A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (4 page)

Reversal, Is the Movement of Too

Before considering the difference between these two schools, let us first take up a theory which both of them maintained. This is that both in the

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sphere of nature and in that of man, when the development of anything brings it to one

extreme, a reversal to the other extreme takes place; that is, to borrow an expression from Hegel, everything involves its own negation. This is one of the main theses of Lao Tzu' s philosophy and also that of the
Book of Changes
as interpreted by ihe Confucianists. It was no doubt inspired by the movements of the sun and moon and the succession of the four seasons, to which farmers must pay particular heed in order to carry on their own work. In the Appendices of the
Book of Changes,
it is said: When the cold goes, the warmth comes, and when the warmth comes, the cold goes. (Appendix III.) And again: "When the sun has reached its meridian, it declines, and when the moon has become full, it wanes." (Appendix I.) Such movements are referred to in the Appendices as "returning. Thus Appendix I says: In returning we see the mind of Heaven and Earth. Similarly in the
Lao-tzu
we find the words: Reversal is the movement of the
Too."
(Ch. 40.)

This theory has had a great effect upon the Chinese people and has contributed much to their success in overcoming the many difficulties which they have encountered in their long history. Convinced of this theory, they remain cautious even in time of prosperity, and hopeful even in time of extreme danger. In the late war, the concept provided the Chinese people with a sort of psychological weapon, so that even in its darkest period, most people lived on the hope which was expressed in the phrase: "The dawn will soon come." It was this "will to believe" that helped the Chinese people to go through the war.

This theory has also provided the principal argument for the doctrine of the golden mean, favored by Confucianist and Taoist alike. "Never too much has been the maxim of both. For according to it, it is better for one to be wrong by having too little, than to be wrong by having too much, and to be wrong by leaving things undone, than to be wrong by overdoing them. For by having too much and overdoing, one runs the risk of getting the opposite of what one wants.

Idealization of Nalare

Taoism and Confucianism differ because they are the rationalization or theoretical expression of different aspects of the life of the farmers. The fanners are simple in their living and innocent in their thought. Seeing things from their point of view, the Taoists idealized the simplicity of primitive society and condemned civilization. They also idealized the innocence of children and despised knowledge. In the
Lao-tzu
it is said: Let us have a small country with few inhabitants....Let the people return to the use of knotted cords [for keeping records]. Let them obtain their food sweet, their clothing beautiful, their homes comfortable, their rustic tasks

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pleasurable. The neighbouring state might be so near at hand that one could hear the cocks crowing in it and dogs barking. But the people would grow old and die without ever having been there." (Ch. 80.) Is this not an idyllic picture of a farmer's country?

The farmers are always in contact with nature, so they admire and love nature. This admiration and love were developed by the Taoists to the fullest extent. They made a sharp distinction between what is of nature and what is of man, the natural and the artificial. According to them, what is of nature is the source of human happiness and what is of man is the root of all human suffering. They were, as the Confucianist Hstin Tzu puts it, "blinded by nature and had no knowledge of man."
(Hsiin-tzu,
ch. 21.) As the final development of this trend of thinking, the Taoists maintained that the highest achievement in the spiritual cultivation of a sage lies in the identification of himself with the whole of nature, i.e., the universe.

Family System

The farmers have to live on their land, which is immovable, and the same is true of the scholar landlords. Unless one has special talent, or is especially lucky, one has to live where one s father or grandfather lived, and where one's children will continue to live. That is to say, the family in the wider sense must live together for economic reasons. Thus there developed the Chinese family system, which was no doubt one of the most complex and well—organized in the world. A great deal of Confucianism is the rational justification or theoretical expression of this social system.

The family system was the social system of China. Out of the five traditional social relationships, which are those between sovereign and subject, father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife, and friend and friend, three are family relationships. The remaining two, though not family relationships, can be conceived of in terms of the family. Thus the relationship between sovereign and subject can be conceived of in terms of that between father and son, and that between friend and friend in terms of the one between elder and younger brother. So, indeed, was the way in which they were usually conceived. But these are only the major family relationships, and there were many more. In the
Erh Ya,
which is the oldest dictionary of the Chinese language, dating from before the Christian era, there are more than one hundred terms for various family relationships, most of which have no equivalent in the English language.

For the same reason ancestor worship developed. In a family living in a particular place, the ancestor worshiped was usually the first of the family who had established himself and his descendants there on the land. He thus became the symbol of the unity of the family, and such a symbol was indispensable for a large and complex organization.

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A great part of Confucianism is the rational justification of this social system, or its theoretical expression. Economic conditions prepared its basis, and Confucianism expressed its ethical significance. Since this social system was the outgrowth of certain economic conditions, and these conditions were again the product of their geographical surroundings, to the Chinese people, both the system and its theoretical expression were very natural. Because of this, Confucianism naturally became the orthodox philosophy and remained so until the invasion of industrialization from modern Europe and America changed the economic basis of Chinese life.

This-worldliness and Other-worldliness

Confucianism is the philosophy of social organization, and is also the philosophy of daily life.

