," was more a set of dispositions than a mental content.
The link seemed to be that when we learn a dao�s content, it produces de.
Good de comes from successful teaching of a dao. When you follow dao,
you need not have the discourse "playing" internally. We best view it
as the behavioral ability to conform to the intended pattern of action�the path
(performance dao). It would be "second nature." We may
think of de, accordingly, as both learned and natural.
We
can distinguish Chinese thought from Indo-European thought, then, not only in
its blending affective and cognitive functions, but also in its avoiding the
nuts and bolts of Western mind-body analysis. Talk of "inner" and
"outer" did distinguish the psychological from the social, but it did
not mean inner was mental content. The xin has a physical and temporal
location and consists of dispositions to make distinctions in guiding action.
It is not a set of inherently representational "ideas" (mental
pictograms).
Similarly,
we find no clear counterpart to the Indo-European conception of the faculty of
reason. Euclidean method in geometry and the formulation of the syllogism in
logic informed this Indo-European concept. Absent this apparatus, Chinese
thinkers characterized the heart-mind as either properly or improperly trained,
virtuous, skilled, reliable, etc. Prima facie, however, these were social
standards threatened circularity. The heart-mind required some kind of mastery
of a body of practical knowledge. Chinese thinkers explored norm realism mainly
through an innatist strategy. Innatists sought to picture the heart-mind�s
distinctions as matching "norms" or "moral patterns"
implicit in the natural stasis or harmony of the world.
Historical
Developments: The Classical Period
Confucius
indirectly addressed philosophy of mind questions in his theory of education.
He shaped the moral debate in a way that fundamentally influenced the classical
conception of xin (heart-mind). Confucius� discourse dao was the
classical syllabus, including most notably history, poetry and ritual. On one
hand, we can think of these as "training" the xin to proper
performance. On the other, the question of how to interpret the texts into
action seemed to require a prior interpretive capacity of xin. Confucius
appealed to a tantalizingly vague intuitive ability that he called ren
(humanity). A person with ren can translate guiding discourse into
performance correctly�i.e., can execute or follow a dao. Confucius left
open whether ren was innate or acquired in study�though the latter seems
more likely to have been his position.
It
was, in any case, the position of China�s first philosophical critic, the
anti-Confucian Mozi. Again concern with philosophy of mind was subordinate to
Mozi�s normative concerns. He saw moral character as plastic. Natural human
communion (especially our tendency to "emulate superiors") shaped it.
Thus, we could cultivate utilitarian behavioral tendencies by having social
models enunciate and act on a utilitarian social discourse. The influence of
social models would also determine the interpretation of the discourse. Interpretation
takes the form of indexical pro and con reactions�shi
(this:right:assent) and fei (not this:wrong:dissent). The attitudes when
associated with terms pick out the reality (object, action, etc.) relevant to
the discourse guidance. We thus train the heart-mind to make distinctions that
guide its choices and thereby our behavior�specifically in following a
utilitarian symbolic guide. Utilitarian standards also should guide practical
interpretation (execution or performance) of the discourse.
At
this point in Chinese thought, the heart-mind became the focus of more
systematic theorizing�much of it in reaction to Mozi�s issues. The moral issue
and the threat of a relativist regress in the picture led to a nativist
reaction. On the one hand, thinkers wanted to imagine ways to free themselves
from the implicit social determinism. On the other, moralists want a more
absolute basis for ethical distinctions and actions.
Several
thinkers may have joined a trend of interest in cultivating the heart-mind. Mencius�
theory is the best known within the moralist trend. He analyzed the heart-mind
as consisting of four natural moral inclinations. These normally mature just as
seeds grows into plants. Therefore, the resulting virtues (�benevolence�,
�morality�, �ritual�, and �knowledge�) were natural. Mencius thus avoided
having to treat the ren intuition as a learned product a social dao.
It is a de that signals a natural dao. This view allowed Mencius
to defend Confucian ritual indirectly against Mozi�s accusation that it relied
on an optional and, thus, changeable tradition.
