Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful 9783110985757, 9783110997217

Table of contents :
Foreword
Contents
Chapter 1 Freedom as a Philosophical Category
Chapter 2 Human Essence
Chapter 3 Valuation and Value
Chapter 4 The Value System
Chapter 5 Myth and Wisdom
Chapter 6 Truth and Ideals of Life
Chapter 7 The Good and Moral Ideals
Chapter 8 Beauty and Aesthetic Ideals
Chapter 9 Cultivating the Ideal Character
Chapter 10 The Road to Human Freedom
Postscript
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Feng Qi Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful

Feng Qi

Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful Translated by Jeanne Haizhen Allen

Supported by the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences. First published in Chinese under the title 人的自由和真善美 By Feng Qi （冯契） © East China Normal University Press Ltd., 1996, 2016 English language translation published with arrangement with East China Normal University Press Ltd.

ISBN 978-3-11-099721-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-098575-7 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-098623-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023931077 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Cover image: Manuscript page and seal © East China Normal University Press Ltd., background graphic © Hulinska_Yevheniia / iStock / Getty Images Plus www.degruyter.com

Foreword Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is the third volume of Feng Qi’s Three Discourses on Wisdom. This volume focuses on axiological questions, inquiring into the ways that transform wisdom into virtues of the free individual. In the realm of values explored in this volume, the cognitive dialectics discussed in the first volume of the Three Discourses on Wisdom turns into the virtues of the free individual cultivated through activities that create the true, good, and beautiful values.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-001

Contents Chapter 1 Freedom as a Philosophical Category Chapter 2 Human Essence

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Chapter 3 Valuation and Value

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Chapter 4 The Value System

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Chapter 5 Myth and Wisdom

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Chapter 6 Truth and Ideals of Life

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Chapter 7 The Good and Moral Ideals Chapter 8 Beauty and Aesthetic Ideals Chapter 9 Cultivating the Ideal Character Chapter 10 The Road to Human Freedom Postscript

243

Glossary

245

Bibliography Index

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247

142

169

201

228

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Chapter 1 Freedom as a Philosophical Category What is human freedom? To put it simply, freedom is the realization of human ideals. Human beings transform the ideals taken up from reality into reality itself. Such are the activities of freedom. While performing these activities, human beings experience freedom, or rather, acquire freedom.

Reality, Ideals, and Character In the history of philosophy, the relation between thought and existence, which is fundamental to philosophy, has stimulated many debates. These debates have assumed diverse forms in Chinese and Western philosophy, but they have eventually concentrated on three inquiries: the natural world (the objective material world); the human mind; and the concepts, categories, and laws that are representative forms of nature in the human mind and in knowledge. In Chinese philosophy, the three inquiries are summarized in three notions: qi (气 vital energy), xin (心 mind-heart), dao (道 the Way). What relationship exists among the three notions? Dialectical materialism endorses unity of dialectics, epistemology, and logic. While objective dialectics focuses on the dialectical movement in the whole of the natural world, epistemology focuses on the human mind’s process of knowing the world, and dialectical logic focuses on the dialectics of concepts. These three aspects of dialectical materialism correspond to the three inquiries of philosophy. With respect to epistemology, the natural process of knowing certainly follows the principle of applying that which is garnered from reality to reality itself. This is also the case with the human process of knowing. Logic, however, is the necessary condition of knowing. Because logic reflects the objective world and captures the essence of the knowing process, the possibility arises for that which is from the objective world, the process of knowing, to be applied to the objective world and the process of knowing. By virtue of this application, logic becomes a methodology. An investigation of the activities that transform the world or improve human life actually brings us from the cosmological realm into the realm of history and human life, the realm that involves the historical evolution of human beings as a species and the development of human beings as individuals. In this regard, the three inquiries can be described as being about real life, ideals, and character (character as the subject). Accordingly, the principle of applying that which is taken from reality to reality itself is also modified to obtain ideas from real life, and subsequently to foster conditions so as to actualize ideals in a society or a person. Inhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-002

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deed, despite its modification, the principle—applying that which is taken from reality to reality itself—is the same as the original with one difference: here, reality refers to human life. Indeed, human life is part of the real world, or the natural process. The ideal is also a sort of concept, where the human mind can be seen as the character that determines the realization of an ideal. Of course, human life, ideals, and character all have their particularities that should not be underestimated.

Human Life The social life of human beings is intrinsically practical, and manual labor is its basic practice. There is an essential distinction between social life that is based on manual labor and the changes occurred in the natural world. In the natural world, human actions and counteractions being excluded, changes become the result of interactions among a multitude of undirected natural forces. Certainly, purposiveness exists in some natural phenomena, particularly in the biological world. On the whole, however, natural changes are not consciously intentional; therefore, teleology, even the so-called supernatural will power, cannot explain changes in the natural world. Human beings, however, as the agents of action in the realm of history, possess consciousness. Human action is consciously intentional and purposive. Hence, needless to say, human actions are distinguishable from natural phenomena. To say that human beings have consciousness does not imply that a person can recognize objective laws in every circumstance. In fact, human intentions and actions may come into conflict with objective laws as well as with the possibilities preferred by objective reality; our wishes are indeed hardly ever realized. Divergences arise among people’s desires, some of which are impossible to fulfill, while others are without the means of fulfillment. In most cases, the anticipation is not matched by the outcome. Therefore, purposive and conscious actions constitute a complex process of reality and history. According to the theory of dialectical materialism, the present is not actualized without conditions; reality should not be alienated from regularity and rationality. For this reason, reality ought to be treated as a process of change and development that complies with regularity. In addition, the process itself does not alter for the sake of human will. The gleam of consciousness embedded in human activities mostly fails to illuminate this layer of meanings that lies so deep, and hence fails to comprehend its essence and laws. For instance, instrumental improvement can reduce the level of work intensity while raising productivity. People can easily grasp this point, but they are often unaware of what sort of consequences such instrumental improvement entail in the whole society. Small producers do know that they trade merchandise

Reality, Ideals, and Character

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when they sell their cotton or grain at local market, but they might not be conscious of the consequences caused by their trade in the web of social relationship. Human consciousness cannot easily grasp the objective order that is embedded in a world comprised of intricate conscious activities. The objective order determines, yet is detached from, the social consciousness of human beings. On this account, our revolutionists ought to educate ourselves and our contemporaries to first comprehend objective and historical laws, then adapt our consciousness and actions to them.

Ideals The word ideal is here used in a very broad sense. It encompasses the revolutionary ideal, the social ideal, the moral ideal, the ideals of artists and architects, and people’s designs for changing nature, as well as the philosophical conception of the ideal character and the ideal society. The activities of the human mind in any field are always the same: transforming the ideal that is assimilated from reality into reality itself. Manual labor is the basic form of human activity. The characteristic of labor, according to Marx, is the fact that the product yielded at the end of the working process is conceptually present in the laborer’s representation at the outset of the process. In the working process, the laborer’s notion and representation already begin to germinate ideals; or to be specific, the laborer is on the way to shaping his or her ideal. Labor itself, moreover, can be seen as an activity that aims to bring about the embryonic ideal. Let us illustrate the concept with an architect’s blueprint which certainly comprehends all the basic elements of an ideal. In the first place, an architectural conception derives from reality and reflects the possibilities permitted by reality. The building will be constructed according to objective laws as soon as its requirements are met. Such realistic possibilities constitute the objective ground for architectural design. In the second place, the architect’s conception also reflects and respects people’ needs and interests. The constructed building has to satisfy specific requirements. In the third place, the architect creatively represents in the blueprint the realistic possibilities to meet people’s needs. The architect’s conception acquires the form of the ideal when all three elements are combined in a concerted effort. This kind of conception, in the form of an ideal, is precisely what directs human activities in reality. Certainly, just as we hesitate to endorse the saying that anything that exists is real, we do not treat every notion that directs human activities as an ideal. An ideal is no more than the reflection of real possibilities. For instance, even artistic ideals that manifest in the aesthetic sphere (意境 yi jing) and paragon personalities reflect some degree of real possi-

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bilities. Therefore, ideals always reflect real rather than fictitious possibilities. In addition, ideals should reflect the demands for the conformity to human nature, especially the demands for socially progressive forces. Fictitious notions and fantasies devoid of a foothold in reality are nowhere near what we describe as ideals. Moreover, ideals are conceived by the imagination. In this way, ideals can galvanize people to move forward through inspiration.

Character The subject that transforms the ideals assimilated from reality into reality is the I or the self. The I is found in every individual and group, and can be described as self-consciousness or collective consciousness. Kant describes the I, the subject of logical thinking, as apperception, which is the supreme principle in human experience and knowledge. He believed that all human experience and knowledge eventually unify into the I, and the I is the necessary condition of human experience and knowledge by virtue of its making use of logical categories, such as “class” (类, lei), “cause/reason” (故，gu), and “principle” (理, li). In addition, the I is not only the subject of logical thinking, but also the agent of actions, feelings, volition, and emotions. It is the character (人格 ren ge) expressing itself through a consistent manifestation of human action and consciousness. The human mind is dependent on the body; thus, the character, as the subject, is also of flesh and blood, with the result that a discourse on the character must also touch upon an individual’s words and actions. With regard to the relation between the ideals and the character, while the latter is the vehicle of the former, the former is the subjective manifestation of the latter. All the human factors, such as perception, volition, emotion, and imagination, are represented in the ideals. Character is correspondingly cultivated in the course of transforming ideals into reality. Character is not merely a vehicle for ideals, however; it is also the effect of realized ideals. Therefore, character is the cause as well as the effect of ideals. As it stands, just as reality does not encompass all that is present, ideals do not refer to all that is envisioned by individuals. The term character is often used only for the virtuous. Admittedly, hypocrites, opportunists, and traitors can barely retain their character. Free individual is the only genuine character of value. The action of a free individual acquires ideals from reality, and then the individual endeavors to bring the ideals about in reality. In the course of such actions, the individual will attain greater freedom.

Being-in-Itself and Being-for-Itself

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Being-in-Itself and Being-for-Itself Human freedom can first be seen as the transformation of ideals from reality into reality itself, then as the progress from in-itself to for-itself. In-itself and for-itself are Hegel’s expressions for the two evolutionary stages of a concept. In the stage of in-itself, a concept preserves its original unity while its opposite elements are still latent. As the concept evolves, the opposite elements begin to manifest themselves. When the concept is restored to itself, the opposite elements also reach a state of unity. Such is the progress from in-itself to for-itself. Marx adopted Hegel’s terminology for his own theory, stating that the subject goes through a progression from spontaneity (in-itself ) to self-consciousness (for-itself ). This progression is consistent with the repetitive activities of human beings, engaging in practice and cognizing the world, assimilating things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves. Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre also expounds on the notions in-itself and for-itself. However, the existentialists’ phenomenological approach is alienated from the progression of objective practices that make things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves; hence, their theory is still part of the Idealistic tradition. As a matter of fact, the progression from in-itself to for-itself is a process in which the subject first acquires ideals from reality and then succeeds in transforming them into reality. Reality is initially in-itself and natural, as soon as an individual starts to cognize reality in his or her effort to acquire an ideal, and even to make the ideal come true in reality, then reality itself becomes a thing-for-ourselves. In the course of transforming things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves, the subject advances from the in-itself to the for-itself, and thus comes to possess character endowed with great freedom. To be sure, no unsurpassable gap obstructs things-in-themselves from turning into things-for-ourselves, since things-for-ourselves are simply things-in-themselves that are known and can be used of by humanity. In terms of objectivity, things-for-ourselves still remain things-in-themselves. By virtue of human practice and cognizance, an individual brings about the transformation of things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves. In so doing, the individual acquires freedom. In fact, this is how human beings come to know and make use of things-in-themselves. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx makes a distinction between human production and production by animals. He states: “An animal forms only in accordance with the standard and the need of the species to which it belongs, whilst man knows how to produce in accordance with the standard of every species, and knows how to apply everywhere the inherent standard to the object. Man therefore

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also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty.”¹ Bees make honey and beavers make nests, but their productions are under the dominion of instinct; hence, they are not free. Human beings, however, can plant according to the natural capacity of the grain, and raise livestock according to the natural capacity of the animals. Moreover, human beings have the freedom to use their own labor and its products. The production yielded by human labor combined with the standard of every species meets the needs and ends of human beings. In this way, the products of labor objectivize the essential human power. Indeed, human beings not only produce in accordance with the standard of every species, but also apply their own inherent standard to the objects so that the standard itself might be objectified and become tangible. An individual may intuit oneself in humanized nature, making the product of labor into an object of beauty and taste. Here let me illustrate what free labor is with a tale from the book of Zhuangzi. In the tale of chef Ding butchers an ox, Zhuangzi describes how chef Ding has reached the level of freedom in his trade after many years of arduous practice. When cutting up an ox, he follows the rationale behind its anatomy. It can be said that he transforms the ox according to the standard of its species. Besides, his labor is not under the dominion of physical needs, nor any pressure from external forces. Labor for him is not a mere means, but an end, a constituent of his happy life. Upon completing his work, chef Ding has “an air of satisfaction.” He is indeed very content in his spirit. Chef Ding’s labor attains the artistic sphere in which the Way is the guidance of the art, as Zhuangzi describes it: “Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, […] the sounds were all in regular cadence.”² His movement conforms to ritual dance and music. In such labor, some of the essential human power is objectified and thus become tangible. As a result, labor acquires an aesthetic aspect and becomes the object of beauty. With regard to the object and product of labor, the process described above is actually the same as the transformation of things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves. Here, things-for-ourselves are those that are made by humans; this can also be described as culture. As a product of free labor, culture is especially precious to us. Its value in the broadest sense lies in the function of things-for-ourselves, because things-for-ourselves are the fulfillment of truth and human ends. Indeed, things-for-ourselves are themselves the good in the broadest sense. All that is  Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Martin Milligan (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Nourishing the Lord of Life:2,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/nourishing-the-lord-of-life/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

The Debate on the Relation between Effort and Destiny

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called good must be something that is genuinely beneficial to human beings and their progress. Issuing from this basis are scientific truth, moral good, and artistic beauty as well as every useful institution and legislation. All these can be more or less considered branches of things-for-ourselves. Human beings’ free labor is developed in the course of interactions between humans and nature, between the subject and the object. Human freedom evolves in conformity with given objects and given things-for-ourselves. Freedom is not innate to human nature, but lies in the process of transforming things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves; an individual transforms from in-itself to for-itself, and correspondingly acquires more freedom. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx states: “An objet d’art creates a public that has artistic taste and is able to enjoy beauty—and the same can be said of any other product. Production accordingly produces not only an object for the subject, but also a subject for the object.”³ It is the same with intellectual as well as material production. In production, human beings transform things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves, and the latter in turn enable the development of essential human power. The essential human power itself is a kind of in-itself and is enabled to become for-itself by virtue of human culture. The progress from in-itself to for-itself, in the form of an upward spiral, is precisely what freedom is. Moreover, essential human power possesses some innate and inherent aspects resulted from the integration of biological evolution and human practice over a long period of time. Such natural endowments contain many potentialities for development. On top of this, many habits are shaped by environment, education, and incidental activities. Habits and natural endowments are things-in-themselves at the outset, their full development must rely on their corresponding object, that is, the humanized nature. If the essential human power were to be alienated from the object and severed from the interaction between subject and object, it would neither be able to express itself nor manifest as virtues and capacities that are cultivated in the transformation of in-itself to for-itself.

The Debate on the Relation between Effort and Destiny Ancient Chinese philosophers talked a great deal about the question of freedom, and their discourse was often tied to the debate on the relation between human

 Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Salomea Wolfovna Ryazanskaya (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-poleconomy/appx1.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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effort (力li) and Heavenly allotted destiny (命 ming). Confucius describes his own life in the following six stages: “At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.”⁴ Confucius’s following what his heart desired is precisely what freedom signifies. Confucius believed that such a state of freedom could be attained only through diligent study. Latent in his thought is the notion of the unity of human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny. Mencius fleshes out the notion of Heavenly allotted destiny: “That which is done without man’s doing is from Heaven. That which happens without man’s causing is from the ordinance of Heaven.”⁵ Even so, Mencius places more emphasis on subjective human initiative in the fulfillment of benevolence, righteousness, rites, and intelligence. He claims that “the superior man does not say, in reference to them, ‘It is the appointment of Heaven.’”⁶ Subjective effort is sufficient to obtain virtues because “the things sought for are those which are in ourselves.”⁷ Mozi takes issue with the Confucian conception of Heavenly allotted destiny, criticizing its self-contradictory doctrine that maintains, on the one hand, that things “are destined by the destiny of Heaven and cannot be modified,”⁸ on the other hand, commands gentlemen to diligently pursue knowledge. Mozi advocates anti-fatalism, arguing that “fatalism was an invention of the wicked kings and the practice of miserable men. It was not a doctrine of the magnanimous.”⁹ He points out that human beings are different from other living creatures in that, unlike fish, they do not have naturally grown aquatic plants for food, and unlike birds, they do not have feathers for warmth. They are left to their own devices for sustenance. For this reason, Mozi stresses the importance of human effort, believing that labor is the primary condition of human life. His doctrine is well reasoned, but the labor in his conception is neither free nor enjoyable. In the treatise “Tian Xia” in the Zhuangzi, collected under “Miscellaneous Chapters,” the author

 Confucius, The Analects 2:4, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/analects/ wei-zheng/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Wan Zhang:6,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/wan-zhang-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin II:70,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin I:3,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Anti-Confucianism II:2,” in Mozi, W. P. Mei (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mozi/anti-fatalism-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Anti-Fatalism III:4,” in Mozi, W. P. Mei (Trans), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/ anti-fatalism-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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denounces Mozi’s doctrine as “one of great unkindliness. Causing men sorrow and melancholy, and difficult to be carried into practice.”¹⁰ It can be said that, when too much is made of human effort, freedom is hard to achieve. Contrary to Confucius and Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi advocated doing nothing (无为 wu wei), claiming that human beings can do nothing in the face of destiny. They envisioned a sphere of untroubled ease in which one would do nothing, be selfless, and reach oneness with nature. Untroubled ease is indeed freedom in Zhuangzi’s conception, brought about by the elimination of all human effort. The doctrine of Laozi and Zhuangzi, with its emphasis on doing nothing in the face of natural destiny, clashes with the Confucian notion of destiny. While Confucians advocate the cultivation of virtues in social and ethical relationships and the attainment of freedom through moral practice and cultivation, Laozi and Zhuangzi excoriate Confucian moral principles of benevolence and righteousness as the shackles of humankind. Laozi urges people to renounce sagacity and discard wisdom, renounce benevolence and discard righteousness, and consequently return to “the unadulterated influence.”¹¹ With regard to the content of freedom, Confucius and Mencius address mainly the freedom of moral behavior, while Zhangzi addresses aesthetic activities. The debate on the relation between Heaven and humanity in Pre-Qin philosophy reaches its consummation in Xunzi, who, after conducting a comprehensive appraisal of his predecessors’ arguments, reaches the conclusion that human beings must understand the different roles of Heaven and humanity. He maintains that social order and disorder cannot be explained by natural causes.¹² Human beings fulfill the role of establishing reasonable order and bringing nature under their control by manipulating natural laws. Only in so doing, can humanity attain freedom. Xunzi believes that humanity should not compete with Heaven for its role; instead, human beings should make use of the power of “the group” so as to manipulate the laws of nature, and consequently control the world, with the result that all things come to work for them. It can be said that Xunzi presented a fully developed argument in the pre-Qin debate on the relation between Heaven and humanity, and between effort and destiny. In the Han dynasty, orthodox Confucians tended to elevate the Confucian ethical code to the status of a Heavenly ordinance, and to overplay the importance of obedience to destiny (顺命, shun ming). Meanwhile, the investigation of the notion of destiny proceeded further. The book of Bai Hu Tong distinguishes three  Zhuangzi, “Tian Xia:2,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ zhuangzi/tian-xia/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  See Laozi, Dao De Jing 19:2,James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/dao-dejing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  See Xunzi, “On Heaven:1,” in Xunzi 1999, 533.

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types of destiny, namely, received, concomitant, and obedient destiny. In his Balanced Discourses, Wang Chong asserts that concomitant destiny rarely comes into play “when a man becomes happy only by dint of hard work, but is pursued by misfortune, as soon as he yields to his propensities, and gives rein to his desires.”¹³ He endorses the received destiny which he describes as natural, and encountered destiny which is a contingent occurrence at the most. It is evident that Wang Chong takes necessities and contingencies as objective and attributes them to destiny. He believes that, because of different natural endowments, some people are naturally robust and have long life span, while others are weak and have short life span. Nonetheless, nature is permeated with contingencies that can only be made comprehensible by the meeting of different causalities. For example, an ant is crushed by a passerby. This accident occurs by virtue of the intersection of two chains of events that have distinctive causalities: the ant crawls on the ground on which the pedestrian treads. Our life is filled with fortunate and unfortunate events, most of which are contingent intersections like this one. Just like necessity, contingency can be seen as a type of destiny. Wang Chong’s investigation of necessity and contingency occupies a significant place in Chinese philosophy. However, his theory inclines toward fatalism in that the human constitution and lifespan are predetermined; moreover, although his distinction of the different types of destiny is insightful, Wang Chong is pessimistic in believing that human beings can do nothing but accept their allotted destiny. In spite of his insight into the contradiction between human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny, and between necessity and contingency, Wang Chong’s philosophy fails to resolve these contradictions. Among the thinkers of the Wei and Jin periods, the debate on the relation of between human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny occupies a prominent place. The school of Dark Learning (玄学 Xuan Xue) maintains that human effort cannot surpass destiny. Wang Bi makes a compelling argument about obedience to destiny, claiming that things operate not on false principles but on their assigned principles. Indeed, he subsumes contingency under necessity. Guo Xiang holds the converse opinion and reduces necessity to contingency. The chapter on “Effort and Destiny” in Leizi lays great stress on destiny, believing that longevity or premature death, and the ups and downs of life, cannot be altered by human effort. Ji Kang plays up the role of human will in an effort to challenge prevalent fatalism. He urges his contemporaries to cast off the shackles of Confucianism’s moral norms, and act according to their own volition. Freedom to Ji Kang is doing

 Wang Chong 1913, 139.

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what gives one peaceful mind. Moreover, he treats the debate on the relation between effort and destiny from a materialistic perspective. The Daoism that developed after Ji Kang exaggerates the role of human effort and consequently falls into Idealism. Daoism believes that human effort can penetrate the secrets of Heaven and earth. The concept of stealing secrets, proposed by Li Quan of the Tang dynasty, gives an incisive description of this doctrine. Zen Buddhism also amplifies subjective human initiative, preaching that in a sudden realization—becoming aware that one’s every deed constitutes Buddha-nature (or Buddha Principle)—a person is transformed into a free being. However, Buddha-nature in Zen Buddhism’s doctrine is innate, it does not make reference to Heavenly allotted destiny. It focuses instead on following one’s luck: once having experienced sudden realization, each and every action of the practitioner is manifestation of Buddha-nature. Although both Zen Buddhism and Guo Xiang lay stress on contingency, there is an essential difference between them: while Guo Xiang reduces necessity to contingency, Zen Buddhism identifies contingency with necessity, believing that every human action evinces the Way and every contingent activity reveals Buddha-nature. Furthermore, while Guo Xiang advises people to passively obey nature, Zen Buddhism urges human beings to give free rein to their subjective initiative. During the time from the Wei and Jin to the Tang dynasty, the debate on necessity and contingency, and the debate on the relation between effort and destiny reach a conclusive moment in the hands of Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yüxi. To a certain extent, this revives some of Xunzi’s doctrine. Both thinkers maintain that Heaven and human beings do not interfere with each other, and yet exert themselves to interact and conquer each other. It can be said that they have properly resolved the debate about human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny. According to their view, the laws of nature induce the opposing forces of Yin and Yang to conflict with each other, and consequently cause growth and decline in themselves. However, the organization of a society, the establishment of a constitution, the distinction of good from evil, and the dispersion of punishments and rewards belong to humanity. Whereas natural forces function without consciousness, human beings manipulate natural laws to overcome nature itself with well-deliberated plans. By virtue of understanding the principles or recognizing regularity (數 su) within a situation (勢 shi), human beings can conquer Heaven. After a thorough investigation of the relation between trends in historical development and contingent events in history, Liu Zongyuan concludes that the former can only be demonstrated by the latter. For instance, the founding emperor of the Qin dynasty replaced enfeoffment with the institution of prefectures and counties, the emperor’s motive for the reformation was to establish supreme power for himself. His reform, when seen from an objective perspective, does reflects the necessary trend

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in historical development, which constitutes the “great public interests”. Human beings are able to take control of the process of development and consequently attain freedom if they can grasp the necessity latent in contingent occurrences. This line of thought will be further developed by Wang Fuzhi. Wang Fuzhi treats human history as a unifying process that occurs between the principle and the situation. He argues that human beings should penetrate necessity through contingency, and extract the laws of history from necessary situations. The distinction he draws between the heaven of Heaven and the heaven of human beings corresponds more or less to the notions of things-in-themselves and things-for-ourselves. The notion “the heaven of Heaven” refers to the material world in its natural state that continuously transforms into “the heaven of human beings” when nature is comprehended and made use of by human beings. According to Wang Fuzhi, human beings are by no means powerless when transforming the heaven of Heaven into the heaven of human beings. On the contrary, human effort has the power to conquer Heaven and to make humanity the masters of their own destiny. Wang Fuzhi believes that human beings can bring about that which Heaven did not fashion, and bring into order that which Heaven threw into confusion. The difference between human beings and lower animals, as he sees it, is that the latter possesses only natural destiny, while human beings have daily renewed destiny. Unlike lower animals, human beings do not stop at the level of natural instinct, but take up a stance opposite to nature. In so doing, in the course of interacting (giving and receiving) with nature, human beings are well equipped to receive naturally bestowed destiny. Receiving is a natural endowment, but it is also a deliberate human choice. In a certain sense, daily renewed destiny is consequent upon taking nature for our own use. In this process, human freedom is on full display. Therefore, Wang Fuzhi evidently treats the relation between human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny as a process of interaction, in which human beings exercise their initiative, in the meantime, the natural world is given its due respect. In the process as he conceives it, human beings can be expected to gain more freedom. In modern times, the issue of human freedom is loaded with the spirit of the times and become all the more prominent in philosophical discussions. Progressive thinkers have denounced fatalism in the causes of saving the homeland from Western colonization and the liberation of the people. Yan Fu asserts that the “the Chinese have faith in Heavenly allotted destiny, Westerners believe in their human effort.”¹⁴ Zhang Taiyan believes that “in order to dispel chaos and restore peace, the critical factor lies not in having or not having Heavenly allotted destiny, but in the

 Yan Fu 1980, 2.

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hardship or comfort that human is willing to bear.”¹⁵ Other thinkers, such as Tan Sidong and Liang Qichao, lay great stress on the power of the heart (心力 xin li), and hence incline toward voluntarism. It becomes apparent that Chinese thinkers of modern times begin to create a voluntaristic tradition in opposition to fatalism. At the same time, philosophers begin to make inquiries into the relation between necessity and contingency. Gong Zizhen maintains that, if Heaven is totally predictable, human beings would not have revered it; but human beings do venerate Heaven, and particularly revere the dual nature of the natural world; namely, that some aspects of nature are predictable, while others are unpredictable. Therefore, the natural world contains not only necessity that can be grasped by human reason, but also contingency that is unfathomable. In spite of his simplistic exposition, Gong Zizhen’s view is compelling, as it inspires modern Chinese philosophers’ effort in pitching voluntarism against fatalism. In the debate between non-determinists and determinists, revolutionists are predisposed toward determinism for the purpose of motivating the masses and cultivating faith in the success of revolution. Sun Yat-sen claims that the current of the times, vast and mighty as the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, eventually flows to the east. In a similar vein, Qü Qiübai believes that the materialist conception of history boils down to historical determinism. Hu Shi, an advocate of positivism, maintains that historical change is brought about by multivalent influences, and economic development should not be treated as the only determinant factor. For this reason, he rejects historical materialism. Jin Yuelin made a thorough study of the debate between non-determinists and determinists and reached the conclusion that, even if all principles are certain, a predicated situation might not necessarily occur. That is to say, in terms of principles, human reason can understand the world because we can comprehend individual events, whatever alteration lays in store. In terms of a situation (the coming-into-being and passing-away of particular beings), however, since contingency is persistently present, we cannot fully manipulate every change, however hard we try. In order to grasp a situation, human beings must resort to rational as well as nonrational means (emotions and volition). Jin Yuelin’s argument is well informed, but he believes that, with respect to the course of their development, all things are predisposed to fulfill their nature, and all situations are predisposed to return to principles, until they reach the ultimate goal, or the Supreme Absolute (太極 tai ji). The world in which situations are restored to the ultimate goal would be the ultimate good, true, beautiful. Most of all, it would be a world of freedom, in which contingency ceases to

 Zhang Taiyan 1980, 203 – 204.

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exist. But this kind of absolute freedom is hardly attainable. At this point, Jin Yuelin is evidently drawn to metaphysical speculation. Concerning the issue of freedom, Chinese philosophy in modern times has not, in spite of all the rigor of argument, reached a systematic conclusion. Chinese Marxism sets great score by historical determinism for two reasons: Marxism was first introduced via the Soviet Union, and the demand for class struggle was high, hence the need to encourage faith in the revolution. Accordingly, as mentioned above, Qü Qiübai believes contingency has a subjective origin, and its presence is simply due to the fact that human beings have not fully comprehended objective necessity. However, this line of thought is rather untenable. In addition, because of his emphasis on historical necessity, Qü Qiübai treats human beings (be they great or insignificant) as instruments of history. He does not see that human beings can be the end and hence fails to observe that human beings are naturally disposed to demand freedom and that human nature lies in the quest for freedom. His mechanical determinism inevitably leads him to dogmatism. Mao Zedong denounces such a dogmatic tendency, and develops a convincing exposition on the relation between subjective human initiative and objective laws from the perspective of a revolutionary theory of reflection. Unfortunately, his later thought overestimates subjective power and the function of the superstructure, and consequently is drawn to voluntarism. In short, Mao Zedong’s theory also falls short in resolving the issue of human freedom in the practical and theoretical realms.

Dialectics of Freedom and Necessity So far, our discussion has been focused on the relation between freedom and necessity. As stated earlier, ancient Chinese philosophers presented many arguments that are conducive to further investigation. Philosophers in modern China took up the discourse and made it into their chief subject of inquiry. Notwithstanding their exertions, the issue has remained unresolved; even Chinese Marxists were not quite up to the task, nor does Western philosophy locate a resolution to the question. Kant treats the conflict between freedom and determinism as his third antimony, asserting that human reason is bound to fall into contradiction on this issue. Hegel elaborates on the dialectics between freedom and necessity, maintaining that the progress of the world follows a thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern in which the Absolute Spirit comes to be self-conscious when it overcomes its self-alienation and returns to itself. Hegel’s theory is cogent in its dialectical aspect, but it treats reason as the Absolute, with cosmological purpose as a presupposition of reason. He aligns himself with Spinoza’s determinism, claiming that freedom is simply understanding necessity. According to Hegel’s argument, reason predeter-

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mines the development of the whole world, while free will is only of ancillary role. As a result, Hegel’s philosophy turns directly into metaphysical speculation. Zhang Taiyan comments on Hegel’s theory, saying that if the world were as he conceived it, freedom would not be a self-contained notion, it would rather be a stand-in for reasonableness or legitimacy. Many modern Western philosophers are dissatisfied with the tendency toward Hegelian determinism, which has been under attack especially in the era of modern scientific development, notably with the discoveries made by quantum theory. That being said, it would be overshooting the mark if one were to eagerly adopt non-determinism. In his critique of rationalism, American philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey rejects to replace the foreseeing of possibilities with insight into necessity, believing that freedom lies in foreseeing possibilities. Although his criticism is persuasive, Dewey nonetheless pushes his argument right to the other extreme when he treats the world as a place of adventure, and human life as an exploit. In short, further theoretical inquiry is required in order to elucidate the relation between necessity and freedom.

Relations among Necessity, Contingency, and Real Possibilities As stated earlier, freedom lies in transforming the ideal into reality. In order to bring about this transformation, an important element is to grasp real possibilities and connect them with human needs. The first task in grasping real possibilities is to understand regularity; and the second is to properly evaluate contingency. Objective reality contains objective laws as well as contingent elements. In addition, objective laws are filled with contradictions. The laws that reflect movement and change are made of contradictions, or else they would not be up to the challenge of reflecting movement and change. Most textbooks give students an incomplete picture by saying that objective laws reflect that which is positive and stable in objects. However, the laws not only reflect the positive and stable, but also the negative and unstable. Only by providing the whole picture can the laws reflect contradictions and their alterations, through which they themselves can evolve. Therefore, the laws present multiple possibilities, some of which are favorable to the present situation, while others are unfavorable. For instance, in the treatise “On Protracted War,” Mao Zedong enlarged on two possibilities for the Chinese people at the time: to submit, or to take liberation in their own hands. The objective world is comprised of intricate relations, including many forms of movement, processes of development, and historical stages. In addition, all these constituents have their distinctive regularities. Hence, the same thing might manifest an entirely different possibility when the structure or system un-

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dergoes adjustment. Take the egg as an example. As a living organism, an egg has the real possibility of becoming a chicken through incubation. At the same time, the egg might undergo some physical and chemical changes: it can be broken accidentally or spoiled under certain conditions. Moreover, in the process of material production, people produce eggs chiefly for consumption and as a commodity for exchange. All the possibilities mentioned conform to objective laws. Therefore, these possibilities vary greatly at different levels. If the process of material production alone is concerned, a broken egg merely counts as a contingent case. Nonetheless, such an exceptional case is a type of real possibility. Taking the exceptional case into consideration, necessity is indeed relative. In his doctoral dissertation, Marx argues: “Necessity appears in finite nature as relative necessity, as determinism. Relative necessity can only be deduced from real possibility, i. e., it is a network of conditions, reasons, causes, etc., by means of which this necessity reveals itself.”¹⁶ In short, real possibility explains relative necessity when it evolves and actualizes itself under certain circumstances. Since real possibility can appear in various modes, there is a need for a thorough investigation concerning what sort of possibility is advantageous to human beings, and what sort of conditions are required for them to come true. We might notice that all necessities are revealed in contingency. For instance, there was a necessity to the Chinese bourgeois democratic revolution’s overthrowing of the Qing dynasty, but the date of the open revolt on October 10, 1911, was certainly a contingency. The fulfillment of objective and necessary causality cannot be effectuated without the reason underlying the event. To put in Chinese philosophical terminology, the cause functions only with the collaboration of the underlying reason. In terms of logical thinking, grasping the objects has to start from the relation between the necessary and the contingent: necessary laws are revealed in contingent phenomena, and possible situations can be anticipated when given an appropriate understanding of contingent factors and their occurrences. Admittedly, it is impossible to fully predict contingent occurrences. Instead, we predict only the odds of their occurrences. Such predictions are of great importance to human activities. In terms of the unity of opposites between necessity and contingency, the two familiar and famed philosophical statements, i. e., situations do not necessarily arrive, and situations do necessarily arrive), are to the point. Necessity and contingency exist in the approach and arrival of a situation. Indeed, the situation itself can be seen as the unity of necessity and contingency. As it stands, the coming-

 Karl Marx, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Marxists Internet Archive, https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/ch03. htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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into-being and passing-away of particular individuals cannot be entirely encompassed by objective laws. There are always some unpredictable components. What the objective laws do encompass are the relations, regularities, and necessary tendencies of development among phenomena. We will be able to distinguish essential relations from non-essential relations when the object under investigation is objectively and fully comprehended. Essential relations can be further divided according to different structures, bases, and conditions. We are certainly able to comprehend the necessary tendencies of development, or in any case, the dominant possibility. For instance, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937– 1945), the dominant possibility for China was to sustain a long, drawn-out battle with the Japanese army. Hegel’s statement that “that which is real is reasonable” offers an incisive interpretation of such a situation, since what is real is always comprehensible. His doctrine that “the reasonable alone is real,” however, should be taken to mean that the dominant possibility is always capable of becoming reality. Even so, the dominant possibility might not be advantageous to us. Therefore, a rational ideal should have as its basis the real possibilities that are advantageous to human beings. Ideals usually arise from the dominant possibility; however, when human beings fully grasp the relations and conditions in the objective world, it is quite possible to create circumstances under which secondary possibilities come up to the top. Organic synthesis, genetic engineering, and genetically modified organisms are some of the paradigms of the process. In this light, human beings can truly be said to have conquered the Heaven. What is more, necessity assumes a random mode of expression that always contains an ambiguous component. As a result, it is of great importance that we grasp a contingency or change as soon as it crops up, so as to use it as the underlying reason to facilitate the actualization of an advantageous possibility. Such prompt action is also the expression of human initiative.

Meanings of Freedom in Different Realms In general terms, freedom lies in the transformation of the ideals into reality, and the ideals are the unions of real possibilities and human needs. An objective and real possibility has the dual nature of necessity and contingency, which constitute the proposition of human freedom. We are at liberty to shape our ideals based on our needs and interests due to the very fact that relative necessity presents many possibilities. Admittedly, some of the human needs have biological or social origin. Even with respect to these needs, we are not entirely passive. It must be noted that an objective natural process is merely a random factor and a circumstance in which we make an active selection. By virtue of our initiative, however, one of

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the possibilities presented by necessity can be effectuated for the sake of human interests. After acquiring knowledge of objective laws, human beings are capable of adapting subjective purposes to objective laws and fostering conducive conditions for living. In this way, human beings are in a position to bring about possibilities, modify the forms of natural creatures, and bring into the world unprecedented things. In short, freedom can be treated as the understanding of necessity and the transformation of the objective world.¹⁷ Freedom not only manifests in the act of knowing, but also in voluntary choices. When making a decision, the will in turn manifests an intense character (in the form of the regulation of the end and control over actions). The object of labor is things in the natural world, the development of social relations formed in the process of labor is also a part of the historical process of nature. Hence, necessity and contingency are found in human society as well. Human desires and interests tend to come into conflict with each other in a society. In order to sustain the kind of social relationship that is conducive to the development of production, interpersonal relationship is often regulated by social norms. Such norms that are for the purpose of preserving institutions and social relationship are the so-called “standards.” Norms and standards are distinguished from regularity in that, even though regularity presents a variety of possibilities for us to choose from, it cannot be altered by our volition. In other words, human volition is utterly powerless when it comes to the possibilities presented by regularity. For that reason, human beings have no alternative but to abide by regularity. It is a different story with norms and rules. Although effective rules must have objective bases, they are nonetheless the designs of human beings, therefore people can, to some extent, choose to follow or flout them. Hence, there is room for compliance as well as violation in artificial rules. For this reason, the implementation of norms can have recourse to coercive measures such as law enforcement. Among our citizenry, some people abide by norms and rules of their free will, and the laws can also address the moral aspects of people’s lives. That being said, laws by their very nature are coercive. Moral principles, however, require voluntary observance, since free will and autonomous character are the necessary presuppositions of moral conducts. Human beings and their objects are in opposition to each other in the course of transforming the world. On the one hand, human beings strive to take control of nature through regularity; on the other hand, they aim to preserve institutions and social relationships through social norms. Both applications call for subjective effort in finding resolutions to contradictions. That is why the relation between sub-

 See Mao Zedong 1992, 362.

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ject and object is constantly under strain. In the tale in which chef Ding butchers the ox, because the advancement of the chef ’s skill is accompanied by the Way, his labor becomes an essential component of his happy life. The human being and nature, the subject and the object, are united in perfect harmony. In such a process of labor, human beings are able to directly perceive themselves in the production of labor. Hence labor becomes an aesthetic activity. In short, the implications of the notion of freedom vary in different contexts. In terms of epistemology, freedom is the understanding of truth for the purpose of transforming the world. In other words, the rational ideal that emerges from the correspondence between real possibilities and human needs is thus brought to fruition. In terms of ethics, freedom requires that people voluntarily choose to conform to standards. The moral ideal that expresses the progressive demands of humankind thus comes to fulfillment. In terms of aesthetics, freedom lies in the act of perceiving oneself in humanized nature. The aesthetic ideal finds its articulation in lively images filled with human emotions. All in all, notwithstanding all the distinctions, freedom is reality transformed from the ideal, while the ideal is a subjective expression of the correspondence between real possibilities and human needs.

Freedom as a Product of History In the Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (the 1857– 1858 draft), Marx divides human history into three stages: pre-capitalist society, capitalist society, and communist society. He states: Relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneous at the outset) are the first social forms, in which human productive capacity develops only to a slight extent and at isolated points. Personal independence founded on objective [sachlicher] dependence is the second great form, in which a system of general social metabolism, of universal relations, of allaround needs and universal capacities is formed for the first time. Free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage. The second stage creates the conditions for the third.¹⁸

In this account, Marx treats freedom as a historical process. With regard to human development, the change from primitive community to civilized society is the first

 Karl Marx (1973): Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Grundrisse. Martin Nicolaus (Trans.). London: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 88; https:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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step toward the realm of freedom. However, in ancient and medieval times, the forces of production were limited, and human beings were confined to local connections based on blood ties, or on primeval, natural, or master-servant relations. In capitalist society, the exchange of commodities develops universally; and a nationwide, or even worldwide, market is formed. Nations begin to form all-encompassing connections, and natural sciences are applied to the forces of production; hence, productive capacity is drastically amplified. At this stage, personal independence is certainly increased, even if it must be based on objective dependence. Therefore, a person cannot be said to have acquired genuine free individuality. It is not until the final stage of communist society that exploitative systems are abolished, one person is no longer enslaved by another, and the individual hence becomes the true master of things. In that society, its highly developed social productivity becomes communal social wealth, and the universal development of the individual is a reality. Humankind thus steps into the realm of freedom. In communist society, the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom is finally accomplished. This is the usual interpretation that is familiar to us. In his Anti-Dühring, Friedrich Engels expanded on this view. Here I want to draw attention to the two meanings Marx has for “realm of necessity” and “realm of freedom.” In On Capital, Marx gives an elaborate account: In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end initself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.¹⁹

Marx and Engels distinguished two stages in the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. The initial stage focuses on the realm of material production that proceeds in accordance with scientific laws and conditions suitable to

 Karl Marx, On Capital, Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ works/1894-c3/ch48.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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human nature. The second stage is based on highly developed material production, in which human beings see the development of their own creative skills and human capacities as the end in itself. Hence, human beings transform from beings-in-themselves to beings-for-themselves. The leap cannot be accomplished without highly developed forces of production because human beings will need plenty of leisure to foster culture, including science, the arts, and civilized social interactions (e. g., ethical relations). At the same time, their creative capacities will be liberated as a result of the development of their imagination, volition, and reason. At this stage, human beings are truly transformed into beings-for-themselves. The complete development of individuality in turn increases the development of material production and social relationships. It must be noted that Marx’s conception of the realm of freedom is no more than an ideal goal. Truth and the ideal reside in the process, so does freedom. A process, by nature, unfolds in multiple stages, and plays itself out in divergent aspects. This being the case, we should be vigilant lest we lapse into the abstract and take an inflexible approach to the leap. The realm of freedom is to be attended by the realm of necessity even after its effectuation. Human history is forever a history of the realm of necessity’s moving closer to the realm of freedom. The course of this movement might be never-ending. With regard to knowledge, each particular stage only demands the concrete and historical identification between the subject and object at its given turn. Likewise, with regard to practice, each particular stage only demands the transformation of things-in-themselves to things-for-ourselves to a limited extent. Analogously, human beings’ demand for freedom, at a particular stage, is satisfied by qualified and relative fulfillment. The Book of Changes describes the two stages as after-completion and not-yet-completed. Indeed, no completion would ever reach the Supreme Absolute. In conclusion, free activities are innate to the effectuation of ideals in reality and the transformation of things-in-themselves to things-for-ourselves. Correspondingly, human beings’ demand for freedom is expressed in the process of becoming a being-for-oneself. Human history is no more than the processes that contribute to the movement from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

Chapter 2 Human Essence The question of human freedom is interconnected with the theory of human nature. Philosophical discourses on human nature reveal the essential human power and its development. In the end, the human being’s fundamental demand comes down to the freedom of labor.