Confucianism emphasizes the social responsibilities of man, while Taoism emphasizes what is natural and spontaneous in him. In the
Chuang-tzu,
it is said that the Confucianists roam within the bounds of society, while the Taoists roam beyond it. In the third and fourth centuries A.D., when Taoism again became influential, people used to say that Confucius valued
ming chiao
(the teaching of names denoting the social relationships), while Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu valued
tzu jan
(spontaneity or naturalness). These two trends of Chinese philosophy correspond roughly to the traditions of classicism and romanticism in Western thought. Read the poems of Tu Fu and Li Fo, and one sees in them the difference between Confucianism and Taoism. These two great poets lived during the same period (eighth century A.D.), and concurrently expressed in their poems the two main traditions of Chinese thought.

Because it roams within the bounds of society, Confucianism appears more this—worldly than Taoism, and because it roams beyond the bound of society, Taoism appears more other—worldly than Confucianism. These two trends of thought rivaled each other, but also complemented each other. They exercised a sort of balance of power. This gave the Chinese people a better sense of balance in regard to this-worldlincss and other-worldliness.

There were Taoists in the third and fourth centuries who attempted to make Taoism closer to Confucianism, and there were also Confucianists in the eleventh and twelfth centuries who attempted to make Confucianism closer to Taoism. We call these Taoists the Neo -Taoists and these Confucianists the Neo -Confucianists. It was these movements that made Chinese philosophy both of this world and of the other world, as I pointed out in the last chapter.

Chinese A rt and Poetry

The Confucianists took art as an instrument for moral education/The

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Taoists had no formal treatises on art, but their admiration of the free movement of the spirit and their idealization of nature gave profound inspiration to the great artists of China. This being the case, it is no wonder that most of the great artists of China took nature as their subject. Most of the masterpieces of Chinese painting are paintings of landscapes, animals and flowers, trees and bamboos. In a landscape painting, at the foot of a mounlain or the bank of a stream, one always finds a man sitting, appreciating the beauty of nature and contemplating the
Too
or Way that transcends both nature and man.

Likewise in Chinese poetry we find such poems as that by T'ao Ch ien (A.D. 372.-42-7): I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,

Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach,

Would you know how that is possible?

A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.

I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,

Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.

The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;

The flying birds two by two return.

In these things there lies a deep meaning;

Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.* Here we have Taoism at its best.

The Methodology of Chinese Philosophy

In Chinese philosophy, the farmer's outlook not only conditioned its content, such as that reversal is the movement of the Tao, but, what is more important, it also conditioned its methodology. Professor Northrop has said that there are two major types of concepts, that achieved by intuition and that by postulation. "A concept by intuition," he says, "is one which denotes, and the complete meaning of which is given by, something which is immediately apprehended. 'Blue' in the sense of the sensed color is a concept by intuition....A concept by postulation is one the complete meaning of which is designated by the postulates of the deductive theory in which it occurs.... 'Blue' in ihe sense of the number of a wave-length in electromagnetic theory is a concept by postulation.' **

Northrop also says lhat there are three possible types of concepts by intuition: "The concept of the differentiated aesthetic continuum. The concept of the indefinite or undifferentiated aesthetic continuum.

The concept of the differentiation."
(Ibid.,
p. 187.) According lo him,

* Translated by Arthur Waley.

**Filmer S. C. Northrop, "The Complemeiiliiry Emphases of Eastern Intuition Philosophy and Western Scientific Philosophy," in
Philosophy, East and West,
C. A. Moore, ed., p. 187, Princeton University Press, 1946.

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"Confucianism may be defined as the state of mind in which the concept of the indeterminate intuited manifold moves into the background of thought and the concrete differentiations in their relativistic, humanistic, transitory comings and goings form the content of philosophy.
(Ibid.,
p. 2.05.) But in Taoism, it is the concept of the indefinite or undifferenliated aesthetic continuum that forms the content of philosophy.
(Ibid.)

I do not quite agree with all Northrop has said in this essay, but I think he has here grasped the fundamental difference betwecen Chinese and Western philosophy. When a student of Chinese philosophy begins to study Western philosophy, he is glad to see that the Greek philosophers also made the distinction between Being and Non—being, the limited and the unlimited. But he feels rather surprised to find that the Greek philosophers held that Non -being and the unlimited are inferior to Being and the limited. In Chinese philosophy the case is just the reverse. The reason for this difference is that Being and the limited are the distinct, while Non-being and the unlimited are the indistinct. Those philosophers who start with concepts by postulation have a liking for the distinct, while those who start with intuition value the indistinct.

If we link what Northrop has pointed out here with what I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, we see that the concept of the differentiated aesthetic continuum, from which come both the concept of the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum and that of differentiation
(Ibid.,
p. 187), is basically the concept of the farmers. What the farmers have to deal with, such as the farm and crops, are all things which they immediately apprehend. And in their primitivity and innocence, they value what they thus immediately appre -hend. It is no wonder then, that their philosophers likewise take the immediate apprehension of things as the starting point of their philosophy.

This also explains why epistemology has never developed in Chinese philosophy. Whether the table that I see before me is real or illusory, and whether it is only an idea in my mind or is occupying objective space, was never seriously considered by Chinese philosophers. No such epistemological problems are to be found in Chinese philosophy (save in Buddhism, which came from India), since epistemological problems arise only when u demarcation between the subject and the object is emphasized. And in the aesthetic continuum, there is no such demarcation. In it the knower and the known is one whole.

This also explains why the language used by Chinese philosophy is suggestive but not articulate.