Mencius�
strategy, however, presupposed that a linguistic dao could either
distort or reinforce the heart-mind's innate program. In principle, we do not
need to prop up moral virtue educationally. Linguistic shaping, other than
countering linguistic distortion, therefore, ran an unnecessary risk. It
endangered the natural growth of the moral dispositions. The shi
(this:right:assent) and fei (not this:wrong:dissent) dispositions
necessary for sage-like moral behavior should develop "naturally."
His theory did not imply that we know moral theory at birth, but that they
develop or mature as the physical body does and in response to ordinary moral
situations. The heart-mind functions by issuing shi-fei (this-not this)
directives that are right in the concrete situations in which we find
ourselves. It does not need or generate ethical theory or hypothetical choices.
The xin�s intuitions are situational and implicitly harmonious with
nature.
A
well-known advocate with the natural spontaneity or freedom motivation was the
Taoist, Laozi. He analyzed the psychology of socialization at a different
level. Learning names was training us to make distinctions and to have desires
of what society considered the appropriate sort. Both the distinctions and the
desires were "right" only according to the conventions of the
language community. Learning language not only meant losing one�s natural
spontaneity, it was and subjecting oneself to control by a social-historical
perspective. We allowed society to control our desires. His famous slogan, wu-wei,
enjoined us to avoid actions motivated by such socialized desires. We achieve
that negative by forgetting socially instilled distinctions�by forgetting
language!
His
implicit ideal had some affinities with that of Mencius except that his
conception of the "natural" realm of psychological dispositions was
considerably less ambitious in moral terms. Interpreters usually suppose that
he assumed there would be a range of natural desires left even if socialized
ones were "subtracted." These would be enough to sustain small,
non-aggressive, agrarian villages. In them, people would lack the curiosity
even to visit neighboring villages. This "primitivism" still requires
that there is a natural level of harmonious impulses to action, but not nearly
enough to sustain Mencius� unified moral empire.
The
LATER MOHISTS became skeptical of the neutral status of these allegedly
"natural" heart-mind states. They noted that even a thief may claim
that his behavior was natural. They watered down the conventionalism of Mozi by
appealing to objectively accessible similarities and differences in nature. Our
language ought to reflect these clusters of similarity. They did little
epistemology especially of the senses, but supposedly, like Mozi, would have
appealed to the testimony ordinary people relying on their "eyes and
ears."
Others
(See ZHUANGZI) insisted that any apparent patterns of similarity and difference
were always perspectival and relative to some prior purpose, standards or value
attitude. Linguistics did shape heart-mind attitudes but neither reliably or
accurately carves the world into its real parts.
The
Later Mohists had given a cluster of definitions of zhi (to know). One
of these seemed close to consciousness�or rather to point to the lack of any
such concept. Zhi was the capacity to know. In dreaming the zhi
did not zhi and we took (something) as so. They analyzed the key
function of the heart-mind as the capacity to discriminate linguistic
intention.
Zhuangzi
takes a step beyond Laozi in his theory of emotions. Zhuangzi discusses
the passions and emotions that were raw, pre-social inputs from reality. He
suggested a pragmatic attitude toward them�we cannot know what purpose they
have, but without them, there would be no reference for the "I."
Without the 'I', there would be neither choosing nor objects of choice. Like
Hume, he argued that while we have these inputs and feel there must be some
organizing "true ruler," we get no input (qing) from any such
ruler. We simply have the inputs themselves (happiness, anger, sorrow, joy,
fear). We cannot suppose that the physical heart is such a ruler, because it is
no more natural than the other organs and joints of the body. Training and
history condition a heart�s judgments. Ultimately, even Mencius� shi-fei (this-not
this) are input to the xin. Our experience introduces them relative to
our position and past assumptions. They are not objective or neutral judgments.
XUNZI
also concentrated on issues related to philosophy of mind though in the context
of moral and linguistic issues. He initiated some important and historically
influential developments in the classical theory. His most famous (and
textually suspect) doctrine is "human nature is evil." While he
clearly wanted to distance himself from Mencius, the slogan at best obscures
the deep affinity between their respective views of human nature and mind.