The Debate on Nature and Nurture In the history of Chinese philosophy, the debate on the relation between human effort and Heavenly allotted destiny has been intrinsically connected to the debate on nature and nurture. Confucius remarked: “By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.”¹ The relation between nature and nurture first emerged as a philosophical question in Confucius’s discourse. Mencius expounded on the innate good of human nature, believing that good is inborn. Given suitable circumstances, a person might exhaust his or her mental constitution in learning and cultivation so much so that he or she finally understand the way to nourish human nature. Then, the person would eventually attain sagehood. Mencius’s doctrine endorsed the return to one’s original nature, since he believed that all things were complete in us. The inherent possession of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and intelligence implies that these qualities belong to the natural disposition of humanity. As a matter of fact, Mencius did not mean to draw a distinction between virtue and nature; instead, he took the former to be latent in the latter. Hence, to cultivate virtue through the Way is to be acquainted with one’s own nature. It is in this sense that Mencius stated: “Sincerity is the Way of Heaven (天道 tian dao). To think how to be sincere is the way of man.”² On the contrary, Laozi and Zhuangzi held that the best possible condition for a human being was the natural state, any artificial effort merely resulted in deviation from the Way and the loss of virtues. They absolutely rejected human effort, espousing the idea that “he who devotes himself to the Dao (seeks) from day to day to diminish (his doing). He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing (on pur-

 Confucius, “Yang Huo:2,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yang-huo, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Li Lou I.12,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-003

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pose).”³ Laozi believed that, in recovering one’s nature, one might find the Way to be a true man (真人 zhen ren). This idea is but a doctrine of recovering one’s original state, which Laozi described as reporting that one has fulfilled one’s appointed end and returning to simplicity and the true state. Mozi and Xunzi both had materialistic convictions and advocated habit as second human nature. They believed that nature was shaped by long-term practice, so human beings are products of their surroundings and education. Mozi compared human nature to plain silk, which would become green when dyed with green dye, and yellow when dyed with yellow dye. However, Xunzi believed human nature to be evil, and practice and habituation are the means to bring about the transformation of human nature, and to accumulate so much good as to achieve virtues. So, in his understanding, human nature is devoid of good, yet the accumulation of good in practice as well as habituation might eventually foster virtue. In a similar vein as Xunzi, the Commentaries on the Book of Changes expounds on the concept of good, stating that “the successive movement of the inactive and active operations constitutes what is called the course (of things). That which ensues as the result (of their movement) is good; that which shows it in its completeness is the natures (of men and things).”⁴ This doctrine had a great impact on Chinese philosophical thought. While acknowledging the potential for good in human nature, the Commentaries on the Book of Changes maintains the importance of practice for a potentiality to become actuality. Although Xunzi and the Book of Changes promote the doctrine of the Way of completing the human, Xunzi does not see any intimation of good in human nature; in his thinking, human nature is downright evil and thus requires transformation. The Book of Changes, however, believes that human beings can reach the completion of nature through the continuous cultivation of good; human nature contains the seed of good, and just as seeds require much time and cultivation to reach efflorescence, human beings must experience a long process of cultivation to turn good into virtue. The cultivation of human nature is a matter of the utmost importance to virtue, though practice and habituation are also indispensable. So much for the doctrines of recovering nature and completing nature in the pre-Qin period. A noteworthy point here is that the theories of human nature in Chinese philosophy, regardless of their emphases on either the innate good or evil of human nature, are entirely different from original sin in Christianity. The doctrine of original sin involves the idea that Adam and Eve, the ancestors of  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 48, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “The Great Treatise I:5,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/book-of-changes/xi-ci-shang/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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human beings, had free will, so they can choose the good or evil of their own volition. This idea is altogether alien to Chinese philosophy. Indeed, Mencius exhorted people not to do violence to themselves, not to throw themselves away. Xunzi also laid stress on freedom of the will, stating that “if the heart allows its choices to be without restraint, then when it reveals its objects, they will surely be broadly varying.”⁵ The point of difference, as revealed in the two Chinese thinkers, is about the choices concerning knowledge of the Way. Hence, they are more likely to be akin to rationalism than voluntarism in Western philosophy. Confucius and Mencius gradually became mainstream in Confucian thought, as did the doctrine of the innate good of human nature. The Three Character Classic makes its purpose clear right from the outset, stating that the good is inborn in human being. The rationalism contained in the doctrine of Confucianism had a great impact on Chinese traditional culture. In the second period of the Han dynasty, Wang Chong put forward the idea that human nature contains innate good as well as evil. He believed that every person had the potential to be molded and polished through education, and would eventually acquire practical abilities and virtue. Prominent in his exposition is the paradox that, while assuming human beings to be born with a complete nature and predetermined destiny, Wang Chong claimed that education and habituation can make every person capable and virtuous. On the whole, although he failed to find a solution to the contradiction between destiny and human effort and that between nature and nurture, he did expose the paradox between nature and nurture. The school of Dark Learning in the Wei and Jin periods mainly adopted Laozi’s and Zhuangzi’s ideas of recovering nature under the influence of Buddhism. To some extent, Zen Buddhism revived the Mencian doctrine of the innate good of human nature; the doctrine of Way of completing the human (成人之道 cheng ren zhi dao) has evolved into a comprehensive system in Li Ao in the Tang dynasty. All the discourses that were to be found among normative Confucians in the Song dynasty were based on this doctrine, with Wang Anshi as one of the very few exceptions. Wang Anshi was a materialistic thinker and was convinced of the importance of nurture in cultivating human nature. He believed that the intelligence or stupidity of a person was the effect of nurture. He maintained that the accounts of good and evil had no legitimate application in the case of human nature, since good and evil had to be acquired rather than inborn in a person. Moreover, he believed that the cultivation of virtue should not be imposed on every person but rather carried out with sufficient respect for each individual’s natural disposition.

 Xunzi 2014, 229.

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Carving a piece of wood into a vessel, as he reasoned, relies on human effort, but the potentiality of the material itself is of equal importance. Hence, Wang Anshi stated: “ritual is originated by Heaven, and completed by human.”⁶ The entire human civilization is a product of natural and human effort. Wang Anshi’s mutualistic viewpoint incorporated Mencius’s doctrine of the innate good of human nature, which denied the possibility that one could carve a willow tree into utensils while leaving its nature untouched. That is to say, Wang Anshi actually modify the doctrine of the Way of completing the human on the innate good found in the Book of Changes from a materialistic perspective. Neo-Confucianism, founded by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi (known as the Cheng brothers), identified nature with human reason. The Cheng brothers treated the idea that Heavenly mandate is human nature as a reference to the faculty of reason bestowed on human beings by Heaven. By virtue of reason, human nature cannot but being inherently good. However, they also admitted that “a discourse of human nature without reference to qi is incomplete, a discourse of qi without reference to a discourse on human nature is obscure. Wrongful it is to alienate nature from qi.”⁷ In accordance with the doctrine that identifies human nature with reason, human nature is identified with virtue; in accordance with the purity and muddiness of the naturally endowed qi, however, a distinction can be drawn between the good and non-good. Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi explained that the differences between people’s character and talent originated from natural endowment (气禀 qi bing). This belief revealed the Cheng brothers’ materialistic inclination. However, they also incorporated idealistic ideas into their exposition by combining the two theses, treating nature as reason, and talent as originating from natural endowment. In short, in their theory, nature as the equivalent of reason necessitates the innate good of human nature, while natural endowment justifies the three conventional categories of intelligence: wise people are the superior, stupid people are the lowest, and those in between are the mediocre. Zhu Xi explained the point, stating that “the nature that is endowed by Heaven and earth refers solely to reason, while the nature of qi-material refers to the combination of reason and qi.”⁸ The combination of reason and qi engenders different levels of intellectual development among people. Hence, Zhu Xi exhorted people to preserve the Heavenly principles and eradicate human desires so as to restore human nature. Wang Yangming took to the next level the doctrines of recovering nature and completing nature developed in the Song and Ming periods. The two unities he pro-

 Wang Anshi, “On Ritual”, in Wang Anshi 1999, 252.  Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi 2000, 132.  Zhu Xi, Classified Conversations of Zhuzi, in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. XIV, 367.

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posed, the unity of knowledge and action, and the unity of fundamental substance and practical effort, injected a new spark of life into Chinese philosophy. The two unities can also be described as the unity of innate knowledge (fundamental substance) and the extension of innate knowledge (practical effort). He took that which is restored in the doctrine of recovering nature to be innate knowledge (fundamental substance), and practical effort to be the process of recovery. In short, a person’s innate knowledge unfolds as a process through his or her practical efforts. Wang Yangming compared the restoration of nature to planting saplings that would undergo a gradual process of growth before reaching maturity. Huang Zongxi elaborated on this idea, stating that “the heart has no fundamental substance; what is accomplished through practical effort is its substance.”⁹ He believed an empty fundamental substance to be untenable, and the unfolding of practical effort itself to be the substance. Substance lies in whatever level of practical effort an individual is capable of obtaining. However, Huang Zongxi was inclined toward pantheism in his treatment of the heart as qi. He saw human nature as nothing but the fine force (精氣 jing qi) endowed by Heaven. So, human nature is the vitality contained in the fine force. Just as seeds need fertilizer to nourish their growth, the development of vitality requires careful cultivation. It can be said that Huang Zongxi fleshed out the doctrine of the Way of completing nature by treating innate good from a pantheistic perspective. Wang Fuzhi adopted the process doctrine of completing nature, claiming that human nature improves and completes itself daily.¹⁰ Wang Fuzhi believed that, while human beings are endowed with talent upon birth, they are able to acquire innate capacity (良能 liang neng) in everyday life. He claimed that human beings receive a Heavenly mandate daily their nature achieves completion by daily improvement. Moreover, he emphasized the point that human beings have the initiative to deliberate and choose in daily practice. The cultivation of human nature is not utterly passive, it is rather perfected through the interaction between human beings and nature. The relation between human nature and the Way is indicative of such an interaction. Wang Fuzhi stated: “Colors, sounds, and taste are impressed on me by the Way, accordingly I receive them through my nature.”¹¹ The Way (objective laws and normative standards) supplies the perceiver with the perceptible qualities of external things, such as color and sound. Therefore, when being impressed by perceptible qualities, the perceiver receives the Way itself as well. Thus, human nature improves daily and attains completion. Moreover, Wang Fuzhi claimed that I

 Huang Zongxi, Case Studies of Ming Confucians, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. VII, 3.  Wang Fuzhi, “Extended Meaning in Shang Shu,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. II, 299.  Wang Fuzhi, “Extended Meaning in Shang Shu,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. II, 407.

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am impressed on colors, sounds, and taste by my nature, accordingly colors, sounds, and taste receive me through their Way.¹² In other words, the perceiver manifests human nature in each perceptual activity, and human nature is accordingly objectified and symbolized. The objects, in their turn, bear the perceiver’s influence (in accordance with the innate laws of the objects). Wang Fuzhi’s insight into the relation between nature and nurture can be regarded as the highest achievement in Chinese philosophy. Although Wang Fuzhi did not see perceptual activities as social practice, he did treat them as the connection between the Heavenly Way and human nature, between nature and human beings. His exposition of the process in which human nature improves daily is grounded on that connection. The insight in his thinking is apparent. Modern philosophers continued the debate on the relation between nature and nurture. Many progressive thinkers rejected Confucian doctrine of recovering nature on the ground that Confucianism’s conception of human freedom is fatalistic in that it focuses on recovering nature and obedience to the Heavenly mandate. In modern times, Gong Zizhen rejected Confucianism’s fatalism, and adopted Gaozi’s doctrine that neither good nor evil is innate in human nature in the hope of refuting the doctrine of the innate good. Later on, philosophers such as Kang Youwei and Yan Fu introduced Western evolutionary theory to shed light on human nature. They borrowed concepts from anthropology to treat humanity as a species, claiming that human beings by nature avoid hardship and harm and seek after happiness and their own interests. This trend of thought is commendable in its anti-feudalism and its repudiation of Confucian pedantic rationalistic teachings that instruct people to preserve the Heavenly principles and eradicate human desires. Nonetheless, their treatment of humanity is limited to the biological level, and thus falls short of drawing a distinction between human beings and the lower animals. If there is no such distinction, whence comes the Way of human (人道 ren dao)? Kang Youwei did not entirely break away from the Confucian tradition. He adopted the Mencian idea of the innate good of human nature, believing that human heart is born in such a way that, upon seeing others’ suffering, it cannot remain unmoved. Yan Fu claimed that human beings in infancy are exactly like the lower animals. Human beings do not by nature have compassionate hearts that are inevitably moved by others’ suffering. Human beings feel the need to be sociable in order to seek the greatest advantages for themselves and to facilitate their struggle for survival. They organize a society in which those who are adaptable to social life survive well, while those who are ill-adapted to social life are

 Wang Fuzhi, “Extended Meaning in Shang Shu,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. II, 407.

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eliminated. Social selection fosters traits unique to humanity, such as compassion. So much for Kang Youwei’s and Yan Fu’s interpretations of the origin of morality from the perspective of evolutionary theory. Zhang Taiyan further developed this line of thought in his theory that morality originates from the competition for survival. He claimed that competition yields wisdom, and revolution produces intelligent people. His conception of competition contains some degree of practical significance. Sun Yat-sen took a step further than Zhang Taiyan in the theory of competitive survival. He stated: “Practice, experiment, exploration, and adventure are those which motivate civilizations.”¹³ Sun Yat-sen and Zhang Taiyan sowed the seeds for the theory of social practice, advocating that competitive activities were the springboard for human civilization. Ancient Chinese philosophers also had discourses on practice and the completion of human nature, but their interpretations of practice chiefly focused on moral practice, learning, and self-cultivation. Modern Chinese philosophers expanded the traditional conception of practice and brought it into the framework of Marxism’s theory of practice. Accordingly, the doctrine of the Way of completing the human through practice underwent a fundamental change. From this point on, human nature would be treated as the product of practice and would finally be studied from a scientific perspective. It must be acknowledged, however, that Chinese Marxism was one-sided in its approach to the question, identifying human nature with class character. In the end, the debate on nature and nurture has not yielded a satisfactory conclusion in modern times.

Human Essence What composes human essence? Philosophers in the past offered many insightful expositions. For instance, in his belief that human beings must till the land and spin cotton in order to survive, Mozi took physical labor to be human essence. Mencius took human reason alone as the essential difference between humans and the lower animals. Xunzi convincingly argued that human beings had to be sociable since they were born with a need to use other things as their tools. However, a comprehensive understanding of the context of human essence was only possible in Marxism’s theory of practice. According to Marxist interpretation, essential human power first lies in the capacity to create tools to supplement physical labor, and therein lies the distinction between human beings and the lower animals. Second, human labor requires social organization, thus a variety of institu-

 Sun Yat-sen 2006a, 222.

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tions arise on the basis of productive labor, a feature that also constitutes a characteristic of human essence. Third, human reason develops along with the development of productive labor. Labor is increasingly given freedom by reason; hence, social relations will eventually lead to a community of free people. In this sense, human reason is a characteristic of human essence. It becomes clear that although Mozi, Mencius, and Xunzi all touched upon one aspect of human essence, they fell short of grasping the concept in its entirety. Human essence is seen as a virtue fostered through humans’ natural endowment. In effect, virtue is what marks humanity off from the animal kingdom. From the perspective of Marxism, a social human being is part of a collection of individuals. The natural endowment written into each individual’s genetic traits is the result of millions of years of human practice. But the genetic aspect of human nature merely constitutes the basis for potential development. With this inborn potentiality, human nature can develop virtue and cultivate character through daily practice and education, so the gap between humanity and the lower animals grows wider. In this sense, human essence is anything but static. Indeed, it is a process of historical development, comprised of countless individuals’ efforts to foster virtue in human nature. So much for an overview of human essence. Concerning the concept of human essence, a few reservations must be highlighted. First, human beings are endowed with some natural attributes. Gaozi believed that nature is that which is alive. Being alive is a natural attribute of human beings. Some philosophers, such as Hu Shi, claimed that no quintessential difference exists between humanity and the lower animals. They argued that homo sapiens is just one species of animal whose difference from other species is only in degree, rather than being categorical. Their argument disavows this characteristic of human essence. Certainly, there is no controversy about the animal aspect of human beings. This natural attribute produced by hundreds of millions of years of evolution is undoubtable and cannot be easily negated by the doctrines of pedantic moralists, be they ascetic or fideistic. We are far from a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the domain of human instinct. Freud’s study of the unconsciousness offers some tenable explanation and should not be entirely rejected. However, human beings’ animal aspect, though having the same origin as the lower animals, has become an attribute of humanity in the course of social practice. For instance, sexual relations are the most natural relationship among animals. But human sexual relations are essentially different from that of animals. Marx believed this relationship reveals “the extent to which the human essence has become nature for man or nature has become the human essence for

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man.”¹⁴ Hence, sexual relations serve as the best example to demonstrate the level of human civilization and an individual being’s cultivation. Thinkers such as JeanJacques Rousseau and Zhuangzi were mistaken in believing that natural state is the best for humanity. Likewise, other thinkers, such as Xunzi and Thomas Hobbes, were equally misled in treating natural state as the worst human condition. In effect, the natural state and attributes per se are neither favorable nor detrimental, neither good nor evil, to human beings. These concepts are relevant only to the social human. Moreover, humanity long ago lost its simple natural state. The natural attributes humanity possessed are entirely socialized. Perception and human instinct have been rationalized and integrated with the human mind. Therefore, a person’s biological attributes are inseparable from society. An investigation of these attributes should not be isolated from the historical process that socialized them. Human eyes and limbs are different from a chimpanzee’s; human sense organs serve as a unique perceptual system only found in human beings. Natural attributes ought to receive their due attention; in the meantime, their socialized state demands a higher degree of recognition. Second, labor is one of the characteristics of human essence. The essential distinction between human beings and the lower animals is that the former is capable of making tools to facilitate labor. As a species, human beings have a need for labor. This is a biological need. Xunzi believed that human beings, unlike the lower animals, utilized other species to nourish their kinsfolk. To sustain individual existence and multiply the species, labor is indispensable for human beings. This is determined by the natural attributes of humans as a species. However, labor also enables human beings to surpass the animal kingdom. Through labor, human beings manifest their power to control nature and create a better future by making use of the materials accumulated through labor. Li Dazhao claimed that “now is life, now is motivation, now is action, now is creation.”¹⁵ He evidently used the “now” to refer to the activities in the present society. Materials from the past are a fait accompli, in this sense, human labor indeed involves a passive aspect. Nonetheless, human activity has a directional significance, guiding the past towards an anticipated future; this makes it possible to display human creativity in labor. Owing to the natural needs of the species and its reliance on existing material, human beings’ manual labor and other realistic activities inevitably involve some degree of passivity. Even so, its active force is just as formidable. Because of

 Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Martin Milligan (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm#s2, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Li Dazhao, “On Time,” in Li Dazhao 2006, 666.

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active force, people are capable of seizing present opportunities and turning themselves into locomotives of history, thereby human freedom is manifested. Third, human essence is elaborately expressed in social relations. Since labor requires social organization, human beings need to be sociable so as to have efficient production. Necessary needs inevitably give rise to social integration in the productive process, for which an individual being is rather inadequate. As Xunzi described it, it is because of their collective power that people can use cattle to plough the fields and draft horses for the journey. Human beings build communities that become the necessary condition for taking advantage of other creatures. In terms of distribution, humans are born with basic desires that must be satisfied with supplies from the material world. In addition, individuals tend to, more often than not, have conflicting desires from which confusion and quarrel ensue if no measures and distributive systems are in place to restrain them. Therefore, in order to fairly manage the distribution of the means of living, social institutions must be established, and people must abide by norms collectively agreed upon. In his essay “Theses on Feuerbach,” Marx acknowledged the old materialism’s view that human beings were products of circumstances and education but added that “it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. […] The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”¹⁶ So, the person who engages in a revolutionary practice is not entirely a biological human. Marx remarked that the essence of such a person is the ensemble of social relations. The basic form of interaction in a society is the relation of production, which manifests as class relations in a class society. Admittedly, many social institutions exist alongside class relations, such as family, educational institutions, even the unity of different classes, ethnicities, and nations. Human essence is shaped by all these social relations and evolves through social practice. The formation of social institutions does involve passivity, since institutions are determined by historical conditions. However, the norms that govern social organizations, i. e., the laws of necessity, are established by human beings. A person can voluntarily choose to observe or violate the established norms. Any mode of genuinely civilized interaction in a society ought to be an interaction between free individuals who respect other people’s free will. Surely, complicated circumstance should be taken into consideration. For instance, the freedom of the exploiting class comes at the expense of the slavery of laborers. The social norms of the ruling class prove to be a compulsory external force for

 Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” Cyril Smit (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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the working class. The goal of human development, however, is to realize the freedom of humanity. Such is the demand of human essence. Fourth, human essence places special emphasis on the conscious and rational human. Many Chinese philosophers, such as Mencius, singled out reason as the sole difference between human beings and the lower animals. Marxism has a similar approach but goes further to claim that human reason evolves through social practice. Labor transformed the brain of the chimpanzee into human brain, and social existence shaped human social consciousness. Consequently, the human mind involves some degree of passivity that should not be dismissed. Thus, what is the human essence that the mind is comprised of? In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx distinguishes four modes of activity in which the mind comprehends the world: theoretical thinking, artistic activity, religious spirit, and practical spirit. The four modes of activity manifest human freedom. The freedom of religious spirit, though virtually an illusion, is possessed only by rational human beings. While theoretical thinking acquires wisdom, practical spirit expresses itself as moral good, and artistic activity creates the virtue of beauty. All these elements constitute the primary virtues of a free individual. In Capital, Marx states that “beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in-itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis.”¹⁷ Here, he is apparently referring to the free development of the human mind and reason. Since the mind is inseparable from the body, the development of the mind cannot happen without a material basis. The domain of freedom (the free development of reason) is premised on the domain of necessity (material production). Moreover, the power of the mind necessarily relies on corresponding objects and materials to manifest and advance itself. In short, a human being’s natural attributes, labor, and social relations are intimately tied to the freedom of the human mind. The freedom demanded by reason plays out in human labor, interpersonal relations, and perceptual activities. Isolated from practical labor and social relations, freedom would become an empty jargon. Free labor is a human being’s quintessential demand. It is the ideal coming true, the fulfillment of the unity of the subject and the object, the unity of knowledge and action. Freedom is always rooted in social practice, primarily the practice of material production. A theory of practice is first and fundamental to any epistemology. Knowing, as an upward spiral movement, proceeds in a circuit: from practice to knowledge, from knowledge to further practice, and

 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Samuel Moore and Edward Avelin (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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again from practice to further knowledge. This movement comes from the interaction between the subject and the object based on social practice, which is also the motivating power for rational development. The efficient cause manifests as practice uniting the subject and the object and supplies all rational activities with raw materials. Sense organs are, as it were, the entrance for knowledge. It is in practice that people get in touch with external things and thus obtain perceptual data (the given), which can be called the material cause of all knowledge. To acquire concept from perceptual data is to return that which is given to the given, which is the knowledge of experience. If we consider the issue from a formalistic point of view, following Jean Piaget’s theory, the logic of action is internalized into the logic of thought. A conceptual structure observes both formal logic and dialectical logic. The logic of thinking, including rational intuition, is the formal cause of all knowledge. Such a form is the product of thousands of millions of years of practice. In addition, practice is a purposeful and intentional activity; while knowledge, based on practice, must direct activities and supply the means in order to bring about the unity of the subject and the object. In this sense, the interaction between the subject and the object can be taken as the final cause of all knowledge. In essence, as the cause of knowledge, practice is the unity of material, formal, and final causes. The unity of opposites, i. e., the subject and the object, with practice as its basis, constitutes the cause of knowledge and all human rational activities. In the process of practice and the interaction between the subject and the object, knowledge and action, as the essence of human reason, develop themselves. It seems reasonable to say that Wang Fuzhi’s conception of the relation between nature and the Heavenly Way did refer to the free activities of reason. Human reason, on the one hand, always directly confronts the realm of necessity, so freedom lies in the possibilities of actual choices based on the knowledge of necessity. The human subjects, on the other hand, in aiming to complete their nature, strive to make some impression on nature so as to intuit for themselves, to possess freedom that surpasses the realm of necessity, and in the end to gain access to the development of humanity. When practice is treated as the material and formal causes of knowledge, and as the unity of material and form through a process that gives back to experience that which is obtained from it, humanity’s subjective initiative and rational power can certainly find their coherent expression. However, free activities are best manifested in the purposefulness of human practice. People deliberate about the possibilities of reality according to rational knowledge, then select the possibility most suited to human needs; they set up goals and find ways to accomplish them. In so doing, human actions gain freedom. Meanwhile, the development of human essence is pursued as the end for all human beings who mold themselves with purposefulness in order to become free individual. To say that the universe possesses

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an ultimate goal or a predetermined end is to exhibit a metaphysical outlook. Such a teleological cosmology sees only the instrumental value in humankind, a view that is hardly worthy of endorsement. Human activities are purposeful, and their ends amount to the development of human essence. As human history evolves, human activities and human character will gain more freedom.

The Alienation of Labor and Its Overcoming The opposite of freedom of labor is estranged labor. Genuine free labor is possible only after the elimination of the alienation of labor. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx explicated his theory of the alienation of labor, stating that the product of such labor is an alien object that opposes and exercises power over the worker. What is realized in labor is actually the objectification of labor. In order to create wealth, labor must be united with nature. However, the wealth created by the worker is seized by another person, so the worker is merely an enslaved tool. As Marx sees it, labor is human essence, and it is the mark that differentiates humankind from the lower animals. Alienated labor, however, becomes an external force imposed upon the worker. Labor offers the forced worker who endures physical pain and mental suffering nothing but misery. In this sense, estranged labor is involuntary and coercive. Human essence eventually is lost in such alienated labor. The characteristics of human essence lie in social labor and the social integration of the production of labor; people purposefully transform and reshape the natural world to evince the fact that humankind possess consciousness and reason and is able to obtain freedom in the transformation of things-in-themselves to things-for-ourselves. In the alienated state, however, labor and its products are made into powers that are oppressive to the worker, and there exist only the exploitative relationship among people. As a result, the things that are created by people themselves become alienated powers. For instance, the state and religion, originally established with good intentions by the people, might turn into coercive apparatus oppressive to the very people. Then, how does alienation come about? First of all, it comes about as the result of limitations in the level of productive powers. In a time when productive powers were relatively low, private property began to accumulate. When private ownership of property prevailed, the proprietors, because of their possession of the means of production, became exploiters, and the workers were under their control. In the end, the products of labor became an alienating power the exploiters used to oppress the workers. Private property, itself a product of the alienation of labor, in turn caused the workers’ further estrangement from labor. In a capitalist

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society, the worker’s labor is objectified into the capitalist’s commodity. Commodity and capital are the means by which the worker is ruled and exploited. Here, a mutually complementary process is at work: labor is alienated as a commodity and capital, which in turn increase the alienation of labor. In the meantime, the inception of alienated labor was established at a time when the level of people’s understanding and rational thinking was relatively undeveloped. People were vulnerable when confronted with the natural world on their own and were not yet the masters of their own lives. Therefore, they believed in supernatural forces that manipulated them. These supernatural forces were the beginning of the alienation of human essence. So, people started to fashion gods and divinities after their own images. Subsequently, these human-made gods and divinities assumed power over humankind. In a similar fashion, people worshiped power and wealth because they could not comprehend social laws and were unable to control their own livelihoods. In a society with a natural economy, the landed gentry not only controlled the farmers economically, their power even surpassed the power of government. Society fostered the worship of power and believed the power to be metaphysical (e. g., the Heavenly mandate). In capitalist society, such worship takes the form of commodity and money fetishism. The worship of power and money, to a certain degree, arise from people’s confusion and ignorance. Once firmly established, however, these beliefs only cause further confusion and ignorance. Therein lies another mutually complementary process. In order to have the free, all-around development of human essence, alienated labor must be eliminated. According to Marx’s interpretation, all forms of estrangement boil down to the alienation of labor. Religious suppositions, though originated from ignorance, do have their social bases. To remove estrangement altogether, private ownership of the land must be terminated, and productive powers and the level of human understanding must be improved. According to Marx’s theory, the ideal level can only be obtained in a communist society. Marx and Engels believed that humanity is still in a prehistoric stage, even though labor has removed humankind from the animal kingdom and brought about a categorical difference between humankind and the lower animals. However, only the establishment of a communist society can ensure humankind’s severance, on a social level, from the animal kingdom. Moreover, only in a communist society can human beings become the masters of society, truly develop the human essence of freedom on the other side of the realm of necessity, and thus conclude the prehistoric stage. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx lashes out at capitalist institutions and their alienation. His works are full of humanistic compassion for proletarians. In spite of their evils, alienation has brought about some positive influences in history. Alienated labor is almost inevitable when the level of productive powers is low. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx acknowledges the historical

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role played by the capitalist class. Likewise, feudalism at the outset also propelled historical progress. From the perspective of historical materialism, the alienation of labor has its historical causes and has promoted the development of human nature. Apparently, the demand for the liberation of human nature is tied to the development of the commodity economy in modern times, which is an important stage of human history. Nonetheless, the eradication of the alienation of labor and the actualization of a communist society must be obtained for the free and all-around development of human beings. As it is, a communist society itself is a historical process. The development of productive powers can only be relentlessly unending, and it is also the case with the development of human knowledge and culture. Human progress from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom moves in an upward spiral, and so does the progress of human essence from being-in-itself to being-for-itself. Therefore, the freedom of any stage is necessarily a relative, historical, and conditional thing. We cannot bring ourselves to endorse freedom in the ultimate sense. Then, will there still be alienation of labor, or other forms of estrangement in the communist society? Well, there is no easy answer to such question. It is fanciful to think that people can shake off ignorance at once. After all, the realm of ignorance is immense, larger even than the realm of knowledge. Accordingly, some forms of estrangement will likely persist in the communist society. As to the case of our country, the victory of the people’s revolution instilled some superstitions in the mind of the common people. It was a phenomenon of alienation that had its roots in reality. China is a country with an incredibly long history of feudal society. The detrimental legacy of feudal despotism was far from extinct after the Revolution. Overcoming alienation in a nation based on an agricultural economy is a daunting task. The peasantry that constitutes the backbone of the population, and the administrative power that outstrips the society, are the very soil that nourishes worship of the individual. As a matter of fact, we have yet to eliminate the people’s worship of power entirely. In our socialist society, it is imperative to develop a commodity economy to advance productive powers. In the meantime, we should stave off fetishism of commodities and money. On top of this, at a time when the country was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the worship of money and power were united into one cult. Taking all these circumstances into consideration, intellectuals must exhort the people to guard against alienating conditions. Moreover, scholars must have a good understanding of the means to prevent the rampancy of alienation, and advice the people to advance their productive powers, democracy, the legal system, and the education of the nation.

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Particularity and Generality Humankind’s demand for freedom arises from labor and the advancement from nature to virtue, and this demand expresses itself in the unity of common and particular characteristics.

The Connection between the Individual and Society Things in the natural world possess common as well as particular characteristics, which can be treated as the unity of particularity and generality. Generality resides in individual characteristics, just as the nature of a species is exhibited in individual beings belonging to that species. However, individual distinctions in the seemingly insignificant inorganic substances are often passed over. Admittedly, the individual characteristics of things that are intimately connected with human life, e. g., the earth, the sun, the Yangzi River, and the Yellow River, certainly catch people’s attention. In the domain of organic substances, people tend to focus on the species, genus, and family to which a living creature belongs. For instance, people see a cultured tree, or a domesticated dog or cat before noticing its distinctive features. The situation is different when it comes to a person. We do not deal with people in the same way as we treat a tree, a rock, a cat, or a dog, but see each person as an individual with his or her singular characteristics. Every person must be treated as an end, and as someone with a demand for freedom. In a letter to Pavel Annenkov, Marx wrote that “the social history of man is never anything else than the history of his individual development, whether he is conscious of this or not. His material relations form the basis of all his relations. These material relations are but the necessary forms in which his material and individual activity is realised.”¹⁸ What Marx meant by “material and individual activity” is a person’s livelihood. Productive labor is a process through which an individual worker and the natural world conduct material exchanges. The integration of individuals generates the social relations of production from which spring the entire network of social relations. In this sense, a person is never an isolated individual, but is constantly enveloped in the nexus of the society. An individual’s activities within social relations always have some historical significance, because each person bears the legacy of productive powers and the modes of human interaction accumulated over the centuries. Since this legacy has some determination over the social relations of the present generation, per-

 Marx 1975, 95.

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sonal history can in no way break away from its connection with the past and with contemporary social history. In terms of biology, the corporeal body is determined by previous generations, and its development is premised on the development of the whole species. In terms of sociology, each person is contextualized within a particular historical stage determined by the present level of productive powers and human needs and entwined in certain human connections. Therefore, for the individual, human essence is virtually the same as the ensemble of social relations which, in turn, regulates individual development. When labor is alienated, social relations involve the relation of dominance and obedience, a relation that feeds into the oppressive forces controlling the worker. In the social relations formed in material and individual activities, the worker is an autonomous individual conducting a material exchange with the natural world. These relations can readily turn into shackles of individuality when labor is estranged. Marx and Engels described such relation as the individual’s subservience to contingency, and the private relation’s subservience to the common class relation. Even so, the phenomenon of alienation can be eradicated in a communist society in which individual originality and free development will no longer be empty talk, and the control of humankind by social relations will disappear altogether.

Individual and Collective Consciousness Social labor is material and individual activity. In the same way, the activity of the human mind is individual activity. The subject of the mind is unique and singular in that people’s feelings and thoughts are distinct from each other. Each person has self-consciousness, an “I” as the core of all the activities of the mind. However, this does not imply that the self is closed up within. As Max Scheler said, the mind possesses world-openness.¹⁹ The I is open to the world. Unlike the lower animals whose interactions with their surroundings are instinctive, humankind is able to break through its limits and achieve some degree of the objectification of the human essence. Social interactions among people foster collective consciousness, which is absorbed into individual consciousness. Consequently, the human mind can be regarded as the integration of self-consciousness and collective consciousness. Generality and particularity, in this sense, exist in the realm of consciousness. Liang Qichao remarked that history harbors a great secret, which is the relation between particularity and generality. He made an inquiry as to how to expand par-

 Scheler 1981, 39.

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ticularity into the generality of an era and the generality of a group, and how to express the generality of an era and a group through the particularity of individuals.²⁰ He reached the conclusion that only a comprehensive understanding of the relation between personal mentality and the psychology of a nation and a society can fathom the causal laws of history. This line of thought led Liang Qichao to incline toward an idealistic view of history, as he believed that an entity embodies social psychology and is determined by the course of history. History, in his estimation, is a mere expression of social psychology. In effect, social psychology is but an entity. If social psychology is treated as the I, the I will have to be the collective consciousness. Thus, collective psychology is still associated with individual interactions rather than being an entity separated from individual consciousness. Social consciousness reflects social existence, but it is a product of the minds of countless individuals. Admittedly, social or collective consciousness assumes a material appearance, and expresses itself in literature, arts, and architecture. Finally, it is accumulated in culture and tradition. Even so, culture and tradition must be grasped by the minds of individuals. As a process, consciousness cannot exist except in an individual’s mind. Liang Qichao was insightful in discerning particularity and generality in historical evolution, and the link between personal and social psychology, as the keys to an understanding of the laws of causation in history. However, because of his idealistic view of history, he played up the effects of how the opinions of great people in history reflect their contemporary social consciousness. Great people, as representatives of the national spirit, can influence society and the course of history with their individuality. Historical materialists, however, emphasize the role of the masses and that which motivates an entire nation or class rather than a few extraordinary personalities. In the realm of social history, a multitude of Is interacting with each other produce what Engels describes as “the combined force.” The combined force of a multitude of will power is what we call national and class psychology. Each and everyone’s willpower contributes to the combined force, although great people might be the first to glimpse incipient new ideas in social consciousness and the first to be aware of a historical trend. Therefore, they advance new theories by putting into order the scattered and confused opinions of the masses, and they lead the masses in struggle and make the masses conscious of their own struggle. This is the process of moving from beingin‐itself to being-for-itself. The pivotal role of great people is indeed undeniable, even as their emergence is premised on the combined force that molds the nation-

 See Liang Qichao 1989b, 114.

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al and social psychology. Great people are simply the exemplars of the collective psychology. In a society characterized by estranged conditions, hero worship is easily fostered by alienation. Great people are often idolized by the masses. Heroic figures always arise from the masses. Once recognized, however, the heroes transform into an alienating power, stripping the masses of their independent and autonomous character, and reducing them to a subservient position. Li Dazhao called upon the Chinese people to avoid idolizing heroic figures and sages. So as to highlight the bane of hero worship, he lamented that “the birth of Confucius occasions my country’s weakening.”²¹ Thinkers, political leaders, artists, etc., should strive to grasp the spirit of the age (mass psychology is its reflection) and be its representatives. If a person cannot comprehend the spirit of the age and the national psychology, he or she is unlikely to make a great contribution to history. Indeed, concepts such as the spirit of the age, national psychology, and class consciousness are by no means abstract, but concrete and full of contradictions. These concepts are ingrained in individuality and evolve along with individuality. In the end, the collective consciousness is always articulated through individual consciousness; and its progress from being-initself to being-for-itself is realized in the development of individual consciousnesses in the majority of the people. Particularity is tangible and substantial; each individual consciousness has its distinctive course of development. A thorough understanding of particularity is only possible when an investigation is conducted with due respect and compassion. When an investigation of individuality and its particular courses of development are effective, such an investigation prepares the necessary conditions for insight into mass psychology and the spirit of the era. The basic form of community is the social clique formed within the relations of production. In a class society, class relations manipulate other relations among people. However, the undeniable class character of people’s consciousness does not imply that class conflict encompasses all forms of human relations, nor that class character can be treated as human nature. Hence, class consciousness can in no way supersede collective consciousness. Some social relations, as a matter of fact, have a longer history than class relations, such as sexual relations and the family relations that derivate from them. National relations, though regulated through class relations in a class society, cannot be reduced to the terms of capitalist and socialist nations. In a country like China, with its long-established traditions, patriotism has been the impetus of the nation. Lu Xun’s exposition of Chinese nationality, for instance, focused on national psychology. His depiction of

 Li Dazhao 1984, 161.

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the Chinese people’s effort to maintain superficial appearances is particularly acute. His analysis of the common characteristics of the people is worthy of our earnest consideration. Dogmatists err precisely because they treat class character as something hard and fast. Owning to this assumption, they fail to study the multivalent collective consciousness and overlook the development of particularity. Consequently, class character, in their doctrine, is a mere abstract term, and worst of all, a weapon one picks up to attack others. Qü Qiübai’s essay “The Uncalled-for Remarks,” was considered obscure in past decades. Actually, what he meant to convey is rather straightforward. He believes that class character should not be treated as a theoretical term. His experience with literary creation taught him that the people ought not to be treated as the embodiment of a jumble of abstract terms, classified as officials, ordinary people, workers, rich peasants, etc. The people are, first of all, living beings with individuality, even as they represent certain relations of production. His insight reveals the evil of dogmatism in stripping people of their individuality. Plato treats the universal as something metaphysical, as does Hegel’s conception of the Idea. Dialectical materialism, with social practice as the first and fundamental doctrine of its epistemology, maintains the primary importance of particular truth. The mind not only contains the common and collective consciousness but is also unique and singular. The humanities should place greater emphasis on the particularity. From a theoretical perspective, the essential is unlikely to be equated with the general. A prevalent but erroneous view holds that the essential and the general, though entirely different, are the same thing; that humankind as the end itself implies that, for each and every person, human essence resides within his or her individuality (which by no means denies generality). An awareness of this view is crucial to studies of the arts and ethics. Literary writings aspire to depict unique individual personalities, and ethical research cannot deviate from the basic principles of morality, i. e., humanism, but must proceed from the conviction that humankind is itself the end.

Chapter 3 Valuation and Value Humanity’s essential demand for freedom is made explicit in a value system. Value is the object of assessment and the objectified valuation of meanings. The process of objectification, moreover, is accomplished in people’s creative activities.

Knowledge and Valuation Knowledge Containing Valuation In terms of the acquisition of knowledge, valuation is a part of the knowledge process. People acquire knowledge of things on the basis of practice. The definition and classification of the things reflects, to some degree, the forms of knowing. Lenin stated that “a full ‘definition’ of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants.”¹ This so-called full definition refers to a comprehensive understanding of the nature of things. So as to satisfy the logical requirement, the whole of human experience is called upon to examine whether the subject and the object meet the criterion of truth and to evaluate whether the two parties are compatible with each other. The definition of a notion has to contain both aspects of human experience. The kind of definition given by formal logic tends to be onesided and incomplete. For instance, that “water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen,” a definition given by chemistry, accurately states the substance of water as ratified in scientific experiments. However, a statement such as “water is a necessary liquid refreshment in human life” puts emphasis on something entirely different. To say that water is a liquid refreshment, hydraulic power generates electricity, and so on, is to stress certain qualities of water that are fit for certain human needs. Such statements reveal the human being’s instrumental use of a thing rather the thing’s own properties. Water as refreshment is relative to a necessary need of the body, and the capacity to generate electricity is relative to a demand by modern society for productive powers. A full definition, however, encom-

 Vladimir I. Lenin, “Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin,” in Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. XXXII, Yuri Sdobnikov (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jan/25.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-004

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passes the things’ natural attributes as well as their connection with human needs, or the whole of human experience. The classification of things follows the same procedure. In his book The Manual of Important Arts for the People, Jia Sixie made reference to the classification of grains. His criteria were exhaustive, including the essential traits of the grain, i. e., the length of time to maturity, the height of the stalk, the quality, and so on. All these aspects can be tested against objective facts; traits such as yield, taste, and milling quality can be determined by practice. Classification needs to note the essential features that are innate in a given object as well as the relative connections of its attributes and qualities to human needs. In general, all scientific investigations follow a similar procedure. However, when empirical research is taken up in theoretical science, the ways in which a given thing meets human needs tend to be passed over. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, because theoretical science tends to focus on an object’s modalities and qualities, while leaving it to technological research to investigate the relative connections of its attributes and qualities to human needs. In modern times, theoretical sciences, such as atomic physics, quantum physics, and non-Euclidean geometry, never intend to examine the question of how their research object is relevant to human needs. That being said, theoretical sciences are progressive in that their concentrated effort has brought us closer to an understanding of the essential characteristics of the natural world, even as both theoretical and empirical sciences, on the whole, do not lose sight of the relation between their objects and human needs. Human knowledge of objective things involves a layer of valuation in addition to cognition. Discerning the relation between objects and human needs is already an act of valuation. The statement that water is indispensable for human life articulates people’s understanding and valuation of water: that it is fit to quench thirst. The valuation emphasizes human interests. To say that a rice paddy has a high yield also contains a valuation. When people pass judgment on an object, saying that it is useful or useless, beneficial or harmful, adorable or unsightly, or that they like or dislike it, or even saying that it is beautiful or virtuous, and so on, such a statement implies a valuation that specifies the connection between the object and human needs.

The Distinction between Cognition and Valuation Cognition in its broad sense connotes valuation. Here, cognition and valuation are examined separately in order to present a clear analysis. Some propositions are simply cognitive, i. e., “this is water,” “that is a book,” while others are more complex, such as the formulas and axioms in theoretical sciences. But these complex

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propositions reveal only simple cognition, because they do not evaluate the connection between their objects and human needs. Propositions of this kind entail the question of veracity, that is, the correspondence between subjective knowledge and objective reality. The answer to the question itself, be it true or false, does not constitute a valuation. This is because valuation judges the usefulness of an object, while cognition discerns the factual. The distinction is equally applicable to scientific research and daily life. For instance, when someone talks about factual information, his or her speech might be of no use to the listener. Nor what is useful or valuable is necessary to the factual. The difference is crucial because of the inconsistencies between cognition and valuation. What is true and false implies some degree of valuation. However, simple statements, e. g., “this is water,” indicate factual cognition, just as the theoretical propositions in most of the natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and geology, are far from offering valuation. In the early stages of empirical scientific research, however, cognition and valuation are often intermingled. Ancient Chinese scientific treatises, such as the Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine and the Compendium of Materia Medica, exhibit the integration of cognition and valuation. Ancient astronomy tended to make up far-fetched connections between celestial phenomena and human affairs and correspondences between humankind and Heaven in its teleological explanations of natural phenomena. Astronomy gradually eliminated teleological suppositions, and the natural world is no longer seen as existing solely for the purpose of humanity. Consequently, having abandoned its pursuit of the connection between the stars and human needs, astronomy primarily makes observances of the actual conditions of celestial phenomena. This indeed constitutes progress in science; however, science, on the whole, cannot do away with valuation. The objects of cognition are external things that are independent of the human will. In an act of cognition, the subject and the object form a relation in which the object is considered as the other to the subject. In practice, however, interactions between human beings and nature, and social interactions among people in a community, can be made into objects of cognition. But the relation between such objects and the subject must be treated as an external relation as well. In this sense, social history can be studied as part of natural history, and the development of productive powers and the means of production as objects of cognition. But the relation between these objects and the subject will also be treated as an external relation. In any field of study, the human mind strives to comprehend its object objectively and accurately. Only the knowledge acquired in such a cognition can be of true use in practice. Valuation aims to unravel the ways in which things-for-ourselves satisfy human needs. Things-for-ourselves constitute the objects of valuation that possess functions manifested in the given ob-

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jects when they are in certain relations with human beings. These functions can be of practical use. When an object’s function does not meet human needs, the object will be deemed to be of negative value. Conversely, the object will be deemed to be of positive value. For instance, statements such as “water is drinkable” and “hydraulic power generates electricity” make explicit the use of water to human beings in certain conditions. Other statements, such as “the rivers and lakes of the Yangzi River Delta are beautiful,” describe a certain quality of that region. However, primitive people may not have appreciated its beauty. Hence, the valuation of an object as beautiful, lovely, beneficial, or useful is something that is relevant to people. These qualities or functions cannot exist independently of the subject (human beings). Mencius stated that “men’s mouths agree in having the same relishes; their ears agree in enjoying the same sounds; their eyes agree in recognising the same beauty.”² People enjoy the same delicious food, melodious music, and colorful pictures, so the connection between things in the world and human beings’ needs has some degree of objectivity. However, in this connection, the relation between a subject and an object is an internal relation, since the subject’s circumstances and the object’s manifested functions are mutually dependent. The object’s manifested functions adapt to the subject’s changing needs. An old saying reveals the gist of this relation: that those who have comfortable lives have no idea what feelings of hunger are. Similarly, jewelers tend to disregard the aesthetic value of precious stones, evaluating their prices as commodities. The subject’s needs are entangled with emotions and desires, so differences in people’s valuations of the same object are to be expected. For instance, Western society emphasizes each person’s particular taste. Every person or group evaluates a given object with distinctive interests. In addition, a person might evaluate the same object entirely differently in different circumstances. That being said, all of the divergent valuations have something in common. Similar social circumstances and education, and similar experiences and upbringings, may contribute to similar valuations. Most people’s daily experiences seem to confirm Mencius’s comment that people’s eyes agree in recognizing the same beauty. For instance, people who have a similar upbringing and cultural tradition find the same masterpiece to be beautiful. A common feature is apparent especially when comparisons are available. For instance, among the eighteen statues of Arhat that stand in the Purple Gold Nunnery in the city of Suzhou, sixteen were made by the acclaimed artisan Lei Chao and his wife in the Southern Song dynasty, and two were restored by later generations. After a superficial viewing, most peo-

 Mencius, “Gaozi I:7,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/gaozi-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ple agree that the sixteen original statues are lively and beautiful, while the restored ones seem be to poor imitations. So, people can reach similar as well as different valuations of the same object, but an internal relation is always present between the object and the subject. Valuation differs from simply cognition in that the activity of knowing contains a distinctive feature.