Xunzi
seems to have drawn both from the tradition advocating cultivating heart-mind
and from the focused theory of language. This produced a tense hybrid theory
that filled out the original Confucian picture on how conventions and language program
the heart-mind. Xunzi made the naturalism explicit. Human guiding discourse
takes place in the context of a three-tier universe�tian (heaven-nature)
di (earth-sustenance) and ren (the social realm). He gave humans
a special place in the �chain of nature,' but not based on reason. Animals
shared the capacity for zhi (knowledge). What distinguishes humans is
their yi (morality) which is grounded on the ability to bian
(distinguish).
Presumably,
the latter ability is unique among animals with knowledge because it is
short-hand for the ability to construct and abide by conventions�conventional
distinctions or language. One of Xunzi�s naturalistic justifications for
Confucian conventional rituals is economic. Ritual distinctions guide people�s
desires so that society can manage scarcity. Only those with high status will learn
to seek scarce goods. His departure from Mencius thus seems to lie in seeing
human morality as more informed or "filled-out" by historical
conventional distinctions. These are the products of reflection and artifice,
not nature.
However,
in other ways Xunzi seems to edge closer to Mencius. He also presents ritual as
part of the structure of the world�implicit in the heaven-earth natural
context. One natural line of explanation is this: while thought creates the
correct conventions, nature sets the concrete conditions of scarcity and human
traits that determine what conventions will be best for human flourishing.
Historical
Developments: Han Cosmology
The
onset of the philosophical dark age, brought on by Qin Dynasty repression
followed by Han dynasty policies resulted in a bureaucratic, obscurant
Confucian orthodoxy. The Qin thus buried the technical ideas informing
philosophy of mind along with the active thinkers who understood them. The
ontology of the eclectic scholasticism that emerged was essentially religious
and superstitious. It was, however, overtly materialist (assuming Qi (ether,
matter) is material). So the implicit philosophy of mind of the few
philosophically inclined thinkers during the period tended toward a vague
materialism.
The
Han further developed the five-element (five phases) version of materialism.
They postulated a correlative pentalogy linking virtually every system of
classification that occurred to them. The scheme included the organs of the
body and the virtues. Interpretation and analysis of "correlative"
reasoning is a controversial subject. From here, the mental correlations look
more like a frequency selection from the psychological lexicon than a product
of philosophical reflection, observation or causal theory.
The
Yin-yang analysis also had mental correlates. Following Xunzi, Orthodox Han
Confucians tended to treat qing (reality:desires) as yin
(typically negative). The yang (value positive) counterpart was xing
(human moral nature).
The
most important development of the period was the emergence a compromise
Confucian view of mind�s role in morality. It eventually informed and dominated
the scholastic Neo-Confucianism of the much later Sung to Qing dynasties. The
small book known as the Doctrine of the Mean gave it an influential
formulation. It presents the heart-mind as a homeostasis-preserving input
output device. The heart-mind starts in a state of tranquillity. The account
leaves open whether this is a result of ideally structured moral input,
resolution of inner conflicts, or the absence of (distorting) content. Xunzi�s
view of the empty, unified and still mind seems the
proximate ancestor of the latter aspect of the view. The vagueness,
conveniently, makes Mencius� doctrines fit it as well. The input is a perturbation
from the outer world. The output, the heart-mind�s action-guiding response,
restores harmony to the world and the inner state to tranquillity. If the inner
state prior to the input is not tranquil, the response will not restore harmony
to the real situation.
Han
Confucianism filled out this cosmic view of this black-box interaction between
heart-mind and world harmony using qi materialism. Qi is a rather
more a blend of energy and matter than pure matter�translations such as
"life-force" bring out an essential connection with vitality. This
makes it more appropriate for a cosmology that links the active heart-mind with
the changing world. Qi was the single constituting element of spirits
and ghosts as well.
Wang
Ch�ung�s skeptical, reductive application of qi theory focused on shen
(spirit-energy). He did not view its consequences for heart-mind as
particularly iconoclastic. It still lacked a notion of
"consciousness" independent of zhi (know). (Our zhi, he
argued, stops when we are asleep and so almost certainly it does when we are
dead.) His arguments that nature had no intentional purposes illustrated his
reductive behaviorism�if it has neither eyes nor ears, then it cannot have zhi
(purposes or intentions). This argument would hardly make sense if he had the
familiar Western concept of consciousness. Similarly, he argues that the five
virtues are in the five organs so when the organs are dead and gone, the
virtues disappear with them.
Historical
Developments: Buddhist Philosophy of Mind
The
next developments are related to the introduction of Buddhist mental concepts
into China. Most accounts credit a movement dubbed "Neo-Taoism" with
"paving the way" for this radical change in philosophy of mind.
Wangbi�s Neo-Taoist system was explicitly a cosmology more than a theory of
mind, but interpretations tend to read it epistemically.
Wangbi
addressed the metaphysical puzzle of the relation of being and non-being. (See YOU-WU)
He postulated non-being as the "basic substance." Non-being produced
being. He dubbed this obscure relationship as "substance and
function." Interpretations almost inevitably explain this on the analogy
to Kant�s Noumenon and Phenomenon. As noted, Wangbi had few epistemological
interests, but the analysis did have implications for heart-mind theory. He
applied the metaphysical scheme to his Confucian slogan�"Sage within, king
without." The mind was empty "within" while the behaviors were
in perfect conformity with the Confucian ritual dao. This tilts the
Taoist tradition toward the "emptiness" reading of the black-box
analysis of heart-mind.
Wangbi
also placed li (principle) in a more central explanatory position. This
paved the way for its use in translating Buddhism�s sentence or law-like
�dharma�. It played roles in both Buddhist epistemology and theory of mind. In
sparse pre-Han usage, li was objective tendencies in thing-kinds.
(Intuitionists and naturalists took them to be the valid norm for that
kind�species relative bits of dao.) Wangbi gave it a more essentialist
reading in the context of the Book of Changes. He postulated a li
guiding the mixtures and transformations of yin and yang. One
should be able to bypass the complexity of the system by isolating and
understanding its li.
Buddhism
introduced revolutionary changes into Chinese heart-mind conceptual scheme. The
original Indo-European religion probably originated the familiar Western
phenomenalism (consciousness, experience-based mentalism). Indian philosophy
came complete with the familiar Western sentential analyses, mental content and
cognitive emphasis (belief and knowing-that). It even mimicked the
subject-predicate syllogism and the familiar epistemic and metaphysical subjective-objective
dualism. It introduced a semantic (eternal) truth predicate into Chinese
thought along with a representational view of the function of both mind and
language. Reason/intellect and emotion/desire formed a basic opposition in
Buddhist psychological analysis. An inner idea-world parallels (or replaces)
the ordinary world of objects. Soul and mind are roughly interchangeable and
familiar arguments for immortality suggest both metaphysical dualism and mental
transcendence or superiority over the physical. It conceptually links reality
(knowledge, reason) to permanence and appearance (illusion, experience) to
change. A universal chain of causation was a central explanatory device and a
mark of dependence and impermanence.
Two
caveats are in order, however. First, although Buddhism introduced a dualist
conceptual scheme, many schools (arguably) denied the dualism so formulated and
rejected any transcendent �self�. Second, it is unclear how well the philosophy
of mind was generally understood and whether much of it actually
"took" in China. One of the early and notoriously unsuccessful
schools was the "Consciousness only" school (translated as "Only
Heart-mind") which translated the idealism of Yogacara Buddhism. The Yogacara
analysis was Hume-like in denying that anything linked the infinitesimal
"moments of awareness" into a real self. Scholars tend to blame its
demise, however, as much on its objectionable moral features (its alleged
Hinayana or elitist failure to guarantee universal salvation) as on its
conceptual innovations.
The
most successful schools were those that seemed to eschew theory of any
kind�like Zen (Ch�an) or Pure Land Buddhism�or those that opted for intuitive,
mystical simplicity (Tian T�ai and Hua Yen). The most important conceptual
legacy of Buddhism, therefore, seems to be the changed role and importance of
the character li (principle). In Buddhism it served a wide range of
important sentential and mental functions. It facilitated the translation of
�law�, �truth�, and �reason�. Neo-Confucianism would take it over (with
notoriously controversial implications) as key concept in its philosophy of
mind.