The Role of Valuation in Cognition Acquiring knowledge involves cognition and valuation. The importance of valuation is completely undeniable because of its function in the process of knowing. In the first place, valuation determines the connection between things and human needs. The process of appraisal is indispensable to knowledge. That we know water is drinkable or that the rice paddy yields edible grain surely belongs to knowledge. However, this is not only knowledge of the functions of a given object in certain conditions, but also knowledge of human needs and hence of essential human power. Meanwhile, valuation encompasses people’s different views, which are, as conscious reflections of social existence, certainly of cognitive value. In the second place, valuation contributes to cognitive development. As purposive activity, human social practice comprises the basis for cognitive development. However, practice itself, as purposive activity, requires the guidance of concepts that, in turn, cannot be without conceptions of the ideal. Hence, cognition alone is insufficient as the impetus for action. For instance, concerning lumber, we need to know that it is wood and that it is suitable for construction, thus revealing the connection between the lumber’s function as a construction material and human needs. This can serve as guidance for some human actions, such as afforestation and lumber milling. In short, valuation helps to impel people to action, to make use of cognitive initiatives, and to lend a direction to people’s actions and cognition. In the third place, the self, that is, the subject of cognition, comes to possess a higher degree of self-consciousness because of valuation’s capacity to uncover the relation between reality and human needs, and to guide human action and cognition. The subject of cognition has a complete character. In terms of cognition, the subject possesses perception and thought, which is hardly a complete self since a complete character requires the subject to have cognition, emotions, and willpower. It follows that human beings need to be subjects of cognition and valuation. In particular, in the exercise of valuation, self-consciousness gradually gains acuteness and becomes the conscious I. In essence, cognition is based on practice. Valuation reveals the important relations between things and human needs and impels people to develop cognition and consciousness.

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Operations of Valuation Interest and Harm, Suffering and Happiness Valuation’s uncovering of the connection between things in the natural world and human needs ultimately depends on human interest, whose constituents are happiness and pleasure. Objects of valuation are not things-in-themselves, independent of human association. They are closely tied to humans. In the meanwhile, human beings are always in the nexus of social relations. Hence, objects of valuation are things-for-ourselves, relevant to human needs, e. g., they function as food, drink, artwork, and building material for humankind. Their being treated as objects of valuation betrays their tie with human needs. We should be mindful of the fact that any human need, be it material or spiritual, has its origin in nature, but evolves in the course of social history. All these needs manifest human essence. On the one hand, when people find something lovely, delightful, they evaluate it positively, saying that this thing is good and beneficial because it fulfills some of their particular needs. This is a sort of value judgment in the broad sense. On the other hand, when people find something unpleasant, repugnant, and loathsome, they evaluate it negatively, saying that this thing is bad and harmful because it is contrary to their particular needs. This is a negative value judgment. The Mohist Canon interpreted benefit as “what one is pleased to get,” while harm as “what one dislikes getting.”³ Such expositions of interest and harm are pragmatically inclined. Mencius claimed that “a man who commands our liking is what is called a good man.”⁴ He believed that “the principles of our nature and the determinations of righteousness are agreeable to my mind, just as the flesh of grass and grain-fed animals is agreeable to my mouth.”⁵ Mencius is non-pragmatic in his treatment of righteous deeds and good people, however, what he referred to as “good” in the broad sense is actually comparable with the good as expressed in the Mohist Canon. As a living being, humanity by nature strives to seek pleasure and avoid hardship. Not only did the utilitarians of feudal society, but also the Chinese Marxists who fiercely reject asceticism, champion pleasure. Human desires within a reasonable range should be satisfied. Li Dazhao believed that “seeking pleasure and

 Mozi, “Canon I:27,” in Mohist Canon, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin II:71,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Gaozi I:7,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/gaozi-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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shunning hardship is human nature. It is either affectation or hypocrisy to act against nature.”⁶ Since it is in our nature to seek pleasure and avoid hardship, violating natural demands would imply that one ought to follow the Neo-Confucians’ doctrine, namely, to eliminate human desires so as to preserve Heavenly principles. Such conduct would be compulsory and sanctimonious. The ascetics follow a similar track: they either force themselves to practice abstention, or merely pay lip service to their own doctrines. Li Dazhao stated that “the best way to seek pleasure and avoid hardship is to respect labor. All happiness arises from labor; and all hardship is dissolved by labor.”⁷ In this sense, Marxists advocate a revolutionary pragmatism grounded in social practice. The genuinely good is that which truly benefits the people. The good is what is in the human interest that arises from people’s natural desire to seek happiness and avoid hardship. Hence, the distinction between interest and harm comes down to happiness and hardship. Marxists and utilitarians alike seem to concur on this point. Admittedly, people’s interest is the kind of interest and benefit that originates in social practice. This point of view is similar to what Li Dazhao emphasized: that labor is the true form of seeking happiness and avoiding hardship, which is a point that differentiates Marxists from the traditional utilitarians.

Deliberation and Choice Valuation is the making of comparisons between happiness and hardship, with further comparisons within the categories of happiness and hardship. Hence deliberation is required when evaluating all the options. Happiness is contrary to hardship, and interest is contrary to harm. People generally seek the former and avoid the latter. However, objective situations are usually complicated; the differences between happiness and hardship, and interest and harm, are quantitative as well as qualitative. Many old sayings indicate that people can find joy amidst sorrow and feel sadness amidst joy. So, hardship and happiness are not fundamentally incompatible, but require rational deliberation to discern them. The Mohist Canon states that “to weigh is to assess the heaviness or lightness of the circumstances. To weigh is to adjust.”⁸ Apparently, weighing is deliberation, one takes time to deliberate about the interest and harm, hardship and happiness looming over one’s head, in order to make a well-considered decision and choose  Li Dazhao 1984, 664.  Li Dazhao 1984, 665.  Mozi, “Major Illustrations:3” in Mohist Canon, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/majorillustrations/zhs, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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the greater of the advantageous options, or the lesser of the harmful. For instance, medicine is bitter to the taste, but it cures illness and restores health. So, we willingly accept the foul taste. The Mohist Canon illustrates with the example that people would rather lose fingers to save their own life when falling into the hands of robbers. To lose one’s fingers is to choose the lesser of the harmful, and to flee from the robbers is to choose the greater of the advantageous. By stating that “to weigh is to adjust,” the Mohist Canon implies that rational deliberation enables people to draw distinctions between the greater interest and the lesser harm, and the qualitative difference between hardship and happiness. The Mohist Canon further argues that “to weigh the heaviness or lightness of the circumstances is to seek. To seek is to act rightly or wrongly.”⁹ Seeking is not simply deliberation but requires the person to discern the right and wrong of his or her action, that is, to reach a moral choice after a deliberation. One seeks to do what is right and righteous and abstain from what is wrong and unjust. Hence, seeking is a kind of moral choice and implies the person’s moral intention to do good deeds with his or her own volition. The Mohist Canon draws a distinction between weighing and seeking because a valuation contains two different steps. First, one must be aware of the given interest and harm to initiate weighing. Second, one must make choices to direct one’s action. The two steps are distinguishable even in intuitive and instinctive actions. For instance, most people usually like lovely colors and dislike foul smells. Such common inclinations imply a weighing (differentiating lovely colors from foul smells) and a selection (like or dislike). So, even simple actions consist of the two steps mentioned earlier, let alone more complicated actions. For instance, a physician, in his or her effort to coax a child to take medication, first tells the child all the medicinal benefits of the pills, then encourages the child to be brave. What the physician attempts to do is to give the child an opportunity to weigh options and make a choice. It is fairly easy to deliberate and choose the right thing in matters concerning life and health. For some complex activities, however, it is difficult to reach a satisfactory conclusion. For instance, many revolutionary heroes who laid down their lives for a righteous cause faced the choice of death or upholding their moral principle. A poem by the Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi brilliantly captures the difficulty of the decision: “Liberty and love / These two I must have. / For my love I’ll sacrifice / My life. / For liberty I’ll sacrifice / My love.”

 Mozi, “Major Illustrations:3” in Mohist Canon, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/majorillustrations/zhs, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Standards of Valuation Deliberation and choice require criteria. In general, valuation relies on ideal conceptions of reality. With ideals as the criteria, valuation is manifested in the deliberation of possibilities and in the process through which possibilities come true in reality. Any idea, when used to guide actions, involves ideals to some extent. Because every idea has its structure, all ideas are interconnected through these structures, and put into effect certain tendencies of thought. Hence, ideals are knowledge of the possibilities; ideals correspond with human needs and exemplify people’s attitudes toward reality, their position in the nexus of social relations, and the level of their development of human wisdom. A wide variety of ideas that are realized in ideals sometimes act as the criteria of valuation. Xunzi’s conception of weighing, though similar to the view expounded in the Mohist Canon, has a different emphasis on the criteria of valuation. He stated that “the ways consist of the proper measure of the past and the present. To deviate from the Way and make one’s own choices is to lose sight of the origin of good fortune and disaster”¹⁰ Xunzi saw the Way (the Way of human) as the criterion of valuation. The concept of the proper measure (正權 zheng quan) implies a deliberation that makes reference to the norms of rites. He noted the importance of people’s views of the world and life in their deliberations. It is human reason that demands that people consciously follow certain criteria (views of the world and life) when making decisions. However, reason is not all-powerful, nor are the criteria always rational. Therefore, some deliberations may be bungled, and some choices may be wrong. As the Mohist Canon states: “To wei (to be doing something for the sake of … / to have as end) is to give the most weight in relation to the desires, having taken account of all that one knows.”¹¹ People can be trapped and controlled by desires if their reason does not acquire sufficient knowledge to correctly differentiate the beneficial from the harmful. That being so, even as human reason seeks to avoid the harmful and pursue the beneficial, desires have their role to play in deliberation as well. Moreover, if reason lapses, it might not see the big picture, as it were, and lose sight of the forest for the trees. Therefore, human interests, with emphases on immediate as well as long-term interests, should always be the starting point of human action. In short, on the one hand, immediate interests cannot be overlooked, or the people will be alienated; on

 Xunzi, “Zheng Ming:17,” in Xunzi, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/xunzi/zheng-ming/zhs, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Canon I:76,” in Mozi, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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the other hand, pragmatism that solely focuses on the present should not be allowed to spread, and long-term interests should be taken into consideration.

The Development of Valuation The valuation of arts, science, and morality tend to exhibit a disinterested stance. Or so it seems because these actions appear to be doing something for the sake of doing nothing. Arts, science, and morality are seen as ends in themselves and as possessing intrinsic value. How is that possible? The reason is that valuation develops from a lower to a higher level. If people allow themselves to be controlled by their desires, e. g., to like lovely colors and to dislike foul smells, to instinctively seek pleasure and avoid hardship, their valuation will involve a great degree of blindness. Accurate valuation is possible only through rational deliberation. Such valuation is indeed made consciously. Nevertheless, there is still room for the development of valuation. People are truly free from desires only when valuation can be made in the state of doing something for the sake of doing nothing. So, valuation has its own process of development.

Instrumental Value vs. Intrinsic Value In its broad sense, interest is what people refer to as the good. Many people think what is good must also be useful. So, interest becomes the end of people’s desires and pursuits. Some means and instruments are necessary for people to realize certain ends. In this sense, the value or the good of these instruments is subordinate to the ends, which in turn are utilized to realize interests. But we should be aware of the one-sided emphasis here. Human social practice (purposive activities) evolves in the course of history, so an end and its means cannot be isolated from each other. Indeed, they are interchangeable. Hegel pointed out that “the means is superior to the finite ends of external purposiveness: the plough is more honorable than are immediately the enjoyments procured by it and which are ends. The tool lasts, while the immediate enjoyments pass away and are forgotten. In his tools man possesses power over external nature, even though in respect of his ends he is, on the contrary, subject to it.”¹² Human beings, as a kind of natural being, are of course subject to the laws of nature. The materials that satisfy our necessary needs are required because of humans’ natural attributes, while the use of tools

 Hegel 2010, 663.

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originates from human essence. Tools, such as the plough, were first invented for the sake of fulfilling basic human needs for food and clothing. However, the use of tools allows humankind to have a slight edge over nature; hence, the tools themselves are more valuable than the products. Hegel’s exposition is very insightful, because each generation improves on its inherited tools and therefore impels the development of productive forces. The development of productive forces becomes the end of social practice, so, the means is transformed into the end. Productive relations, as a kind of means, constitute the basis for the development of productive forces. Therefore, the superstructure preserves and maintains productive relations in the end. This process can also be treated as a sort of means, but it can be transformed into an end only under certain conditions. For instance, in order to liberate productive forces, it would be necessary to reform productive relations, and a widespread revolution in society would then become the end of the whole nation. In terms of mutual transformation, the end and the means are relative to each other. Certainly, some things in human life always retain their instrumental value. For instance, medicine is for curing illness, and prison for maintaining public order. Neither would ever be able to transform its instrumental value into an end. However, all rational activities, such as the sciences, arts, and morality, exist for the sake of people’s interests, and thus have instrumental value; but they themselves are purposive activities with intrinsic value. The arts are by no means beyond practical interest, if we consider their origins. Russian revolutionary and Marxist theoretician Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov acutely revealed this point. In the introduction to his translation of Plekhanov’s Art and Social Life, Lu Xun expanded the argument, stating that artists cannot live in an ivory tower if they want their work to serve people’s interests. However, he believed that art itself has an intrinsic value, which lies in the viewer’s appreciation and the artist’s creation of artwork. People find pleasure in appreciation or creation without taking into consideration their gain or loss; therein arises the mentality of doing for the sake of doing nothing. Without this intrinsic pleasure, artists would find it gruesome to endure the long hours of creation. Academic research is also a good example for illustrating practical interest. Research in the natural sciences can be turned into productive power, while research in the humanities can direct social reforms. The truth or falsity of scientific and factual propositions might seem to be beyond the scope of valuation. However, because of the practical and utilitarian values of scientific technology when it is applied to production and social practice, research falls within the scope of valuation. Such instrumental value is indeed “the good of the means.” That being so, theoretical research does have intrinsic value to scientists and students. Aristotle argues that pleasure is present in the free activities of human capacities. If the

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mind is the organ of thought, then rational activities must be the freest for human beings. Philosophizing is the most pleasant of all human activities. As Aristotle sees it, wisdom itself is a virtue, and indeed the highest virtue. In terms of moral conduct, ethical norms aim to serve people’s interests, so moral conduct itself is “the good of the means.” Mozi stated: “The purpose of the magnanimous lies in procuring benefits for the world and eliminating its calamities.”¹³ He believes moral conduct is merely instrumental to human welfare. Comparable to the doctrines of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, Aristotle also believes that virtue itself is an end. Virtue does have its intrinsic value, but ethical code sometimes does turn into a set of phony teachings when adopted as instruments rather than as expressions of genuine moral state. Ji Kang and Ruan Ji of the 3rd century were outraged by Confucians’ hypocritical teachings, even as they themselves secretly cherished the ethical code. They believed that virtuous action ought to spring naturally from one’s heart. When his mother passed away, instead of observing the customary mourning rites, Ruan Ji went so far as to gorge himself with abandon on wine and meat to show his defiance of the pedantic Confucians. However, he was eventually overcome by sorrow, coughed up several liters of blood, and was incapacitated by grief for a long time. It can be said that his virtue of piety arose genuinely from his nature.

Relation between Spiritual Value and Utility Usefulness cannot be isolated from truth, good, and beauty. In his early work Philosophy of Life, Feng Youlan describes doing nothing as “the art of living.” He believes that when the good of the means is seen as having intrinsic value, people will focus on their internal life rather than seeking external things, and in this way will be relieved from many sufferings and have more joy in life. This is a pragmatic view (though Feng Youlan replaced this view with the doctrine of the sphere of life in his later works). The pragmatic approach treats the means as having intrinsic value as a subjective attitude toward life and as an expedient way of seeking pleasure and avoiding hardship. Such viewpoint is hardly commendable. One would have to turn into a hypocrite to treat the means as a good since the means per se does not have intrinsic value. Some scholars challenge the pragmatic view and play up the intrinsic value of the sciences, arts, and moral actions. They champion slogans such as scholarship for the sake of scholarship and art for the

 Mozi, “Universal Love III:1,” in Mozi, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mozi/universal-love-iii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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sake of art, believing that the sciences, arts, and morality are beyond the practical realm. This approach, however, goes toward the other extreme. The kind of spiritual values people find in the sciences, arts, and moral conduct are rational creations grounded in social practice. So, these activities have a dual nature. On the one hand, they are instrumental and pragmatic in that they contribute to people’s interests, both immediate and long-term. On the other hand, they are rational creations and expressions of essential human power, so those engaged in these activities find spiritual satisfaction. Artists do not stop in the middle of their creations to calculate their profits, so their actions are a form of doing for the sake of doing nothing. In other words, the action itself is the end, and it aims to develop and express essential human powers. Maybe that is why both Aristotle of ancient Greece and G.E. Moore of modern Britain argued that pleasures are different in degree as well as in nature. The sorts of pleasure and interest mentioned in common parlance are usually associated with the preservation of one’s life and one’s enjoyment in life. So, it comes down to the satisfaction of necessary needs. The pleasures people find in science, art, and virtuous actions are different in kind, because the end of these activities is to develop essential human powers. The pleasures that accompany these activities are different in nature in that they are intertwined with the spiritual life, the realization of the ideal character, and the ideal society. As expressions of essential human power, sciences, arts, and moral actions have intrinsic value because through them an evaluator gains new perspectives on the same question. As a result, the activity of evaluation acquires genuine freedom. The self freely develops in the interaction between the subject and the object; thus, valuation becomes a free expression of virtue or a process in which the self is realized. Pleasure accompanies rational activities as well as sports, travel, and sexual love. Because of the accompanying pleasure, some necessary needs acquire a new dimension. As Mencius puts it: “If a man, fond of his eating and drinking, were not to neglect what is of more importance, how should his mouth and belly be considered as no more than an inch of skin?”¹⁴ Without rational direction, the satisfaction of basic needs is simply preservation of the corporal body. Idealists are aware of this possibility, so they go to the opposite extreme, treating morality and the arts as beyond the pragmatic realm, and the mind as the first principle that exists without substance. This is, of course, spurious. As Marxists see it, the realm of freedom cannot be without the realm of necessity and abundant material production as its basis. The supreme values of humanity originate in actual life, and these values cannot lose their luster merely because people become aware

 Mencius, “Gaozi I:14,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/gaozi-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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of the practical values of things. Kant emphasized the distinction between free and dependent beauty. But beauty is always contingent on practicality and human needs. The insistence of its dependence by no means negates free beauty. In the meanwhile, we need to see that the true, the good, and the beautiful are free expressions of essential human power, and that they possess intrinsic value. Truth, good, and beauty, as the criteria of valuation, are not imposed upon humanity, but are evidence of human conscience and consciousness. In this sense, the final cause of creative activity is the cause of itself or causa libera. Human beings always strive to seek pleasure and avoid hardship, and to resort to reason to deliberate and make decisions. However, human needs evolve along with the development of social practice. A qualitative difference is always present between the gratification of necessary needs and the pursuit of truth, good, and beauty, even as intrinsic values are found in the gratification of necessary needs and are indispensable to the development of the human essence. The goal of the development of essential human power is to realize the free individual that unifies the true, the good, and the beautiful, just as the overall direction of the development of human society is to bring about a free society that unifies truth, good, and beauty. This overarching goal can be achieved in the future, but it also unfolds in the present. That is the reason why the overarching goal can be treated as the causa libera, immanent in social history and individual creative activities. Different historical periods and individuals’ creative activities, be they of material or spiritual value, correspond to the objective requirements of social practice. As the state of the human mind evolves from weighing the pros and cons of things to doing for the sake of doing nothing, valuation, whiling retaining its integrity, also evolves. In this way, spiritual value and practical use are brought into unity.

The Subject of Valuation: Conscience Ideas are the ultimate expressions of the development of valuation. The ideas used as the criteria of valuation can include people’s views of the world, life, the arts, and so on. All these ideas are unified in the subject of valuation. In this sense, the evaluator also evolves along with the development of valuation. The subject is indeed the unity of the individual and the community. On the one hand, the subject evaluates in accordance with the collective consciousness, taking into consideration the diverse views of different people, and aiming to serve their interests. The collective consciousness, however, is not abstract, but contained in the individual’s self-consciousness. The evaluator is an individual, and it is the individual who comprehends and applies the criteria of valuation. The value of the objects is relative to us, i. e., to the community and the individual. Only

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through the individual can the group obtain self-awareness. So, collective consciousness has to be articulated through individual consciousness. On the other hand, only those individuals who cherish their homeland and are devoted to serve the people can have a highly conscientious consciousness. Self-consciousness is cultivated in human interactions, that is, in a community, through corresponding objects (i. e., things-for-ourselves) and creative activities. Valuation requires the subject to have awareness and consciousness of the self. Self-consciousness is sometimes identified with conscience, a favorite term of the idealists in the past, though conscience itself is absolutely an idealistic concept. Materialists also discuss the conscience of moral, art and class conscience, and so on. All these expressions make reference to the highly conscious self. Wang Yangming is insightful in defining the bright numinous awareness (昭明靈覺 zhao ming yin jue) of the heart as conscience. He believes that conscience is the measure of all right and wrong, and good and evil. Just as a carpenter has a square and a ruler, the conscience contains moral norms that constitute the criteria of valuation. Apart from his idealistic inclinations, Wang Yangming’s exposition is very incisive. But the mind is not an entity detached from corporal substance. Rather, it is an orderly structure that unites all conscious activities. Hence, beyond spiritual activities, the mind does not exist as an entity. That being so, every spiritual activity does contain a self, the self of “the bright numinous awareness,” which is the subject of consciousness or conscience. Huang Zongxi states that the heart has no substance but is merely human effort. What he refers to as human effort is the cultivation of the mind and spiritual activities. The nature of the heart is the orderly structure that human effort strives to attain. No spiritual substance exists beyond the structure.

Significance, Creation, and the Realm of Values Significance refers to the meaning conveyed by valuation and judgment. It can be objectified by human creative activities, thereby establishing a realm of value governed by humanity.

The Meaning of Language Valuation and judgment are usually expressed through the use of language. On the cognitive level, the content of a judgment (factual and universal propositions) is articulated in declarative statements. Formal logic requires exact consistency between the proposition and the fact. The truth of a proposition can be verified by

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experience. The meaning of a proposition lies in its consistency or inconsistency with reality. A statement or proposition, if it has some cognitive value, can be put to the test by making reference to the observations of experience, and thereby be confirmed as true or negated as false. Therefore, apart from analytic propositions (in logic and mathematics), propositions can be classified into two types: meaningful and meaningless propositions. While factual scientific propositions have meanings, metaphysical propositions are regarded as empty. Philosophers from F. L. G. Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein of the Treatise on Logic and Philosophy, to the Vienna Circle advocated such a traditional understanding of the meaningfulness of propositions. Applied to epistemology, this doctrine requires consistency between language, meaning, and things. It constitutes the necessary condition of empirical knowledge and the basis of the law of identity in formal logic. Ancient Chinese philosophy made similar investigations into this topic. The debate between words and meanings focused on the issue of correspondence. On the one side, some thinkers maintained that words can exhaust the ideas that people wish to express. On the other side, many thinkers believed that words often failed to give full expression to people’s thoughts. For instance, they believed that nouns did not necessarily denote the objects people pointed at. If nouns are limited to their cognitive scope, then logic requires consistency between language, meaning, and things; however, if nouns are not limited to their cognitive scope, the argument that ideas are not fully articulated through language has its point. At any rate, Chinese literary writings are fond of creating hidden meanings, or meanings between the lines. People often use gestures and facial expressions in their communication to suggest nuance. With all these explicit pieces of evidence, it seems a bit forced to claim that language is able to exhaust meaning. In a valuation, however, language not only provides a factual statement, but also expresses people’s wishes and emotions. Phrases and sentences, in addition to their cognitive meanings, contain many aspects of significance, such as intention, allusion, and connotation. The later Wittgenstein utterly revoked his early thought on logic and propounded an entirely different theory of meaning. He believed that the meaning of a word lies in its use, because a word is not simple a description of the world but is also used in various language games. For instance, the same sentence can be used to make a statement as well as a question, a request, or a command. Therefore, he maintained that the meaning of a word should not be treated in isolation. Words only acquire meanings in a context, so their usage alone should be counted as their meanings. Wittgenstein’s argument is developed into a systematic linguistic philosophy by later philosophers. The classical theory of meaning and linguistic philosophy contains some measure of truth. Wittgenstein’s conception of the language game is more than a valu-

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ation, since the language of valuation is distinct from cognitive language; hence, the meanings they intend to express are different. When a judgment of valuation aims to reveal the connections between the objects and human needs, the language it uses acquires a cognitive significance, including the intention of deliberate choice. The object of intention is not simply the object of cognitive activity, because intention itself, being a dynamic concept, denotes certain functions of the things we make use of. In addition, the subject endeavors to render an allusion to an intention in order to implement the intention as a guideline in an action. Abstract concepts are empty and impotent. Imagination is indispensable in the conception of the goal of the intention and how this intention can be fulfilled. In so doing, an allusion is created because imagination is capable of envisioning plans and their execution. The allusion itself is no longer abstract but implies a meaning that connotes some degree of sentimental value, such as loveliness or loathsomeness. In short, the words used to express a judgment imply intention, allusion, and connotation. In this sense, the meaning of a valuation can be described as its significance. There exists an intimate tie between significance and an individual’s life experience and education, as well as with social psychology and cultural tradition. Therefore, the meaning of a valuation cannot be equated with cognitive meaning.

Creative Activity and the Realm of Value Valuation is generally associated with creative activity, but they are two distinct activities that forbid assimilation. While creative activity is spontaneous and lacks judgment, a simple valuation is far from a creation. An aesthetic judgment and creative activity are as different as a moral judgment is from moral conduct. The content of a valuation is its significance as a judgment that wishes to use idealized ideas to regulate reality. The aim of human creation is to transform ideals into reality. In other words, creation seeks to produce value which in turn becomes the object of valuation. Thus, the objectification of the significance of valuation can be said to be a consequence of human creative activities. Therefore, human beings can gain access to and inhabit the realm of value. So as to provide an exposition of the realm of value, each of the following terms will receive a brief account: the original realm, the factual realm, ehe realm of possibilities, and the realm of value. The original realm is transformed into the factual realm when humankind makes use of that which is learned from experience. What has been referred to as things-in-themselves belong to the original realm, and things-for-ourselves belong to the factual realm. The one actual world we have is the original realm, which, as it enters human experience and is comprehended by people, is transformed into the factual realm. In terms of the experience of knowing, the meaning

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structure of our concepts corresponds with the order of the factual realm, and the essential connections in the factual realm correspond with the cognitive meanings grasped by reason. Thus, through human experience, the reality of the original realm is transformed into the factual realm. So, the factual is reality united with cognitive relations, and the factual realm has a comprehendible structure. Jin Yueling points out that concepts have the double function of describing and prescribing reality. That is, concepts apply to reality that which is acquired from reality and transform the given into fact. Thus, the meaning structure of a concept corresponds to the essence of the factual realm. Logic (formal logic and dialectics) is the basic form of cognitive meaning. When what is acquired from reality is applied to reality in accordance with logic, theory is accordingly transformed into method; people can then rely on the order and meaning structure of the actual to grasp possibilities. From this emerges the realm of possibilities. The demarcation of the realm of possibilities is not as clear-cut as that of the factual realm. However, this does not imply the existence of a world that is present or potentially present beyond the factual realm. Indeed, what has been referred to as the realm of possibilities is neither the realm of the Forms, as Plato conceived, nor neo-realism’s world of the universal that potentially exists. The realm of possibilities is connected to the factual realm and falls within the comprehensible domain. Being dependent on the factual realm, the realm of possibilities can be comprehended through logic. Formal logic is indispensable in the realm of possibilities, and the form of logical deduction must be true. Otherwise, the realm of possibilities would fall into paradox and turn into impossibilities. Dialectical logic, however, requires understanding which actual possibilities are more predominant, and the means by which to actualize these possibilities. In so doing, the original realm becomes the factual realm, and the realm of possibilities is grasped by rational thought. Thus, the whole domain of cognitive experience is encompassed. The subject is the I that perceives, cognizes, and thinks. In addition, perception and thinking can be united in practice. Hence, practice supplies material and form for the domain of cognitive experience. Concerning this domain, the rational understanding of the function of things can be described as understanding the meaning that reveals the essential connections among the things themselves and their possibilities. In term of human or social life, however, meanings are not merely the structures of concepts, reflecting the essential connections among things. Rather, the term meaning, when it occurs in human life, often makes reference to objective things. For example, people speak of the meaning of life, the meaning of a project, the meaning of an artwork, and so on. In effect, such meanings result from the objectification of a valuation. Therefore, not only the manifestation of the connections between external things and human needs but the objec-

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tification as well proffers value to the function of the things-for-ourselves. In short, with regard to valuation, while meaning embodies the content of a valuation, value itself is an expression for the evaluated object. Indeed, value is the objectification of meaning. Creative activities are always closely tied to valuation. Creation brings together the subject and the object, and the ideal and reality. Creation can either be an idealized reality, such as a product of labor or just and equitable institutions, or it can be an ideal, such as aesthetic imagination or a conception of the good, realized in works of art and materialized through a particular medium. For example, music and pictures are at first the ideals of artists; but these ideals are materialized through the media of instruments, colors, and lines. In this process, the medium acquires a symbolic nature. In either case, the creation of value is the unity of the ideal and reality. Value, as the embodiment of the function of things-for-ourselves in the relation between objects and humankind, is the unity of the subject and the object. Isolated from human beings, the qualities of natural objects would be devoid of value. As an artificial creation, value accompanies people’s work upon nature. Natural things unaffected by human touch can also enter into the process of labor or social life when they are employed as raw materials of labor (such as minerals) or sources for artistic creation (such as natural landscapes), and thus acquire value. Some natural things, however, come to possess value because of human beings’ transference of feelings. Transference itself is a creative activity manifested when the object is relevant to human social practice, cultural tradition, and individual feelings. The value of natural as well as artificial things is relative to human beings and is dependent on creative activities and creativity. In this sense, all kinds of value are products of the combination of actual possibilities and human needs. These values meet the objective requirements of social practice and evolve along with the development of social history. Hence, value is neither the property of an object nor a subjective need. Indeed, neither the Platonic world of Forms nor the Neo-Kantian metaphysical domain of value exists in the factual world. The interaction between human nature and the Heavenly Way and that between human beings and nature is articulated when human beings actualize the ideal acquired from reality and transform the realm of value into the realm of actuality. This process makes reality valuable to humanity. In the meanwhile, the value of humanity itself is accordingly enhanced. Human beings gain a higher degree of freedom in the realm of value, which is under their control. So, the establishment of the realm of value requires a foundation of actual possibilities. Therefore, the actualized original is still an indispensable premise. In the realm of value, however, the final cause is also the efficient cause, the mind’s end is the realization of itself, giving free rein to subjectivity. Actual possibilities, after being deliberated

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upon and chosen in the process of valuation, come to realize their value in creation. Moreover, human beings as the subject of valuation and the author and user of a creation will design and deliberate on their own development. Confucius thus described his own life: “At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.”¹⁵ Confucius’s self-examination begins with his goal for the different stages of life, in which deliberation and choice are consciously made in order to cultivate himself as a virtuous and noble person. This process is described as establishing a resolution (立志 li zhi), a fundamental moral principle in Confucian teachings. The development of the world brings many possibilities, so does the development of human beings. Therefore, people can take the initiative to choose their path of life in valuation and creation. From a dialectical perspective, essential human power is charged with vitality, and the development of such power, which makes the things-in-themselves into the things-for-ourselves, has boundless prospects. That being said, human freedom is not unconditional and hence cannot be treated as something absolute. Existentialists wrongly maintain the priority of existence over essence so that human beings have absolute freedom to choose their essence. But their endorsement of human beings’ capacity to shape and mold themselves is commendable.

The Spiritual Sphere People create values for the purpose of enjoyment. Values give pleasure and happiness to life. While positive value is beneficial to a social being, negative value is harmful. In addition, the realm of value is a complex system, comprised of material and spiritual values, lower- and higher-level values, and social and individual values. Moreover, the realm of value varies for different people. A person dwells in a certain realm of value that manifests his or her demands and essential human power. The differentiation of each person’s realm of value, from the perspective of the subject, can be described as a spiritual sphere that is relative to the mind and the self. The spiritual sphere is intricate, and different people achieve different levels. Contemporary Chinese philosophers are fond of the term “sphere” and use it to refer to various dissimilar things. While Wang Guowei, Zong Baihua, and Zhu

 Confucius, The Analects 2:4, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/analects/ wei-zheng/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Guangqian use the term in the context of aesthetics to refer to the artistic sphere, Xiong Shili uses the term mainly for an ontological position, as in his Doctrine of Consciousness-Only. He believes that substance is not in a sphere beyond the heart, that it is grasped not by knowledge, but by intuition. In A New Treatise on the Nature of Man, Feng Youlan puts forth the concept of the “sphere of life,” referring to different levels of good and morality. He states that a person’s sphere of life is composed of self-consciousness, which people acquire from the universe and from human lives, and from the significance that the universe and human lives have on personal lives. A self-conscious person can grasp the significance of the universe and human lives. His conception focuses on the meaning of valuation, rather than on mere cognitive significance. Having comprehended the meaning, the person consequently acquires self-awareness, becoming the subject of understanding. In this process, the spiritual sphere of the subject emerges. In his Treatise on Dao, Jin Yuelin expounds on the concept of the Supreme Absolute. He maintains that the Supreme Absolute is a sphere of the supreme good, supreme beauty, and supreme freedom. That is, the ultimate sphere in which truth, good, beauty, and freedom are united into oneness. His sphere is a metaphysical concept that consists of the limit and the unreachable end, toward which the universe evolves. Here is a more general view of the sphere, which treats the concept as the effusion of the realm of value, which includes artistic, moral, philosophical, religious, and practical domains. All these spheres integrate what has been described as “meaning” and “domain.” Here, the term “meaning” refers to realized and manifested ideals, while the term “domain” refers to meaningful structures. With its objective basis and its origin in actual life, the sphere always contains realistic content, but it is also consequent upon spiritual creation; hence, it expresses essential human power. On this account, we say that the sphere is the unity of the subjective and the objective, a realm in which the mind can enjoy and freely engage in action; indeed, the sphere reveals the achievements of the human mind. To put it briefly, each spiritual sphere, such as the artistic, moral, or philosophical sphere, distinctively expresses people’s thoughts, will power, and imagination, and thus possesses different values of truth, good, and beauty. These spheres manifest the freedom of the spirit and reason in the domains of theoretical thinking, moral practice, and aesthetic activities.

Chapter 4 The Value System The realm of values encompasses the whole of human cultures. The value system of every culture has its particularities; however, freedom of labor generally constitutes the final cause of any reasonable value system that has evolved through a complicated process in social history. This chapter examines the issue of values in ancient Chinese philosophy and the revolutionary development of modern values, and gives a brief account of the principles and characteristics of a reasonable value system.¹

Culture and Values Value as the Central Concept in the Philosophy of Culture The question of value is at the center of the philosophy of culture. The term “culture” is used in both broad and narrow senses. In Liang Shuming’s theory, culture is the people’s mode of life, while in the theory of Qü Qiübai, it is all that is made by humankind. So, the two thinkers use the term in the broad sense. In his treatise “On New Democracy,” Mao Zedong adopts a narrow sense of the term, using culture to refer to people’s way of thinking. Both the broad and narrow senses imply some degrees of materialistic and idealistic distinctions. Mao Zedong argues that social existence determines social consciousness. So, his interpretation of culture from the perspective of social existence inclines towards materialism. Qü Qiübai sees culture as human-made, believing that human beings can overwhelm Heavenly principles. His conception of culture differs from that of Liang Shuming who treats culture as a mode of living that is nothing but unrelenting desires. The materialistic view of history treats culture as the product of social practice. Culture, in the broad sense, includes the conditions of productive forces, economic relations, social and political institutions, social psychology, and ideologies. All these result from human action in particular circumstances, i. e., they are the product of human social practice. Through the imposition of human effort on the natural world, idealized concepts are actualized, and in the meantime, value is created. The cultures of different eras and nations are, in effect, different systems of value. So, a culture is a divergent system of value. The cultures of the primitive so-

 The unity of humanism and socialism in present time (author’s note). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-005

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ciety, slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society, and Chinese culture, Western culture, Buddhist culture, Confucian culture, and so on, belong to different systems of culture that contain different values. According to Hegelian doctrine, that which is rational is real, and that which is real is rational; a culture that sustains continuous development must be rational, and its system of value must have its rationality. Admittedly, when historical conditions change, a culture would undergo revolutionary reform, and its system of value would undoubtedly follow suit. All these changes have their rational justifications. Here, the term “rationality” refers to the fact that the system of value and its evolution conform to an objective law that can be fathomed and interpreted by human reason.

Interpretations of Culture Culture consists of all the creations people make on the basis of social practice. Reason brings together actual possibilities and human needs, and then forms the ideal in creative activities; then these ideals are transformed into reality through practice; finally, value is created. Affirmative values have positive significance for humankind, while negative values have negative significance. Here, positive and negative significance express the actual valuations of the function of the given thing relevant to human beings, the connection between function and human needs, and the suitability of the function for the requirement of the free development of human nature. Value resides in the objectification of the significance of valuation. Any human-made thing is a cultural phenomenon and is to some degree meaningful. This implies either an affirmative or a negative value. In this sense, artificial things not only have a cognizable structure, that is, they can be known. Moreover, they also retain human impression, which embodies the originators’ creative capacity. Therefore, grasping a cultural phenomenon requires the incorporation of the knower’s attitude and conception as well as some degree of individual personality, e. g., a particular person in certain conditions finds a given thing charming. It must be noted that making sense of a natural phenomenon is an entirely different story from comprehending a cultural phenomenon. Knowledge of a natural phenomenon, if detached from associations to human needs, is knowing the facts and possibilities of what is about to occur. This kind of knowledge does not yield valuation. Knowledge of a cultural phenomenon, however, always involves a valuation that is grounded in objective facts, because culture is a type of objective thing-for-ourselves. Moreover, culture also incorporates people’s viewpoints, reflecting their social existence. Valuation can take into account objective facts and people’s viewpoints. Mencius emphasized that a person’s thoughts must match

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the scope of the literature, and believed that “as he does not know what they were as men, to ascertain this, he considers their history.”² We must investigate the people and society in particular historical conditions, but also try to understand the author’s original intention. Only this approach can provide an objective analysis of cultural phenomena. In this way, we might become companions to the ancients, and has a sympathetic understanding of their lives, thoughts, and social conditions. The valuation of ancient writings conducted in this fashion will be fairly objective. When our own thought matches the scope of the literature, it inevitably involves some personal elements. For instance, when appreciating the poems of Qü Yuan, considering his sufferings in a particular historical time, we might use a commiserative understanding of his poem “Li Sao,” and thus have a more appropriate appreciation. If the appreciation is imbued with a strong personal character, it can be more favorably shared with others. In this sense, interpretations of culture always involve some degree of emotional investment, since such a perspective is always a personal point of view. The ideas we resort to depend to a great extent on social historical conditions and cultural heritage. In receiving a thousand years of heritage and applying it to contemporary change, cultural heritage and actual conditions are determinative of people’s thoughts. When this perspective is used along with the historical materialistic view to investigate a cultural phenomenon, the analysis can achieve a high degree of objectivity, even though the process involves an individual element. Precisely because of their personal character, people’s understanding and valuation of cultural phenomena are diverse. Individual understanding also participates in the evolution of tradition. Furthermore, in understanding the tradition, the individual can discover his or her own place in the world. In other words, we try to make sense of tradition, and our understanding of ourselves is tied to our understanding of the tradition. Here, the circle of interpretation in hermeneutics is very much to the point. Our thoughts and ideas are entrenched in a tradition that bestows transcendental structures of thought. These structures are instruments we make use of in our dealings with reality, they are prior to human experience even if they seem to be identical to deep-rooted prejudices. Like thoughts, these structures form the ground on which we reach valuations, make choices, and propose interpretations; they also regulate and furnish a comprehensible structure to actual things. That is, they give meanings to things. Even so, we should be wary of pushing too far and bending towards transcendentalism, because the structures of thought traditionally handed down to us have been accumulated gradually over the whole course of human practice.

 Mencius, “Wan Zhang II:17,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mengzi/wan-zhang-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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So, with regard to their origins, these structures are still a posteriori. Individuality is not entirely passive when we use the structures of thought to regulate things. Indeed, we take part in the creation of new traditions. Our interpretations of a text are based on traditional views as well as on personal thoughts. The meanings of cultural phenomena, when discussed in the realm of values, for instance, appreciating artworks or interpreting religious doctrines, always display the heterogeneity of different eras and peoples. It is the same with wisdom in philosophical writings, for instance, the principle of the unity of opposites in the Appendices of the Book of Changes, that one yin and one yang constitute the Way, or Laozi’s doctrine that “the Dao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things.”³ Since both doctrines place emphasis on the Way, how do we differentiate the one from the other? The endeavor to make sense of their differences has produced commentaries upon commentaries, all of which are products of certain historical and cultural conditions. The interpretations reflect to a degree social existence; hence, they are more or less objective. Nevertheless, commentators inevitably have personal preferences, and their thoughts are accordingly diversified. In this case, writing and actual objects are in a similar situation. For instance, the Great Wall as a defensive device in ancient China had military significance in warding off the nomadic tribes from the North. But it lost it strategic importance after the 17th century. To the moderns, the Great Wall is a magnificent artifact, a symbol of the Chinese nation. While the ancients understood it from a military standpoint, the moderns see the Great Wall as a national symbol; both views conform to their historical circumstances and can be described as objective interpretations. However, for those who have actually climbed the Great Wall, each will have a different response to the experience. Some compose poems, while others paint; every person brings a particular emotion to their artwork. Of course, here we should be wary of relativism. Just as contingency involves necessity, individuality also contains generality. From the perspective of generality, new historical conditions and necessary human needs can always explain why a particular time encourages new interpretations of the past. Genuine value is reasonable because it always conforms to the objective requirements of the development of social practice.

 Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 42, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/dao-dejing/ens,last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Freedom of Labor: Foundation of a Reasonable Value System By the expression “conforming to the objective requirements of the development of social practice,” I refer to the content of all positive values. The objective requirements aim to specify the final cause that is also the efficient cause. The final cause, being inherent in social practice, impels the creation of culture and gives meaning and life to culture. The end of a person’s action is the goal that drives the unfolding of the given action. Unlike the lower animals, human beings, who are capable of foreseeing the result of their action, envision the end of their action, which is implemented in labor and practice as the efficient cause and as the requirement of practice. This sort of requirement can be understood or explained by the unity of social historical conditions and human needs. However, an objective explanation is necessarily reasonable. The reasonable conforms to social development and the development of essential human power. Freedom is the fulfilment of these reasonable requirements and the end. The freedom of labor is the overarching end for humanity and is indeed the essential part that differentiates humankind from the lower animals. But freedom is also a product of history, it unfolds in the course of history and the development of human essence. With regard to the final cause, human beings themselves and the values they created are to accomplish the collective and individual freedom. Therefore, the freedom of labor is the fundamental constituent of value system. Each culture has a distinct value system. In order to judge if value system is composed of reasonable things, one can examine if it facilitates the attainment of the freedom of labor. Hence, it seems fair to say that, as the overarching end of cultural history, labor freedom acts as the cornerstone of the value system. The rest of this chapter investigates the value system from two perspectives, socio-historical evolution and philosophical development, using a method that combines logical and historical studies.

The Value System from a Socio-Historical Evolution Point of View Freedom can be seen as a product of history because the end unfolds itself in the course of history. In terms of socio-history, people’s values change along with the development in labor production and the changes in the social structure. As mentioned earlier, Marx distinguished three stages of social development. The first stage of human society relies on a natural economy and is characterized by people’s interdependency. Naturally formed kinship, i. e., clans, evolves into patriarchy and a patriarchal society, which gradually turns into a social hierarchy. All these

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relationships manifest people’s interdependency. At this stage, people’s productive capacity (material and spiritual) has limited and sporadic development. The second stage is a society with a commercial economy, characterized by humans’ mutual independence that comes at the cost of material reliance. This mode of society includes the commercial economies of capitalism and socialism, in which people are independent of each other at the cost of heightened material reliance. Because of mutual competition, people’s manifold needs, enhanced productive capacity, and material exchanges have achieved overall development, even as material reliance becomes the necessary condition of living. The third stage, as Marx conceives it, will be a communist society characterized by free individuals and based on the all-around development of each and every person. Common productive capacity will constitute social wealth. Such a society, as the Manifesto of the Communist Party declares, is “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”⁴ In such a truly free society, people will cast off mutual dependence and material reliance. Labor freedom enables humankind to break away from the animal kingdom. Human beings’ labor and practice are purposive and conscious activities. Hence, the final cause can also be seen as the causa libera for human practical activities. Since human movement arises from the causa libera, which in turn is rationally comprehended, this kind of practical activity is freedom. Of course, people do not obtain complete freedom all at once. Freedom and dependency constitute the unity of opposites. When society’s productive forces were extremely low, and the light of human reason was dim, human beings had very limited freedom; people’s interdependence and material reliance were objective reality. In addition, owing to people’s ignorance of natural laws, alienated labor became an inevitable phenomenon. On the one hand, labor differentiates humankind from the lower animals. On the other hand, alienated labor entangles people in dependent positions. However, labor can create a culture that enables the development of the essence of human freedom. A culture thus acquires its values. Laozi stated: “When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness; when they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.”⁵ That is to say, beauty and ugliness, and good and evil are intertwined, so are freedom and dependency, and positive and negative values. Just as value has a dual nature, culture is also double-faced.

 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, “Chapter 2,” in Laozi, in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 140.

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Take Chinese history as an example. According to Marx’s theory, traditional Chinese values emerged and developed during the first stage of socio-history. Traditional Chinese society was firmly based on people’s mutual reliance and a natural economy. Patriarchal society evolved from primitive kinship and a hierarchical feudal society that reflected a characteristic authoritarian value system. Although a great thinker, Confucius was not an exception to the value system. He stated: “There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of Heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of sages.”⁶ He believes that great men are actually the rulers and the words of the sages are the conventional teachings. Since great men and sages claimed to be representatives of the ordinances of Heaven, the criteria for values were entirely in their hands. Authoritarianism in the realm of values primarily manifested in ethical code. For instance, one aspect of the Confucian ethical code demands that the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife. Normative Confucian teachings incline toward dogmatism in that they justify autocratic government and patriarchal feudal society. This set of dogmatic and authoritarian values gradually turned into the shackles of social progress since it defended the natural economy and frustrated the development of a commercial economy and human independence. As a result, Chinese society was long in a state of stagnation, having been unable to take steps toward the second stage of society. Even in the present, dogmatic and authoritarian influences are visible in the conservative convictions that often hold back China’s progress and its opening to the outside world. The ancient traditional value system, with all its limitations, does have some merits. In the first stage of socio-historical evolution, human beings’ productive capacities developed on a narrow and sporadic basis. However, a thousand years of Chinese civilization has brought about the continuous development of culture, and people’s productive capacities have attained considerable achievement. Therefore, later generations should inherit this heritage with a critical mind. Essential human power evolves in the process of creating culture and values. In the long tradition of cultural accumulation, the Chinese people have cultivated the virtues of industriousness, courage, and patriotism. All these virtues are valuable and are embodied in the traditional value system. For instance, the virtue of industriousness is indeed characteristic of the people. The small-scale peasant economy had its limitations after the disintegration of the primitive commune, and family farms and small handicrafts workshops have been the primary form that maintains

 Confucius, “Ji Shi:8,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/ji-shi/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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the unity of the labor force and labor conditions. Because of the unity that stimulated people’s interest in labor and shaped their habit of hardworking, industriousness eventually became a virtue in Chinese working people. Some thinkers came to see industriousness as an important, if not the most important, of values. Mozi compared human beings to beasts, believing that humans have to till the land and spin cotton and wool because nature did not make us to eat grass for food, nor give us feathers or fur for warmth. He claimed that “those who exert themselves will live. Those who do not exert themselves cannot live.”⁷ He regarded industrious labor as the foundation of value in human life, so the virtue of industriousness was an important notion in his conception of values. The books of Guanzi and Xunzi also contain expositions on the unity of industrious labor and the land. Wealth is that which is useful, a product of the imposition of labor upon the natural world. The philosophical, though rather simplistic, treatment of industriousness as a concept is invaluable. The traditional virtue of industriousness is very much promoted in socialist society today. In short, as has been described, the ancient value system has its commendable aspects. Values took a drastic shift as the society embarked on the second stage of socio-historical evolution in which the commercial economy became the mainstay of society. As is related in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, the bourgeoisie put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations. The Manifesto states: “There has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’. It has drowned the most Heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.”⁸ As the commercial economy develops, the nexus of human interdependency is replaced by reliance on materials, and the feudal patriarchal hierarchy is replaced by self-interested relationships. While the predominant values in feudal society were authoritarianism and dogmatism, egoism and pragmatism prevail in the capitalist society. In terms of alienation, in a small-scale peasant economy, the alienation of labor is articulated in the rule of society by administrative authorities, accordingly power becomes an object of worship. In a commercial economy, however, it seems right and proper to dive into free competition for the sake of profit. As a result, the commodity or money becomes the object of worship. More than once, Marx made reference

 Mozi, “Condemnation of Music I:6,” in Mozi, W. P. Mei (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mozi/condemnation-of-music-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/ marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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to Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens to illustrate money worship. He distinguished two properties of money. First, “it is the visible divinity—the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things: impossibilities are soldered together by it.” Second, “it is the common whore, the common procurer of people and nations.”⁹ The divine power of money is actually the alienation of essential human power in the conditions of private property. Private possession of property needs to be abolished in order to eliminate alienation. It is not to be concluded, however, that the commercial economy brings only evil and vice. To say the least, in a commercial economy, the labor force becomes a commodity and thereby obtains some degree of labor freedom. Under the present conditions, human independence takes the place of the mutual reliance that characterized the previous society, and democratic freedom takes the place of feudal shackles. All these changes constitute great progress. Competition and the liberation of individuality give free rein to people’s potentials, of which people living in feudal society can never dream. In modern times, scientific research and discoveries are applied to production and turn into productive forces, thereby increasing the development of the overall productive forces. For the first time, the natural sciences make a direct contribution to the production process, and the development of production provides better means that scientific research can utilize in its investigation of nature. The Manifesto of the Communist Party sums up that capitalism, in less than one hundred years, has created more massive productive forces than all preceding generations put together. This is the achievement attained by the extensive use of science and technology in the commercial economy. The scale and nature of the labor production that implemented scientific methods have created fundamental differences from the natural economy. In the modernized production process, laborers and skilled workers are trained to take advantage of collective effort and scientific methods. The virtue of industriousness is cultivated in small-scale producers because of the unity of the labor force and the circumstances. So, it can be said that grand-scale production, because of a highly organized working system, has fostered workers’ solidarity. In ancient and mediaeval times, the tradition of artisanship was detached from scholarship, and Chinese scholars see crafts and trades as lowly and ignoble. Modern sciences, however, have forged an intimate tie with production and have overcome the rupture between artisanship and scholarship. This progress enables human productive ca-

 Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Martin Milligan (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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pacity to achieve genuine all-around development. As the essential characteristic of human beings, labor has its particular course of evolution: human beings are capable of creating tools to facilitate labor and thereby break away from the lower animals; then, habitual practice turns into second nature, and industrious people are considered to be virtuous; then, great progress is achieved, as manifested in highly developed productive capacity. In short, only fully developed capacity can bring about freedom of labor. The necessary step toward the realization of labor freedom is the elimination of alienation, which requires the elimination of people’s reliance on others and the material world. As Marx stated, the free development of the all-round and universal character of the individuals were grounded on the existing productive forces. Based on his analysis of the commercial economy and capitalist society, Marx concluded that communism is the necessary future for humanity. His prediction about the human future is a dialectic conclusion derived from a thorough examination of history and logic. Human history, from the Marxist point of view, is a history of the way in which human labor becomes free. As the final cause, free labor has undergone several stages as it unfolds in human history and manifests divergences in different countries. Humankind creates culture through purposive activities; therefore, the value system of a culture takes its shape on the ground of social practice that sets the freedom of labor as the final cause. In spite of the fact that value systems of different historical times and nations are distinctive, they all have one feature in common: they conform to the common socio-historical laws and, with the freedom of labor as the final cause, they all necessarily evolve toward communism.

Doctrines of Values in Traditional Chinese Philosophy The principle of value is the same as the basic criterion or measure of valuation. For instance, the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras claimed that man is the measure of all things, taking the human as the standard for everything else. If we take the “human” to be an individual being, Protagoras’s statement would imply a principle of value, that is, the principle of individuality. Utilitarianism treats interest as value, taking the measure of happiness to be different degrees of profit. This belief also implies a principle of value, that is, the principle of perception. This section adopts a method that combines logic and history to investigate some important debates in ancient Chinese philosophy concerning value systems, with a focus on the principle of value.

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The Debate on the Relation between Heaven and Humanity Ancient Chinese philosophers tend to treat humanity through the relation between Heaven and humanity, and they focus on the principle of humanity and the principle of nature in their discourses on freedom and values. Confucians and Mohists stressed the concept of benevolent love, with the former placing greater emphasis on benevolence, and the latter on universal love. In spite of their different emphases, both championed the principle of humanity, that is, the value of love and human dignity. Both believed that human society ought to establish a nexus of mutual respect and trust. Confucius remarked: “It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts, as if they were the same with us. If I associate not with these people— with mankind—with whom shall I associate?”¹⁰ People need to be compassionate and loving in order to live in a community. Confucius defines benevolent as “not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself.”¹¹ Moreover, people should strive to be better, such as “the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others.”¹² While Confucius underlined “live with differentiation”, Mozi advocated universal love, saying that “partiality is to be replaced by universality.”¹³ Here, universal love is actually equivalent to magnanimity and righteousness. Later Mohists argued for the principle of humanity. The Mohist Canon expounds: “Love of oneself is not for the sake of making oneself useful. Not like loving a horse.”¹⁴ To truly love other people requires a person to treat others as oneself, rather than as objective instruments. However, it must be noted that the principle of humanity in the thoughts of Confucius and Mozi is nowhere near modern humanism. The content of modern humanism is individual freedom which is an entirely foreign concept to ancient philosophy. Even so, the origin of modern humanism nonetheless lies in Confucius’s and Mozi’s thoughts. The two thinkers urged people to cultivate skills and virtue in social life, and to aspire to the ideal character in social interactions. Confucius’s and Mozi’s treatment of humanity contains commendable ideas. Laozi’s

 Confucius, “Wei Zi:6,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/wei-zi/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Confucius, “Yan Yuan:2,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yan-yuan, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Confucius, “Yong Ye:30,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yong-ye/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Universal Love III:2,” in Mozi, W. P. Mei (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mozi/universal-love-iii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Canon I:7,” in Mozi. W. P. Mei (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/canon-i/ ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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notion of humanity is quite different. He stated: “Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of ) any wish to be benevolent; they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt with. The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent; they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.”¹⁵ Laozi believed that the realization of the ideal character requires people to return to a natural state, rather than to rely on benevolent and compassionate interactions in a human community. Laozi denounced the doctrines of Confucius and Mozi, saying that “when the Great Dao ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue. (Then) appeared wisdom and shrewdness, and there ensued great hypocrisy.”¹⁶ As he saw it, the so-called culture, consisting of wisdom, benevolence, and righteousness, ought to be cast off. He claimed: “If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly.”¹⁷ Laozi was convinced that these artificial values would only make a society chaotic. He exhorted people to restore their natural state, cherish simple views, and abide by a simple way of life. He believed that, only in a primordial-like state, “(those who) possessed in highest degree the attributes (of the Dao) did not (seek) to show them, and therefore they possessed them (in fullest measure).”¹⁸ So, he advocated the principle of nature as the value system, saying that “honouring of the Dao and exalting of its operation is not the result of any ordination, but always a spontaneous tribute.”¹⁹ Being in a natural state is to be doing nothing, thus Laozi rejected human effort. While Confucians and Mohists promoted the principle of humanity, the schools of Laozi and Zhuangzi championed the principle of nature. All the schools of thought did proffer some incisive ideas, although each with its limitations. Confucians and Mohists laid stress on human dignity, and Laozi played up the role of nature. As it evolved, Daoism tended to overly emphasize nature and tune out the principle of humanity. Eventually, Daoism turned to mystical learning and empty talk on impractical matters, as characterized by the school of the Yellow Emperor. Confucians cherished

 Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 5, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/dao-dejing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 18, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 19, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 37, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 51, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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their ethical code so much so that they held nature in contempt. Meanwhile, the Confucian ethical code often turned into self-righteous and deceptive tools for the ruling class. In short, the overall trend of ancient Chinese philosophy was to attain the unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of nature. This constitutes one aspect of the unity of Heaven and humanity. The distinction between metaphysics and dialectic is present in the unity of Heaven and humanity. Dong Zhongshu of the Han dynasty believed that Heaven and humanity were of the same category, believing that the most precious being among all things was the human being. He interprets the Way of Heaven in terms of humanity and treats benevolence and ethical code as metaphysical concepts. Hence, his argument is charged with a teleological perspective. The school of Dark Learning incorporated the teachings of Confucius and Daoism, declaring that since the Confucian ethical code derived from nature, the principle of nature ought to be established as its metaphysical basis. Normative Confucianism, from Dong Zhongshu and Wang Bi to the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi of the Song dynasty, were all inclined toward metaphysics in their account of morality. While Dong Zhongshu and Wang Bi adopted the concept of the Heavenly mandate in their thought, the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi replaced the concept with the principle of Heaven. Moreover, their doctrines conflated the natural (the Way of Heaven) with the laws of necessity in human purposive activities, and treated principles as expressions of the absolute truth. They believed that whatever Heaven confers upon human beings is nature, and the Way is that which is in accordance with nature. So, it can be said that, in Zhu Xi’s theory, nature is the principle, and human nature is the righteous principle conferred by Heaven. Zhu Xi took the Way to indicate that everything under Heaven had its designated path of movement and followed the path as its proper nature. In his account, the Way actually makes reference to humanity. He stated that humanity is derived from human nature, which is endowed by Heaven and conflates the Way of Heaven and the Way of human. Education consists in the cultivation of the Way. Rites, music, punishment, politics, and the Confucian ethical code, all these work in concert to guide people toward the proper path so as to achieve the restoration of human nature. Accordingly, the ethical code and nature are indeed unified. It is evident that the unity of Heaven and human is inclined toward dogmatism, and this gives the laws of necessity a metaphysical twist, turning them into Heavenly principles (the so-called necessity of nature). As a result, Zhu Xi’s doctrine confuses the necessary with the natural, and thus bends toward fatalism. This inclination has brought much criticism upon Zhu Xi. Li Zhi derided it as the excuse of Neo-Confucianism and the root of hypocrites, and Dai Zhen described the inclination as an invisible knife that slaughters reason. In effect, Zhu Xi’s doctrine transformed the principle of humanity in Con-

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fucius’s and Mozi’s philosophy into an anti-humanitarian dogma, in that it defended the ruling authority with the teachings of the Heavenly mandate, hence proffering a theoretical blandishment for people’s subjection in feudal society. In doing so, his doctrine brushed aside human dignity and values. Xunzi differentiated the distinctive functions of Heaven and human, and the Way of Heaven from the Way of human. He believed that the role of humanity is to take control and make use of the Heavenly mandate, and he urged people to transform their nature and exert their efforts upon nature. He was convinced that the natural world would be put in order if nature and human effort were in harmony. However, Xunzi believed that evil is inherent in human nature, so he treated human effort as a compulsory external force. Wang Anshi of the Song dynasty criticized Xunzi’s doctrine, arguing that rites, though originated in Heaven, are brought to completion by human. Rites, music, and the virtues of benevolence and righteousness are consequent upon human beings’ efforts toward the natural world. So, Wang Anshi believed that the Way should be used to guide rather than compel the people. To guide is to first respect human nature, and then induce the people with appropriate method. In this way, the unity of the principle of nature and the principle of humanity can be attained. Wang Fuzhi also made a distinction between the Way of Heaven and the Way of human, and treated the latter as an interaction between Heaven and humankind. His two theses, that human nature improves and completes itself daily, and that the completion of nature follows upon the completion of habits, expanded the doctrine of the Way of completing the human, which first appeared in the Commentaries on the Book of Changes. His exposition is inclined towards a materialistic view. Wang Fuzhi considered human nature as an ongoing process and described it as a living principle. It is naturally given, but is also the outcome of an individual’s unremitting efforts to improve oneself. According to his theory, human nature is renewed daily since people receive the Heavenly mandate daily. Human beings are naturally endowed with innate capacity, but also possess the subjective initiative to make choices and are versed in deciphering the Heavenly mandate so as to devise their own destinies. Therefore, Wang Fuzhi affirmed human dignity and value in his emphasis that human beings were not powerless before nature. The way of human is nothing but people’s making voluntary choices and persistent efforts with the help of their natural endowment. The habitual practice of these actions contributes to the completion of nature, and therein virtues take shape as well. Dai Zhen critically adopted Neo-Confucianism and proposed the thesis that “the corporal body is nature, the so-called principle is the knowledge of it being

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necessarily so after an investigation of what is natural.”²⁰ He believed that “to attribute what is natural to what is necessary is the so-called ultimate of nature.”²¹ Dai Zhen apparently diverges from orthodox Confucian doctrine of the restoration of nature, advocating instead a theory of completing nature. In sum, while the schools of the Confucians, Mohists, and Daoists all have their limitations, these philosophers endeavored to contribute to the theorization of the unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of nature from their diverse persuasions. In the value system that was dominated by authoritarianism, however, the metaphysical conception of the unity of Heaven and humankind eventually led to the principle of anti-humanity. Wang Anshi, Wang Fuzhi, and Dai Zhen insisted on the distinction between the Way of Heaven and the Way of human, and the dialectical unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of nature. So, their expositions advocated the doctrine of the Way of completing the human, thereby endorsing the importance of human dignity. It can be said that this doctrine is a step toward modern humanism.

The Debate on Reason and Desire Two pairs of antagonisms are prominent among pre-Qin philosophical schools: Confucians and Mohists vs. Daoists and Confucians vs. Mohists. With regard to the conception of the Way of human, both Confucians and Mohists advocated benevolence and love. However, while the former placed emphasis on the distinction between kinship and social relations, the latter held universal love as its core value. In addition, the two schools were at variance concerning the perceptual and rational principles of the system of value. Mohists identified righteousness with personal interest, believing that moral virtues have their practical value. They defined beneficial as “that which when obtained gives pleasure” and harmful as “that which when obtained is disliked.”²² Confucius, on the other hand, stressed the opposition between righteousness and personal interest, claiming that “the mind of the superior man is conversant with righteousness; the mind of the mean man is conversant with gain.”²³ He endeavored to justify the practice of a three-year mourning period for one’s parents; he believed the proposed dura-

 Dai Zhen 1991a, 209.  Dai Zhen 1991b, 12.  Mozi, “Book 10: Canon I.26,” in Mozi, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/book-10, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Confucius, “Li Ren:16,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/li-ren/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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tion to be natural and reasonable, and that a person, during the whole period of mourning, should “not enjoy pleasant food which he may eat, nor derive pleasure from music which he may hear. He also does not feel at ease, if he is comfortably lodged.”²⁴ All the moral virtues, such as benevolence, righteousness, piety, and compassion, are spontaneous expressions of human emotional and rational needs. Such expressions manifest not only the unity of passion (love and sympathy) and reason (rational demands), but also the unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of reason. Mozi was against the conflation of the principle of humanity with emotions and practical values. In his view, people’ pursuits of wealth and companionship were encumbered by a long-drawn-out mourning, particularly the three years of parental mourning. Moreover, as opposed to Confucians’ identification of rites and music with the rational, Mozi rejected music and belittled the value of the arts, saying that music-making activities were conducive to neither national wealth nor a better life for the people. Mohists saw everything from a pragmatic perspective, believing that respecting a person boiled down to respecting his or her material interests. The debate about righteousness and personal interest, commenced by Confucius and Mozi, was gradually integrated into the discourse in political theory on the question of the king and the autocratic feudal lords. The emperors of the Han dynasty implemented the ruling methods of the king and the autocratic feudal lords; in the meanwhile, they claimed Confucian teachings as their ideology. Dong Zhongshu’s belief that those who pursue what is right or appropriate give no consideration to any consequent benefit and that those who understand the Dao give no consideration to any consequent utility has been treated as the doctrine of normative Confucianism. The debate on righteousness and personal interest evolved into the conflict between reason and desire. Neo-Confucians began to call for the preservation of the principle of Heaven and the elimination of human desires. For instance, Zhu Xi remarked that the sage’s innumerable words, in a nutshell, intended to inspire people to strive for the preservation of the principle of Heaven and the elimination of human desires. Chen Liang and Ye Shi put forth the doctrine of Pragmatic Learning (事功之學 shi gong zhi xue) in their opposition to Neo- Confucianism. Their doctrine is pragmatically inclined and endorses the justified needs of human desires. Chen Liang stated: “The Way is nothing other than pleasure and anger, sorrow and joy, love and hate, attaining their appropriate expressions.”²⁵ Chen Liang’s conception of human desires was rather rudimentary, but

 Confucius, “Yang Huo:21,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/analects/yang-huo/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Chen Liang 1987b, 101.

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he astutely pointed out that the debate between reason and desire, instead of being confined to the realm of intellect, should be extended to the realm of emotion and will and to rational activities in sciences, moral practice, and artistic creation. The Way is obtained when rational activities are followed by the appropriate emotions. Neo-Confucian doctrine, i. e., the preservation of the principle of Heaven and the elimination of human desires, entails a narrow range of rational activities. Zhu Xi took nature as the principle of the heart, and emotion as its fluctuation. Desire arises when the heart overflows with fluctuation. So, Neo-Confucians urged people to eliminate desires and shut out emotions in order to grasp the principle of the heart. They saw literary and artistic pursuits, and scientific investigations as petty; they thought that these activities were harmful to the pursuit of the Way and that the acquisition of knowledge was of no consequence. Neo-Confucians saw the good as the only proper end worthy of pursuit. Zhu Xi stated that “one only comes to a stop where the ultimate good is. Being mindful of this point keeps one’s aspiration oriented.”²⁶ When human reason grasps the goal of moral practice, and aspiration spurs the person on in accordance with rational thought, then his or her life is guided towards a well-demarcated direction. NeoConfucianism, as represented by the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, treated moral practical reason as something absolute, as the principle of Heaven, the Supreme Absolute, and the Ultimate Good. At the same time, human emotions, desires, and knowledge were seen as trifles. Zhu Xi believed in the role of teaching in the cultivation of the Way, believing that “people’s engagement in worldly actions, such as Confucian scholar writing commentary on ancient texts, legalist contriving to manipulate power, Buddhists and Daoists seeking after retreat and renunciation, as well as all sorts of incoherencies and the confusing ideas of hundreds of other schools, are far from the true form of education.”²⁷ Zhu Xi himself was profoundly learned and talented, this theory of the education of virtue went to extremes, slighting other branches of practical learning, arts, sciences, technology, and schools of thought. At the outset, Confucianism was open-minded with respect to different ideas, without all the pettiness that affected the Neo-Confucians. When Confucius talked about the completion of a person, he meant the acquisition of the virtues of wisdom, uprightness, honesty, and bravery, with the additional cultivation of ritualized conduct and musical skill. The ideal character, in his conception, is a person of extensive knowledge and talents. In his essay on “Encouraging Learning,” Xunzi elaborated on the notion of noble people who knew what is the complete, and

 Zhu Xi, “Questions and Answers on the Great Learning,” in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. VI, 518.  Zhu Xi, “Questions Concerning the Doctrine of the Mean,” in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. XIII, 117.

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what is the impure that is unworthy of being called beautiful. He saw the ideal character as including profound knowledge, pure virtue, and versed in the ritualized conduct and music. Accordingly, a person needs to seek the all-around development of perception, cognition, and emotion. The great thinkers of the Ming and Qing dynasties, dissatisfied with the partial and enervated Neo-Confucianism, turned to pre-Qin Confucian ideas that demanded the all-around development of the ideal character. In his Commentary on the Analects, Wang Fuzhi remarked that “to achieve all human desires is the great unity with the Heavenly principle.”²⁸ He believed that the principle of Heaven abided in humanity; a person detached from the happiness and sufferings of the people would be unable to shoulder the responsibilities of the world. In his consideration, a healthy character possesses two aspects. On the one hand, one’s corporeal needs are gratified by the perceptions of sound, color, smell, and taste. On the other hand, one pursues the moral virtues of benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, and wisdom.²⁹ The two aspects cannot be isolated from each other. So, a person of aspiration strives to bring about the unity of perception and reason, the preservation of the body, and the completion of human nature. Virtues are manifested in corporeality; the completion of human nature is tantamount to the cultivation of the corporeal body. Wang Fuzhi’s exposition of the completion of human nature confronted the dogmatic teachings of Neo-Confucians, in particular the elimination of desires and emotions, and brought attention to the all-around development of the body and soul, that is, knowledge, emotion, and reason. Huang Zongxi, a contemporary of Wang Fuzhi, believed that the ideal character ought to be found in “heroic figures who penetrate the secret of the Heaven and earth, and render meritorious services to the world, instead of wining fame by being versed in some classical texts.”³⁰ He believed that the spirit of such heroic figures can be wheresoever it wishes: “it inhabits all the places, from the moral theories of Laozi and Zhuangzi, legalism, historians’ records, commentaries on the Classical texts, and prose and poetry, to the making of music and the calendar, as well as dramatic performances.”³¹ That is to say, any achievement, be it political, academic, literary, artistic, or scientific, is a creation of sublime value. Huang Zongxi also considered the contributions of the numerous schools of thought and respected their scholarship, even

 Wang Fuzhi, Discourse on Reading the Complete Collection of the Four Books, in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. VI, 640.  See Wang Fuzhi, “Commentary on Zhang Zai’s Rectifying the Youth,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. XII, 121.  Huang Zongxi, “Epitaph of Wu Jun, Imperial Editor of the Hanlin Academy,” in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. X, 433.  Huang Zongxi, “Introduction to the Poetry of Ji Xiongfei,” in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. X, 62.

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if they were biased or contrary to his own convictions. In addition, he saw creativity and originality in the sentimental poems composed by the daredevil youth pining for a maiden, the exiled courtier, and frontier soldiers. He advocated the cultivation of all kinds of talent, meanwhile acknowledging people’s inclinations towards specific areas of interest. It can be said that Huang Zongxi surpassed the conventional ideology of feudal society and demonstrated the enlightenment of modern thought.

The Debate on the Collective and the Self In the pre-Qin period, in addition to the contention between Confucians and Mohists, Yang Zhu presented a third alternative, advocating for the ideas of for the sake of the self (為我 wei wo) and cherishing oneself (貴己 gui ji), arguing that a man should not want to alter a single hair on his leg for a great gain in the world. Their ideas certainly belonged to reclusive and asocial minds and formed as the opposite of the Confucians and Mohists who promoted the principle of humanity and the necessity of social life. Zilu, one of Confucius’s well-known disciples, rebuked the recluses, saying that “wishing to maintain his personal purity, [the recluse] allows that great relation to come to confusion.”³² Mencius criticized Yang Zhu’s doctrine as being egoistic, because it “does not acknowledge the claims of the sovereign.”³³ Xunzi pointed out that individuals have to rely on external things and the collective power of the community to live a good life. Among the thinkers of the pre-Qin period, Xunzi advanced the fullest exposition of the notion of community. He believed that being sociable is the necessary condition for human beings to “plan and use what is not of their kind to nourish their kind.”³⁴ Hence, the division of labour and the distribution system, as well as political, legal, and moral norms, are indispensable for a society. Xunzi explained that “humans are able to form a community because they know how to differentiate. Differentiation arises from righteousness.”³⁵ He argued that all rational values, such as rites and righteousness, are for the purpose of differentiating groups. But his conception of differentiation is the simplistic classification of people ac-

 Confucius, “Wei Zi:7,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/wei-zi/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Teng Wen Gong II:14,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mengzi/teng-wen-gong-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Xunzi, “Discourse on Heaven,” in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 118.  Xunzi, “On the Concepts of Honor and Shame:12,” in Xunzi, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/xunzi/rong-ru, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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cording to their wealth and birth. He wanted a system that established “rites and righteousness to rank the poor, the rich, the high-born, and the humble. The essence of governing the world consists in seeing to all these classes.”³⁶ Social hierarchy, in his view, is a well-justified and well-intended institution for realizing a peaceful world. In short, Yang Zhu’s egoism is one-sided, but so is Xunzi’s doctrine of differentiating the classes, which does nothing but justify feudal hierarchy. Social institutions give rise to a nexus of relations between the community and individuals. At Xunzi’s time, the community necessarily consisted of a patriarchal and feudal hierarchy. So, his ideas of public justice and universal righteousness have their historical and class limitations. In contrast to Yang Zhu’s promotion of egoism, Zhuangzi developed the notion of without-self (無我wu wo), and claimed that the perfect man had no self, and that a genuine carefree state of mind would attain the sphere in which “Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one.”³⁷ Later on, many schools of Chinese Buddhism adopted the notion of without-self; however, the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, one of the three marks of existence, is quite different from Zhuangzi’s concept. Anatta means that there is no unchanging, permanent self or soul in living beings, and no abiding essence in anything or in any phenomenon. Zen Buddhism further elaborates on the concept, taking the Buddhanature to be innate in one’s heart. The self possesses all that is needed to attain enlightenment and manifests the indwelling Buddha-nature. Thus, a sudden realization can transform a person into a Buddha. Zen Buddhism plays up the individual’s confidence and self-determination in order to induce people to strive for liberation from worldly entanglement and to attain freedom. Neo-Confucians took over the concept of without-self and used it to construct their argument in the debate on the distinction between reason and desire, which consisted in the distinction between the communal and the private. The concept of the self entails the private. In his Commentary on the Analects, Zhu Xi remarked that “the four constitutes the beginning and the end: intention is the originator, necessity is the pursuit, perseverance is the staple, and the self is the completion […] The self again comes up with intention which initiates another round of the circle. So the movement in the circle continues relentlessly.” He believed that people should eliminate their desires to reach the state of without-self as a way to end these vicious circles. He argued for a selfless state of mind for the purpose of pre-

 Xunzi, “On the Concepts of Honor and Shame:12,” in Xunzi, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/xunzi/rong-ru, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies:9,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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serving the principle of Heaven. Neo-Confucians identify reason with rites, prescribing rules that “look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.”³⁸ A person is rational if his or her daily conduct is in accordance with rites and righteousness. It seems fair to say that their conception of without-self requires the people to submit to destiny. Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming rejected the doctrines of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, adopted instead Zen Buddhism tradition with its greater emphasis on individuality. Wang Yangming did not like to see reason as a fixed and external imposition, but as an unfolding development in the history of human knowledge and individual cognition. The school of Taizhou and Li Zhi challenged the doctrine of preserving the principle of Heaven and eliminating human desires. Li Zhi underscored the importance of individuality and believed that human beings necessarily have a private aspect. His exposition revealed the sanctimoniousness of pedantic Neo-Confucians and demonstrated the importance of progress. However, these thinkers tended to fall into voluntarism. Huang Zongxi also emphasized individuality, stating that “people were all concerned with themselves and strove after their own advantage.”³⁹ He believed benevolence is a virtue that permeates one’s heart as if the vital force of a seed growing within. Since the seed of benevolence is innate to human beings, just as a seed of grain contains potential life, appropriate nurturing will certainly complete human nature. He described this process as sufficient practical effort bringing about substance. In his view, the substance of the heart varies greatly in people. Concerning learning, he believed that “truth is attained when each scholar uses his own insights to obtain it.”⁴⁰ His view manifested his emphasis on the principle of individuality. Wang Fuzhi expressed his opposition to the doctrine of without-self in a more explicit manner and took the self to be the master of virtues and emotions. Since the self is the subject of virtues, without the self, virtues have nowhere to dwell. Moreover, the discourse of virtues cannot be isolated from human community and the nation. The cultivation of things is a necessary condition for the cultivation of the self. As Gu Yanwu stated, everyone takes responsibility for the destiny of his or her country. In An Obscured Paragon of Virtue Awaiting a Royal Visit, Huang Zongxi compared himself to Jizi who lectured on The Book of Hong Fan for King  Confucius, “Yan Yuan:1,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yan-yuan/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Huang Zongxi, An Obscured Paragon of Virtue Awaiting a Royal Visit, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. I, 1.  Huang Zongxi, Case Studies of Ming Confucians, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. XIII, 6.

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Wu, the first king of the Zhou dynasty, saying that he himself wanted to be as loyal to his sovereign as Jizi, yet was unable to keep silence about the future of his country. He depicted a democratic picture for modern China. These great thinkers strived to bring together the principles of individuality and patriotism, and public and private interests. Their doctrines uphold the importance of individuality and encourage its development; they urge people to cultivate responsibility and preserve the best part of Chinese tradition. The feudal system had long established a unified country, while communal life and cultural traditions contributed to a deep-rooted national psychology. Hence, defending the unity of the country and national dignity has been an important criterion of value. It has to be acknowledged that some dregs of the feudal tradition, such as presumptuous self-conceit, greatnation chauvinism, and the closed-door policy, need to be abandoned. However, people’s patriotism and sense of national pride have played a significant role in the anti-imperialist struggle in modern China. In sum, three debates can be distinguished with respect to the principle of the value system in ancient Chinese philosophy: the relation between Heaven and humanity, that between reason and desire, and that between the collective and the self. Different schools of thought, such as the Confucians, Mohists, Daoists, and Buddhists, have their distinctive partialities. Normative Confucians promote a dogmatic doctrine of the Heavenly mandate, which actually dismisses the principle of humanity and treats practical reason as something absolute. Their teachings are characteristic of an authoritarian value system in that they brush aside other aspects of human nature and restrain individuality in the name of public interest. Meanwhile, other schools of thought, through difficult struggles, have formulated some keen dialectical insights, such as the emphasis on the unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of nature; the all-around and diverse development of the body and soul, the intellect, emotion, and intention; the unity of public and private interest; the emphasis on social responsibilities and patriotism without sacrificing individuality. All these positive legacies have seen further development in modern times.

The Revolution of Values in Modern China Modern China has witnessed a social and philosophical revolution, including a revolution of values. In terms of the evolution of social history, modern China experienced a revolutionary transition from a natural economy to a commercial economy, and from a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society to the initial stage of socialism. These transitions are manifested in its ideology, and the target of reformation is directed at the authoritarian value system nurtured by the natural econ-

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omy. The revolution of values pivots around the debate on the relation between the collective and the self. Although this topic that received much attention in ancient philosophy, it is not until modern times that this receives clear-cut delineation. Confucians and Mohists in ancient times, on the one hand, talked about the principle of humanity, but the former focuses on the Heavenly mandate, and the later on equality. So, both schools presume the individual’s reliance on authority. Zhuangzi, Zen Buddhism, and Wang Yangming, on the other hand, champion individuality, but their characterization of individuality is equivalent to the state of the mind, being in the state of without-self. The Taizhou school believed that human beings have the capacity to create their own destiny, and Wang Fuzhi took the self as the master of virtues. Unfortunately, all these philosophers failed to enlarge on the idea of “the self ” beyond its initial conception. Gong Zizhen stated that “the master of the mass is neither the Way nor the external things, but the so-called self.”⁴¹ He saw the self as the first principle of the universe, an idea that marked the awakening of “the self ” in modern China. Gong Zizhen’s description of the self reveals human beings’ independence from the commercial economy, and therefore constitutes the inception of modern humanism. Tan Sitong called his own doctrine as the study of humanity (仁學 ren xue), which meant breaking the snares and traps of the feudal ethical code; Liang Qichao urged people to cast off the slavery of the mind; Yan Fu advocated for a reasonable degree of egoism. Zhang Taiyan believed that a person ought to have self-reliance rather than dependence on others, saying that “humans are born for their own sake, not for others.”⁴² During the New Culture Movement, Chen Duxiu, Li Daozhao, and Lu Xun were all exponents of individual liberation and adamant opponents of an authoritarian value system. Hu Shi also held some reservations about traditional thought and called for a re-evaluation of all values. In connection with the emphasis on the freedom of the individual, the relation between reason and desire, and the relation between Heaven and humanity acquired new characteristics. Concerning the debate on the relation between reason and desire, modern thinkers take issue with the doctrine that calls for the preservation of the principle of Heaven and the elimination of human desires. They campaign on behalf of the free development of diverse talents and practical learning, which is the type of learning rejected by the Neo-Confucians. Moreover, some of the modern thinkers set great store by will power and emotions. Concerning the debate on the relation between Heaven and humanity, modern thinkers reject

 Gong Zizhen 1999a, 12.  Zhang Taiyan 1982, 444– 445.

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the ideas of doing nothing, mediation, and the middle way that were popular among ancient Confucian and Daoist thinkers. They instead highlight the importance of individual struggle and encourage people to contend with Heaven and earth. Inspired by the notion of competition in the theory of evolution, they strive to read competitive relations into the connections between humans and nature, and into human society. Zhang Taiyan advanced the idea that competition yields wisdom, and revolution enlightens the people’s intellect, which evolved into the Marxists’ revolutionary view of practice. Modern thinkers tend to exalt science, believing that humans have the capacity to use scientific methods to control nature. So, they reject fideism and hold in contempt the attitude of doing nothing in the face of nature. All these trends of thought demonstrate the profound change in the modern Chinese value system. In a capitalist society, people’s autonomy results in the fetishism of the commodity and money, which brings about another kind of servitude to humanity. The Chinese people, however, felt an imminent danger of becoming a conquered people upon the invasion of Western imperialism. Modern revolution had the mission of resisting the internal feudal system as well as external imperialistic colonialism. The socialist movement thus emerged as one of the ways to confront imperialism. In An Essay on the Great Unity, Kang Youwei presented the ideal society that the reformists should strive for. Sun Yat-sen also championed the ideal of great unity. It has to be noted, that the concept of great unity advocated by the socialist movement diverges greatly from its classical conception. Classical thinkers conceived of the ideal of great unity in remote antiquity as a doctrine that does not encourage progress. The modern thinkers’ ideal of great unity, however, inspires people to strive for a better society in the future. The notion of the ideal society is transformed from being utopian to being scientific. Li Dazhao took up the concept and offered an explicit interpretation of its definition, saying that “the movement for individual liberation goes along with the movement for the great unity. These two movements, seemingly the opposite of one other, are actually complementary.”⁴³ He advocated to “reconstruct the mentality of the people according to humanism, and to reconstruct the economic organization according to socialism.”⁴⁴ The unity of socialism and humanism, and the great unity and individual liberation, in his view, are grounded in the materialistic view of history and the Marxist theory of economy. Lu Xun believed that enlightened intellectuals, who are representatives of the ideal character of revolutionary pioneers, are the embodiment of the new theory of values, as expounded by Li Dazhao. Lu Xun believed

 Li Dazhao, “On Populism,” in Li Dazhao 2006, Vol. IV, 122.  Li Dazhao, “My View of Marxism,” in Li Dazhao 2006, Vol. III, 35.

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that revolutionary pioneers ought to have crystal-clear intellect and strong will power, well-defined collective consciousness and self-consciousness, independent character, self-respect and respect for others, and ought to be well aware that every person is one among the many. Moreover, a person should not abuse power when holding an office; leaders should be good at managing rather than currying favor with the people. In addition, a person with power should avoid being tainted by a servile or thievish manner. The ideal character that embodies all the traits genuinely represents the unity of socialism and humanism. Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, and Qü Qiübai endeavored to use the new values to oppose feudal authoritarianism and the pragmatism of the bourgeoisie, and to eliminate the alienation that resulted in people’s blind worship of power and money. Many revolutionaries carried out these theories in practice in their effort to be the embodiment of the new values. It can be said that they embodied the unity of socialism and humanism, and the great unity and individual liberation. Owing to the specific conditions of Chinese society and the people’s demands for struggle, the Chinese Marxists of the 1930s accentuated their contention with individualism and libertarianism by vehemently advocating the doctrine that saw the individual as an instrument of history. So, they inevitably overlooked the importance of human autonomy and the liberation of individuality. The socialist movement could easily be limited by the peasants’ narrow-mindedness because of the economic reality of the country. Hence, administrative powers often took control of the entire society and encouraged worship of the individual. Chinese thinkers in modern times found the right solution to social issues in their emphasis on the significance of struggle, contending with Heaven and earth, and resisting feudal and imperialistic powers. However, Marxists of later generations tend to assume a narrower notion of struggle, identifying it with class struggle, which in turn is reduced to political struggle. So, they boil everything down to political struggle. Consequently, they unconsciously replace the traditional idea of practical reason with the narrowly defined concept of struggle. While Neo-Confucians treat as the absolute their rational doctrine, i. e., the preservation of the principle of Heaven and the eliminations of human desires, Marxists have the tendency of treating the political struggle and political consciousness as something absolute, taking the two concepts as the sole criteria of value. As a result, their doctrine turned into dogmatic teaching and brought about the catastrophic decade of turmoil during the Cultural Revolution in the years from 1966 to 1976. During these years, the principles of humanity and socialism were trampled, and the new values expounded by Li Dazhao and Lu Xun that promoted the people’s interest were distorted. However, it should be noted that the catastrophe was not simply a theoretical failure but had deep-rooted historical causes.

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As Qü Qiübai pointed out, modern China has often witnessed the phenomenon of the dead hoodwinking the living. He saw many traditional values, such as the Confucian ethical code and the cultivation of the gentleman, as the ghosts of the past (which Lu Xun described as the nothingness of things). The ghosts of our past still act on people by donning modern and fancy Western attire, and staging enchanting shows. They can even be shrouded in a cloak of Marxism. Lu Xun scorned the upper class as “play actors of nihilism”, to whom life was a show in which they, without making any commitment, wore masks and fooled the audience. They could play-act the gentlemen in public, then return to their wanton and avaricious life in private. The upper class, as Lu Xun described it, was versed in villainy and adept at slick talk and smart dress, and stopped at nothing evil. All the old and new values were a mere showy cloak for the nihilistic and pragmatic old aristocrats who, having neither virtues nor faith, were ready to do whatsoever for their own gain. The old aristocrats were skillful at abusing power and profiting at the expense of others, though their souls were indeed never strangers to patriotism and collective spirit. To them, power and money combined into one, and the people were instruments of their avarice. This class is the abnormal product of China’s semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions. The autocratic feudal lords left behind the corrupt influence of power play that penetrates the daily life of ordinary people through popular literature, such as the beloved Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In modern times, the power play, wedded to villainy, has produced offspring who are play-acting nihilists who greatly sabotage the society. The upper class not only occupy the dominant position in the society, doing deeds that harm the nation and the people in the name of public interest, but they also corrupt the popular mind by spreading immoral influence and stirring up scepticism. Lu Xun believed that their deep-rooted influence fostered a bad national morale that, when matured into a stubborn habit, would feed into the play-actors. He claimed that the Chinese revolution would be like a tower built on the sand if the people did not first overcome such toxic influence. The objective conditions of our backward economy render this influence a difficult force to overwhelm. Modern Chinese society is caught in a dilemma: with our small-scale peasant economy, the country is like scattered sands when it not united under a centralized rule. It is impossible for the nation to resist foreign invasions and organize revolution. However, since the people lack a democratic tradition, centralized rule usually turns into a power that surpasses the society. Moreover, on account of the conventional powers described above, the ruling power often devolves into playing-acting nihilists of partisan politics. The disintegration of centralized rule is immediately followed by a very divided society. Since the late period of the Qing dynasty, China has experienced a vicious circle; though some progress has been made, the dilemma has yet to find its resolution. Conse-

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quently, concerning the value system, people have long lost their bearings and been caught in a state of vacuum. As Zhuangzi depicted it, people were so uncompromisingly devoted to adopting the exotic gait when in a foreign country, they soon forgot how to walk. In the end, they had to crawl back home. This story graphically depicted the inconclusive state of the revolution in Chinese philosophy with respect to values in modern times. At the present time, we ought to face up to the difficulty. However, a genuine resolution to the problem requires objective conditions, about which a comprehensive understanding of the political, economic, cultural, and moral realms is of vital importance. Scholars need to understand history. We should see that the revolution of the modern Chinese value system is not without accomplishment, however, class struggle and internal conflict in the political realm have been so intense that politics is seen as the sole criterion of value. Consequently, the new value system is reduced to dogmatic doctrine. Hence, we have to learn lessons from historical experience, and thoroughly investigate worship of the individual and the authoritarian values under the cloak of Marxism. Our present task is to examine history and provide a theoretical summary that offers as a conscious principle for the people the value system characterized by the unity of socialism and humanitarianism. That being done, the conventional influences, as described above, would certainly be subdued. Our work would certainly accelerate socialist modernization. Then, what is the reasonable value system we wish to realize? What qualifies as such a value system, characterized by the unity of socialism and humanitarianism, and the great unity and the liberation of individuality? At the present stage, three notable qualities can be defined. First, the final cause of a reasonable value system is the freedom of labor. All activities that create value fulfill human freedom, In the meantime, such activities make individuals and society free. Freedom gradually evolves in social practice and labor, that is, the activities of transforming the world and developing oneself. Indeed, the freedom of labor is a historical process; accordingly, as the final cause, it cannot be a metaphysical concept. Freedom, in effect, is the product of history. We have presently reached a historical stage in which humanity is capable of consciously containing the alienation of labor, and reliance on others and material things. Therefore, a value system characterized by the unity of socialism and humanitarianism will soon come into being. Our investigation of the social history and the reformation of the value system of modern China, as conducted earlier, necessarily reaches this conclusion. Second, the principles of a reasonable value system lie in the resolution of the debate on the relation between Heaven and humanity, that between reason and desires, and that between the collective and the self. Egoistic and relativistic indeterminism need to be restrained in our dispute with the authoritarian and dogmat-

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ic doctrine of the Heavenly mandate. Our examination, using logical and historical methods, reached the conclusion that the principle of humanity and the principle of nature should be brought into a dialectical unity; human intellect, emotions, will power, and the spiritual and material productive capacities should be given opportunities for all-around and diversified development; individuality and collective spirit should become complementary to each another to facilitate the attainment of the ideal outcome of the great unity and liberation of individuality. Third, value is the actualization of the ideal in the broad sense. In general, the conceptual modality of the ideal is articulated by the correspondence between actual possibilities and human needs and conceptualized in concrete terms. People take conceptualized ideals as a criterion to evaluate things. The objectification of valuation is as good as value itself. Therefore, a value system can be described as a system of ideals. A reasonable value system for an era constitutes the highest ideals of the progressive people of the time, it can also be the common ideals of the society and the life-long dreams of each individual. In the present time, the unity of socialism and humanitarianism, and the great unity and the liberation of individuality have become the highest ideals of progressive people. The fundamental good is a genuine interest of progressive people as well as the majority. A reasonable value system aims at the ideal sphere that is conducive to the public interest and the free development of individuality, in which the true, the good, and the beautiful are melt into one another. To sum up, the previous four chapters focused on the following topics: the freedom that lies in the realization of the ideal, the demand for freedom that constitutes human essence, the ways to transform things-for-ourselves into the realm of values through evaluation and creation, and the principles and characteristics of a reasonable value system. The following chapters will investigate difference territories of culture in order to reveal the relation between freedom and the values of truth, good, beauty, and interest.

Chapter 5 Myth and Wisdom The free development of human nature is the all-around development of the mind and body, and the rational and nonrational parts of the soul (instinct, emotions, will power). The rational and nonrational, and the scientific and mythological, have always been intermingled in human history, evolving from the concrete to the abstract, and again spiraling upward to the concrete, in accordance with the laws of development. The primitive mythologies associated with crafts and skills are concrete, their values are yet to be differentiated. Religion as the synthesis of mythology, and philosophy as the synthesis of scientific endeavors, devolved into authoritarianism in their attempts to provide a supreme and all-inclusive value system for a culture. True philosophical wisdom provides insight into the secrets of the universe and human life is thus intimately intertwined with the free development of human nature. Moreover, such wisdom is rational, with particular and historical characteristics. It penetrates the realms of science, morality, and the arts so that it is internalized by the soul rather than being external dogmatic doctrine.