Historical
Developments: Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism
is a Western name for a series of schools in which philosophy of mind played a
central role. Scholars (somewhat controversially) present these schools as
motivated by an anti-foreignism that sought to resurrect indigenous classical
systems. These had lain dormant for six-hundred odd years when the freshness of
Buddhism started to attract the attention of China's intellectuals.
Resurrecting Confucianism required providing it with an alternative to Buddhist
metaphysics. For this, they drew on ch'i metaphysics, the black-box
homeostasis preserving analysis of heart-mind, Wang Pi's and Buddhism's li
and Mencius' classical theory of the inherent goodness of heart-mind.
The
intricacies of Neo-Confucian systems are too rich to analyze in detail here.
The earliest versions focused on the notion of qi linkage between the
heart-mind and the world influenced by our action. They characterized the
tranquil state of the black-box as void. The school of li criticized
that analysis as too Zen-like. (This was a typical and damning charge to
participants in this movement, although a Zen period in one�s development of
thought was a common pattern among Neo-Confucians.)
The
li school insisted that any adequate account of heart-mind had to give
it an original moral content. It did this by postulating an interdependent and
inseparable dualism of li and qi. The li permeates the
heart and all of reality, which is composed of qi. The most tempting
(and common) elaboration uses the Platonic distinction of form and content, but
that analysis teeters on the edge of incoherence. The school fell back on
dividing the human mind from some transcendental or metaphysical Tao-mind.
This made it dubious as a theory of mind at all�in the ordinary sense. It
essentially became a metaphysics in which heart-mind was a cosmic force.
One
way of understanding the motivation that drove the otherwise puzzling
metaphysical gymnastics links philosophy of mind and ethics. Neo-Confucians
were searching for the metaphysical system such that anyone so viewing the
cosmos and one's place in it would reliably do what was right. The goal was
having the metaphysical outlook of the sage. The criterion of right and wrong
was that the sage's mind would so judge it. If we could replicate the outlook,
we would be sage-like in our attitudes�including both beliefs and motivations.
The effect on motivation and behavior was more important than the theoretical
coherence of the system. The complexity of moral choice and human motivation
required so many perturbations into their account of the proposed system that
it became an almost infinitely flexible rationalization for intuitionism.
Mencian
optimism about innate heart-mind dispositions proved an uncomfortable legacy.
If human nature and the heart-mind are innately and spontaneously moral, it was
unclear why we require such mental gymnastics to cultivate and condition the
dispositions. They portrayed the li as inherently good in all things,
but somehow humans, alone in all of nature, might fail to conform to its own
natural norms. The attempt to explain this via the li qi dualism
flounders on the metaphysical principle that the dualism pervades all things.
Despite this well known (and intractable) Confucian problem of evil, the school
again became the Medieval orthodoxy. Office holding required being able to
parrot the view in considerable detail to show their moral character.
The
school of Heart-mind was a rebellion against that orthodoxy. We best understand
this rival as a species of normative, objective idealism. It saw the actual
heart-mind as li and therefore inherently good. The xin projects
that li onto the world in the act of categorizing and dividing it into
types. Thus our normative, (phenomenal) world is good but that good is a
function of the mind. Moral categorization and action are a simultaneous and
combined responses of the heart-mind to the perturbations or the disharmonies
we encounter. The analysis of mind is functional�there is no goodness of the
mind separate from the goodness of its categorizing and acting. Knowing is
acting.
The
school of heart-mind somewhat gingerly accepted the implication of their
Mencian heritage. There is no evil. I say "gingerly" because whether
one should formulate or teach this conclusion or not is itself a choice that
the mind must assess for its contextual value. In itself, as it were, the
heart-mind is beyond good and evil. Others, hence, criticized school of
heart-mind was for its own Zen-like implications. Any moderately clever student
could figure out that whatever he chose to do was right (c.f., Zhuangzi�s
initial criticism's of Mencian idealism). They, in turn, criticized the
Buddhist character of their rival's assumptions that some kind of state of mind
(enlightenment, realization) would magically result in sagehood.