Myth and Concrete Thinking Mythology and Primitive Thinking Some ten thousand years ago, when humankind embarked on the New Stone Age, agriculture and herding replaced foraging and hunting. This marked great progress in human history. At that time, primitive people began to acquire skills, such as pottery, husbandry, and weaving. In addition, the social division of labor and basic forms of exchange began to emerge. With the advancement of production, social communes such as tribes were formed and eventually established states. This is the legendary age of Fuxi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor. Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor formulated the hierarchies of the monarchy and his subjects, the rites between father and son, and those between brothers; he also employed knife and saw at home and armored soldiers abroad. Evidently, during the Yellow Emperor’s time, the institutions of family and state were already firmly established, and inventions such as writing, music, medical science, and arithmetic were quite prevalent. Indeed, human beings seemed to be transitioning into the civilized age. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-006

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This transitional period encouraged the creation of myth. Primitive people’s skills of husbandry were connected with mythology and tribal totem worship. In Chinese mythology, Fuxi and Nüwa, the ancestors of human beings, have human heads and snake bodies, a combination that seems to emphasize the chthonic origin of humanity. The myth of Nüwa patching up the broken sky with rocks seems to be related to pottery. The Appendices of the Book of Changes describes Fuxi as the originator of the eight trigrams, stating that he knotted cords to make nets and baskets for hunting and fishing. While the eight trigrams mark the invention of divination and augury, the knotted cords mark the development of technology that transformed hunting into animal husbandry. The Book of Origins recorded that Fuxi and Nüwa were the inventors of string and wind musical instruments. Mythological figures were created to explain the origins of crafts and technology. The Book of Origins also records that the shaman Peng discovered medicine, and that the shaman Xian invented divination and drumming. So, the inventions of healing, divination, and ritual music were connected with the seers and their practices. All these inventions and the technology of domesticating animals, cultivating crops, making pottery, raising silkworms, and so on, required strenuous and long-term observation and experimentation. It is imaginable that these inventions and skills only emerged after many failures. Here, human beings’ subjective initiative before nature was already fully in view. Through repeated practice, humanity fostered its desire and capacity for knowledge. Researchers who study primitive tribes in Australia, America, and Africa have discovered that the amount of knowledge tribal people have about animals and vegetation is so great that it can shock civilized people. Primitive artifacts, such as the pottery and stone carvings unearthed in China, are wonders to behold, surpassing many modern artworks. Therefore, in the time when mythology was associated with shamanism, humankind had already attained considerable cultural achievements. Their capacities for labor and their ideas associated with physical work had undergone noteworthy developments. The primitive way of thinking manifested in mythology and shamanism has three prominent characteristics. First, primitive thinking does not make a distinction between external objects and the self and presupposes the correspondence between Heaven and humanity. Primitive people do not seem to see themselves as distinct from the world around them; and natural forces are entities with their own lives, volitions, emotions, and desires. For instance, the god of thunder and lightning demonstrates the characteristics of mythology. Second, primitive thinking weaves imagination with reality. Myth is imagination beyond the natural world and expresses humans’ wish to take control of nature. Primitive people take the fictional as the real, thus shamanistic rituals and sacrificial ceremonies have a

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significant social function. Primitive people believe that the tribe will receive reciprocal gifts, such as a good harvest, from the gods after sacrificial ceremonies. Third, unlike the scientific and theoretical thinking that developed later, primitive thinking is concrete and perceptually intuitive, expressed in images or symbols. This way of thinking has its advantages. For instance, a trainer of circus animals can acquire intimate knowledge of the animals, so does a gardener with plants. In a similar fashion, we have intimate knowledge of the people close to us, being so familiar with their temperaments that we are able to foresee what they intend to do at the slightest hint. A tiny hint becomes a symbol in our thinking. In contrast with abstract and theoretical thinking, intuitive thinking has the positive feature of being specific. However, because it lacks theoretical abstraction and analysis, and also because it renders only a general description, intuitive thinking tends to mix with illusion. That being so, the characteristics of primitive thinking are worthy of thorough study. The Book of Changes, though written at a relative late date, contains a few categories that originated in remote antiquity. For instance, in the exposition of Xun, one of the eight trigrams, the Book states: “Xun suggests the idea of wood; of wind; of the oldest daughter; of a plumb-line; of a carpenter’s square; […] of a large development of the white of the eye. (Among tendencies), it suggests the close pursuit of gain, even to making three hundred per cent in the market.”¹ It seems unfathomable to us how all these completely unrelated things can be subsumed under the same category, but the people of antiquity were able to discern similarities among trees and wind in the natural world, human beings’ profit from exchange, and a malady in the eye. The trigram Zhong Fu is interpreted as showing “its subject (like) the crane crying out in her hidden retirement, and her young ones responding to her. (It is as if it were said), ‘I have a cup of good spirits,’ (and the response were), ‘I will partake of it with you.’”² The exposition of the trigram creates a fascinating connection between the songs of cranes and the merry-making of people. This is what the Book of Songs describes as associations (興xing). Even modern people have the immediate experience of such associations with the natural world. The cranes’ exchanging songs enhances the joy of a drinking party. If a person of abstract rationality inquires: is there a causality between the two events? We might be at a loss to find an answer. Primitive thinking operates by way of combining images with techniques; hence, an imaginative connection does not necessarily conform to actual connec “Shuo Gua:14,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ book-of-changes/shuo-gua/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Zhong Fu:3,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ book-of-changes/zhong-fu/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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tions, even as some imaginative connections enable us to fathom the tendencies of the development of things and hence to comprehend the things themselves.

From Arts to the Way When people entered the civilized age, the primitive art of augury evolved into the art of divining numbers manipulated by shaman-scribes, including astronomy, the calendrical system, the penal code, divination by turtle shell and yallow stalk, as well as other forms of divination. The art of divining numbers involved many technical skills that contained the intimations of rational thought. As experience and technical skills accumulated, human knowledge advanced, fundamental principles were formulated, and the art of divination became the Way. At the outset, philosophy and science borrowed general principles from the art of divination to interpret the world. The doctrine of yin and yang proposed in the Book of Changes and the doctrine of the Five Phases (五行 wu xing) in the Shang Shu marked the transformation from the art of divination into the Way. At this stage, scientific and theoretical thinking began to germinate, even as it was still intimately entwined with mythology. The real and the imaginary were intertwined. At their inception, the Way and divination were indistinguishable, the concrete was bound together with the abstract, and science with mythology. Marx points out that Greek mythology was the soil of Greek art. Indeed, Greek mythology nourished not only art, but also philosophy. For instance, myth-making is often found in Plato’s philosophical discourses, not to mention in earlier philosophers. Ancient Chinese philosophy has a comparable case. According to Gu Jiegang’s research, Chinese mythology can be divided into two traditions: the Kunlun tradition and the Penglai tradition. In the period of the Warring States, the two traditions merged into one and became the main source of inspiration for Zhuangzi’s philosophy and Qu Yuan’s literature.³ Here we put aside the literary references of mythology, focusing on the myth-making in Zhuangzi. In “Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease,” Zhuangzi depicted his conception of the ideal character in a remarkable myth: “Far away on the hill of Gu Ye there dwelt a Spirit-like man whose flesh and skin were (smooth) as ice and (white) as snow; that his manner was elegant and delicate as that of a virgin; that he did not eat any of the five grains, but inhaled the wind and drank the dew; that he mounted on the clouds, drove along the flying dragons, rambling

 See Gu Jiegang 1979.

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and enjoying himself beyond the four seas.”⁴ A mythical divine being untroubled by worldly affairs is a truly free individual. Such a character is “one who mounts on (the ether of ) Heaven and earth in its normal operation, and drives along the six elemental energies of the changing (seasons), thus enjoying himself in the illimitable.”⁵ In “The Great and Most Honoured Master,” Zhuangzi infused myth-making into his theoretical exposition of the Way (the Dao): This is the Dao; there is in It emotion and sincerity, but It does nothing and has no bodily form. It may be handed down (by the teacher), but may not be received (by his scholars). It may be apprehended (by the mind), but It cannot be seen. It has Its root and ground (of existence) in-itself. Before there were heaven and earth, from of old, there It was, securely existing. From It came the mysterious existences of spirits, from It the mysterious existence of God. It produced heaven; It produced earth. It was before the Tai-ji, and yet could not be considered high; It was below all space, and yet could not be considered deep. It was produced before heaven and earth, and yet could not be considered to have existed long; It was older than the highest antiquity, and yet could not be considered old. Shi-wei got It, and by It adjusted heaven and earth. Fu-xi got It, and by It penetrated to the mystery of the maternity of the primary matter. The Wei-dou got It, and from all antiquity has made no eccentric movement. The Sun and Moon got It, and from all antiquity have not intermitted (their bright shining). Kan-pei got It, and by It became lord of Kun-lun. Feng-yi got It, and by It enjoyed himself in the Great River. Jian-wu got It, and by It dwelt on mount Tai. Huang-di got It, and by It ascended the cloudy sky. Zhuan-xu got It, and by It dwelt in the Dark Palace. Yu-jiang got It, and by It was set on the North Pole. Xi Wang-mu got It, and by It had her seat in (the palace of ) Shao-guang. No one knows Its beginning; no one knows Its end. Peng Zu got It, and lived on from the time of the lord of Yu to that of the Five Chiefs. Fu Yue got It, and by It became chief minister to Wu-ding, (who thus) in a trice became master of the kingdom. (After his death), Fu Yue mounted to the eastern portion of the Milky Way, where, riding on Sagittarius and Scorpio, he took his place among the stars.⁶

Here, Zhuangzi made extensive reference to the two traditions of mythology. But his use of myth, unlike the primitives who took myths as reality, was to illustrate his philosophy. He saw the Way as something concrete, that “may be handed down (by the teacher), but may not be received (by his scholars). It may be apprehended

 Zhuangzi, “Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease:5,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoyment-in-untroubled-ease/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease:5,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoyment-in-untroubled-ease/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Great and Most Honoured Master,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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(by the mind), but It cannot be seen.”⁷ Hence, the Way is not graspable by language or concepts. Zhuangzi, being wary of the limitations of language and concepts, claimed that the Way can only be comprehended by “leaving my material form, and bidding farewell to my knowledge, I am become one with the Great Pervader.”⁸ To do this is to attain the sphere in which “Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one.”⁹ In this sphere, the Way is completely comprehended. Therein arises a paradox. On the one hand, philosophy requires concrete truth. On the other hand, philosophical articulation of the truth has to use language and concepts that are by nature abstract and analytic. Zhuangzi made many inquiries into the question of whether or not language can sufficiently express the Way. However, the trouble is that he could have no other means but language with which to convey his thought. Then how to resolve the paradox? Zhuangzi’s solution is to use figurative speech. He stated: “Of my sentences nine in ten are metaphorical; of my illustrations seven in ten are from valued writers.”¹⁰ So, mythology supplies him with metaphors and illustrations. In his writing, philosophical discourse and myth-making are fused to reveal truth in fantastic images. Maybe that is the reason why his writing possesses an enduring charm. At that time, the marriage of the concrete with the abstract, and of science with mythology, were prevalent in philosophical writings such as the Book of Changes, the Monthly Ordinances, and the Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Internal Medicine. The Book of Changes was originally a reference book for divination but evolved into a systematic theory of forms and numbers that eventually became a mode of rational thinking and a logical tool for understanding the world. However, the system of forms and numbers is still associated with divination and mythology. As it evolved into the Appendices of the Book of Changes, the elements of divination and mythology were significantly diminished. The Appendices of the Book of Changes holds that “the system of Changes assimilates the nature of all things, knows the causes of what is hidden and what is manifest; hence, it is capable of grasping the Way of all under Heaven.”¹¹ The book contains a high degree of phil Zhuangzi, “The Great and Most Honoured Master,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Great and Most Honoured Master,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Metaphorical Language:1,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/metaphorical-language/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Appendix 3:1,” in Appendices of the Book of Changes, in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 265.

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osophical contemplation, even as it is still characterized by the mythological unity of things and the self, the correspondence between Heaven and humanity, and that between reality and the supernatural. For instance, the dragon, which is an object of totem worship for the Chinese people, is transformed into the symbol for the hexagram Qian in the Book of Changes. The hexagram Qian has six connotations: “In the first (or lowest) NINE, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon lying hid (in the deep). It is not the time for active doing.” “In the second NINE, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon appearing in the field.” “In the fifth NINE, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon on the wing in the sky.” “In the sixth (or topmost) NINE, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon exceeding the proper limits. There will be occasion for repentance.”¹² All the connotations display a rudimentary logical system. The Appendices of the Book of Changes advances an elaborate account for each connotation. For instance, the fifth NINE denotes the advantageous chance to meet great men. The Exposition of the Characters (Wen Yan) develops a thorough interpretation of the symbolism: What is the meaning of the words under the fifth NINE, ‘The dragon is on the wing in the sky —it will be advantageous to see the great man?’ The Master said: ‘Notes of the same key respond to one another; creatures of the same nature seek one another; water flows towards the place that is (low and) damp; fire rises up towards what is dry; clouds follow the dragon, and winds follow the tiger: (so) the sage makes his appearance, and all men look to him. Things that draw their origin from heaven move towards what is above; things that draw their origin from the earth cleave to what is below:—so does everything follow its kind.’¹³

Furthermore, the great man here symbolizes the ideal character, who is defined as “he who is in harmony, in his attributes, with heaven and earth; in his brightness, with the sun and moon; in his orderly procedure, with the four seasons; and in his relation to what is fortunate and what is calamitous, in harmony with the spiritlike operations (of Providence).” The definition draws a comparison between natural phenomena, mythology, and the dragon in Heaven with the mortal sage in an effort to portray the ideal character who “may precede Heaven, and Heaven will not act in opposition to him; he may follow Heaven, but will act (only) as Heaven at the time would do.”¹⁴ The wisdom and virtue of the great man are as infinite as the sun, the moon, the sky, and the earth. Each chapter of the Appendices of the

 Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/book-of-changes/ qian/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/book-of-changes/ qian/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/book-of-changes/ qian/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Book of Changes expands on the eight trigrams sketched out in the Book of Changes. The author is apparently convinced that the scheme developed in the Book of Changes is sufficient to reveal the truth of the world and the Way of the changes unfolding in the movement of the symbols and numbers. However, the system of symbols and numbers has not divested itself of primitive mythology and divination. In short, philosophers of the time in which the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi were composed were still susceptible to mythology and shamanism. That age, though gone forever, merits our investigation.

The Role of Myth in Knowledge With the advancement of the sciences and technology, mythology gradually lost its lustre of being the representative of reality. Here, a crucial distinction should be made between mythology and superstition. Scientific development banished superstitious beliefs; however, mythology still plays an important role in human knowledge. The age that was under the sway of the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi is forever gone, but education, artistic creation, and theoretical thinking still avail themselves of the inspiration provided by mythology. Some myths have been adapted into children’s fairy tales and have pedagogical use, because children’s early education resembles our primitive ancestors’ life. Just like the primitives, children interact with mythological figures and anthropomorphic objects. When they play games, they use their imagination and concrete thinking at the same time and talk to themselves. This behavior resembles the thinking mode of the primitives, whose minds also operated alongside their bodily movements and objective things. The mode of concrete thinking is important to children’s psychological development, because this stage prepares them for scientific and rational thinking. Concrete thinking is charged with imagination and intense emotions, and expresses itself in figurative speech, such as similes and metaphors. Studying children’s way of thinking from a psychological perspective is of great value to philosophy. The impact mythology has on literature and the arts is all the more apparent. Myth is the source of inspiration for many Chinese literary classics, such as Journey to the West, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, and Dream of the Red Chamber. The latter creates a Land of Illusion as a mythological disenchantment to contrast with the realistic setting of the novel. So, literature is another way to keep mythology alive. Then, is mythology of any use to science and philosophy? Time certainly will not roll backward to the age of Zhuangzi, when the tug between science and myth-

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ology was forever in flux; even so, will science cut all ties with mythology? The answer is in the negative. Science and superstition indeed constitute an irreconcilable pair; however, mythology is not limited to superstition, it can encompass visionary reflections of the world. Such visions may result in superstition; but at the same time, they may also contain valuable truths. Mythology, as a way of taking control of natural phenomena in the imagination, manifests human initiative and compels people to make scientific inquiries and inventions. All these would be inconceivable without imagination and vision. Let us make reference to two Western philosophers to expand the argument. Here is how American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine looks at myth: Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries— not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. […] But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.¹⁵

Quine’s pragmatic view that treats science as efficacious hypothesis and subsumes it under the same category with mythology confuses their differences. Scientific hypotheses can become theorems after being proved by a chain of logical reasoning and verified in practice. If this difference is warranted, the objective truthfulness of science will not be written off. However, imagination does have a function in the formulation of hypotheses by associating human needs with actual possibilities and giving concrete expression to the association in order to give guidance to human actions. This constitutes the common quality of scientific imagination and mythology. In this sense, scientific hypotheses and mythology fall under the same category. But it has to be noted that mythology is a mixture of the illusory and the real; hence, the line of demarcation between the reasonable and the superstitious is undefined. The demarcation would have to submit to further verification. All in all, since imagination is indispensable to scientific inquiries and inventions, mythology cannot be entirely irrelevant regardless of the level of scientific achievement. French philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss stresses the difference between primitive and scientific thinking. In the Savage Mind, he states: “The physical world is approached from opposite ends in the two cases: one is supremely concrete, the other supremely abstract; one proceeds from the angle of sensible qualities and

 Quine 2003, 44.

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the other from that of formal properties.”¹⁶ Lévi-Strauss advanced the two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge, arguing that science and mythology require the same sort of mental operations. Magical thought and ritual practices, in his view, are equal expressions of the unconscious apprehension of the truth of determinism. This is the mode in which scientific phenomena exist. This mode uses the remains and debris of events to build up structured sets. Lévi-Strauss claims: “Mythical thought for its part is imprisoned in the events and experiences which it never tires of ordering and re-ordering in its search to find them a meaning.”¹⁷ Although elementary, such structures have advantages unattainable through abstract thinking. Lévi-Strauss was not committed to any particular view of history, so he unavoidably treated the two modes of thinking as in complete opposition to each other. But he was right in discerning that, by means of mythology and divination, primitives perceptually and intuitively comprehended the world; moreover, this mode of thinking is structured, and hence its principles for interpreting reality have inspirational value to future generations. Just as the Appendices of the Book of Changes and the Monthly Ordinances make use of valuable materials preserved from our primitive mythology and divination, turning them into analogy, the scheme of symbols and numbers, and the law of the unity of opposites between yin and yang. The acquisition of scientific knowledge abides by the law of movement that proceeds in an upward spiral movement, from the concrete to the abstract, and then the abstract spirals upward to the next level of the concrete. Therefore, in order to comprehend particular truths and realize the historical unity of the subject and the object, of knowledge and action, theoretical thinking has to constantly review its origin and the mode of primitive thinking and make inquiries into the age that produced the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi for inspiration.

Christian and Confucian Authoritarianism The separation of science and mythology and their distinctive evolutions result in the transformation of primitive worship into nation religions, each of which in turn creates its system of mythology to express its theology and exclusiveness. Philosophy, in its turn, is a synthesis of diverse theoretical ideas and ideologies, and establishes different conceptual systems and processes of argumentation. Religion and philosophy are ambitious in offering ultimate all-embracing systems of value.

 Lévi-Strauss 1962, 269.  Lévi-Strauss 1962, 14.

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Western Christianity and Chinese Confucianism occupied the dominant positions in their own societies, and their authoritarian systems of value eventually devolved into dogmatic doctrines.

Christian Authoritarianism Engels distinguished spontaneous religion from artificial religion. The former refers to primitive religion, such as totem or fetish worship, that comes into being without deception, when the fictional is treated as the real. For instance, the members of a clan truly believe the totem is their common ancestor. The original function of primitive religion was to unite clans and tribes. Fetish worship might have gradually evolved into polytheism as clans expanded into tribes and tribal alliances. Monotheism emerged upon the establishment of the state. In civilized society, religions are exploited by the ruling class and subsequently become artificial. Hence, state religions often make use of deception and the fabrication of history. Engels studied the history of early Christianity in order to learn how it became the first possible world religion. He pointed out that the Roman conquest dissolved all political and social conditions in subjugated countries. The religions of so many conquered nations disappeared from sight, so the Roman empire wanted to establish a world religion that could suit every nation. Engels stated that it was “in the midst of this general economic, political, intellectual, and moral decadence that Christianity appeared. […] Christianity struck a chord that was bound to echo in countless hearts. To all complaints about the wickedness of the times and the general material and moral distress.”¹⁸ It can be said that Christianity met the needs of the times, its doctrines “expressed the universal feeling that men themselves are guilty of the general corruption as the consciousness of sin of each one; at the same time, it provided, in the death-sacrifice of his judge, a form of the universally longed-for internal salvation from the corrupt world, the consolation of consciousness.”¹⁹ Christianity teaches the doctrine that everyone is born with original sin because of the sin committed by the ancestors of human beings. So, how to make atonement? Jesus Christ came into the world to offer his own life to atone for the sins of the world. Christ urges people to repent and pray to God.

 Frederick Engels, “Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Religion, Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1882/05/bauer. htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Frederick Engels, “Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Religion, Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1882/05/bauer. htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Sincere repentance and charitable deeds will bring about the salvation of the soul, which is then liberated from the fallen world. Thus, Christianity offers the downtrodden a path to Heaven and a way out of this world. Christianity invents the mythology of Heaven and hell and contrasts this world with the after world to convince people to believe in Christ, to do charitable deeds, and to practice abstinence in order to reach Paradise. The garden of Eden is in Heaven, so ordinary people must rely on the agency of authorities to be inducted into the it. This religion reflects people’s mutual reliance in society; hence, its popularity has historical reasons. The feverish Christian faith in the Middle Ages in European countries had a great impact on the culture. From the materialistic dialectical point of view, faith has such great power not simply because of external conditions, but also because of the alienation of human essence, which is consequent upon the alienation of labor. In a society with extremely low productive powers, people are necessarily dependent on the authorities. Medieval society was dominated by religious or theological ideology; philosophy, arts, morality, and laws were affiliated with theology, while the political movements of the people were also religiously motivated. At that time, the sole and supreme principle of value in European countries was to believe in God and Jesus Christ, and to uphold the kingdom of Heaven as the ideal realm. Indeed, God is the substance of the unity of truth, good, and beauty.

Confucian Authoritarianism During the period from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism formed a tripartite confrontation. Generally speaking, however, Confucianism had been the principal doctrine in Chinese feudal society since the Han dynasty. Confucians maintained that they were instructing on behalf of the divine Way. However, in effect, they tended to simply use religion as a tool to manipulate the people, through a utilitarian approach to ghosts and divinities. Indeed, such is the mentality of Confucians (as well as many Chinese people) toward religion and faith. Confucians paid a great deal of attention to sacrificial rituals, but they did not believe in divine beings. Confucius stated that “while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”²⁰ So, it can be said that it is because of practical and moral needs that people make sacrifices to ancestors and divinities. For the ruling

 Confucius, “Yong Ye:22,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yong-ye/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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class, on the one hand, sacrificial rituals to the ancestors can be a way of governing the people. As Confucius declared: “Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice－then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence.”²¹ Apparently, teaching people to fear divine beings and the Heavenly mandate is tantamount to a governing tactic that intends to keep the people ignorant. Ordinary people, on the other hand, apart from displaying their genuine piety and reverence, have an opportunity to seek divine blessings at ritual ceremonies. Such a religious view severely damaged primitive religion and created an unfavorable environment for artificial religion to thrive. The Heavenly mandate preached by Confucianism is certainly an obnoxious theology. However, it is not vulgar superstition, but a sophisticated idealism. Confucians believe that their ethical code derives from the Heavenly mandate and is devised for the world through otherworldly principles. Confucian teachings and the notion of original sin in Christianity are incompatible. The Book of Changes states: “The family that accumulates good is sure to have superabundant happiness, and the family that accumulates evil is sure to have superabundant misery.”²² After Buddhism was introduced to China, the belief that the good and evil deeds of one’s ancestor revisit the offspring evolved into beliefs about retribution and the transmigration of the soul. However, these thoughts are entirely different from the Christian conception of original sin. At the end of the Ming dynasty, Christianity was brought to China and the Chinese people were made aware of the difference. The opening of the Three Character Classic, a classical children’s primer textbook, reads: “A person is naturally good at birth.” So, Chinese people would naturally ponder: “How do I have original sin, since I am born with good?” Confucians believe that “what Heaven has conferred is called The Nature; an accordance with this nature is called The Path of duty; the regulation of this path is called Instruction.”²³ Some Confucians embrace the doctrine of the restoration of human nature, maintaining that people’s naturally good nature will be restored as soon as they eliminate desires and devote themselves to the preservation of Heavenly principle; others advocate the doctrine of completing nature, believing that cultivation and habituation can eventually perfect a person and bring his or her nature to completion. These doctrines acknowledge human value and the possibility of realizing ideals in the world. Instead of

 Confucius, “Xue Er:9,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/xue-er/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Kun:10,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/bookof-changes/kun/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Zhong Yong:1,” in Liji, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/liji/zhongyong/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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hoping for the salvation of the soul in the after world, Confucians want to believe that the soul can attain perfection in this world by rigorous observance of the ethical code. It is a characteristic of the Chinese people to engage with this world, rather than to be detached. Buddhists preach about the Land of Ultimate Bliss that is in the farthest west, but Chinese Zen Buddhism localized the doctrine by claiming that Nirvana is right before one’s eyes. The Paradise of the West is actually here and now, and every ordinary person becomes a divine being on the spot if he or she attains sudden enlightenment. To a certain extent, Zen Buddhism’s doctrine that Buddha-nature is innate in one’s heart continues Mencius’s conception of human nature. Admittedly, the Confucian ethical code provides a justification for the sovereign power of the emperor and the patriarchal power of feudal society, so it is characteristic of authoritarianism. With respect to the dependence of people’s happiness on an authority figure and the authority figure’s charity, the authoritarian element in Confucianism is as strong as it is in Christianity. In Chinese feudal society, the emergence of the Confucian ethical code, just as with religion, was the product of the alienation of labor. The study of the Confucian classics became a sort of ideological tool for the ruling monarchy; arts, morality, and laws were subjugated to it. The Heavenly mandate was conceived as the substance of truth, good, and beauty; the ultimate ideal of human life was the knowledge and observance of the Heavenly mandate. Confucius’s description of his own life story indicates that, at seventy, he could follow his heart’s desire without transgressing moral principles. This implies that he had reconciled with the Heavenly mandate. Confucians were fond of saying that the three ages of the sagely kings are the ideal world in which the Heavenly mandate manifested. So, it can be said that Chinese feudal society does have common ground with European countries in that the value systems of both societies are authoritarian. The differences lie in the loci of the ideal world: Confucians focus on this world, Christians on the after world. Moreover, they also differ in believing human nature to possess original good or original sin. The doctrine of original sin presupposes free will, while the conception of original good lays stress on rational knowledge. The will is of secondary importance so long as human beings are rationally aware of and abide by the Heavenly mandate. It is possible that the absence of the concept of free will has been the stumbling block for modernization in China.

Authoritarianism Can Be Revived Today In modern times, Christianity has been under attack from many directions, and theology was resisted by the bourgeoisie revolutions in England, France, Germany,

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and Russia. Enlightened intellectuals made great contributions in fighting theology with scientific discoveries, even as they encouraged skepticism. In the meantime, authoritarianism, when under attack, is easily pushed to the other extreme and turns into relativism and nihilism. Authoritarianism should be eliminated, but that does not mean getting rid of authority, which is an entirely different concept. Any form of social institution cannot be without authority. For instance, in a household, to some extent, parents have authority over their children. The organizational principle of the Chinese Communist Party is democratic centralism, but the party nevertheless must possess authority. But the authority is a member of the party, not an authoritarian holding sway over the people. In a capitalist society, free competition allows people to acquire independence, even as that independence comes at the cost of reliance on material things; external force always finds a way to manipulate human beings. In such social conditions, people are easily reduced to being slaves of the capital when their labor is used for accumulating wealth, and freedom of labor cannot be possible because material reliance entails an exterior end. Freedom of labor is not found in servitude to an authority or to capital. The replacement of human beings’ mutual dependency with material reliance resulted in the overthrow of the old value system, but the process itself resulted in people’s isolation. Capitalism encourages the development of individual freedom, meanwhile it fosters an environment for intrigues and schemes among workers. Many thinkers are disheartened by this social phenomenon, believing that to lose faith in God is virtually the same as losing one’s soul. Copernican theory and the invention of the telescope altered people’s notion of Heaven, and people gradually became disenchanted with theology; with the disillusion of the kingdom of Heaven, people lost their ideals and faith, and were left with only a feeling of emptiness. Accordingly, some thinkers felt the need to devise new religions. For instance, Thomas Carlyle recommended the re-enactment of hero and genius worship. He was convinced that faith in a hero or genius would be quite sensible since some form of dependency is indispensable for ordinary people. Carlyle’s theory is certainly backward, as it intends to return modern society to authoritarianism and feudal society. As the conflicts of capitalism gradually manifested themselves, people began to feel at a loss about the notion of value. Fascism in particular devastated people’s moral convictions. What do we make of this historical period? In his book Escape from Freedom, Frankfurt-born psychoanalyst Erich Fromm endeavored to bring together Marxism and Freudian theory to interpret the centralization of power in capitalist society. His approach offers insightful analysis, even as his Freudian inclination is rather one-sided. Fromm believed that the prevalent phenomenon of “escaping from freedom” emerged from people’s feelings of powerlessness and their felt need to obey an authority. People derived their spiritual sustenance

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from authority. The psychology of “escaping from freedom” stirred up a religious fever for the worship of power, and thereby brought about social catastrophe. This psychology, as a historical phenomenon, should be examined from social and historical perspectives, and then from the impact that its cultural tradition had on people’s minds. With respect to the situation in China, the small-scale peasant economy and long history of feudal despotism were rich soils for the worship of individuals. Authoritarianism and worship of the individual were almost inevitable under such social conditions (admittedly, the tendency would not have been so rampant if the leaders had been vigilant). In addition, the destruction of the old value system set down by the Confucian ethical code left the people in a moral vacuum. People abhorred the corrupting influence of money worship and pragmatism. As a result, the phenomenon of escaping from freedom began to catch on, and some people attempted to restore authoritarianism in the name of socialism. As a consequence, our society witnessed a retrogression of history and grave injury to the ideal of the unity of socialism and humanitarianism.

The Rational and Nonrational Faculties The Spiritual Force of the Subject Spiritual pursuits and the emergence of religions have their origins in social conditions and human nature. People’s spiritual strength is a mixture of the rational and the nonrational, the conscious and the unconscious. The nonrational includes emotions and the will, while the unconscious includes the subconscious that is yet to enter the conscious level. Epistemologically, the subject of rational thinking is the I who thinks. Ancient Chinese philosophers took the organ of thought to be the heart. But their notion of the heart refers to the seat of human reason in the narrow sense. Strictly speaking, awareness comes after reason, and reasoning comes after thinking. The self acquires images from that which is given, and then concepts are applied to the given. Perception is obtained in the process. Therefore, without images or concepts, perception would not be possible. Awareness is that which enters the subject’s consciousness and is comprehended by the subject. Scientific theories and the great enterprise of human knowledge evolve from these epistemological experiences. Apperception, Kant’s term to denote the totality of perception, constitutes the supreme principle of human knowledge and governs knowledge as well as the categories of logical thinking, which roughly correspond to the realm of pure reason in Kant’s conception.

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Awareness is not confined to the realm of knowledge, since the self also possesses desires, emotions, imagination, and intuition. These nonrational faculties receive injunctions from self-consciousness. As mentioned earlier, self-consciousness is intimately connected with collective and social consciousness. All these types of consciousness are activated at the bidding of reason. That is why we have practical reason, rational intuition, and visual thinking, which are collectively described as rational activities in the broad sense. For instance, visual thinking in artistic creation, though it is not scientific theoretical thinking, is nevertheless considered a rational activity. It is also the case with practical reason in the moral realm. Evidently, the self expands the content of reason and enhances its awareness in the course of history, and thereby acquires a higher degree of freedom. From the perspective of the dynamic and revolutionary theory of knowledge as the reflection of reality, the self and spiritual powers do not remain immutable, but evolve with the development of social practice. Consciousness evolves with the development of social practice, which acts as the bridge between existence and consciousness. This is also the case with self-consciousness. It is evident from the development of children who, when they reach a certain age, begin to acquire self-consciousness. As children grow, their practice, life experience, and education cultivate their awareness and expand the scope of their self-consciousness. Their individualities emerge as they gain higher levels of self-consciousness. With regard to humanity as a whole, collective consciousness and self-consciousness are products of historical development. People often say that the self-began to awaken when humanity was at the transitional period between the Middle Ages and modern times. However, that does not imply that people in the Middle Ages did not have the notion of the self. As stated earlier, Gong Zizhen claimed the self to be the master of all, and Zhang Taiyan advocated self-reliance. All these ideas have a modern character; their conceptions of self-consciousness diverge from those of the ancients in their emphasis on independent character and individual freedom. So, it is an undeniable fact that the notions of self-consciousness and collective consciousness evolve in the course of history; hence, our investigation of the spiritual powers cannot be based on pure abstract contemplation but needs to be placed in particular and historical circumstances.

Rationalism in Traditional Chinese Philosophy The relation between reason and desires was already a focus of discourse in the early stage of Chinese Philosophy. Confucius, Guanzi, Mencius, and Xunzi maintained, in spite of their distinctive materialistic and idealistic inclinations, that reason is characteristic of human nature, and that rational thinking is the mark that

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differentiated humanity from the lower animals. Xunzi described the organ of the heart as the natural ruler that exercises control over nonrational faculties such as emotions and the will. The nature of spirit lies in its rational inclination. With rational guidance, human beings are capable of restraining desires and emotions. The mainstream of thought in Chinese philosophy, ever since the pre-Qin period, has been rationalism. Certainly, many thinkers advocated for uninhibited indulgences, as is demonstrated in the book of Liezi. Voluntarism also has its advocates, such as Li Quan. But these trends of thought are inconsequential in the history of Chinese philosophy. The mystical thought of intuitionism that originated from mythology and was associated with religion claimed the unity of things and the self, and the correspondence between Heaven and humanity. This trend of thought influenced many great philosophers, such as the authors of the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi. These thinkers were convinced of the integration of the rational and the non-rational, and science and mythology. They believed that rational and philosophical inquiries would eventually attain the mythical sphere in which Heaven and humanity become one. However, the mythical sphere was not attainable through human knowledge. So, they came up with the notion of rational intuition. Chinese religion, be it Daoism or Buddhism, presupposes the existence of paradise and hell, which gives rise to many of its mystical and superstitious doctrines. But Chinese religions have some unique characteristics. For instance, Daoists are devoted to scientific technologies and have made great contributions to alchemy, medicine, astronomy, and the calendrical system. Chinese Buddhism emphasizes the transformation of knowledge into wisdom, since it maintains that individual salvation must come through wisdom. Various schools of Buddhism in the Sui and Tang dynasties conducted thorough investigations of spiritual phenomena. For instance, the doctrine of concentration and insight (止觀 zhi guan) in the Tiantai Zen Buddhism advocates that one should “practice both concentration and wisdom.” This doctrine takes insight as a means of gaining wisdom through the purge of mental confusions and the development of intelligence. The Tiantai school presupposes that wisdom is attainable only through introspection and reflection, and that rational enlightenment illuminates the nonrational realm so as to reveal its actual appearances. This method is indeed a modification of rational intuition. The Zen Buddhism describes the nature of the soul as enlightened awareness, and the enlightened awareness of the self as Buddha-nature. Thus, this so-called enlightened awareness attains sudden realization through its own effort and awakens the rational soul. This process is described as sudden enlightenment, which is also the application of rational intuition. The doctrines of Zen Buddhism and the Tiantan school were taken up by Confucian scholars in the Song dynasty, whose doctrine that self-cultivation requires

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inner mental attentiveness and that the pursuit of learning depends upon the extension of knowledge actually evolved from the Tiantan school’s conception of concentration and insight. Confucian scholars in the Song dynasty were inclined to resort to reason to curb human desire in order to restore human nature through the effort invested in preserving Heaven’s principle and eliminating human desires. They believed that substance can be comprehended, all of a sudden, in a fully enlightened state of mind. This doctrine eventually fused into the conception of enlightenment, a path that betrayed their mystical inclination. Wang Fuzhi and Huang Zongxi denounced the mystical affectation of Confucian scholars in the Song dynasty; nevertheless, they were aware of the knowledge leap and the rational intuition involved in the Confucian scholars’ doctrines. Wang Fuzhi argued that if one opened one’s mind and overcame one’s prejudices, enlightenment would naturally arise from within; then, what was hidden could be exhausted by one’s rational thinking. His method was actually an application of rational intuition. In general, the mainstream of ancient Chinese philosophy was rationalism, even as some of the thinkers placed emphasis on intuition, but they were anything but anti-rationalists. However, ancient Chinese philosophy had its fair share of anti-rational elements. As a matter of fact, Chinese culture is pervaded with anti-rational elements, and Chinese history has witnessed much carnage and atrocity caused by such elements. Rationalism, in particular the rationalism of normative Confucianism, gradually evolved into rational despotism. While the practical reason that pivoted around ethics transformed into absolute truth, nonrational faculties were degraded and even obliterated. This resulted in the so-called “killing the human through rational principles.” Progressive thinkers such as Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi, Yan Yuan, and Dai Zhen maintained the equal importance of the rational and nonrational faculties and were wary of the injuries caused by the rational despotism of normative Confucianism. Therefore, rational thought is not categorically blameless. The commendable approach is to conduct a comprehensive examination of the functions of reason and underscore the importance of the unity of the rational and nonrational faculties in the human soul.

The Rational and Nonrational Faculties in Modern Chinese Philosophy In social conditions that are entirely different from ancient times, modern Chinese philosophy necessarily absorbs and reacts to the ideas of Western philosophy. As a result, some thinkers, adopting Western usage, began to contrast nonrational faculties with reason, and advocated non-rationalism. Gong Zizhen can be considered one of the foremost thinkers who introduced the thought into Chinese philosophy.

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He proposed the concept of the power of the heart and claimed that vengeance, cures for affliction, solutions to great misfortune, the accomplishment of great deeds, and the pursuit of the great Way are all achieved by virtue of the power of the heart. As a poet, Gong Zizhen made a case for emotions, and denounced the Daoists’ doctrine of relinquishment. His thought is characteristic of modern Chinese philosophy in its reverence for the nonrational faculties and its protest against rational despotism. Later on, Tan Sidong’s claim that people should survive misfortunes by virtue of the power of the heart apparently inclined toward voluntarism. Moreover, Zhang Taiyan’s self-reliance and Lu Xun’s argument about the power of the Satanical school were borrowed from Western thought. They endeavored to use Western voluntarism to nourish Chinese revolution. Western mainstream thought in modern times has a strong democratic and scientific tradition, so Modern China wished to follow Western examples. Zhang Taiyan and the early Lu Xun, in spite of their inclination towards voluntarism, were full of scientific spirit and had high regard for rational thinking. The progressive function of non-rationalism is unconditional. At the outset, some revolutionaries and progressive thinkers made use of non-rationalism to oppose the rational despotism of normative Confucianism. As it evolved, non-rationalism became radical and turned into voluntarism, fabricating justifications for Fascism. Among the revolutionary ranks, some people began to exalt reason and consciousness in an effort to downplay voluntarism. As a result, historical determinism became the trend and human beings were treated as instruments of history. The opposition between the rational and nonrational, fatalism and voluntarism did not reach theoretical or practical resolution in modern China. And the issue became all the more prominent in the decade of the Great Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976). Historical conditions as well as Western influence made many realistic problems in China all the more intense. As Wang Guowei pointed out, modern Western philosophy consists of two extreme trends of thought: the trustable yet unlovely, and the lovely yet un-trustable. The opposition between positivism and nonrational schools of thought in Western philosophy reveals the disconnection between modern science and human life and the incongruity between the rational and nonrational. Nietzsche’s thought is commendable in its contrast between the Apollonian and Dionysian, the Classical and the Romantic, the rational and the passionate; and its emphasis on the nonrational Dionysian power. Nietzsche’s theory contains a duality: on the one hand, it encourages Romantic movement, calling attention to nonrational power; on the other hand, it plays up the will to power. Freudian psychoanalytic theory investigates the unconsciousness, believing that, apart from reason and consciousness, the human mind possesses nonrational, instinctive, and unconscious parts, which are often actualized so powerfully that reason is hardly able to restrain them. According to Freudian

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theory, the id represents people’s primitive instincts, it imparts an inner drive to break free from the bondage of reason and externally imposed morality. Freud’s theory is significant in that it brings awareness of the power of unconsciousness and subconsciousness, even as its emphasis on the sexual drive injures the soundness of the theory. Then, how to properly treat the relation between consciousness and unconsciousness, rationality and non-rationality? Human beings have necessary needs for food, drink, and clothing as well as sexual relations. The necessities do not allow for negligence. Nevertheless, the long history of civilization and cultivation differentiated human desires from animal needs. Human reason evolves in the context of social practice. This marks the essential difference between humanity and the lower animals. Conscious human activities, including emotions, desires, the will, unfold under the guidance of reason. So, nonrational faculties are also inclined to operate towards the rational. People’s social conduct and interactions require regulative laws and a moral code formulated by practical reason, consequently, human emotions are shaped into reasonable sentiments. Moreover, artistic creations have the need to manifest ideals, so intuition is trained to follow the direction of reason. All these examples illustrate that nonrational faculties are gradually shaped by rational thought. However, this by no means implies that the rational is going to replace the nonrational in the end, nor should rational supremacy be deduced from this line of thought. In the meanwhile, it would be disastrous if human desires were given free rein and blind passions were allowed to work out their own course. The human mind possesses a broad domain of unconsciousness that is connected with and reciprocal with the consciousness. Homo sapiens evolved from animal kingdom, and then, only after millions of years of history, humanity entered into civilized society. So, it is fair to say that human development abides by the laws of natural evolution (adaptation and selection). The unconscious and instinctive part of the human soul, since it has the longest course of evolution, is a profound field for research. This investigation of the unconsciousness is rudimentary, providing only some rational observations. Rational methods are indispensable for the study of the nonrational. This is the reason why the relations between the rational and the nonrational faculties, the consciousness and unconsciousness, need to be treated using a dialectical approach. Humanity as a spiritual subject is rather complex, including both human and animal nature. Human beings are, as it were, a combination of angel and devil. Animal nature, to be sure, is not entirely alien to humanity. Indeed, such nature can be of use in the struggle against conventional powers. For instance, John Milton’s description of Satan’s rebellion against God in Paradise Lost demonstrates the instrumental significance of demonical nature. Popular revolutionary movements in history tended to resort to the awakening of a nonrational power that was gen-

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uinely rationalized under certain conditions. The lower stratum of society is bound to revolt when people are discontent with their living conditions. They may not have a high level of consciousness but rather rely on spontaneous passions and desires. Surely, spontaneous popular movements might be easily manipulated by opportunists. So, a rational direction is all the more necessary to a successful revolution. In an alienated social existence, the worship of power and money is pervaded with irrational and blind elements, dictators and misers are actually enslaved by their own desires. Human beings endeavor to replace blindness with consciousness, superstition with science; but this will require a long course of development. Therefore, in order to avoid the severance of the rational from the nonrational, the nonrational needs to be curbed so as to prevent it from crushing everything else, and the rational under certain historical conditions should be treated as something flexible. Then, how to bring together the rational and the nonrational faculties, the consciousness and unconsciousness under rational guidance? The process requires a comprehensive understanding of human spiritual power and the all-around and free development of human nature. True knowledge of all-around and free development in accordance with human nature is wisdom.

Knowledge and Wisdom All scientific knowledge is for the purpose of guiding practice. It is not mere cognition, but a combination of cognition and valuation. The kind of knowledge unrelated to valuation would be inadequate for giving direction to practice. With respect to the purpose of practice, scientific knowledge is instrumental. People are apt to talk about the values and benefits of scientific knowledge in terms of the development of productive powers, which is in effect an instrumental value. However, scientific knowledge is more than an instrument, it possesses intrinsic value as well. Some Confucian scholars in feudal society wrongly treated science and technology as lowly craft. Chinese tradition also contains a strain that emphasizes learning for the sake of practical application. This strain implies a value system that sets great score by practicality and the sort of learning relevant to national economy and people’s livelihoods: a very commendable aspect indeed, since it is only natural that the instrumental value of science should be fully demonstrated. Overly emphasizing learning for the sake of practical use, however, might weaken academic pursuits and contemplation. In a certain sense, academic pursuit ought to be for its own sake, free from the concerns of the profits it could bring about. However, science creates wisdom which in turn contributes to the development of individuality and capacities. Therefore, science cannot entirely be a sort of knowledge, but must be a knowledge that contains wisdom. That is why the term wisdom

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often describes the true knowledge of all-around free development in accordance with human nature. Scientific knowledge is the summary of theoretical reason, and, in respect to its instrumental value, it does have practical use. However, if knowledge is sought after for the purpose of its usefulness, knowledge becomes external to the person who seeks it. Then, an estrangement will consequently occur between the rational and nonrational, and between science and human life. In capitalist society, modern science is employed to develop productive powers in the search for profit. This encourages the rapid development of science; at the same time, it results in the dichotomy of science and humanity, and that of the rational and the nonrational faculties. So as to overcome the dichotomies and bring scientific discoveries into a course harmonious with human nature, technology would have to be transformed into capacity, theories would have to be fused with wisdom. Technology would be seen as facilitating the happiness of life if it were transformed into capacity. Just as in playing games, children act by doing nothing, but they learn skills, train their hands and brains, and cultivate sentiments in the games. And these are precisely what is demanded in the development of human nature. To a certain extent, the skills fostered in playing games are similar to the arts. To say that theories need to be fused with wisdom makes reference to the theoretical acquisition of philosophical nature. So, scientific theories should aim to provide people with insights into the universe and human life, and to make connections with the free development of human nature by virtue of being embodied in ideal forms and charged with imagination. Such wisdom is rational as well as spiritual. Hence, it necessarily has particularity. In the end, human knowledge aims to comprehend concrete truth and to attain a concrete and historical unity of the subject and the object, theory and practice, knowledge and action in a particular historical condition. The actualization of the goal would be, as it were, to return to the particular conditions of the primitives. Admittedly, whereas the concreteness of primitive thinking is rudimentary and the thought in the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi is more advanced, the materialistic dialectical thinking we now aim to achieve is the summit. With respect to concreteness, people might have to resort to primitive thinking and to the era that produced the Appendices of the Book of Changes and Zhuangzi, for the reason that the wisdom contained in these books, though simplistic and unrefined, is inspirational to later generations. An eighth grader today definitely knows much more about astronomy, geology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology than Confucius, Mencius, and Zhuangzi put together, but the student’s book knowledge is not wisdom. The wisdom contained in ancient writings is well worth our study. Wisdom has such an appeal in virtue of its being the true knowledge of the free development of human nature. Some thoughts and ideas could only emerge at the early stages of humanity, and, as Marx described it, have everlasting charm.

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Despite the fact that the philosophy of a particular historical stage has its limitations, its concreteness is nonetheless charged with vitality and many reasonable potentialities yet to be explored. Zhuangzi’s inquiry into the question of language’s sufficiency to comprehend the Way reveals the paradox in logical thinking between the abstract and the concrete, stillness and movement, the finite and the infinite. Modern people might not have sympathy for his skeptical reservations, but his writings nevertheless supply endless wisdom. Zhuangzi created many fables, such chef Ding butchering the ox and Bian the wheel-maker, to illustrate the fantastic sphere attained by artisans. Only the kind of activities in which the labor enters the sphere of the Way gives the worker true freedom. The Way that is comprehended in such labor is rarely conveyable through language. This constitutes the comprehension of the concrete in the freedom of labor. In this sense, the dialectical thinking associated with primitive crafts can be a source of inspiration to the moderns. Moreover, the Book of Changes and the Dao De Jing contain dialectical thought and the principle of “no extreme will hold strong for long.” The Dao De Jing states: “The movement of the Dao/By contraries proceeds; And weakness marks the course /Of Dao’s mighty deeds.”²⁴ The Appendices of the Book of Changes claims: “The successive movement of yin and yang constitutes the Way (Dao). What issues from the Way is good, and that which realizes it is individual nature.”²⁵ Hence, it deduces: “The superior man, in accordance with this, nerves himself to ceaseless activity.”²⁶ Both writings are full of wisdom, even as the robust spirit of the Book of Changes is more commendable to the moderns. The Way of changes can be seen as an upward spiral movement that progresses ad infinitum. The Appendices of the Book of Changes advocates for the principle that “no extreme will hold strong for long,” believing that change repeats itself in endless cycles, but it is not closed-ended but an upward spiral. The last two of the sixty-four hexagrams are Ji Ji and Wei Ji. While Ji Ji signals completion, Wei Ji suggests incompletion. Why is the symbol of incompletion placed in the last spot? In the chapter on the order of the hexagrams, the Book explains that “the succession of events cannot come to an end, and therefore Ji Ji is succeeded by Wei Ji, with which (the hexagrams) come to a close.”²⁷ So, since all completion is actually uncompleted, the

 Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 40, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Appendix 3:1,” in Appendices of the Book of Changes, in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 465 – 466.  “Qian:1,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/bookof-changes/qian/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Xu Gua:63,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ book-of-changes/xu-gua/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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course of development is never ending. Completion is a relative term. The spiral development implied in the Book of Changes differs from the Hegelian conception of the development of Absolute Spirit, which follows a closed-ended cycle in which Absolute Spirit returns to itself after its alienation and reaches consciousness. Zhang Taiyan rejects Hegel’s teleological persuasion that everything was predetermined and that the world evolved towards an ultimate end. Although a great philosopher of dialectics, Hegel’s theory unfortunately contains too much of a metaphysical strain. The Book of Changes, however, with its conception of the uncompleted Wei Ji after the completed Ji Ji, does away with the transcendental ultimate end. The ultimate end is internalized in the complete, Ji Ji, which is a relative stage, in the sense that the completion of every historical era is relative to the totality of time. The end of one era is the beginning of another; hence, “the changes” constitute an open rather than a closed circle. The cosmologists in the Han dynasty, such as the author of Apocrypha of the Yi and Zhang Heng, maintained that the universe was uncompleted; it was born from nothingness, and shaped everything in Heaven and on earth in several stages, and itself was yet to reach completion. Zhang Heng claimed that “that which is yet to be known might be called yu zhou, while the surface of Yu is unbounded, and the point of Zhou is endless. Yu and Zhou are that which is unknowable.”²⁸ His inquiries into astronomy endeavored to investigate a measurable universe, although the statistics he gathered were rather off the mark. However, his conception of cosmology that is complete yet uncompleted is insightful and gives inspiration to many generations to come. Philosophy of each era, as the quintessence of the spirit of the age, certainly wants to take over from the old schools. The freedom demanded by humanity evolves historically, so do the insights into the universe and human life. The wisdom of every age has to maintain a close bond with every cultural aspect of the age so that it leaves no room for the dogmatism and pragmatism that promote the knack of getting on nicely in the world. True wisdom is rational and free, and it is the achievement of the collaboration between rational and nonrational activities. Moreover, wisdom is inherent in science, morality, and artistic creations; it transmits its qualities to these fields and its philosophical sphere to the people engaged in these actions.

 Zhang Heng, “The Spiritual Constitution of the Universe,” https://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E9%9D %88%E6%86%B2, last accessed June 5, 2022.

Chapter 6 Truth and Ideals of Life In the realm of values, true knowledge is instrumentally useful. But more important, it has intrinsic value because of its tie with the free development of human nature, which helps to shape people’s view of life (both social and individual ideals) and guides them to change the world and develop themselves in activities that realize their ideals.

Truth as a Category of Value The Meaning of Truth The Chinese character zhen (真 truth) has many meanings, and usually pairs with other characters to create a context that reveals its exact connotation. Differences are subtle yet important in the following sets of concepts: truth and falsity, truth and vulgarity, truth and illusion, and truth and hypocrisy. While the oppositions of truth and falsity, and that of truth and vulgarity focus on the concepts’ epistemological connotation, the pair of truth and illusion focuses on their ontological connotation, and the pair of truth and hypocrisy on morality. Here we treat truth as a category of values in the context in which truth, good, and beauty have the same use. In terms of the category of values, truth refers to true knowledge that conforms to people’s interest and the free development of human nature. The truth or falsity of a descriptive proposition usually has only cognitive significance; hence, it does not fit into the category of value. The truth or falsity of a factual statement is a different kind of judgment from evaluating something as good and bad, even as knowledge and valuation are inextricable in the process of knowing. Human knowledge is not only for comprehending the order of things, but also revealing the relation between material things and human needs. Knowledge serves human welfare, while valuation, as a constituent of the activities of knowing, facilitates cognition and improves self-awareness. This function of valuation belongs to the intellect and is connected with the nonrational faculties of emotion, desire, and the will. Theoretical reasoning (intelligence) is not the so-called dry light, but corresponds to faculties of emotion, so that rational knowledge can transform into a cause of human action. True knowledge conforms to people’s interests and the free development of human nature, so it is not just about being true. It is the same with good and beauty. This is why truth can be seen as a category of values. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-007

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The relation between the opposition of truth and falsity and the opposition of truth and illusion is a fascinating topic. The pursuit of knowledge and wisdom is for the sake of discovering true knowledge and the correspondence between the subject and the objective reality. That is, to veraciously reflect reality (including the real situation of the world and the true meaning of human life) rather than offering a fallacious report. Philosophy and science aim at knowing the world and the self, and the relation between the two. While science investigates the material world and spiritual phenomena according to categories, philosophy examines the relation between the material and the spiritual in general. All scientific theories necessarily have twofold value. On the one hand, they conform to the interests of humanity and advance human well-being and happiness. On the other hand, they cultivate the capacities of thinking, scientific spirit, and rational power. Here, wrongful trends in thought must be noted. Some Neo-Confucians considered science as a humble trade, and scientific research as indulging in petty pleasures that thwarted high aspirations; the one thing they wished people to know is the heart. Science is not merely of instrumental value for the wellbeing of the people but helps to cultivate people’s scientific spirit and rational power. The latter is a component of the virtues. Indeed, in terms of instrumentality, in Feng Youlan’s words, philosophy is useless, since it neither offers positive knowledge nor advances the well-being of the people (though his emphasis is on the use of the useless). His view cannot be said to be entirely accurate. Philosophy is a worldview, a methodology, and an important apparatus people employed to cognize and transform the world. Meanwhile, the worldview and methodology manifest people’s capacities for thinking and evaluation, which in turn boost the development of essential human powers, capacities of thought, and virtues. Therefore, philosophy does have intrinsic value to people. As wisdom, both philosophy and science are true knowledge, accurately real the objective reality, and conform to people’s interests and the free development of human nature. It can be said that knowing truth consists of knowing the world and the self. Both processes of knowing are based on practice, that is, applying what is acquired from reality to reality. In the process, the subject gradually understands their own capacities and nature, so that the self transforms gradually from being-in-itself to being-for-itself, evolves from a lower to a higher stage. The human experience of knowledge derives from practice, and on the basis of practice, the activities of knowing transform the original realm into the actual world and bring about the transformation of things-in-themselves into things-for-ourselves. This is the socalled experience of knowledge. The actual world is well organized and orderly, the subject can make logical inferences from orderly factual experience in order to comprehend actual potentialities, and accordingly to predict future events. In the process of knowing the world, the subject may have reflections on the self,

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and thus understand his or her own theoretical thinking. The investigation of the forms of theoretical thinking gives rise to the science of logic. People bring together the potentialities envisioned by scientific theories and human needs to formulate ideals, and then embody the ideals through imagination in order to guide actions and change the world. In the process of knowing and changing the world, the spiritual entity, including the rational and non-rational, the conscious and the unconscious, is fully expressed. The conscious valuation is objectified into value, and accordingly leaves a human mark in the actual world. In the meanwhile, people have the opportunity to exercise their capacities and foster their sentiments. In so doing, by virtue of its essential power, humanity actualizes ideals, turns potential into valuable things, and hence creates the realm of value. So, it is said that humankind fulfills the self and cultivates virtues through the activities of evaluating experience and creating values. When speaking of virtue and character, truth and falsity are connected to the opposition of truth and hypocrisy. When true knowledge is transformed into an ideal and actualized in reality, humanity also fulfills essential human power of the self by virtue of things-for-ourselves. To put it in other words, in activities in which objective laws and human nature’s demand for development are united, humanity realizes its value. The articulation of the fulfillment of human value can be seen in the character that has a correspondence of words and actions, and of thoughts and actions. Ancient Chinese philosophy describes such character as not only knowing the Way, but also possessing virtues. Such a character is truly virtuous and articulates the human ideal. It is sincere and free individuality, devoid of sanctimonious and dogmatic foible. In short, the opposition of truth and hypocrisy is connected to, though not entirely identical to, truth and falsity.

Interest, Truth, and Human Nature As a category of virtue, truth conforms to people’s interest and the free development of human nature. Accordingly, a discussion of truth entails the relation between interest and truth, and human nature and truth. This section begins with a brief account of the relation between interest and truth. Objective truth, as a manifestation of objective laws, is originally uninvolved with human interest. The possibilities latent in objective laws and their knowledge can be either of benefit or harm to humankind. Only after being comprehended and made use of for the well-being of humankind, do laws acquire value. As a type of ideal, scientific truth is typically materialized in wealth and reasonable social organizations. We describe as practical accomplishment such achievements that advance the progress of society and people’s interests. In the Song dynasty,

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Chen Liang and Ye Shi advocated Pragmatic Learning in their confrontation with Neo-Confucians’ idealistic inclination. Chen Liang criticized the Neo-Confucians who “appear to have acquired upright and sincere knowledge,” but actually “are benumbed and senseless.”¹ Chen Liang and Ye Shi stressed the importance of turning true knowledge into human interest and practical accomplishment, while discarding Neo-Confucians’ doctrines as pedantic prattle. However, in effect, we should bring together practical and theoretical learning without neglecting either party. It is not commendable to overly emphasize theoretical learning without pragmatic learning, nor to eagerly seek instant success and quick profits without paying attention to theoretical research and the cultivation of people’s outlook on the world and human life. The valuation of benefit and harm, and of good and evil is the function of reason. Moreover, benefit can be further distinguished into great or small, and long-term or immediate benefit. Those who have a narrow vision can be easily led to fixate on the immediate benefit. Many examples can illustrate the implications of such an error. For instance, the lumber industry cuts down a forest for immediate profit, and consequently the soil becomes eroded and is desertified. Moreover, industrialization seeks immediate returns without any concern for longterm benefit; as a result, the heavily polluted environment became a threat to people’s health. To truly seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, we need the help of scientific theories and rational guidance to choose the greater benefit and the lesser harm. Science can reveal the objective laws of development and expand people’s vision, so that people can be better equipped to unite immediate and long-term benefit. Deliberation about benefit and harm with the help of scientific theories is the right way to serve the people, that is, to give full play to the instrumental value of scientific theories. When scientific theories are employed as an instrument, one inevitably wants to ask who possesses the instrument. In a class society, different classes come into conflict because of divergent interests, so the instrumental use of scientific theories in the social realm is limited by class powers. So much for the account of the instrumental value of true knowledge. Knowledge is useful in the pursuit of benefit and the avoidance of harm; it also guides people’s action towards the right path. The relation between human nature and truth has a similar significance in human life. True knowledge does not merely serve as an instrument for the well-being of the people; as a value, it conforms to the demand of the development of human nature. It is human instinct and nature to seek benefit and avoid harm, but what is defined as benefit and harm changes as a society evolves. People in different ages and cultures have different conceptions of happiness. Even as to

 Chen Liang 1987a, 3.

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the basic concepts, the moderns and the ancients, and the Chinese and the Europeans, have different definitions. For instance, sexual desire is part of human nature, it is universally present as an animal instinct. The needs for survival and sexual relations are inborn and constitute powerful drives for human beings. That being so, a long history of social practice and the influence of cultural traditions habituate people, and thus mold a distinctive temperament and psychology for a nation. This is the so-called national character and psychology. It is a deeper and rather spontaneous power that has the tendency to constrain people’s pursuit of truth and regulate their cognitive activities. The saying that bids us to act first and think later is indeed insightful in that people act, more often than not, upon instinctive and spontaneous drives, and find theoretical explanations for their completed actions. Such theorization, when it hits the mark, provides a rational justification for an action. Then, the agent of the action can be seen as acting consciously rather than spontaneously. However, if the theorization merely defends one’s wrong doings, it cannot be anything other than fooling oneself. Many great historical movements arise spontaneously. For instance, destitution and the instinct for survival cause peasants to revolt, but as the revolution goes on, people acquire a deeper understanding of their situation. Then, they begin to champion particular causes, such as equality, and the equal distribution of wealth. Take the revolution led by the communist party in China as an example. Class contradiction and struggle started to be rationally investigated during the revolutionary movement. From the perspective of revolutionary theory of reflection, social existence always determines social consciousness which, in turn, acts on social existence. This is a process in which being-in-itself gradually transforms into being-for-itself, and spontaneity into consciousness. Therein emerges true knowledge when social consciousness accurately reflects the essence of social existence. Such knowledge implies the knowledge of essential human power and the manifestation of its development. The modern revolution in China against imperialism and feudalism progressed from a spontaneous to a conscious stage. The revolution began with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851– 1864) led by Hong Xiuquan, then the Hundred Days’ Reform (1898), the Xinhai Revolution (1911) led by the capitalist revolutionaries, and finally, the Chinese communist party, under the initiative of Li Dazhao, proposed the ideal of the great unity and the liberation of individuality. Mao Zedong fleshed out the ideal and proposed a theory of new democracy; hence, the revolution reached the conscious stage and acquired rational and true knowledge. Such knowledge consists of the expression of essential human power in a particular age. The acquired knowledge can be used to educate revolutionary fighters, because it emerges from human nature and evolves gradually before it finally assumes theoretical form, so that such knowledge can have great impact on the mak-

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ing of revolutionaries. Since the Opium War (1840 – 1842), the Chinese people have relentlessly carried out unplanned struggle with imperialism and feudalism, striving to change the world through revolution. The revolutionary worldview was at its outset unconscious and spontaneous, and then assumed practical materialistic form when it reached a conscious stage through practice and education. The conscious revolutionary worldview awakened, to a certain extent, the being-in-itself innate in human nature. Indeed, it can be described as a sort of restoration of human nature. Hence, the transformation of theory into virtue, and the ideal into reality, is more or less a process of moving from being-in-itself to being-for-itself. In this sense, every conscious action implies a restoration of human nature. But such a restoration is different from the Neo-Confucians’ doctrine of a return to human nature; the error of that doctrine lies in its identification of the Heavenly mandate with human nature, believing that all that is present in human nature is innate. So, the doctrine dogmatically claims that people will become sages as soon as they return to their nature. However, we treat human nature as evolving from being-in-itself to being-for-itself along with the development of social practice. Moreover, its progress is an upward spiral movement ad infinitum. So, every conscious action is not imposed by external forces, but some degree of spontaneous being-in-itself is awakened in practice. Therefore, the advancement of self-awareness should not be treated as an external contribution, nor should the transformation of being-in-itself to being-for-itself be treated as a complete restoration of human nature.

Truth and Ideals of Life Truth that conforms to people’s interests and the free development of human nature, with reference to its reflection of the objective laws, is independent of a person’s willpower. On the one hand, truth is tied to necessary human needs; on the other hand, it articulates the development of human nature from being-in-itself to being-for-itself and hence constitutes an expression of subjective spirit. As a category of value, truth is indivisible from good and beauty, while reason, emotion, and the will are unified in subjective spirit. As mentioned earlier, true knowledge is a type of wisdom, reflecting objective existence as well as subjective spirit. But wisdom always wants to assume the form of the ideal and the significance of value. So, apart from the knowledge of nature and human life, true knowledge must encompass scientific knowledge and philosophical knowledge. Nonetheless, people often lean too much towards one side concerning the true knowledge of nature and human life. With regard to scientific investigation, knowledge tends to focus on its cognitive aspect, while overlooking valuation. That being so, we should be

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aware that this does not necessarily imply that scientific knowledge involves no valuation or significance of value. A truly accomplished mathematician can find beauty in mathematics and be aware of mathematics’ contribution to the development of logical thinking. He or she might find that numbers manifest the harmony of the universe, and so on. A mathematician takes note of the mathematical truth of wisdom because mathematics not only reflects the order of the objective world, but also contains great spiritual power by reflecting on human beings’ subjectivity. It can be said that, to a mathematician, Heaven and humankind, external things and the self, are harmonized, the realm of numbers is the place where one can establish one’s allotted destiny. It is similar with other natural sciences. Concerning the disciplines of the humanities, however, people tend to focus too much on valuation and to overlook cognition. In effect, social history and the spiritual world of humanity are indeed objects of knowledge, having their distinctive progress and objective laws. But social phenomena are inseparable from the activities of human consciousness that articulate spiritual power. Therefore, the process of the development of human nature is described as the Way of human. The Way of human is inextricable from the Way of Heaven. This is why human nature can be said to develop through human interaction with the Way of Heaven. Human interaction with the Way of Heaven is a natural and historical process. Knowing the world and the self requires knowledge of the objective truth. Moreover, people tend to conceive of ideals based on their knowledge of themselves and strive to realize ideals through practice. In short, true knowledge of human nature and the Way of human is objective and has a significant value. The formulation of scientific ideals of life and the fulfillment of human value are grounded on true knowledge. The ideals of every individual person are set against a particular value system. Value system involves a series of questions regarding the relation between Heaven and humankind, that between reason and desire, and that between the communal and the individual, as do ideals of life. With respect to the relation between the communal and the individual, a person’s ideal in life would have to contain both social and individual ideals. The next section discusses a historical investigation of the two aspects of the ideal.

Social Ideal Ancient Conceptions of the Ideal Society People are accustomed to seeing an ideal by matching the potentialities provided by theoretical knowledge and human needs. But their knowledge of social history

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is inadequate. As the Mohist Canon states, it is as if having taken account of all that one knows, to give the most weight to the desires. Knowledge, when insufficient, can easily yield to desires. Many consequential movements in history rise not out of rational deliberation, but out of impulsive desires. For instance, the need for survival caused many peasant revolts, while private motivations inspired many emperors to bring kingdoms under a unified empire, even as their achievements had the objective function of promoting social progress. The valuation of historical actions, both the triumphant and the disappointed, depends on whether the actions conform to the trend in social development. Great historical figures are often those who are privy to the tendencies of the world, so that they can grasp the opportunity to accomplish great deeds and contribute to the progress of history, even though the consequences might not agree with their original aspirations. For instance, Qin Shi Huang, the founding emperor of the Qin dynasty, built the Great Wall, and Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty sponsored the exploration of Central Asia. All these deeds were monumental in history. Wang Fuzhi states that “the Heaven promulgates its great justice through its partiality.”² He believed in the objective tendency to which the Emperor Wu of Han conformed when he decided to explore a route to Central Asia and beyond. The exploration put the people in misery; however, when placed into historical perspective, the emperor would be esteemed for the great accomplishment. The contradiction between necessity and contingency is apparent here. The laws of necessity need to break through contingency in order to manifest themselves. Historical truth is usually inconsistent with idealistic motivations. Great historical events, such as the construction of the Great Wall, the exploration of Central Asia, and peasant revolts, contain more spontaneity than consciousness; hence, the elements of truth are rarely detectable at the time. It is so when every historical event is evaluated singly. It is also the case with social ideal. Theologians and philosophers are keen on the concept of ideal society, but the social function of such ideals is determined by historical laws: ideal society must conform to people’s interests and the trend in historical development. Theologians contrast the Heavenly kingdom with this world and set up the Heavenly kingdom as the ideal society, while this world is the abyss of misery. This thought is essentially a sort of fabrication but does contains some reflection of reality. As such, it can be said to provide to the believers an ideal and purpose in life in particular historical conditions. Although the theologians themselves were unaware of the fact that their conception of the ideal could be explained by the social and historical conditions of their times, as well as the intrinsic needs and wishes of the peo-

 Wang Fuzhi, “On Reading the Zizhi Tongjian,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. X, 653.

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ple. Different philosophical schools described social ideals in opposing ways. Among the pre-Qin philosophers, while Confucius yearned for the ages of the sagely kings in the remote past, Laozi advocated for a tiny kingdom with a small population, Mencius idealized the application of the Way of sagely kings and benevolent rule, Zhuangzi wanted to live in a world of ultimate virtue in which people would mingle with beasts. All these social ideals were illusory, at least to the moderns. However, an analysis from the materialistic perspective of history reveals that these ideals reflected the demands of a particular social group in a particular historical era and had distinctive historical causes. Therefore, their historical function must be acknowledged. For instance, Zhuangzi’s conception of a world of ultimate virtue that required human beings to return to the primitive stage violates the trend in historical development. But his fantastic invention developed into a doctrine that advocated for the removal of the monarch and had a positive influence on the collapse of feudalism. Mencius’s conception of benevolent rule that insists on the importance of the people over their ruler is absorbed into democratic thought. The central doctrine in the book of Liji claims that when the Grand Way is disseminated, the world is permeated with a public and common spirit. This doctrine has had great influence on modern thought and has even become the people’s objective in revolutionary struggles. In short, the social ideal proposed by the pre-Qin thinkers had historical backgrounds, and each ideal had some impact on modern thought. So, a careful analysis is due to each individual case. With regard to the historical conditions at the time, among the social ideal in pre-Qin philosophy, Xunzi’s theory on governance is the most insightful. He distinguished two ways of ruling, the way of the king and the way of the violent autocrat feudal lord, and believed that the kingly way esteemed rites and the virtuous, whereas the autocratic way revered the law. His social ideal that combined righteous and forceful ways seemed to conform most to the rules of historical evolution at the time and the trend in historical development. So, it was more reasonable than other ideals. To a certain extent, this is owing to Xunzi’s summary of the debate on the relation between rites and laws in pre-Qin philosophy. But it must be noted that it is only relative to the historical period that his ideal is more reasonable. Does the development of history agree with his ideal? Indeed, the emperors of the Han dynasty attempted to employ both virtues and a harsh penal code as their tactics for ruling. So, Xunzi’s ideal can be said to have been partially realized. He conceived such a society as being best suited for the development of virtue and the cultivation of ideal character. However, in the autocratic regime, the people were entirely dependent on the propertied class, so the alienation of the self was most prominent. As a result, human nature had no hope of free development. The situation only became worse as time passed. Wang Fuzhi described the people’s living conditions as

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“above there was Shen and Han, below there must be Buddhism and Laozi.”³ The ruling class were experts in double-dealing, employing a harsh penal code in the name of benevolent Confucian rule. The Confucian ethical code they promulgated became a sheer façade, and benevolence was degraded into an excuse for brutality. The people were essentially powerless under the regime, so Buddhism became their last resort of consolation. Xunzi would never have imagined that the social ideal he conceived would engender such an upshot. Therefore, a reasonable ideal is only relative to a particular historical era, and its actualization in other times may bring about a converse reality.

The Ideal of Great Harmony in Modern China The conception of a social ideal witnessed a significant change in modern China. The philosophical revolution in modern China was first expressed in a change in historical views, which in turn determined a reformation of the social ideal. Hong Xiuquan made reference to the ideal in the book of Liji, proposing that the world is permeated with a public and common spirit when the Grand Way is disseminated, and he became the first person in modern times to evoke the ideal of great unity. His conception, however, was to realize an agricultural socialism. He advanced an egalitarian interpretation of Confucian doctrines, and his anticipation of the new world contained intimations of fresh ideas of society. For instance, he believed that the ideal society was in the future rather than in the remote past, and that it could be fulfilled through the revolutionary struggles of the people. In his famous essay, “The Book of Great unity,” Kang Youwei based on evolutionary theory to maintain that the ideal society lies in the future. “The Book of Great unity” makes a poignant argument with reference to jus natural to confront institutional hierarchy in feudal society. Its conception of the utopia of freedom, equality, and universal love unfortunately cannot be anything other than fantasy. Nevertheless, many progressive thinkers were inspired to formulate their social ideal as suffused with evolutionary theory. Sun Yat-sen interpreted the concept of great unity from the perspective of evolutionary theory, and his idea of “the world of the public” first laid emphasis on the doctrine of the three principles of the people, that is, the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Later on, he played up the correspondence between his doctrine of people’s livelihoods with communism (the new democracy). Socialism developed from an imaginative to a reasonable stage in modern China. Li Dazhao proposed the

 Wang Fuzhi, “On Reading the Zizhi Tongjian,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. X, 653.

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unity of socialism and humanitarianism, which based the ideal of great unity on a materialistic view of history. Chinese communists finally located the right path to revolution: as progress from new democracy to socialism and communism. In his speech “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” Mao Zedong advanced a similar thought that, in order to reach the great unity, China must first go through the stage of the people’s democracy. The revolutionary progress of modern Chinese philosophy, or the revolutionary worldview of the Chinese people, transformed from spontaneity to consciousness, from being-in-itself to being-for-itself. This transformation stresses the question of social ideals. The revolution of modern Chinese philosophy pivots around the conviction that the ideal society is to be accomplished through the people’s revolution. This conviction is latent in the movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and influential in modern China, even though it is cloaked with theology and contains a considerable quantity of feudalistic dregs. In the hands of Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary quality of this conviction evolved and transformed into a conscious and rational idea from being the latent and spontaneous social ideal of the great unity when communists took over the idea, and it became the Chinese revolutionary model, that is, focusing on the construction of a rural stronghold to encircle and finally capture the urban regions. The Chinese model succeeded in establishing the people’s republic and laid the foundation for the effectuation of the great unity. This success is indeed a historical consummation. So, the constructive role of the ideal of the great unity in modern China cannot be underestimated. However, following the movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, agricultural socialism and imperialism were deeply rooted in people’s minds and evolved into fantasies of establishing the people’s commune, an attempt that brought about the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. The debate on virtuous versus high-handed ways of ruling has never reached a resolution. Xunzi advocated joining together the effort of both ways. However, when the ruling class employed his political idea, the question still did not find an answer in theory or practice. Violence was the privilege of the exploiting class; the inhumane elements of that class restrained the development of human nature. Whenever the exploiting class resorted to the concepts of benevolence, righteousness, and morality, their chief purpose was to disguise a despotic regime with virtuous teachings. This is the reason why the question of a virtuous or a high-handed regime has been difficulty to resolve. Upon the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, ruling power devolved into the hands of the people, who are capable of educating themselves using the democratic method. Indeed, the people’s democratic dictatorship finally offers a solution to the traditional question of ruling. It can be said that humanity has advanced one step closer to the great unity, the ideal society that unites socialism and humanism. It has to be noted

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that the solution is only pertinent to theoretical principles since there is no easy solution to practical questions, such as how the people are to rule and overcome the social ills sprung from the old world, and how to draw a distinction between the social conflicts of two different natures, or what constructive ways do the people have to democratically educate themselves. The interaction between the ideal and reality makes manifest a devious development. Historical progress has not been as simple as it was conceived to be upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The ideas that Mao Zedong presented in his essay, entitled “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” would have to adapt to historical developments, and many questions of import demand further investigation. In addition, there is a theoretical flaw in the economic analysis expounded in Mao Zedong’s essays such as “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” and “On New Democracy.” He pointed out that the grave issue was the education of the peasants, but his argument was wanting of solid evidence. From the viewpoint of the historical context, China, at the time of his writing, was a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society; it inspired the revolutionary tactics of building rural strongholds and using the countryside as the base to encircle and finally capture the urban area. The revolution of China’s new democracy was victorious, but in a country in which peasants, small-scale producers, and the natural economy predominated in its economic landscape, the remnants of imperialism and bureaucracy did not easily give themselves over to eradication. It was also the case with the fantasies of agricultural socialism and egalitarianism. Therefore, the great unity that is to be accomplished in the People’s Republic of China is vulnerable to the parochial outlook of small-scale peasants. Hence, a re-examination of the economic issues is called for. Again, the question of people’s self-education needs to be reevaluated as well. The original idea was that the form of government in the newly founded People’s Republic of China would facilitate the people’s self-education on a nationwide scale and would overcome the infiltration of reactionary forces at home and from abroad. The proposal was feasible at the early stage of the new China, however, due to the stubborn influence of imperialism and bureaucracy, many of the conflicts among the people can be attributed to the infiltration of reactionary forces or class struggles; consequently, so-called criticism and self-criticism, taken as a form of education, was initiated by the higher authorities and popularized by the masses. As a result, the class struggle took on the menacing tone of political intrigue.

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The Ideal as a Process Thinkers in modern China, such as Hong Xiuquan and Mao Zedong, advanced inspirational social ideals. However, due to their historical limitations, their conceptions were deficient in consciousness. Certainly, the overarching goal of the People’s Republic of China is rightly directed at the great unity. It is the only right path of historical development for humanity, that is, to strive for communism, liberation of individuality, and the great unity. This social ideal is attested by scientific investigation, which proves that a social ideal that is based on true knowledge of the laws of historical development and the development of human nature is truthful. Even so, since truth is a process, the social ideal has to be a process as well. That is to say, the social ideal unfolds and fulfills itself in a process, it is not immutable after its formulation. In human cognitive activities, ignorance and knowledge, truth and falsity, science and mythology are often entangled. Historical truths and scientific ideals tend to be interlaced with mythological and illusory elements that can lead to superstition and only be eliminated through practice. Ideals evolve and enrich themselves in practice and update themselves when actualized in reality. So, such ideals reflect the profound nature of the world, and contain ample true knowledge. From the perspective of the unity of logic and history, the ideal of communism conforms to the interests of the whole of humanity and the development of human nature. Nevertheless, the unfolding and fulfillment of the ideal of communism is a process that involves many stages that aim to achieve specific goals. On top of that, every nation has a distinct approach to its accomplishments. In China, the realization of communism first went through the revolutionary stage of new democracy. At this first stage, the people set communism up as the ultimate political program and did not aim to establish socialism at the outset. However, new democracy was only the first step toward socialism, after which the people seemed to have become too anxious for success and attempted to sprint to communism. We have paid a heavy price for that eagerness. At present, the regime is defined as being in the first stage of socialism, a definition that requires further exposition, and the specific goal and the concrete measures of its accomplishment also need thorough examination. It is proper to combine the doctrine of permanent revolution and the doctrine of stages of revolution. Every stage passes through a process from necessity to freedom, from being-in-itself to being-for-itself. Truth is always particular, so is the realization of the ideal. As Mao Zedong stated, it is “concrete, historical unity of the subjective and the objective, of theory and practice, of knowing and doing.”

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The Ideals of the Individual The Community and the Individual The ideals in an individual’s life generally refer to a person’ idealistic outlook on his or her life. An individual’s ideal always emerges after his or her knowledge and evaluation of human life. But it is difficult to acquire accurate knowledge of human life, and in particular, accurate knowledge of the relation between the community and the individual. Community and society are composed of individual beings. Each individual is constrained by historical conditions in virtue of social relationships. On the one hand, people are subjects of history, which is created by actual and concrete individuals. Without individual beings, social history would be impossible. As Engels pointed out, history does not use human beings as instruments for its own end, and history itself consists of the activities of people who pursue their own goals. That is to say, the end of history is human beings themselves. In this sense, the end of human activities lies in the effectuation of people’s self-values. On the other hand, human history is a natural process, and history, as the sum of the purposeful activities of millions of people, has its own laws that are independent of human will. Individual wishes can be realized only when they observe historical laws. However, taking a panoramic view of human history, the goal of social progress consists in the free and all-around development of human nature, even as the completion of that goal is dependent on human activities in a particular historical era, that is, on each person’s contribution to the society, including their material and spiritual productions. The more people use their talents for creative activities, the greater their contribution to the society. From this perspective, an individual’s activities do have a social value that ought to be unified with self-value. The ideal in life fulfills a person’s self-value through their contribution to society by means of creative activities. This is in terms of the relation between the community and the individual, and the self and society. The concept of the self has a long history. The book of the Dao De Jing states that “he who knows himself is intelligent […]; he who overcomes himself is mighty.”⁴ Many modern disciplines, such as psychology, biology, and anthropology, study human needs, human capacities, and human spirit, and their research increases human knowledge of the self. Nevertheless, in terms of values, knowledge of the self still contains an important issue: the self not only constitutes a concrete

 Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 33, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/dao-dejing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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existence, but also possesses the essence of that which is the self. True knowledge of human life requires that we treat humanity as the subject, and human life as the activities of the subject. As the subject, the I is first of all the subject of practice. It is in the activities of practice that human beings undergo material exchange with their surroundings. Therefore, the I is actually a substantial subject that possesses an identity that includes its ontological significance and its own duration. In this sense, the I is more than a concrete subject, but possesses self-consciousness. The great poet Li Bai of the Tang dynasty thus versified: that which abandoned me is the I of yesterday which cannot be persuaded to stay, and that which disturbs me is the I of today which is full of discontent. The I of yesterday and the I of today are permeated by the same person of fluctuating emotions. In ontological terms, the I is concrete, single, and each “I” is a unique entity, a concrete existence, possessed of self-consciousness that is in tune with the passage of time and the emotional fluctuation of the I. The I is different from “you” or “him/her/it.” What is referred to here are the essential characteristics of the self that can be articulated through language (the identity of its own duration, self-consciousness, and the unity of the individual and society). However, the I in real life, as a concrete being, necessarily encounters situations that are not articulable through language. The I, such as oneself, family, and friends, needs to be treated as a living being with self-consciousness, and understanding them requires a resort to experience and rational intuition. Since the use of language entails abstraction, artistic techniques, image-thinking, and rational intuition can be useful facilities for fully comprehending individuals as concrete entities. It has to be admitted that our knowledge of human essence, since it is innate to a concrete entity, must be acquired through linguistic and conceptual means. From the perspective of values, knowledge of the self requires the unity of intuition and concept, and existence and essence, in order to reach the level that one knows oneself is intelligent. The true knowledge that construes ideals of life must comprehend knowledge of human life through the unity of the individual and society, and the unity of existence and essence.

The Ideals of the Individual in Ancient Chinese Philosophy Similar to knowledge of the external world, knowledge of the self has forever been a tricky topic. Many philosophers have elaborated theories on the evolution of social history, on the relation between the community and the individual, and on the being and essence of the self. But individuals tend to have distinct views of life, and their knowledge and evaluation of the meaning of life and the self often fail to hit the mark. Some people lean toward self-abasement, while others toward self-im-

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portance; some are so pessimistic as to spite life, while others are optimistic to the point of acting out fantasies. It has become evident that dogmatic Marxism, selfclaimed as the normative Marxism, long failed to investigate the question of knowing the self. Knowing the self can be an arduous task. Philosophers who have discoursed on the ideals of life and the ideal character always give accounts of the self and life. We shall examine in detail the influential theories of life in the history of philosophy. The pre-Qin Confucians inquired into the relation between the self and society and advocated their ideals of life. The relation between the self and life, in their view, can be summarized as: “If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole kingdom virtuous as well.”⁵ The Great Learning claims that, in order to become a perfect character, the cultivation of the self is first constituted by a well-ordered private life and a perfectly managed household. The next goal of self-cultivation is to fulfill one’s social value. The values of individual value and social value must be brought into oneness. But the two values are often in conflict. Thus, some Confucians maintained that when one is prosperous in private life yet unable to benefit the world, one ought to retire from public life and give full attention to self-cultivation. Confucian doctrines demand a subordinate relation between the value of the individual and social value. Mencius laid stress on human dignity: “All things are already complete in us. There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity on self-examination.”⁶ The self, as he conceived it, can become the great man who is “above the power of riches and honours to make dissipated, of poverty and mean condition to make swerve from principle, and of power and force to make bend.”⁷ Mencius advocated the innate good of human nature, believing it to be bestowed by the Heavenly mandate, and the individual to be a reflection of the universe. Hence, people have the potential to know Heaven if they exert their minds to the utmost (盡心 jin xin) and know their own natures. This doctrine of human nature is based on the essential difference between humanity and the lower animals and emphasizes the essence of human nature. Confucians treated the concrete existence of the individual as subordinate to essence, and human essence as the expression of ethical and moral relations. Hence, they believed in the true knowledge of the essence, and inevitably overlooked the existence of the individual. Neo-Confucians reduced human nature

 Mencius, “Jinxin:9,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jinxin:4,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Teng Wen Gong II:7,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mengzi/teng-wen-gong-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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to an insignificant position, and even identified it with desires. As a result, the doctrine of essence turned into rational dogmatism. Daoists adopted an entirely different approach. Zhuangzi took freedom to be the harmony of human beings with nature, and society to be nothing but bondage to humanity. He played up the value of the self and disregarded social values, believing that humanity can attain freedom only when liberated from social bondage. In terms of epistemology, language is analytic, abstract, limited. Therefore, it is unable to fully articulate the concrete and unlimited Way. The concrete cannot be sufficiently conveyed in words. Zhuangzi proposed two methods, that is, sitting and forgetting (坐忘 zuo wang), and fasting the mind (心齋 xin zhai), to reach the sphere of identification with the Great Way, which is his so-called spiritual sphere of absolute freedom. In his view, only in this sphere in which Heaven, earth, and the self are produced together is the identification of the self and the Way possible. Zhuangzi described the process as returning to the true, in which the self genuinely grasps truth. The school of Dark Learning and Zen Buddhism followed Zhuangzi’s idea in promoting individuality. The two schools, described as Oriental mysticism by Western scholars, maintained that concrete beings can be comprehended by rational intuition. This trend of thought has been influential among some modern Western philosophers. With respect to knowledge of the self, Confucianism and Daoism represented two main traditions: essentialism and anti-essentialism. While Confucians emphasized the comprehension of the essence and social value, Daoists emphasized individual existence and the value of the self. The mutual influence between the two schools, however, should be noted. Confucian scholar-officials in feudal society tended to apply Confucian teachings to the political and ethical realms, while Zen Buddhism and Zhuangzi’s thought applied to personal life, to yearning for an idyllic and hermit-like life. The Confucian conception of social value, by virtue of its emphasis on human essence, reflected people’s mutual dependency; hence, it was essentially an abstraction of the feudal institutional hierarchy. Zen Buddhism’s and Zhuangzi’s conception of freedom was carefree life, taking freedom to be the relinquishment of social engagement. This is a negative conception of freedom. So much for a brief account of the self and the ideals of the individual in ancient Chinese philosophy.

The Ideals of the Individual in Modern China Modern China witnessed a significant change in philosophical thought. Gong Zizhen hoped for the coming into being of talents of all kinds. He advocated the liberation of individuality, claiming that ordinary laborers, so long as they had any creativity, can be great and heroic. Later on, Tan Sitong, Liang Qichao, and

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Zhang Taiyan advanced theories of the individual ideal that are distinct from those of ancient philosophy. In general, modern progressive thinkers no longer held dear the Confucian aspirations of the sagely and the virtuous, nor did they care for Zen Buddhism’s and Zhuangzi’s ideal of a hermitic life. The difference in their conception of the ideals of the individual can be summarized in terms of three aspects. First, the ideals of the individual are not conceived as being a sage, but as cultivating diverse talents; the cultivation of talents accords with the aptitude of each person, as everyone has a naturally distinct temperament and disposition. This is different from traditional conceptions that contained uniform criteria for the ideal character. For instance, Mencius believed that every person had the potential to become wise and virtuous, Zen Buddhism preached the doctrine that Buddha-nature is immanent in everyone’s heart, Wang Yangming saw sages on every corner of the street. Modern conceptions do not resort to a fixed standard to measure people, nor require everyone to homogeneously become the so-called mellow Confucian scholar. Assuredly, people are born with many shortcomings. What matters is that people strive to be genuine and to acquire ability and learning. Gong Zizhen shifted his emphasis of the ideal in life from virtue to talent and lamented that a den of iniquity would not bring forth a talented brigand, believing a capable robber to be more noteworthy than the mediocre. Second, a person ought to be, as described by Gong Zizhen, capable of worry, anger, thought, and action. Zhang Taiyan claimed that competition can bring about wisdom. An aspiring person who pursues freedom can have the capacity for great achievement and can assume the responsibilities endowed by social history. This idea is contrary to the Daoists’ doctrine of carefree life. According to Marx’s view, human beings acquire freedom not through pessimistic force to avoid something, but through the optimistic pursuit of individuality. The self realizes itself and expresses its optimism by virtue of its innate power. In doing so, human talent and wisdom are given full play, and the self is developed in the activities of competition. Third, modern thinkers tend to believe that the ideal lies in the future. The cultivation of new people calls for the reformation of tradition; hence, one should be wary of looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles. The ideal character is firmly rooted in the present; in the meanwhile, it takes into consideration the future. The development of the modern social economy encourages a fast-paced lifestyle. In addition, national crises also increase people’s awareness of the importance of timing. Consequently, the modern conception of time is different from the ancients’ conception. Modernization wants people to concentrate on the present and look towards the future, instead of yearning for the remote past. Many thinkers have advanced insightful arguments on this topic. For instance, Han Yu of the Tang dynasty said that ancient scholars had teachers, so we too should

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find our own teachers. On the contrary, modern thinkers argue that it is commendable to learn from scholars of the past, but that does not allow one to take no notice of the present. Li Dazhao’s extolment of the present can be said to be the most extreme of all modern thought. He claimed that “now is life, now is motivation, now is action, now is creation.”⁸ Taking hold of the present is to engage in actions right now. Accordingly, his doctrine implies that people can, through present labor, create a future with the materials supplied by the past. The diverse conceptions of the ideal in life, encompassing audacious and competitive awareness and emphasis on the present and anticipation of the future are quite contrary to the general ideas in ancient times, since ancient philosophers were either constrained by Confucian ethical teachings or simplistically revered austerity and inaction. This can be seen as a great advancement in the knowledge of the self. The emphasis on the self, competitive awareness, and the present might bring the self into opposition with society. This opposition has some progressive function in certain historical conditions, particular in times when the social tends to restrain the development of the self. The contradiction between the self and society can encourage people to resist conventional practices and to devote themselves to social reformation. However, it can also cause some progressive people to have a sense of gloom, and even loneliness and isolation. Lu Xun apparently experienced such a stage in his early life. Individualism does bring with it some social ills, such as pragmatism and anarchism. Because of the particular historical conditions in modern China and its need for class struggle, revolutionists began to overly emphasize collectivism in the 1930s. This change certainly had its historical reasons, but the importance of the self and the individual was consequently lost, and theoretical inquiries of the two concepts were less than complete. In short, even though Li Dazhao advanced the idea of the unity of individual liberation and the great unity, and Lu Xun rendered a powerful depiction of the spirit of free individual, many revolutionists still devoted themselves, even gave up their lives, for the cause of social freedom. The overall picture after the 1930s was of the theoretical opposition between collectivism and individualism, and one-sidedness was prevalent in every aspect. With regard to human value and the ideal, the tendency is to overly emphasize social value and overlook the value of the self; with regard to the self, the tendency is to define its essence and emphasize self-transformation, while overlooking concrete being and the realization and development of the self. This onesidedness is tied to the undeveloped commercial economy and the lack of democratic institutions and ways of life, but it is also influenced by traditional thought

 Li Dazhao, “On Time,” in Li Dazhao 2006, 666.

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and the international communist movement. Disregard for the self and the individual is a question left by Soviet Marxism in both theory and practice. This illness was not created by Marx himself, but by the ideologies that claimed Marxism as its main inspiration. Therefore, a careful study of these historical lessons would be very rewarding.

Changing the World and Developing the Self The realization of the ideals of life implies treating as ideal the true knowledge that conforms to people’s interests and the free development of human nature, thereby changing the world and developing the self. The existence of the ideals is for the attainment of freedom, a process in which humanity transforms being-in-itself into being-for-itself. This process includes two aspects: changing the world and developing the self.