The
moralistic name-calling of this inter-Confucian debate sapped further
development of theory of mind. That coupled with its irrational optimism in the
face of growing awareness of the vulnerability and weakness of China to resist
Western and Japanese military and political power resulted first in mildly more
materialistic and utilitarian systems. Eventually intellectuals developed a
wholesale interest in the next Indo-European thought invasion, which took the
form of Marxism. Maoist theory of mind was an unstable mixture of Marxist
economic and materialist reductionism and traditional Chinese optimism. The
right political attitude (typically that of the part member) would give good
communists spectacular moral power and infallible situational intuitions about
how to solve social problems.
Again,
the obvious failure in the face of irrational theoretical optimism has produced
a general antipathy to idealizations. One can guess that the next phase, like
the Buddhist phase, will be one of borrowing and blending. However, the current
skepticism about the general outlines of folk psychology in the West and its
essentially alien character probably will keep Chinese theory of heart-mind
distinctively Chinese.
Chan, Wing tsit. 1986 Neo-Confucian Terms
Explained (New York: Columbia University Press) pp. xi-277.
Fingarette, Herbert. 1972 Confucius The Secular
as Sacred .
Graham, Angus. 1964 "The Place of Reason in
the Chinese Philosophical Tradition," in Raymond Dawson (ed.), The
Legacy of China pp. 28-56.
Graham, Angus. 1967 "The Background of the
Mencian Theory of Human Nature," Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 6/1,
2 pp. 215-274.
Graham, Angus. 1989 Disputers of the Tao:
Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle, IL: Open Court) .
Hansen, Chad. 1991 "Should the Ancient Masters
Value Reason?," in Henry Rosemont (ed.), Chinese Texts and
Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to A. C. Graham (La Salle, IL:
Open Court) pp. 179-209.
Hansen, Chad. 1992 A Daoist Theory of Chinese
Thought (New York: Oxford University Press) pp. xv-448.
Hansen, Chad. 1993 "Term Belief in
Action," in Lenk et al (ed.), Epistemological Issues in Chinese
Philosophy (Buffalo: SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Cu) pp. 45-68.
Hansen, Chad. 12/30/95 "Qing (Emotions) in
Pre-Buddhist Chinese Thought," in Joel Marks and Roger T. Ames (ed.), Emotions
in Asian Thought (State University of New York Press) pp. 181-211.
Munro, Donald J.. 1969 The Concept of Man in
Early China (Stanford: Stanford University Press) .
Munro, Donald J.. 1977 The Concept of Man in
Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press) pp. xii, 248.
Munro, Donald J.. 1985 in Donald J. Munro (ed.), Individualism
and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press) .
Munro, Donald J.. 1988 Images of Human Nature: a
Sung Portrait (Princeton: Princeton University Press) pp. 322.
Schwartz, Benjamin. 1985 The World of Thought in
Ancient China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) .
Glossary
|
qi |
��
|
ether, matter, breath,
life-force, matter-energy, air |
|
qing |
��
|
emotion, reality, response
to reality |
|
zhi |
��
|
know, knowledge,
consciousness |
|
zhi |
��
|
will, intention, purpose |
|
fei |
�D
|
is not, wrong, dissent |
|
xin |
��
|
heart-mind |
|
xing |
��
|
nature, human nature |
|
yi |
�H
|
with regard to, using |
|
ren |
��
|
benevolence, humanity |
|
ren |
�H
|
human, humanity |
|
li |
§
|
rites, propriety,
convention |
|
li |
�z
|
principle, pattern,
tendency, path |
|
bian |
�G
|
distinguish, divide,
dispute (about distinctions) |
|
shen |
��
|
spirit, energy, god(s) |
|
shi |
�O
|
this, right, assent |
|
tian |
��
|
sky, nature, heaven |
|
dao |
�D
|
way, guide, discourse |
|
de |
�w
|
virtue, virtuosity, power |
|
di |
�a
|
earth, ground |
|
wei |
��
|
act, deem, regard, for the
sake of |
|
wu-wei |
�L
�� |
non-action, acting without
categorizing, acting without purpose or deliberation |
|
yang |
��
|
sun, male principle, light,
warm, good |
|
yin |
��
|
moon, female principle,
dark, cool, evil |