Practice as a Criterion Practice as a criterion is the first question that emerges in the process. Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. However, truth and falsehood are often relative to each other, they do not always have a clear-cut delineation, their indeterminate definitions can only be clarified through logical argumentation and verified in practice. In this sense, falsehood is not necessarily a bad thing in knowledge. Everyone errs, yet truth may emerge and is made clearer if one learns and corrects the error. In the process, the subject may acquire a higher level of consciousness. In the realm of knowledge, it is rather straightforward to apply practice as the criterion of truth: that which is verified in practice is true, that which is negated is false. Truth as a category of value is connected to people’s interests and the free development of human nature; thus practice, as the criterion of truth, is actually the activities that change the world and develop the self. In this respect, the question of verification is complicated, since people’s knowledge and valuation of social history and of the self can intermingle the true and the false, the good and the bad, the scientific and the mythological. It can be a long and tortuous process to distinguish truth from falsehood. Practice as the sole criterion of truth is complicated for three reasons. First of all, this is due to the involvement of personal interest and subjective wishes in the valuation. Second, true knowledge is tied to the development of human nature. Human nature includes both the rational and nonrational, so it is not purely a theoretical question as to whether or not knowledge conforms to the development of

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human nature. Third, practical activity is the correspondence between the activities of changing the world and developing the self. However, the two kinds of activities are not always compatible, they can be contradictory to each other; practice as the criterion of truth thus becomes uncertain. Admittedly, true knowledge has its roots in objective reality, even as the truth of such knowledge does not necessarily accord with people’s interests and the free development of human nature. In literature, tragedy can be about a person’s destiny (such as Greek tragedies) or an individual’s personality (such as Shakespeare’s tragedies). These tragedies illustrate the conflict between the community and the individual. Literature can truthfully portray the conflict, thereby facilitating the development of human nature. At the same time, the function of literature demonstrates the divergence between the activities that change the world and the activities that develop the self. That being said, in general, true knowledge will eventually be proved to be valuable and consistent with the development of human nature. As a consequence of this complex issue, the realm of value especially calls for an academic atmosphere that is all-embracing and open to debate. For instance, scientific socialism has to tolerate some utopian elements, and some Western sociological theories may contain useful ideas, even though they are idealistic. Moreover, this approach should be applied not only to the social ideal, but also to the personal ideal, with an even more liberal attitude. In short, a uniform criterion is not feasible in the realm of value. As a category of value, truth is intrinsically connected to human nature’s demand for free development, which is always through people’s purposeful activities. Of course, people inevitably err in doing activities. Therefore, practice is called for to right a mistake. This process is often described as self-reformation, which is rather a dubious term. In the past, people focused on self-reformation, disregarding self-realization and self-development. The one-sidedness needs to overcome itself. Self-development includes all three aspects of the self: to realize, to reform, and to develop the self. Indeed, each person wishes for the fulfillment of one’s self, the full exercise of one’s capacities, and the free choice of one’s path of life. This is the only proper way of sharing one’s responsibilities in society and making a contribution to the country. Assuredly, one needs to have the courage to criticize oneself in the course of self-development. Self-criticism begins with acknowledging one’s independent character, assuming responsibility for one’s actions, and then being courageous in correcting oneself whenever a mistake is made. However, self-reformation and self-examination should not be overly emphasized, otherwise, external compulsion might make a person to be shameful and resistant. In short, though people can easily err in purposeful activities, these errors should be criticized and corrected in practice. In this way, the process of self-development can offer more positivity.

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Truth is a process, so is knowledge of the self and development of the self. Be it the individual or historical, development of the self is always a tortuous movement that progresses from being-in-itself to being-for-itself, from a lower to a higher stage. In terms of the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven, humanity has never failed to resort to the Way of Heaven in shaping human nature and the self; thereafter, everything in the world is humanized, and nature bears a human impression. At the outset, the interaction is spontaneous, human beings learn to know the world and develop themselves in an effort to transform the natural environment. Accordingly, the philosophical pursuits are focused on the follow two tasks: to know the self and the world, and to change the world and develop the self. Inquiries into the relation between human nature and the Way of Heaven, and the relation between knowledge of the self and the world aim to bring these relations to a conscious level. Therein lies philosophical wisdom.

Different Traditions in Chinese and Western Philosophy Concerning the topics of “to know the self and the world” and “to change the world and develop the self,” Chinese tradition had entirely different approaches from Western philosophy. In his Eastern and Western Cultures and Philosophies, Liang Shuming divided world cultures into three types based on peoples’ views of life. He believed that cultural and philosophical differences were determined by different outlooks and ideals. In his view, while Western culture takes human desires to be the essential spirit, and inclines toward pursuing science and revering rationality, Chinese culture turns inwards and makes a compromise with respect to human desires, it reveres intuition and inclines toward the inner life. The popular mind tends to buy into the dichotomy that, while Western people are predisposed to the material world and extol intellect, science, and logical thinking, the Chinese people are natural inclined towards the inner life, preferring intuition and cultivation of the self. To contrast intellect with intuition, and to oppose knowledge of the world with that of the self, is to downplay the role of scientific knowledge in the cultivation of virtues. This dogmatic conservative view is harmful in that it obstructs people’s enterprising spirit. Modern China desperately needs such an enterprising spirit in order to learn from Western theories of evolution and competition, and to reject the conventional compromising and conciliatory approach. This is the inevitable trend in the transition from a natural to a commercial economy. Many modern Chinese thinkers, following the lead of Gong Zizhen, proposed their ideals of free individual; all, without exception, emphasized the importance of an enterprising spirit, competitive consciousness, and free and full exercise of

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talents. The prevailing thought in modern China has been the demand for a scientific approach to changing the world and developing the self, although the ideas of the Neo-Confucians, such as Liang Shuming, have diverged from this. That being said, Chinese and Western cultures carry different burdens from their heritages, so their ways of thinking necessarily have some variances. What Liang Shuming aspired to do was to explore cultural differences from a philosophical perspective and to raise some meaningful comparative questions. With respect to the ways of thinking, dialectics appeared very early in the history of Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy, however, devised formal logic for the modern experimental sciences. The Chinese people, on the one hand, grasp the world in terms of association, a macrocosmic view, and dialectical contradiction, and inquire into the relation between Heaven and humanity. Western people, on the other hand, are endowed with an analytical mind and are inclined to conduct a thorough investigation of Heaven and humanity in categorized terms. In terms of being and essence, pre-Qin philosophical schools had different emphases. While Confucians laid stress on the rational examination of the essence of the self, Daoists stressed the intuitive comprehension of concrete beings. The distinct ideas of the two schools gradually merged into one thought that treated the self as the unity of being and essence. Nevertheless, some differences in emphases still persisted. On the one hand, some of the predominant Confucians made inquiries of human nature from the perspective of essentialism and rationalism, neglecting individual concrete existence; on the other hand, Daoists stressed individual freedom, focusing on human existence, even as their notion of freedom was pessimistic. The particular situation of modern China, however, demands an optimistic approach to changing the world and developing the self. The grassroots tradition, particularly peasant revolution, has a long tradition in China. This tradition believes that the people can change their own destiny, even though their ways of changing that destiny, as Lu Xun pointed out, are informed by superstitious beliefs, especially those of Daoism. So, the demand for a scientific approach to changing the world and developing the self is a modern conception.

The Concrete Wisdom Traditional Chinese wisdom tends to be simple and concrete. Wisdom is that which is in accordance with true knowledge of the development of human nature. In terms of knowledge of the objective world, scientific knowledge progresses from the concrete to the abstract, and then rises to the next level of the concrete so as to reach the concrete and historical unity of the subject and the object, thereby attaining a comprehensive concrete truth in a certain realm. In this realm, theory

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assumes the form of the ideal and more effectively takes control of the natural world. This process demonstrates the unfolding of the cognitive laws. Philosophy experiences a reoccurring movement that rises from the concrete to the abstract and then to the concrete again. Philosophy strives to become scientific and concrete truth, comprehending the dialectical movement in the interconnected systems of categories. In addition, philosophy appeals to human nature and the self, and brings together knowing the world and the self, and changing the world and developing the self. To become concrete, all these characteristics require philosophical wisdom, since wisdom is a sort of vision into the universe and life and is congenial with the free development of human nature. It can be said that human reason inherently possesses vision. Admittedly, wisdom arises from external experiences. But as soon as the subject acquires wisdom, by virtue of wisdom’s congeniality with the development of human nature, wisdom can be counted as spiritual self-attainment. This is not idealistic, but a conception based on materialism. As Mencius puts it: “The superior man makes his advances in what he is learning with deep earnestness and by the proper course, wishing to get hold of it as in himself.”⁹ In a similar vein, Wang Fuzhi elaborated his conception of interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven. To attain the philosophical sphere of interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven is the overarching goal of the Chinese mind. This process will be a reoccurring movement that transforms a being-in-itself to a being-for-itself. The world is infinite, and the self is inexhaustible. Each person, however, is a finite being. Infinity nonetheless can reside within the finite. Even as people know little of the essence of the self, the self cannot be comprehended unless associated with the essence which, in turn, is treated as a process of development. The spiritual subject evolves along with the development of practice, and it enriches the self through practical activities that change the world and through the creation of things-for-ourselves. Moreover, each individual is a particular being, so it cannot be an easy matter to understand others as well as oneself. Therefore, a basic approach must be set in place: humanity should be treated as the end in-itself and as an independent entity, only then are human dignity and fearlessness cultivated in an individual, and only then does an individual learn to respect others. Without this approach, there cannot be a true understanding of humanity. So, generations of thinkers have strived and failed to find answers for the many big questions concerning humanity. For instance, how does a person know life is short and death is inevitable? Philosophers, theologians, and writers have

 Mencius, “Li Lou II:42,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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made so many inquiries into the question of life and death; sciences, such as sociology, biology, and psychology, have investigated life from every aspect. Many aspects of human life, such as living and dying, sexual love, and maternal affection, are in need of further scientific investigation and theoretical inquiry. Nevertheless, with respect to personal matters and love, the sciences seem unable to offer an ultimate explanation, and reason seems have to no answer in store. As particular beings, human beings want to be treated as individuals rather than as members of a species. As an independent being, the individual is singular, and the particular is a specification of the general. The individual is a noumenal entity, not a collection of particulars; it is an organic whole, a life that flourishes with vitality and the spirit of durational identity. As the self, the individual is the unity of consciousness and unconsciousness, and the unity of the rational and the nonrational faculties, that is, a unity only grasped by virtue of rational intuition. The dichotomy between essentialism and non-essentialism has persisted in modern Western philosophy since Hegel’s time. Human beings, however, can only be comprehended through its connection with human essence. However, the concrete being would pass into oblivion if this connection were overestimated. Marx tirelessly pointed up the unity of human essence and being, but so-called normative Marxism leaned toward essentialism, thereby brushing aside being. Because of the influence of former-Soviet Marxism and conventional Confucianism, Chinese Marxists tended to lay stress on human essence. In spite of that error, they rightly focused on the integration of the universal with the particular, and the universal truth of Marxism with the particular practice of Chinese revolution. Unfortunately, Chinese Marxists since the 1930s have begun to overestimate the role of class and the collective, adopting an extremely crude approach towards the individual and the self. A practice that has certainly brought with it some dire implications. A trend in anti-essentialism has settled into modern Western philosophy. For instance, Wittgenstein’s refutation of essentialism from the perspectives of empiricism and positivism, and Heidegger and Sartre from the perspective of existentialism. These philosophers, though having entirely different convictions, are united in their attack against essentialism. In terms of philosophical categories, the singular, the particular, and the general should be unified, phenomenon and essence should be brought into unity regardless of its being concrete and singular or a process of development for a particular movement. The contention among different schools of thought can encourage diversity in philosophical debate. But we should also aware that philosophy aspires to realize the synthesis of a higher sphere. The wisdom of the Chinese tradition underscores the unity of Heaven and humanity, and the unity of the external and the internal; at the same time, it rejects the external imposition of the self. In the Chinese conception of the interaction be-

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tween human nature and the Way of Heaven, human nature evolves from being-initself to being-for-itself through corresponding objects. Furthermore, the integration of Confucian and Daoist thought implies the unity of being and essence. All these ideas are well worth our careful study. Admittedly, this is not to imply that we should return to tradition. As has been mentioned, modern thought and ideas make an appeal for changing the world and developing the self by means of scientific methods. Neo-Confucianism and Eastern esotericism are far from the right path of development for Chinese philosophy. From a holistic perspective, the wisdom of the Chinese tradition that foregrounds the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven, and the unity of human essence and being might have a positive impact on philosophy. We might, proceeding from our standpoint of materialistic dialectics, learn some insights from positivism and non-rationalism, and acquire scientific knowledge of the world and the self through modernized traditional wisdom, and consequently attain for philosophy a higher sphere of unity for changing the world and developing the self.

Chapter 7 The Good and Moral Ideals The ideals of life, whether social or personal, are realized through people’s social conducts. So, an investigation of freedom in human interaction needs to make inquiries into the question of morality.

The Good The Good and the Beneficial The Chinese character shan (善 good) refers to that which is hao (好 good, beneficial) in the broad sense. The two characters are often used interchangeably; good is identified with that which is desired. So, beneficence is whatever that is good. Whatever is desirable, pleasing, and favorable can be described as beneficence and good. But beneficence in the broad sense contains some aspects irrelevant to morality. For instance, a healthy and good physique is desirable and pleasing to people, or some bacteria are beneficent to our healthy, but these things do not have moral dimension. It is also the case with the good concerning food and drink, clothing, amusement, and so on. It certainly is good when a person is apt at managing private affairs. However, many aspects of private life do not involve moral good or evil. The goal of human activities is for advantageous gain, which is found in the satisfaction of human material and spiritual needs. Beneficence in the broad sense refers to such reasonable gain. Beneficence in the moral sense, however, applies only to commendable conduct in human relations. The essential characteristics of the beneficence of moral conduct necessarily involve the relation between righteousness and gain. The Mohist Canon defines righteousness as consisting in gain. In essence, the Mohist’s conception of gain refers to material and sensual satisfaction. The Mohist Canon elaborates: “In intent, he takes the whole world as his field; in ability, he is able to benefit it.”¹ The righteous assume it is their personal responsibility to benefit the whole world, so the gain implies a public dimension. Hence, public benefit that agrees with a certain social community is described as righteous. In contrast, Confucians took righteousness to be appropriate conduct that was suitable to a social context. In other

 Mozi, “Canon I:8,” in Mohist Canon, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-008

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words, morality is doing what is appropriate. Here, one of the two doctrines of morality focuses on a utilitarian approach, while the other is deontic. People form social relationships on the basis of social production. All human actions are necessarily performed in a nexus of social relationships, and all purposeful activities involve interpersonal relations. Human relationships abide by a code of conduct that is described as the ethical code or moral norms. People’s observance of a set of moral norms serves the interests of certain particular social groups. Hence, the two moral doctrines mentioned above make perfect sense. Nonetheless, both doctrines are one-sided. A more comprehensive understanding is provided if the two doctrines are combined by treating the concepts of righteousness and gain as categories of history, relative to a particular social relationship. Xunzi believed that the concept of righteousness is used to accurately define group divisions when giving form to society. He argued that human beings must rely on the power of the community to make use of and control nature and create wealth. Human desires and interest often come into conflict with each other as different people and social groups have divergent interests. Therefore, regulations, such as laws and moral norms, are formulated to resolve conflicts in order to maintain a fairly just social order and satisfy the interests of different communities in a society. This is the gist of Xunzi’s idea of drawing distinctions and creating groups. It has to be noted that his argument, based on the hierarchy of feudal society, has its historical limitations. As stated above, righteousness and gain, and morality and interest ought to be unified. Every society necessarily resorts to moral norms to preserve a fair social order among diverse social groups and individuals. The Mohist Canon states: “If you are pleased to get this one, this is the beneficial one, and the harmful one is not this one.”² The statement seems reasonable in that all purposive human activities intend to seek pleasure and gain and avoid hardship and harm. So, social norms and the law are established to solve the conflicts that inevitably arise among all pleasure and gain, and hardship and harm, that is, the conflicts among diverse social communities and individuals. Xunzi considered the social norms and the law as the criteria of measure. Social norms and the law are different in that the latter is enforced with compulsion. The legalists placed emphasis on the causes of violence and the enforcement of the laws, believing that, since human beings naturally seek gain and avoid harm, reward and penalty can restrain people’s behavior, and compulsory laws can prevent people from wrongdo-

 Mozi, “Canon I,” in Mohist Canon, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ing. Reasonable human relationship based on love can be constructed through moral conduct, that is, through voluntary and conscious actions. As Spinoza described it, love is nothing but joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause. In his view, he who loves necessarily endeavors to give his love to the people. This is the general conception of love. Humans are moral beings; every person is a purposeful subject when dealing with human relationships in accordance with moral norms. The principle of humanity (benevolence and love) is thus manifested in the affirmation of human dignity and value. In the moral realm, this requires the unity of benefiting and loving others (admittedly, some thinkers, such as the legalists, rejected the concept of love). Moral conduct must conform to the interests of a particular social group and properly solve the relations between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual. Moral conduct wants to benefit people; however, it should be performed with love. The book of Liji tells a story of giving and accepting charity. In the time of a devastating famine, the state of Qi handed out food to famished people at a roadside stall. When a man approached the stall, an official summoned him: “Poor man, come, eat.” The man, repelled by the official’s humiliating manner of treating him like a dog, walked away from the handout and starved himself to death. It is benevolent to feed the hungry, but the charitable deed loses its goodwill when performed with arrogance rather than benevolent love. Chinese thinkers, since Confucius and Mozi, have emphasized the importance of love in charity. This principle is reflected in the Confucian conception of benevolence and the Mohist conception of universal love. The importance of respect is prominent in Confucian teachings such as do not do to others the things you would not wish done to yourself, and he who wishes to be established himself seeks to establish others. Mohism advocates the doctrines of universal love and loving others as one loves oneself. Loving a person is different from loving a horse, since a horse is loved because it is a useful tool, while a person is not loved because of his or her instrumental value. In spite of their differences (Confucians leaned toward rationalism, while Mohists leaned toward empiricism), the two schools agreed on the principle of humanity. Morality necessarily involves human relationships, both the relations among social groups and the relations among individuals. So as to genuinely benefit others, people must cultivate love and confidence in others. As Confucius stated: “Can there be love which does not lead to strictness with its object? Can there be loyalty which does not lead to the instruction of its object?”³ The cohesive force of his moral doctrines is well illustrated by the sincere and loving relationship between Confucius

 Confucius, “Xian Wen:7,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/xian-wen/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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and his disciples. Such a relationship is conducive to the cultivation of humanity. Maybe that is why Confucius’s method has been regarded as such a great educational accomplishment. Moral theories in the Chinese tradition often assimilate benevolence with righteousness. Mencius stated: “Benevolence is man’s mind, and righteousness is man’s path.”⁴ In another place, he stated that “one’s dwelling should be benevolence; and one’s path should be righteousness. Where else should he dwell? What other path should he pursue? When benevolence is the dwelling-place of the heart, and righteousness the path of the life, the business of a great man is complete.”⁵ This is to say that moral conduct derives from the natural needs of human nature, but it also conforms to the laws of necessity. Therefore, benevolence and righteousness should not be isolated from each other. All in all, morality reflects not only norms and conventions that regulate social relationships, but also people’s deepest demands. Neither of the two aspects can exist without the other.

The Good and the True The relation between beneficence and truth in Chinese philosophy is analogous to the relation between righteousness and reason, in that moral norms and social conventions are usually unified. Moral norms, being established under certain social conditions and based on objective laws, are rational and justified. However, righteousness and reason often come into conflict with each other, so their unity cannot be simplified. While moral norms are normative principles (然之則 dang ran zhi ze), objective laws are laws of necessity (必然之理 bi ran zhi li). The two are different in that the laws of necessity provide possibilities that are independent of human will. No one is allowed to violate or break them. Moral norms, however, involve elements of human will and human wishes. Norms are formulated by people who want to regulate themselves and their actions. So, people consider the observation of moral norms as their obligation. In a similar way, rules are made on an objective basis, but they can be violated because they are artificial and involve subjective elements, though violating rules may entail penalties from one’s peers. For instance, soccer players will be penalized if they break the rules of the game. Therefore, people are motivated to self-consciously abide by norms and rules in

 Mencius, “Gaozi I:11,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/gaozi-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin I:34,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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their actions. However, the difference between norms and rules should be noted as well. The rationality of moral norms not only has Its basis in social and historical laws, but also conforms to the genuine demand of the development of human nature. Human nature expresses itself in the contradictions among emotions and desires that must be regulated by norms and appropriately dealt with so as to restrain excessive emotions and desires and cultivate decent humanity. In this process, the demand for the development of human nature is properly fulfilled. Essential human power is multifaceted, human nature is comprised of the rational and the nonrational faculties, the consciousness and the unconsciousness. In addition, essential human power evolves along with the development of social history. Therefore, human nature cannot be simplified as a product of social history. The enduring elements in human nature, particularly the individuality of each human being, cannot be underestimated. Even as each person should also be treated as a member of the species, this is merely the first distinction. If we were content with this distinction, human beings would be little different from the lower animals. Hence, to see a human being as a member of a social group is already a step further than the first distinction. From the perspective of a materialistic view of history, human essence is the sum of social relations; as a member of a social community, the human being is a product of social history. But we still need to go one step further. As an agent of action, every person has his or her individuality. In the realm of value, if this individuality is overlooked, then value will be abstract. Therefore, in terms of beneficence, beauty, and wisdom, each person is a subject of intrinsic value. In Marx’s conception, this is actually the true realm of freedom that begins beyond the realm of necessity. In the true realm of freedom, every human being has individuality and receives his or her due respect. In Marx’s account of the evolution of the social mode, the free and all-around development of individuality progresses from human dependency to material reliance to liberation. Such a development is the essential demand and the principle of humanity. Confucius’s doctrine that urges people to do to others as to themselves, and Mozi’s doctrine to love others as oneself, rightly emphasize the principle of humanity. The emotions and desires that constitute the expressions of human nature are often at variance with each other and call for mediation. However, this is by no means the fault of emotions and desires. As Mencius stated, the king is allowed to be excessively fond of beauties, because if the ruler loves wealth, he would give his people the power to gratify the same feeling since he himself understand so well the love of wealth; and the duke is allowed to be excessively fond of beauties, because if the ruler loves beauties, he cannot bear to see his people uncoupled since he himself understands so well the joy of beautiful companions. So, the people are not encouraged to be austere and ascetic. As Dai Zhen put it, passion should be measured by

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passion so that it conforms to the guidance of reason. He proposed two ways to achieve this end. One is to be rid of selfishness through strengthening altruism, and the other is to disperse delusion. He elaborated that “the best way to get rid of selfishness is to strengthen altruism. The best way to disperse delusion is to study.”⁶ So, humanism and rationality can be united into one through moral practice and education. The rationality and justification of moral norms lie in their adherence to the laws of social development and to objective laws. In addition, moral norms are compliant with the demand to develop human nature. With respect to complying with the demand to develop human nature, the key is to treat every human being as an individual and an end. It can be said that beneficence has truth as its prerequisite and relies on objective laws. In short, the genuine demand to develop human nature is the prerequisite for beneficence. Feng Youlan defended Cheng Yi’s statement that a widow should rather perish of starvation to preserve her chastity, stating that the wife was the backbone of the household in a society based on families; if the widow remarried, the family of the deceased husband lost its integrity. But his argument was rather biased. Even if the widow’s chastity conforms to the objective laws of a society in particular historical conditions, it violates human nature and the principle of humanity that demand the free development of human nature. The hypocrisy of the feudal ethical code consists precisely in its encroachment on the genuine demand to develop human nature. The collision between the feudal ethical code and human nature frequently brought about tragic incidents, which certainly nourished particular literary themes in particular historical eras. It has to be noted that human nature is inevitably estranged under social conditions characterized by the alienation of labor. The alienation can also be followed by abnormal ethical and moral conduct, and a woman’s chastity is one of many examples. Chinese tradition has long been deficient in scientific studies of the laws of social history and human nature. With the introduction of the materialistic view of history, modern sociology, and psychology, we are now well equipped to conduct a scientific inquiry into these issues. Admittedly, it will be an ongoing process to acquire knowledge of the laws of social history and human nature. So, we need to be wary of dogmatic approaches. In general, moral norms of a particular historical era are formed spontaneously at the outset, and then acquire some degree of consciousness as they evolve in the process of moving from being-in-itself to beingfor-itself, from the spontaneous to the conscious stage. Moral norms have a positive role in the preservation of social and ethical relations and the development

 Dai Zhen 1991c, 20.

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of human nature, even as this role is conditional and relative to a particular historical era. Nevertheless, there is something definitive in this role since the overall development is toward a value system that is characterized by the unity of humanism and socialism, and the unity of the liberation of individuality and the great unity. So much for a brief account of truth as the prerequisite for beneficence and the rationality of moral norms. It can be said that beneficence gives great impetus to the pursuit of truth. So many scientists and scholars have devoted themselves to the development of our country and the liberation of the people and to the pursuit of righteous causes, so they are empowered by an immense moral motivation to pursue the truth and by a relentless spirit.

The Relativity of Moral Norms Since truth is the prerequisite for beneficence and moral norms to have their rationality, we should be wary of relativism and nihilism when discussing moral issues and even more cautious about a dogmatic approach to morality. In the realm of value, we are particularly in need of an all-embracing attitude, since the question of value is not confined to the realm of knowledge. Scientific socialist theories, even if mixed with fantasies, are nonetheless rational. Some Western socialist theories contain a fair amount of reasonable argument. This is also the case with the social ideal. With regard to the individual ideal, a tolerant approach is all the more welcome. We should avoid using a self-proclaimed truth to measure the individual ideal and to suppress diverse opinions. Mao Zedong distinguished two types of social conflict, with which he differentiated the right from the wrong. He believed that benefiting and loving the people constituted the basis of morality. Of course, here the term “the people” does not include the enemies hidden in our society. With respect to the contradiction between ourselves and the enemy, the contradiction is antagonistic; only when enemies submit their weapons can they be dealt with in humanitarian ways. The contradictions among the people, however, are non-antagonistic; we should be ungrudging in our effort to nurture loving and trusting relationships among the ranks of the people and avoid manipulation and deception. Moreover, when striving to serve the people, we should do so with genuine love and respect for each person’s character and individuality. In the moral realm, the distinction between ourselves and our enemies requires us to observe principles and have a clear understanding of the object of love and hatred. Truth is the prerequisite of beneficence. So, the laws of social development and the demand for the free development of human nature are more important

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than moral norms. At a certain stage of historical development, the revered moral norms of the previous stage may become suffocating. Then, revolutionary forces are taken up for the overthrow of the old sacred things that have gone stale, and for altering the moral order. Engels made a thorough examination of the role of moral evil. He saw it as a rebellion against the old and dying. This rebelliousness was usually seen as evil and subversive by the normative tradition, but it was in fact a progressive force. But Engels also observed that after the rise of class antagonism, the evil passions of human beings also became flagrant; greed and imperiousness became the levers of historical progress. In a society of alienated labor, the estrangement of human nature brought about power and money worship. The history of feudalism and the bourgeoisie afford conspicuous evidence of the historical functions of greed and imperiousness. The laws of historical development unfold in the manifestations of these evils. The emperors’ efforts to unify ancient China, as a matter of fact, were driven by their own will to power. Capitalists’ accumulation of wealth at the initial stage of capitalism was also for the gratification of their own greed. These moral evils, in terms of their fundamental essence and the laws of historical development, are, in Liu Zongyuan’s words, the means through which Heaven fulfills its great impartiality. So, the historical role of evil requires a thorough investigation as well. Beneficence and evil, love and hatred, and moral right and wrong need to be scrutinized from a dialectical perspective. In the realm of beneficence, one should not treat beneficence as something absolute. An inflexible conception of beneficence might turn it into evil. Indeed, the realm of beneficence is diverse, since human relationships and morality are multifaceted. In addition, morality has different levels of expression because of the divergent levels of people’s moral consciousness and cognition. Moreover, the moral state of each individual has a distinct process of development. No one is born virtuous; virtue needs to be gradually cultivated. So, it is of vital importance to see the cultivation of virtue as a process. Only when a person’s character receives due respect, and only in a human relationship that allows self-respect and respect of others, can virtue have a healthy development. Hence, creating an environment of mutual respect and trust is the first step for the cultivation of virtue. Although the Way of human is also a historical development, moral norms are conditioned on history; virtue is only possible when people are properly respected. Therefore, the one common thing shared by Confucius’s doctrine of being true to the principles of human nature and benevolence to others, Mozi’s loving others as oneself, and Kant’s belief that the human being itself is the end is that they all emphasize the principle of humanity.

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The Moral Ideal and Freedom The moral ideal that concerns the paragon of ethics and virtue is an important aspect of the ideal in life. Ethics refers to the necessary relationships among human beings, including those among individuals and communities as well as the relationship between the individual and the collective. The moral ideal consists of two aspects: social ethics and individual virtues. The necessary relationship involved in social ethics is often described as righteousness. The concept of righteousness cannot be isolated from gain and benevolent love. On the whole, the moral ideal requires the establishment of just and benevolent ethical relations for the sake of the people’s interests and the cultivation of a just and benevolent character. This is a general or abstract account of the moral ideal. The unity of socialism and humanism as a just and benevolent ideal can be seen as the fruit of the historical development of the moral life and the ethical thought of the whole of humanity.

The Moral Ideal and Norms In terms of human conduct, the moral ideal is articulated as moral norms that regulate human relationships. Taken alone, moral norms belong to the moral ideal, which in turn is particularized as norms. The five constant virtues in traditional Chinese ethics (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity) and the “Five Loves” of modern China (love for the homeland, the people, physical labor, science, and public property [the last was changed to “socialism” in 1982]) are conspicuous examples of social norms. Moreover, every social group may have its own regulations. For instance, political parties have guidelines, professions have work ethics, students have regulations. Some of these are written, while others are unwritten conventions. Our concern here is only about general principles. Any moral norm, if just and reasonable, has its basis in objective conditions and human nature. In addition, it is a real possibility and serves people’s interests. Moreover, it is implemented with benevolent love. Only in this way, can a moral norm be effective in regulating people’s conduct. When the moral ideal is particularized as norms, each norm must assume the ideal form. In giving guidance to conduct, moral norms are far from rigid dogmas. Instead, norms are realistically conceived, flexibly put into practice, and instilled in human mind with benevolent care. A person cannot be said to have comprehended a moral norm if he or she merely reiterates rather than enacts it. Directing one’s actions through moral norms requires the evidence of practice. One of the Chinese moral norms dictates that one should always be true in word and resolute in action. So, when a person

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does not mean what he or she says, or does not carry through the action, this person would be counted as irresponsible. Social norms must assume the form of an ideal and be comprehended by the subject who puts it into practice with benevolent love. Only when moral norms are implemented in action can a person be said to have truly acquired morality. All conscious and purposive human activities determine their ends in accordance with realistic possibilities and human needs. The end effectuates as a law in action. In addition, the end formulates regulations according to particular conditions through appropriate means so as to accomplish itself. This is the case with material productions in which regulations are actually the rules of operation. Unlike activities that seek profits, moral conduct aims to consolidate and improve the ethical relationships among people. The Mohist Canon says benevolence means that “love of oneself is not for the sake of making oneself useful. It is not like loving a horse”;⁷ and righteousness means that “in intent, he takes the whole world as his field; in ability, he is able to benefit it. He is not necessarily employed.”⁸ According to the Mohists’ conception, benevolence and righteousness contain three noteworthy points. In the first place, one’s love for others is the same as love for oneself, it is treating other people in the same way as one treats oneself, rather than treating them as useful instruments, like cattle and horses. This is the basis of the principle of humanity. In the second place, one must take it as one’s duty and obligation to do deeds that benefit others, so one should cultivate skills and talents so as to be qualified to engage in beneficial deeds. In the third place, people should observe the intentions and consequences of moral conduct. A person needs to have the capacity to do deeds that benefit others; however, whether others are actually benefited or not is open to discussion. To the agent of the action, the action needs to proceed from benevolent love and the agent needs to possess the appropriate capacity to carry out the deed, but the agent should not question whether other people understand or kindly receive his or her good deed.

Freedom of Moral Action An action that is guided by moral norms is described as moral action. Oftentimes, people’s instinctive or habitual actions properly observe moral norms. This type of action is spontaneous. Religious believers act in accordance with their religious  Mozi, “Canon I:7,” in Mohist Canon, Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mozi, “Canon I:8,” in Mohist Canon, trans. Angus C. Graham (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mozi/canon-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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doctrines, spontaneously following the religious teachings they have received. This type of action can also be counted as moral action. Spontaneous and instinctively good actions are proper but not free moral action. Proper moral action has its value. It is conducive to the further cultivation of virtue when a person is naturally kind and inclined to good deeds, even as spontaneous moral action is still wanting of free will. Truly free moral action is entirely conscious and voluntary, characterized by the unity of free will and reason. On the one hand, moral action that observes norms derives from rational knowledge and is thus conscious; on the other hand, it is a voluntary choice of the will that moral conduct observes moral norms. Therefore, actions are morally free if the agent voluntarily and consciously adheres to moral norms. Virtuous actions of this kind are themselves the end and have intrinsic value. Only this type of moral action is autonomous. Ancient thinkers tended to exaggerate the aspect of free will. Mencius pointed out that human beings are different from the lower animals because of rational thinking. Reason gives humanity the capacity to discern. He stated that: “[the legendary king] Shun clearly understood the multitude of things, and closely observed the relations of humanity. He pursed benevolence and righteousness; he did not walk along the path of benevolence and righteousness.”⁹ King Shun drew a profound distinction between walking along the path of benevolence and righteousness and pursuing benevolence and righteousness. Ordinary people are able to pursue benevolence and righteousness, “act without understanding, and to do so habitually without examination, pursuing the proper path all the life without knowing its nature.”¹⁰ In this sense, moral action is unconscious. King Shun’s discerning ability derived from his rational knowledge, which enabled him to consciously act out benevolence and righteousness. Feng Youlan’s conception of spheres of life is also based on the “understanding and self-consciousness” (覺解 jue jie) that differentiates human beings from the lower animals. When doing a deed, a person needs to understand what the deed is. Concerning a moral action, the agent needs to have a clear understanding of how to act in accordance with moral norms. So, in actually doing the deed, the agent must not only know the obligations involved, but also willingly fulfill those obligations. Hence, the mind carefully deliberates in a moral action. Two layers of meanings can be revealed here. In the first place, the agent understands that his or her moral action originates from rational knowledge. In the second place, the agent also consciously comprehends relevant moral norms and acts in accordance with them. So, the agent is self-con Mencius, “Li Lou II:47,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin I:5,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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scious and intends to cultivate and sustain self-consciousness. The rational knowledge involved in the moral realm consists of two aspects. First, the clear discernment of moral norms, which can result from education. Discernment varies in different people. From the perspective of the materialistic view of history, people are required to recognize the rationality of moral norms in terms of social laws and the demands of human nature. Second, they must consciously act in accordance with moral norms. The level of consciousness, since it varies in each person, needs to be enhanced through cultivation. When a person is described as having a high level of consciousness, this implies that he or she has made great effort to cultivate it. The two aspects of moral action are parallel with the ways of pursuing knowledge in the ancient philosophers’ conception. Moral action has to be conducted with a free will. If an action is involuntary, it can be neither good nor evil. Moral actions are the activities of a free will that has the capacity of voluntary choice. As Xunzi stated, the human mind commands rather than being commanded. External forces may compel one’s body to contract or expand, one’s mouth to open or shut, but it is unable to bend one’s strong will that only yields to what it considers right and rejects what it considers wrong. So, free will is the precondition of moral responsibility. Good or evil action is a voluntary choice that has resulted from an autonomous decision. So, people are morally responsible for the consequences of their action. Moral norms differ from the law in that norms themselves involve some degree of voluntariness, from which arises the question of “ought to.” In performing a moral action, a person not only voluntarily choose to do so, but also exerts willpower in completing the action. Hence, it can be said that the human will involves a double character: voluntariness and perseverance. That is, abiding by one’s free choice and fulfilling one’s moral responsibilities regardless of hardship. When a person chooses his or her path in life, if he or she possesses strong volition and perseveres, then, in Wei Yuan’s words, “even the son of Heaven cannot make him rich (without his consent), and the supreme God cannot endow him longevity.”¹¹ Thus, willpower enables a person to be the master of his or her own life. In this sense, in acting morally, one is in control of one’s destiny. Truly free moral actions originate from the consciousness and free will, and from the unity of intellect and volition. Neither of these two elements is to be neglected. But the difference should also be noted: while consciousness constitutes the character of intellect, free will constitutes the character of volition. Philosophy and ethics tend to emphasize one of these. Confucians made many investigations into consciousness, while ignoring free will. They emphasized volition for complet-

 Wei Yuan 2011, 21.

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ing moral action, but Confucianism was deficient in undertaking a thorough inquiry into free will. For instance, Dong Zhongshu developed the doctrine of obedience to destiny and Neo-Confucians proposed the doctrine of the restoration of human nature, but both brushed aside the principle of free will. Zhu Xi stated that even arduous labors, if done consciously, become voluntary actions. He illustrated the point with acupuncture, stating that people willingly endure the pain inflicted by the needles because they are convinced of the needles’ curative efficacy. So as long as one is consciously doing something, one is also willingly doing it. Based on this line of thought, Neo-Confucians required people to eliminate human desires and devote themselves to the preservation of the Heavenly principle, arguing that it might be difficult at the beginning, but one would gradually become habituated to the hart task. In effect, Neo-Confucians turned a blind eye to the importance of volition. The Christian doctrine of original sin allows free will, in the belief that people make voluntary choices concerning moral conduct and faith. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command of their own accord. Christianity asserts that obedience and disobedience to God are a matter of people’s voluntary choice. If people have religious belief, they willingly choose and bear any implications of their actions. This excessive emphasis on free will and eventually leads to dogmatism. However, Christianity condemns atheists and the believers of other religions. Christianity’s hegemonic tendency is similar to the tendency of the Chinese NeoConfucians, though for different reasons and with a different theoretical background. Chinese and Christian moral views are different in that, while the observance of the Confucian ethical code tends to be conscious yet involuntary, faith in Christian God is voluntary yet often blind. Chinese ethics often inclines toward fatalism due to its emphasis on consciousness. In contrast, Western ethics tends toward voluntarism because of its emphasis on free will. Neither is able to be avoid one-sidedness.

Pragmatic Spirit The subject of morality is often described as pragmatic spirit, a term that is identified with practical reason in Kant’s terminology. Practical reason is volition that follows reason. Purposive human activities are initiated and fulfilled through volition. For instance, beneficence is consequent upon one’s conscious and voluntary observance of moral norms. To pursue the interests of others and the community out of genuine benevolent love requires voluntary decision. Such volition, or pragmatic spirit, transforms the ideal into reality through one’s actions, establishes reasonable ethical relationships, and cultivates virtue. Volition is inextricable from reason, especially practical reason. Ancient philosophers used the two concepts

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of understanding (明 ming) and aspiration (志 zhi) in their discourse on pragmatic spirit. The two concepts are mutually dependent, understanding and aspiration contribute to each other’s development, which can be seen as evolving from a lower to a higher stage. Zhang Zai drew a distinction between aspiration and intention (意 yi) in terms of the public and the private, stating that “while the will serves the public, the intention the private.”¹² The aspiration or intention of individual activities tends to serve personal interest, but aspiration addresses the common good. Wang Fuzhi also made a similar distinction. He stated that “if one’s aspiration be fixed, it is in accord with the common good of the world. Intention says yes to whatsoever interests oneself, regardless of the common good. Hence, rectifying the will is the first step toward the ordering of intention.”¹³ In his view, intentions that result from impressions are tied up with individual prejudices, of which it is difficult to determine whether they are good or bad. Intention needs to be ordered because it can originate from emotions and be associated with personal opinions. Random actions are often impulsive; thus, wrongdoing can occur as easily as spontaneous moral conduct. So, the will is of the foremost importance. Rectification of the will allows the will to follow rational knowledge and effectuate itself throughout practice. Wang Fuzhi believed that “if one’s will be fixed but one’s thoughts remain impure, one is still able to become conscious of this and change one’s way of thinking.”¹⁴ It is evident that both Zhang Zai and Wang Fuzhi connected the distinction between the will and intention with the distinction between reason and opinion. Their idea that intention can be ordered after the rectification of the will is arguably correct. But it should be noted that the rectification of the will is an ongoing process. In terms of epistemology, one learns to distinguish the right from the wrong and find truth among diverse opinions. In addition, when people are “set on learning” (Confucius thus described his stages of life, “At fifteen, my mind was set on learning. At thirty, my character had been formed.”), they will possess some degree of voluntariness and can be resolute in their will only after many conflicts in their intentions or motivations. Moreover, in the process of practice and knowledge, people strive to order their intentions with the rectified will, a process that eventually reinforces the resoluteness of the will. In moral practice, intellect and will facilitate each other’s development. For instance, people voluntarily study Marxism for the purpose of solving realistic problems; after acquiring a rudimentary understanding of Marxism, their study becomes conscious. This is voluntariness facilitating the development of consciousness. As people’s under-

 Zhang Zai 1978, 63.  Wang Fuzhi, Commentary on Zhang Zai’s Rectifying the Youth, in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. XII, 188.  Wang Fuzhi, Commentary on Zhang Zai’s Rectifying the Youth, in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. XII, 189.

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standing of Marxism deepens, their study becomes all the more conscious. They become capable of making comparisons and informed decisions in free discussions, and accordingly voluntarily choose the revolutionary path. This is the consciousness facilitating the development of voluntariness. Intellect and the will, practice and knowledge contribute to each other’s development in an ongoing progress, gradually delineating a revolutionary worldview and outlook on life, and cultivating revolutionary virtues.

Ethical Relationship in a Society The fulfillment of the moral ideal in the real world involves two aspects: ethical relationship in society and virtuous people.

The Cohesive Force of Ethics An ethical relationship manifests when the moral ideal is effectuated and moral norms govern human relationships. Chinese philosophers treat this topic as a discourse on the relationship between benevolence and righteousness, in particular, about a just, loving, and trusting relationship among people. The relationship has a cohesive force of morality in that it is conducive to the strengthening of social institutions. Ethical relationship is at first spontaneously formed under objective economic and political conditions. So, there is a grain of truth in Guan Zi’s claim that that only when its granaries are stored with grain can a society begin to cultivate rites, and only when their necessary needs are satisfied can the people begin to pursue honor and avoid disgrace. A society inevitably encourages an ethical culture that promotes the virtues of piety and chastity and preserves the institutions of family and monogamy when its economy reaches the stage of family economy. Social ethics has an objective basis. A social institution, such as a labor union, family, school, church, political party, or the state, is formed in particular historical circumstances; once firmly established, the institution resorts to the cohesive force of morality to bind its members. So, each social institution necessarily contains a moral dimension. By adapting to the moral ideal and norms of a social community, people can influence reality through their conscious moral actions. For instance, filial piety strengthens the institutions of family and the patriarchal clan system, patriotism consolidates a nation that has a diverse population. The cohesive force of morality has three particular functions. First, it provides a well-defined and just goal to a social institution, whose members work together with one heart to accomplish the goal and preserve the integrity of the institution.

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Second, it fosters a loving and trusting relationship among the members of the social institution; individuals are respected in the collective enterprise and have a feeling of happiness. Third, it cultivates and disseminates moral customs and public opinions in every aspect of social life. For instance, the virtues of filial piety and chastity in Chinese feudal society exercised influential power in the perpetuation of the patriarchal clan system and the traditional arrangement of the household; however, in the struggles against imperialism in modern China, patriotism was the people’s supreme virtue, any hint of treacherous action was crushed by the collective effort. The cohesive force of morality is consequential because it motivates a whole nation or a whole class to engage in formidable actions. Certainly, any historically significant action has social, economic, and political foundations, but the moral force capable of mobilizing an entire society is nevertheless of the utmost importance. A great enterprise, such as revolution or warfare, needs the people to be fully aware of its just cause and its moral justification, so they must be susceptible to moral inspiration and public opinion. For instance, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese people were inspired by the moral force of fighting for justice because they were protecting the country against Japanese invasion. Patriotism inspired Chinese people during wartime and consolidated the whole nation into a united army. Victory in the war inspired great confidence and pride in the people who saw it as the triumph of a just cause. After the Sino-Japanese War, the civil war between the communist party and Kuomintang party, and the Korean War in which China sent troops to assist North Korea in repelling American aggression reinforced the cohesive force of morality. Unfortunately, China experienced a grave error in the movement of the Great Cultural Revolution, which dissolved the cohesive force of morality that had taken so much effort to cultivate. It is perilous to the welfare of the nation when the collective enterprise of a nation not only fails to bring a diverse population together but causes people to be suspicious of each other. Indeed, any community or social institution needs a moral force if it wishes to stay strong. Even a small social unit, such as a family, a school, or a labor union, must have recourse to moral force to build loving, trusting, and just relations among its members so that they work with one mind toward a common goal.

The Civilized Way of Communication With respect to its content, moral actions aim to strengthen and cultivate tenable human relationships and cultivate a cohesive moral force in a social institution. In Chinese society, human relationships are particularly concentrated on rituals, i. e., the civilized manner of interaction. The feudal ethical code, though worthy

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of rigorous critique, yields some valuable proprieties applicable to any society. Moral content and appropriate ways of interaction make use of formulaic language and gestures, and ceremonial rites and conducts, all of which are civilized and devoid of feudalistic duplicity. The ancient Chinese emphasized rites, using them to restrict and cultivate people. On the one hand, rites are used to restrict human desires. Appropriate regulation is often called for since people’s desires, preferences, and wishes are contradictory, and individual interest and the common good often come into conflict. So, the rites have recourse to moral norms as the criteria for measuring and tempering people’s emotions and desires so that their actions contribute to strengthening a reasonable human relationship. On the other hand, cultivation is for polishing and refining moral conducts. Xunzi explained his conception of rites, saying that different rules for rites were established in harmony with human feelings, and social relations were differentiated by such feelings. Rites correspond to human feelings and are refined ways of giving expression to the feelings. Therefore, courteous and polite interactions among communities and individuals can refine human relationship and give artistic form to ethical relationship. Maybe one of the reasons that the Confucian school combines rites with music is that rites are refined artistic forms, useful in the cultivation of people’s minds. The Confucian ethical code does contain many dregs and tedious formalities; however, the regulative and refining functions of the rites have positive significance, since every society needs civilized means to guide human interactions. Indeed, the regulative functions of rites have a psychological basis. Human beings are born with instinctive drives that need to be directed and improved in social life. According to Freudian theory, these inborn drives can become deformed and abnormal if overly suppressed. So, what is called for is appropriate guidance. Moreover, if the instinctive drives are refined and raised to a higher level, they are able to inspire creative works in literature and the arts. In this way, instinctive drives can be cultivated and rationalized through the intervention of rites so that human emotions and desires acquire cultured forms. This is by no means to say, however, that we should endorse asceticism. Concerning the traditional categories of benevolence and righteousness, love, as the content of benevolence, is deeply rooted in human instinct, and righteousness ultimately aims at happiness. So, benevolence and righteousness do not entail the suppression of human desires. Instead, these virtues foster emotions and necessary desires. In this sense, the Confucians’ exposition of the two functions of virtue is a great philosophical contribution. So much for a critical analysis of the Confucian ethical code. As for the modern civilized social interaction that is necessary to the cultivation of virtues and reasonable human relationships, the right approach is to habituate children and

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youth in civilized interactions through education so that adherence to moral norms becomes their second nature.

The Relation between Rituals and the Law Ancient Chinese philosophy has long debated the relation between rites and the law. The debate is ultimately about ethics and the legal system, which eventually transforms into a debate about government by means of love or force. In other words, on whether a ruler should be a wise king or an unrelenting autocrat. The Confucians advocated the virtuous ruler, legalists believed a severe penal code was the most effective means for producing obedient subjects and moral customs. According to the legalists’ argument, morality comes after the establishment of a harsh legal system. The ruling class of the Han dynasty synthesized Confucians’ benevolence and legalists’ severe punishment by adopting both hard and soft tactics to manipulate the people. The relation between ethics and the legal system is impossible to disentangle in a feudal society. Even the synthesized tactics were unable to clarify, in theory or practice, the relation between moral education and coercive measures. On the one hand, this is because the exploiting class cloaked its inhumane and exploitative interest with the preaching of virtues. On the other hand, the rule of law consisted of high-handed measures to suppress the masses. Therefore, the issue cannot find a solution in the feudal society. The construction of a reasonable society needs first to solve the relation between the rule of law and virtuous rule. The focus of our discussion here is on the restraint mechanisms of morality and the law, so questions of economic and religious sanctions have to be set aside. Legal sanctions differ from moral norms in that the law is made and executed by the state. To its enemies, the state is the organ of legalized violence; the law that protects national security has a violent dimension that is reserved for enemies and criminals who threaten the welfare of the people. In the meanwhile, the law is coercive to the citizenry and punishes whomsoever transgress the common interest. However, the law made also expresses humanitarian principles and moral norms. Legal education is important so that the people can be made to consciously and voluntarily observe the law. In this sense, the law of the People’s Republic of China is entirely different from the law of the feudal society. Legalists advocated an educational system in which jurisprudence officials were the educators, and the law was the textbook. So, in the end, the ruling class had the last word and the masses had to passively submit. In modern society, legal education instills the people with the pride of being the masters of their country and ensures that they consciously and voluntarily observe the law. Nevertheless, the law, by its very nature,

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entails coercion and violence. Chivalrous warriors tended to violate laws that forbid violence, so they themselves are punished by the law, even as their acts can be morally admirable. Conversely, some morally dubious conduct is protected by the law since it incurs no legal violation. The restraining power of morality is intrinsic and appeals to conscience. Moral restraint can also make use of public opinion to encourage or curb actions. The public can endorse virtuous actions and denounce immoral behaviors. However, such moral judgment relies on rational knowledge and education to awaken people’s good conscience. Conscience makes people feel shame when they commit a moral violation and contentment when they adhere to moral norms. In this sense, moral judgment rewards and punishes on a different level than the legal system. The law is executed by judicial organs, and its execution is defined in explicit terms. The law needs to be meticulous in wording and logic to avoid ambiguity, while written moral norms are very rare, except for some social institutions that draw up regulations for their members, for instance, political parties publish party constitutions, religious organizations set down canons for their followers. But moral norms mostly come about gradually in a society. Because of their unstipulated nature, moral norms are easily distorted and manipulated. Malicious manipulation of moral norms often produces sanctimonious moral doctrines, particularly in a modern society that is no longer based on the natural economy, the situation becomes all the more complex. Our society on the whole needs to have a rule by law; democracy cannot be detached from the rule of the law. Therefore, democratic politics necessitates a sound legal system. The more democratic our society becomes, the more urgent it is to have a set of clearly stipulated laws. That being said, in a democratic society, the rule by law should act in a moral spirit. Human relationship has become increasingly intricate in modern times, and society is all the more in need of the cohesive force of morality. Thus, the moral cultivation of the whole nation through education is of great importance.

Ethical Changes and Revolutions in Modern China People tended to remark that the feudal society of China was courteous and righteous and had a comprehensive system of moral norms that served the patriarchal clan system. The emperors flaunted the banner of filial piety as the instrument of ruling, applying patriarchal ethics to the state and political system, transforming the political relationship between the monarch and court officials into a paternal relationship, so that the political system seemed to acquire a moral dimension. Among the three cardinal guides specified in the Confucian ethical code (that is, the ruler guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides

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the wife), the first two are intimately connected. Political affairs are interconnection with moral conduct. In addition, ancient philosophers defended the system by positing the notion of the Heavenly mandate. This reflected people’s mutual dependence in a society based on natural economy. Modern thinkers vehemently attacked the shackles that the feudal ethical code imposed on the people, particularly the three cardinal guides that nullified people’s independence. The essential difference between the feudal ethical code and modern progressive thought is that, while the former wants to control the people, the later strives to cultivate people’s independence. Confucius and Mencius claimed that sincere words and resolute action are of little importance, only the obstinate and the petty insist on such trivial principles. Modern progressive thinkers were unhappy with this view. For instance, Yan Fu argued that, in a democratic society, a person would be exposed as having no self-respect nor any respect for others when he or she is untrue in words and irresolute in action, because, in so doing, he or she affronts other people’s dignity. They maintained that independent character requires a person to be responsible for one’s words and deeds. This principle constitutes a direct opposition to the feudal ethical code. On that account, modern thinkers relentlessly demanded a widespread moral revolution. For instance, Liang Qichao initiated the call for a moral revolution, Zhang Taiyan wrote treatises such as The Morality of Revolution, and the leading figures of the May Fourth Movement (1919) opposed the old morality with a new cultural program and aimed their attack at feudal ethics. In A Madman’s Diary, Lu Xun presented a vivid depiction of feudal ethics as a human-eating monster, and Chen Duxiu claimed that ethical awareness implied a person’s ultimate awareness for the people. With regard to the revolution of the value system, the first thing that needed revolutionary reform is certainly moral norms. The real solution for moral problems, however, requires the support of a reformed political institution and economic basis. As people acquire more knowledge of morality in modern China, how successful is the moral revolution? Admittedly, although the debate is fierce and intense, the actual achievement is anything but noticeable. Many thinkers devoted their arguments to the question of moral revolution without inquiring into independent character and the principle of being true to one’s words and deeds. Because of the entanglement of moral and political issues, Marxists are often predisposed to highlight class character and leftist criticisms of the old moral system. As a result, a cult of the leader gradually takes root in our society. Idolization of the individual is, in effect, a covert form of patriarchy, disguising in a new form the old three cardinal guides. Here, the obstinacy of feudal ethics and moral conventions is most conspicuous. Even as debates about selective transmission of the old moral norms have been underway for a long time, the issue has not reached, in theory and practice, a tenable conclusion.

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The crux of the problem lies in the entanglement of moral and political problems and the disregard for the peculiarity of moral issues. A prevailing supposition is that moral education merely amounts to the learning of political and ideological ideas. Since ideology has to shift along with changes in political policies, it cannot offer steadfast teaching but flows with political trends. Such an education can only devastate morality. Liang Qichao incisively pointed out that, in feudal society, while the monarch treated his officials with propriety, the officials served the monarch with loyalty; both parties cherish some gratitude towards each other and sought ways to reciprocate. The political relationship was thus privatized, without much connection to the moral responsibilities that political leaders should assume for the country and the people. The privatization of the political relationship between the monarch and the officials transformed social ethics into a nexus of personal contacts, with individual political figures easily forgetting their moral responsibilities to the people. Consequently, the cultivation of patriotism and solidarity was rarely viable. The ethics of Chinese feudal society was devoid of independent character and the principle of voluntariness, and moral obligation merely amounts to the subject’s service to the superiors rather than to the nation and the common good. Moral norms are entangled with social and conventional customs that are, by nature, tenaciously resistant to changes. Therefore, moral revolution involves complex issues. The patriarchal system based on the natural economy gradually assimilated changes when the commercial economy replaced the natural economy and industrialization replaced agricultural society. But the question awaits a thorough investigation, because the bourgeoning society still needs to make use of education to cultivate a new ethical relationship. The primary goal of moral revolution is to overthrow the norms that give sanctuary to people’s material reliance. This might well be the great complexity of the issue. In the period when China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal nation, power and money were tightly knit together, as were bureaucrats and unscrupulous merchants. The idolization of power and money became the most stubborn obstacle to the revolution of morality and ideas. In terms of positive contributions, moral revolution demands the unity of socialism and humanism and the unity of the liberation of individuality and great unity. This arduous enterprise was first championed by Li Daozhao. Li Daozhao’s enterprise and Lu Xun’s promotion of the ideal character of conscious intellectuals have become the objectives of the modern Chinese struggle in the moral revolution. Whenever the people proceed in the right direction, society unfailingly makes some progress. For instance, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, China’s War of Liberation and in the early stages of the People’s Republic of China, the worship of power and money was denounced and criticized among the revolutionaries, and the cohesive force of morality grew rapidly in society. However, idoliza-

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tion of the leader took over and eventually led to a decade of political turmoil. The Party and civil servants were forced to fake self-criticism, and many ordinary people worshiped leaders who were mere imposters. At the end of this political catastrophe, many people were plagued by their own consciences. So, the cohesive force of morality in society was thus dissipated. The ethical relationship between the people and the Party was devastated, so that the leadership was at odds with the community and the integrity of the society was shattered. After the exposure of the Gang of Four, the nation felt as if it had restored its solidarity for a while. However, if we are too keen to move forward, we may forget to take time to learn lessons from our historical experience, or to devise the appropriate means to construct a cohesive force of morality in the nation. If so, we will fail to nip potential trouble in the bud when similar events threaten to repeat themselves.

Moral Character As has been stated, the transformation of the moral ideal into reality entails two undertakings: constructing a reasonable ethical relationship in society and cultivating individual moral character.

Moral Character and Pragmatic Spirit Moral character refers to personal virtues. Ethical relationship and private virtues, though similar in some respects, differ in many ways. Those whom we describe as benevolent and righteous have private virtues. Having one or two of the virtues does not necessarily imply that the person has a loving, trusting, or just relationship with other people in society. This is the most apparent difference between ethical relationship and private virtues. The ancients focused on the cultivation of three virtues: intelligence, benevolence, and courage. With regard to the actualization of the moral ideal, benevolence and righteousness are the primary virtues people ought to cultivate, whereas intelligence and courage may be optional and devoid of moral significance. For instance, a person may be excellent in knowledge or courage, but such excellence does not have to be revealed in moral actions. That being said, intelligence and courage are important moral characteristics for the virtuous, whose actions need to be initiated by rational knowledge and consciously deliberated. So, when virtuous people act bravely for a just cause, their actions are based in free will. In this sense, intelligence and courage are connected with benevolence and righteousness and brought into the moral categories.

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It has been stated that the ideal character exhibits the unity of truth, good, and beauty. Love for truth and beauty is also a virtue, even as good remains the primary virtue to cultivate. Intelligent people might misuse their knowledge if they lack the necessary virtues to avoid evildoing. Ordinary laborers, however, can have the virtues of integrity and honesty even if they are not very well educated. A person’s moral character can be judged in critical moments in which the person’s action demonstrates his or her moral state. A truly virtuous person possesses moral freedom, so his or her moral action is necessarily conscious and voluntary. The action is voluntary in that the agent has a rational understanding of the moral norms and, accordingly, a clear awareness of the elements that constitute moral conduct. This is the virtue of intelligence. Socrates claimed that knowledge is virtue, Confucius also believed in the unity of benevolence and intelligence. Both philosophers were incisive in seeing the importance of knowledge in moral actions. Mencius stressed the importance of intelligence in his account of virtues. He stated: “The richest fruit of benevolence is this: the service of one’s parents. The richest fruit of righteousness is this: the obeying one’s elder brothers. The richest fruit of wisdom is this: the knowing those two things, and not departing from them.”¹⁵ Apparently, an appropriate understanding of the virtues of benevolence and righteousness necessitates virtuous actions. Mencius further claimed that virtuous action “must be the constant practice of this righteousness, but without the object of thereby nourishing the passionnature. Let not the mind forget its work, but let there be no assisting the growth of that nature.”¹⁶ In this sense, practical spirit is rational willpower. The moral subject possesses strong willpower that first comes into play in voluntarily making moral decisions. Human motivations often contradict each other, so willpower is there to guide the agent through the process of deliberation and overcome conflicting motivations. Moreover, willpower demonstrates itself in actions. A moral person has resolute willpower and abides by moral principles throughout an action. People who tend to think twice after having made their initial decision do not possess resolute character. Independent will and resolute character are the essential traits of practical spirit, or the characteristics of a virtuous person. People are judged by their actions rather than by their words to see if they have a particular virtue, if their actions correspond with their motivations, if their moral decisions are conscious and voluntary, and finally if they carry out moral norms through their actions regardless of the difficulties they might encoun Mencius, “Li Lou I:27,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Gong Sun Chou I:2,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ter. This question is intricate, so we should be wary of treating practical spirit and the will as something absolute and isolating them from instinctive emotions and desires. Some nonrational and unconscious powers as well as some habits formed in social practice play important roles in the shaping of character. For instance, maternal love and sexual love belong to nonrational instinct, and the spontaneous rebellious spirit of people who endure long suffering is also nonrational and instinctive, but these powers can have inestimable moral force when they explode. Certainly, the nature of these nonrational instinctive powers can be easily comprehended through a social historical analysis. In this sense, an account of virtue is necessarily tied to an understanding of practical spirit. Concerning moral norms that are internalized as virtues, the analysis should include an examination of their historical evolution. In a particular historical era, particular social institutions share some common moral principles and norms. Take the socialist society of China as an example. Our society expects people to observe the principle of the unity of humanism and socialism, and especially to observe moral norms such as love for the homeland, the people, physical labor, science, public property, and so on. These moral norms are specifications of the moral ideal of our society. However, as has been stated, morality is multifaceted and manifold, the cultivation of every single virtue varies from one person to another. Therefore, the question cannot be approached with any dogmatic view. Everyone cherishes some degree of patriotism for one’s homeland, professional ethics in the workplace, civility in social interactions, and affection and love for family. But surely one person can be extremely patriotic yet lack professional ethics, and another person can be a model worker yet lack civility in social interactions, and so on. That is to say, every virtue has its distinct scope and degree. Take the virtue of industriousness. In the early stage of socialism, people might be driven to industriousness in their livelihood for the common good. But regardless of their motivations, hard-working is always a commendable virtue. Certainly, some people want to get rich through sweat and toil; this motivation is legitimate since our society cannot demand everyone to be utterly selfless. In short, concerning the cultivation of virtues, the appropriate attitude is to embrace all possibilities rather than impose uniformity.

The Alienated Character The term pin de (品德 moral character) is mostly positive, but it is occasionally used in derogatory contexts. For instance, a person who had made some mistakes might be labeled as having moral issues. In an alienated society, human nature can also be alienated; what is created by people can turn into something that manip-

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ulates its creators. For instance, in his fairy tale The Shadow, Hans Christian Andersen described a person who suddenly lost his shadow. After some time, the shadow returned wearing a black cloak, appearing like a well-to-do gent. The shadow asked the person to be its shadow. The person changed position with his shadow and was cruelly abused and humiliated. No one could hear him when he finally struggled to cry out “I am human.” The tale incisively depicts the phenomenon of alienation. With respect to the whole of the history of social development, the power of alienation has two forms: the worship of power based on human dependence and the worship of money based on people’s material dependence. The two forms of alienating power feed into the imperiousness and greed that are characteristics of the exploiting class. Greed and imperiousness, as the primary characteristics of alienation, play significant historical roles under certain historical conditions. Engels described them as the levers of historical progress. Nevertheless, these characteristics, in essence, violate the demand for the free development of human nature. To despotic autocrats, power is everything. Since they trust nothing but the power in hand, the autocrats are, in effect, enslaved by power. In the same way, misers, in enslaving others with their wealth, are themselves enslaved by money. In the end, the two forms of alienation violate the demand for the free development of human nature. The Chinese ethical code, just as the vices of imperiousness and greed, also brought about alienating conditions for the people. Chinese society is highly tactful in keeping up appearances, a social practice that is, to a certain extent, consequent upon the Confucian ethical code that demanded absolute obedience of the subordinate to the superior. Such things as appearances and titles are artificial social values, yet they were internalized as a national psychology in feudal society so that people regard their social status as the most important aspect of life. At the initial stage of its formulation, the feudal ethical code did effectively restrain and refine people’s conduct, but it evolved into artificial and oppressive dogmas in later history. To the Confucian dogmatists and those whom Lu Xun described as “playingacting nihilists,” the ethical code simply offered a polished veneer for their sanctimonious actions. The notion of appearances is an artificial invention, a polished facade erected for show in front of an audience. However, people can lose themselves in pretense when they surrender themselves entirely to play-acting, and therein arises alienation. As Lu Xun acerbically pointed out, maintaining a good appearance is the common program of the Chinese spirit. This phenomenon resulted from the Confucian ethical code that shackled people in the long history of feudal society. Alienated character, though weak in the long run, possesses consequential destructive momentum. It can cause damage to the cohesive force of morality and undermine just and loving relationship among people. Alienation of moral

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character can result in the loss of compassion and the sense of justice, and thus foster a propensity for cruelty. Under such human conditions, the virtues of intelligence and courage are easily used to facilitate evildoings. It is precisely in this context that Zhang Taiyan proposed the theory of dual evolution, arguing that both the good and the evil in human nature evolve over time. As science and technology developed, modern warfare became more brutal than ever. Even so, we should be wary of being overly pessimistic. From the perspective of the history of human development, humanity will eventually overcome alienation and attain freedom. Marx’s distinction of the three modes of societies is very insightful, because the overarching goal of the development of human society is indeed liberation, so that free development is possible for every person in a free society, i. e., the communist society.

The Moral Sphere and Wisdom Moral character varies from one person to another, and even for the same person, it varies from one stage of life to another. Therefore, a person’s moral character and the moral sphere in which a person resides vary greatly. Mencius took moral cultivation as a process of growth, saying that: A man who commands our liking is what is called a good man. He whose beneficence is part of himself is what is called [a] real man. He whose beneficence has been filled up is what is called [a] beautiful man. He whose completed beneficence is brightly displayed is what is called a great man. When this great man exercises a transforming influence, he is what is called a sage. When the sage is beyond our knowledge, he is what is called a spirit-man.¹⁷

People in modern times certainly do not strive to become Mencius’s sage or spiritman. But people do wish to attain some level in the moral sphere, even if some might only reach a lower while others reach a higher level. For instance, patriotism and industriousness as virtues and can be cultivated through practice and education. In this sense, practical spirit also progresses from a lower to a higher sphere. Ancient Chinese philosophers believed in the possibility of attaining the consummate moral sphere of the sage and spirit-man. Mencius conceived the sphere as being permeated with vast and flowing qi as vital energy that fills up all the space between Heaven and earth. Human beings, following the current of that

 Mencius, “Jin Xin II:71,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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qi, will eventually attain the moral ideal. His theory has been impactful in moral practice. In his well-known poem “Ode to the Sense of Honor,” Wen Tianxiang sang, in a tone a similar to Mencius’s, praise of justice and righteousness, eulogizing the sublimity of death for a righteous cause. Neo-Confucians set down the doctrine that advocates the preservation of the Heavenly mandate and the elimination of human desires for the sake of attaining the sphere of ultimate beneficence in which the heart can dictate everything else in the natural world—so much so that, as Zhu Xi put it, the integrity of one’s heart vibrates with the integrity of Heaven and earth, and the flow of one’s qi vibrates with the flow of the qi of Heaven and earth. Neo-Confucians believed that a happy order prevails throughout Heaven and earth, and all things are nourished and flourish in that sphere. Such a conception is certainly full of fantasy. Neo-Confucians fell short of a sustainable argument, treating principles of obligation as if they were a metaphysical Heavenly mandate and necessities. Moral cultivation and practice, according to their line of thought, can bring humanity into communion with the Heavenly mandate. Normative Confucians’ doctrine of the unity of Heaven and humanity certainly leans towards metaphysics. Concerning the unity of the principle of humanity and the principle of nature, and the interaction of human nature and the Way of Heaven, it seems safe to say that virtues and wisdom, and the moral and the philosophical sphere will eventually become a unity. The unity of humanism and socialism is the social ideal, which is also the moral ideal, of our society today. The ideal is posited on people’s rational view of the world and will be comprehended by practical spirit and implemented in moral actions. Then, through conscious and voluntary actions, it will first habituate itself until it becomes people’s second nature, and then transform reality into that which conforms to moral norms. Hence, moral character and the moral sphere are integral to social ethics and moral order. In addition, the natural world connected with the human world can also acquire moral dimension because of the transference of human actions. Indeed, such moral dimension is in tune with the artistic sphere. Many artistic creations offer powerful moral illumination by demonstrating the unity of humanity and nature, and the sphere in which the human principle and the natural principle are harmonized. In this sense, art also stimulates the cultivation of virtues.

Chapter 8 Beauty and Aesthetic Ideals The actualization of the ideal in life is dependent on human activities that objectify essential human power and intuit the power of humanity through its expression in humanized nature. This is the freedom of aesthetic activities. In this chapter, we inquire into the question of beauty and aesthetic ideals.

Beauty and Freedom The Aesthetic Sense The Chinese character mei (美 beauty) has many connotations. In general, beautiful character implies virtues related to good; beautiful taste refers to the pleasure of the sense of taste. Sensual pleasures, such as the bodily pleasures of taste, do not always denote aesthetic appreciation. To put it in Kant’s terminology, the aesthetic sense is a pleasure of freedom. In this sense, our discussion involves the relation between pleasure and the aesthetic sense. Perceptual pleasures, such as bodily comfort and sensual enjoyment, rely on external objects and particular conditions; this kind of pleasure is accordingly relative to particular circumstances. Zhuangzi saw the nature of such pleasures and remarked that the deer delighted in the taste of grass and the centipede delighted in the taste of snake, the crow delighted in the taste of rotten rat, each creature has its own preference in taste; the beautiful maidens Maojiang and Liji were the most delightful sight to men, but birds and fish fled in fright at their sight. So, one might want to inquire, what is truly beautiful and pleasurable? The relativity of perceptual beauty and pleasure is most apparent in Zhuangzi’s exposition. In addition, a person’s perception of an object varies with particular bodily conditions, time, and place. A satiated person might not find the same food enjoyable. Liang Qichao emphasized that the aesthetic sense is a sort of pleasure, and his aestheticism led him to believe that the function of beauty is to rouse pleasure, while the function of the arts is to rouse the sense of taste in life. Each individual has a distinct sense of taste, so does each particular era; even the same person has a different taste at a different time. However, the conflation of the aesthetic sense with the sense of taste would result in relativism. So, relativity should not be overly stressed. Mencius stated that “[people’s] ears agree in enjoy-

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ing the same sounds; their eyes agree in recognizing the same beauty.”¹ People’s senses of seeing and hearing do share common ground that allows for a shared aesthetic experience. That different people see the same object as beautiful belongs to the scope of ordinary experience. It has been agreed upon that aesthetic experience relies on intuition. Moreover, that intuition has to be an intuition that feels pleasure. The question here is what kind of pleasure is to be found in aesthetic experience, and what characteristics does it have? Kant took pleasure to be a free pleasure, in the sense that the pleasure found in aesthetic experience does not involve interest. A judgment of beauty, if mixed with interest, will certainly be biased. If so, it can by no means become a pure judgment of taste. The characteristics of the aesthetic sense lie in its disinterestedness. Kant’s theory is reasonable in that the aesthetic sense gives free pleasure. However, aestheticists after Kant went so far as to turn the doctrine into formalism, positing Kant’s theory as the basis for their claim that art ought to be for art’s sake. Plekhanov conducted a historical investigation of aesthetics, stating that art originated in physical labor, and that the first artistic images were the combined effort of primitive dance, music, and shamanistic ritual. But as the senses evolved, human beings began to intuit beautiful things without taking personal interest into consideration. Lu Xun expanded this argument in the introduction to his translation of Plekhanov’s Art and Social Life. In short, the origin of art is not disinterested, even as the pleasure of aesthetic experience in Kant’s conception is free. For instance, in the fable of chef Pao Ding butchering an ox, Zhuangzi described the artisan standing there with proud content on his face after disjointing the ox with marvelous skill. His feat displays the true freedom of aesthetic activity, and his pleasure is genuinely free. However, the aim of butchering the ox is for its meat; hence, the labor involved is nonetheless utilitarian. It is simply due to chef Ding’s mastery of the skill that it is as if his labor follows a natural rhythm. Only at this level can the butchering of an ox become free pleasure. In activities such as this, human beings intuit their essential power. Such activities and art have significant influence on the cultivation of virtues. Hence, it can be said that art possesses a utilitarian nature in its origin, but it is still practical because artistic and aesthetic experience contribute to the cultivation of character and spiritual development. In this sense, the claim that “art is for the sake of life” is quite significant. Art has its intrinsic value; the aesthetic sense influences the free development of human beings. Another question arises when the aesthetic sense is treated as a free pleasure. That is, how to explain tragic beauty? Since people are predisposed to pursue

 Mencius, “Gaozi I:7,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/gaozi-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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gain and shun loss, seek pleasure and avoid suffering, why do so many people enjoy tragedy? Aristotle first inquired into this question. He believed that tragedy aroused pity and fear, which led to the cleansing of the audience’s sentiments. This explains the drama of tragedy based on its use in the development of human nature. In his Psychology of Tragedy, Zhu Guangqian presented a thorough discussion of the pleasure of tragedy. He claimed that any sentiment, even a painful one, can turn into happiness if it can be liberally expressed. He stated that a vitality is aroused when the audience’s painful sentiments are given free release in seeing a tragic play, so pain can be transformed into happiness. Sentiments of pain can be rather complex, mixed with distress and joy. In appreciating a tragedy, the pain can transform into happiness precisely because tragedy releases the viewer’s pity and fear so as to purify the mind. Zhu Guangqian believed that tragedy itself possesses formal beauty that gives the audience a sense of beauty, which constitutes a necessary condition of its purifying effect. It seems fair to say that there is much insight in his thought on the appreciation of tragedy.

The Relations among the Beautiful, the True, and the Good Kant drew a distinction between free and dependent beauty. When looking at a flower, listening to a bird’s singing, walking by the lake or up the mountain, one’s appreciation of the beautiful is untainted by moral judgment; there is but pure intuition of the object. Kant took the aesthetic sense as utterly free. In the meantime, he believed that the aesthetic sense can be mixed with the pursuit of truth and moral judgment; in such a case, that which one appreciates should be called dependent beauty. His distinction, however, overly stresses the difference between the two kinds of beauty and assumes that art cannot provide free beauty if it gives expression to truth and virtuous actions. To look at a flower is to freely appreciate its beauty; in the same way, to read a masterpiece that contains stores of wisdom and lofty moral inspiration can also be a free appreciation of beauty. All in all, beauty is premised on the true and the good; they can mutually promote each other’s development. In the realm of values, gain is the basic form of good; gain can eventually contribute to happiness and joy. People engage in material production in the pursuit of material gain so that they can satisfy necessary needs. Such activities always belong to the realm of necessity, in which human beings can and must access material gains according to the laws of necessity. On this basis, spiritual values, wisdom, morality, and art can develop and flourish, and thereby attain the realm of values in which people cultivate and realize their ideals. From then on, human beings are capable of cultivating free wisdom and truthful knowledge, through which they develop themselves and change the world; through which

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they cultivate virtues, voluntarily choose and consciously abide by moral principles; through which they develop the free aesthetic sense and intuit essential human power in humanized nature; through which they enjoy free pleasure in the unity of the subject and the object. The realms of the true, the good, and the beautiful are unified in the spiritual freedom of the actualization of the ideal, in which truth, good, and beauty, though differentiated, are not detached from each other. Concerning this issue, ancient Chinese philosophers held views that diverged greatly, each stressed one aspect to the neglect of others. A comparison of the Confucians and the Daoists in the pre-Qin period can best illustrate the point. Confucius and Mencius held that beauty must be premised on the good, and it should be first of all the beauty of character. They took freedom to be the integration of humans and the Heavenly mandate. For instance, Confucius said: “At seventy, I could follow my heart’s desire without transgressing moral principles.”² To freely abide by moral principles is to observe the Heavenly mandate, which is the metaphysical moral norm. According to the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius, that which Heaven confers is called nature, and human beings are inherently good. Mencius stated: The richest fruit of benevolence is this: the service of one’s parents. The richest fruit of righteousness is this: the obeying one’s elder brothers. The richest fruit of wisdom is this: the knowing those two things, and not departing from them. The richest fruit of propriety is this: the ordering and adorning those two things. The richest fruit of music is this: the rejoicing in those two things. When they are rejoiced in, they grow. Growing, how can they be repressed? When they come to this state that they cannot be repressed, then unconsciously the feet begin to dance and the hands to move.³

So, when human beings act in accordance with their nature, they act out of genuine righteousness and benevolence; their righteous and benevolent experience originates from human nature, without any external compulsion. In this sense, people flourish in their pursuits and can in no way be suppressed when they rejoice in moral actions. In Mencius’s conception, this is the way in which art originated in the beginning of humanity. While moral actions are carried out as naturally as water flows, people take so much pleasure in their own conduct that they unconsciously move their limbs as if dancing naturally; hence, the arts of dance, music, and poetry come into being. Therefore, Confucius and Mencius believed

 Confucius, Analects, in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 20.  Mencius, “Li Lou I:27,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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that art was premised on morality, and the beautiful on the good. Confucius remarked: “If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rites of propriety? If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?”⁴ Without virtues and rites of propriety, art would have not found wholesome soil that provides for its germination. That being said, Confucius was well aware of the differences between the good and the beautiful, knowing that what is perfectly good is not necessarily perfectly beautiful, and vice versa. Mencius thus stated that a man “who commands our liking is what is called a good man. He whose beneficence is part of himself is what is called [a] real man.”⁵ The good originates from human nature; when it attains completion, it is identical with beauty. In this sense, beauty is the complete state of virtues. Mencius likened virtues to water that “gushes out! It rests not day nor night. It fills up every hole, and then advances, flowing onto the four seas. Such is water having a spring! It was this which he found in it to praise.”⁶ The gushing water is wonderfully beautiful for two reasons. First, it has a traceable origin; second, it has ample access to space so as to nurture its currents and waves, which give the water its beauty. The Confucian conception of natural beauty, such as the beauty of water, mountains, and jade rock, establishes a parallel between nature and human virtues. Confucians wished to intuit virtues in nature, and to perceive natural beauty based on the view that premised beauty on the good. Daoists take up the opposite stance of Confucians, and their conception of freedom focuses on natural principles. Laozi and Zhuangzi held that true freedom rejects the Way of human and returns to nature. They believed that human nature was ravaged by Confucian virtues and rites of propriety, and freedom could be possible only when human beings returned to a natural state. Zhuangzi described such a natural state as untroubled ease (逍遙 xiao yao), and called the Heavenly mandate “the musical notes of Heaven “ and “the perfect music” performed by the Yellow Emperor in the open country near the Dong-ting lake.⁷ Zhuangzi described the wind as “when the breath of the Great Mass (of nature) comes strong-

 Confucius, “Ba Yi:3,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/ba-yi, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin II:71,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Li Lou II:42,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  See Zhuangzi, “The Revolution of Heaven:3,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/revolution-of-heaven/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ly.”⁸ He took music as nothing but the sound of wind, and the movement and changes in the natural world as the most harmonious music, which contains great beauty. He claimed: “Heaven and Earth proceed in the most admirable way, but they say nothing about them.”⁹ So, while Mencius took beauty to be the expansion and completion of the good in human nature, Zhuangzi took it to be innate in nature and a negation of good. Zhuangzi’s conception of beauty led him to reject art, saying that “if the six musical accords were reduced to a state of utter confusion, organs and lutes all burned, and the ears of the (musicians like the) blind Khwang stopped up, all men would begin to possess and employ their (natural) power of hearing.”¹⁰ He believed that melodies, colors, and musical instruments were extraneous, if not harmful, to human life, and should be gotten rid of entirely so as to return humanity to its natural state of existence. Zhuangzi went to the extreme in defiance of the Confucians who merged music into rites of propriety, which he believed to be harmful to human life. However, Zhuangzi was a poet; to him, nature itself was beautiful, and philosophy was poetry. He said: “The sages trace out the admirable operations of Heaven and Earth, and reach to and understand the distinctive constitutions of all things.”¹¹ In his mind, the sages and nature become one. Then, how to achieve such a sphere in which one can possess the untroubled ease? Zhuangzi created many fabulous fables to illustrate the possible ways, such as chef Pao Ding butchering an ox, or the carpenter Qing carving wood into a bell-stand. When carving the wood, carpenter Qing attains a state in which “my Heaven-given faculty and the Heaven-given qualities of the wood were concentrated on it. So it was that my spirit was thus engaged in the production of the bell-stand.”¹² The skill acquired through habitual practice becomes second nature so that the artisans’ activities perfectly conform to their nature. Chef Pao Ding’s skill becomes oneness with the anatomy of the ox, and carpenter Qing’s art becomes oneness with the nature of the wood. When art attains the sphere of the fantastic, engaging in a spirit-like manner, then the

 Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies:1,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Knowledge Rambling in the North:2,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/knowledge-rambling-in-the-north/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Cutting Open Satchels:2,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/cutting-open-satchels/zhs, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Knowledge Rambling in the North:2,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/knowledge-rambling-in-the-north/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Full Understanding of Life:11,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/full-understanding-of-life/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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art attains the Dao and necessarily also freedom, which is also described as free beauty. In short, it can be said that Confucius and Mencius treat beauty as the completion of good and beautiful character, while Laozi and Zhuangzi believe that beauty is natural beauty and the unity of the natural and the real. Xunzi was well versed in Confucian and Daoist doctrines and comprehensively summarized the discussion of beauty in the pre-Qin period. From a Confucian standpoint, he brought truth, good, and beauty into a rudimentary unity, and gave equal attention to the relation between beauty and good, and the relation between beauty and truth. On the one hand, Xunzi claimed that “the meaning of the dance: The way of Heaven is all encompassing.”¹³ In dancing to the music, “the eyes do not themselves see it, and the ears do not themselves hear it. Nevertheless, it controls their postures, gestures, directions, and speed.”¹⁴ These physical movements perfectly correspond to the musical rhythm produced by the drums and bells so that the dancer profoundly experiences the meaning of dance, which reveals the Way of Heaven. He further remarked: The gentleman guides his intentions with bells and drums. He delights his heart with the qin and se. He moves with shield and spear. He decorates his dance with feathers and plumes. He follows it up with stone chimes and pipes. And so, his purity resembles Heaven, his broadness resembles the Earth, and the way he postures and revolves has resemblance to the four seasons.¹⁵

Musical instruments give expression to human emotions; the dancing paraphernalia are to enhance the dance. Such music and dance symbolize the pure Heaven and the broad earth, while the dancer’s movement harmonizes with the changes of the seasons. In this way, Xunzi believed that the Way of Heaven is materialized in art in the form of ideals. On the other hand, he stressed the mutual beneficial relation between beauty and good. He believed in the purifying effect of musical performance and the study of rites. They can brighten one’s sight and hearing, soothe one’s temperament, and even change social customs and bring peace to the world. Art can cultivate virtues and turn habits into nature so that one’s character can become good as well as beautiful. From this conviction, Xunzi saw the perfected person as “a gentleman [who] knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise.”¹⁶ That which is perfect encompasses knowledge, and that which is refined is virtue. The perfect and the refined are true and good;    

Xunzi, Xunzi, Xunzi, Xunzi,

“A Discourse on Music,” in Xunzi 2014, 222. “A Discourse on Music,” in Xunzi 2014, 222. “A Discourse on Music,” in Xunzi 2014, 221. “An Exhortation to Learning,” in Xunzi 2014, 10.

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when complemented with musical and ritual cultivation, they are also beautiful. Hence, in Xunzi’s view, truth and good are prerequisites for beauty, and the sphere in which the true, the good, and the beautiful are united is attained in such dances that reveal the Way of Heaven. After Xunzi, although some philosophers are inclined toward the ideas of Laozi and Zhuangzi, the general philosophical trend, particularly in the thoughts of Huang Zongxi and Wang Fuzhi, is to pursue the unity of truth, good, and beauty.

The Beautiful, the Ugly, and the Diversity of Beauty In the aesthetic realm, what is beautiful and what is ugly are relative descriptions. Beauty is the content of the aesthetic sense, which intuits essential human power and the joy of free development in images. Ugliness is the opposite of beauty; it is also a type of intuitive image that is at odds with the human demand for freedom. However, unlike the opposition between truth and falsity, and the opposition between good and evil, the distinction between beauty and ugliness is all the more relative. In an aesthetic experience, ugliness does not always play a negative role. It sometimes acts as a foil to beauty. Artistic beauty in particular can be set off by a contrast with ugliness. This is a point that requires a thorough investigation in order to avoid dogmatic treatment, so that the relation between beauty and ugliness will not be reduced to a contradictory relation. The question of the relation between beauty and ugliness is more complex than the opposition between truth and falsity, and the opposition between good and evil. Zhuangzi depicted many physically deformed people, such as the lame, the hunchbacked, and a man with a humongous tumor, to set off their beautiful spirit. He believed the spirit to be more important than physical appearance. He told a fable about suckling pigs that were sucking at their mother and fled straightaway when they felt that the sow was dead. Zhuangzi said that it was because what the suckling pigs loved in their mother was not her bodily existence “but what had given animation to her figure.”¹⁷ In the same way, spirit is more important than form in aesthetic experience. French sculptor Auguste Rodin remarked that only the power of personality can create artistic beauty. Indeed, the uglier a thing in nature, the more beautiful it becomes in art. Rodin’s works tend to have a rough and ragged physical form, but they exude a spiritual beauty.

 Zhuangzi, “The Seal of Virtue Complete:4,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/seal-of-virtue-complete/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Form and spirit can be at variance with each other, so too with a person’s personality and mental state. An individual can be full of contradictions and shortcomings. For instance, in the Journey to the West, one of the great Chinese literary classics, the swine Zhu Bajie is a character who is ugly in appearance and beautiful in spirit. His character is flawed, selfish, greedy, and lazy; but the realistic ugliness offers the reader an aesthetic experience of beauty. Indeed, many comic characters in dramas are both laughable and lovable, ugly and charming. The swine Zhu Bajie is basically a good character. Villainous characters can give the audience a sense of beauty as well. For instance, the actor playing the villain presents a wonderful rendition so that the dramatic performance is beautiful even as the comic figure itself is ugly. In appreciating artistic work, the aesthetic sense is tolerant and generous in its discernment, selecting the beautiful aspect of the work, while ignoring the undesirable. The villains on the stage are usually ugly in spirit, but the audience appreciates their beautiful form. In this sense, the relation between beauty and ugliness cannot be simplified. Indeed, beauty itself is an intricate issue. In the realm of beauty, philosophers and aesthetes have proposed many aesthetic categories, such as the beautiful and the sublime, comedy and tragedy, the comical and the humorous. Art and literary theorists in ancient China mostly focused on poetic criticism and drew a contrast between the magnificent and the simple, the candid and the restrained, and so on, in order to demonstrate the variety of beauty in poetry. Moreover, combinations of the beautiful and the ugly are endless. Even the beautiful itself is many-faceted and multifarious. Therefore, the pursuit of artistic taste should avoid uniformity. People can have varied preferences for different forms of art, such as plastic art, music, and poetry. Even in the same form of art, personal inclinations are inevitable due to the differences in each person’s upbringing, education, and experience. So, with regard to taste, people should avoid imposing uniformity, distaining another’s preference for rustic songs just because they themselves enjoy classical music. It is entirely natural that some artistic works are educational, while others are simply for amusement. Take the genre of classical poetry as an example. How many verses were accumulated from the pre-Qin period to the Tang dynasty? From the rustic and simple songs of the unknown writers in the Han dynasty to the unparalleled verses of the great masters, all these poets have their individuality and style. The great poets are representative of their age, giving expression to sublime characters and profound wisdom. However, this is not a reason to depreciate the rustic and simple songs of the folklore that offer a kind of charm and pleasure that cannot be found in heroic and magnificent poetry. In short, the artistic realm is all encompassing.

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Aesthetic Ideals and Artistic Imagination Aesthetic Ideals Aesthetic ideals constitute an important dimension of the ideals of life; such an ideal concerns the symbolized ideal of essential human power. Essential human power, evolved over the course of history, is multifaceted and includes the unity of generality and individuality. The aesthetic ideal is able to realize itself through appreciation, artistic creation, and transformation into artistic images, for example in the artistic sphere and in representative personalities. Certainly, the appreciation of natural beauty is also an aesthetic activity, but our discussion here focuses on the artistic ideal. The object of artistic appreciation is always humanized nature, in which artistic works are the most important part. Artistic works reflect the essence of human beings and human life so that the aesthetic ideal becomes concrete and turns into actual being. This ideal is not an abstract concept, and unlike rules and norms, it manifests itself in vivid images and is permeated with human sentiments. Ye Xie, a literary critic of the Qing dynasty, remarked in his On Poetry that artistic imagery, e. g., the mood of a poem, is composed of three elements: reason, situation, and sentiment. A poem is necessarily a blend of scenery and sentiment, and a successful blend expresses the ideal. The circumstance and the scenery can be described as the structure, and the sentiment as the message. A poem, a painting, or a statue always consists of these two elements, the masterful combination of which constitutes the artistic ideal. This may also be the reason why Wang Guowei treated scenery and sentiment as the two basics of literature, and Zhu Guangqian held that literary mood is concrete intuition manifesting a certain taste. Art requires the combination of the two elements, neither of them can be done away with. This has been a widely accepted view since ancient times. In his essay Laocoön, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing discussed the distinction between poetry and painting, and stressed the differences between the two forms of art. On his view, while poetry and music are best suited for expressing sentiment, painting and sculpture most effectively bring out the structural appeal of an object. However, this is not to imply that what is best to express sentiment does not contain a structural element. For instance, a symphony conveys sentiment, but it relies on sound, which itself can be described as an image; painting is a visual art, but Chinese landscape painting is charged with a sentimental aura through a subtle blend of painting, poetic mood, and calligraphy, so that painting and poetry become one. A simply and frank facial expression, a direct shout that “I’m suffering,” or “I am so happy,” does not make a piece of music or a poem. Suffering or happiness is to be conveyed through imagery and scenery to be move the heart of an audience. Surely, descrip-

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tions of objects or sceneries are a sort of imagery-creation, but they cannot be considered as artwork if they are devoid of sentiment. Blending imagery and sentiment so as to give expression to an ideal, this is indeed the gist of Zhang Yanyuan’s literary criticism. In his Notes of the Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties, he stated that the conception should precede the brush; even upon the completion of the painting, the conception should still abide so as to attain the perfect spiritual aura for the painting. The conception in Zhang Yanyuan’s thought is actually close to the artistic ideal. A painting attains the perfect spiritual aura only when it gives expression to the ideal. The conception governs the whole process of artistic creation and penetrates the artwork; the selection and combination of the scenery and sentiment are subject to the ideal. A good painting is always composed of a combination of the scenery and sentiment that wonderfully manifests the ideal. Such a painting appears simple yet possesses something lively in its style and spirit. It has to be noted that the conception discussed here is not an abstract concept, but a thought and an idea contained in the artwork, a concrete notion that invokes, as it were, thousands of miles of landscape in a square of rice paper. As has been stated, beauty is conditioned on truth and good, and the three promote mutual development. Concerning art, it can be said that artistic beauty is the reality of the artistic ideal. The artistic ideal requires truthfulness and ties to moral judgment since it is inseparable from truth and good. The artistic ideal requires two material conditions to accomplish the truthfulness of art. First, human life is the source of inspiration for the artistic ideal; second, the artistic ideal must assume materiality, that is, it relies on a material medium to transform into reality. In terms of its formal aspect, art relies on natural elements such as sounds, shapes, and colors. For instance, a painting cannot be without colors or shapes, music cannot be without harmony or rhythm. In terms of its content, art requires truthfulness, regardless of its content, be it a description of a scenery or an expression of sentiment, because the artistic ideal first of all reflects the essence of human life. Art cannot be without truthfulness. That being said, artistic creation should avoid being overly focused on reproducing the trivial details of everyday life. Truthfulness refers to the essence of human life or essential human power. Only this kind of truthfulness can create the artistic sphere and transmit the logic of life in art. However, the artistic ideal is not something ready-made and up for grabs; artists must rely on their rational intuition to grasp it in its burgeoning state, which is a mere potentiality, and then to create and idealize it. Only in this way, does art reveal to people the essence of life. For instance, the Dream of the Red Chamber depicts the tragedy of individuals who rebel against social conventions so as to expose the degradation of feudal society; and Ivan Turgenev created the character of Bazarov in his novel Fathers and Sons to reveal the generational conflict in Russia at his time, and in doing so anticipated the advent of the

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age of nihilism. Art is not science, but it does proffer truthful knowledge and wisdom. In this sense, the artistic ideal should not only possess truthfulness, but also bring to light social demands and the moral ideal. Artistic creation makes a careful selection of imagery and sentiment, a selection that is often tantamount to a moral judgment. The combination of moral and artistic ideals is the inherent demand of a good artwork. An artist attends to the moral affirmation of the positive characters and the people, to the moral denial of the villains and national enemies. In order to reflect the reality of human life, artistic creation encompasses heroes as well as villains. But how to create a villainous artistic image? The artist can create an artistically beautiful character for the villain but expose the sanctimonious and weak nature of the character through moral sanctions. In short, a moral ideal is indispensable in creating personality and character. Art created without a progressive moral ideal, patriotism, and humanitarian principles would certainly be feeble and lifeless.

The Characteristics of Artistic Imagination An artistic ideal originates from artistic imagination. Artistic imagination can also be described as concrete thinking, which differs from theoretical thinking in that the latter employs abstract concepts and categories to understand reality, and strives to be as objective as possible, while concrete thinking requires intuition and sentiment about imagery, and the combination of sentiment and scenery at every step of its processing. To render the artistic ideal through sentiment and scenery is to acquire some characteristics of the artistic imagination. Ancient literary critics, such as Liu Xie and Lu Ji, laid special emphasis on the subtle blend of stillness and motion. In the Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons Liu Xie described his literary aesthetic conception of concrete thinking, saying that “through the mystic subtlety of the imagination, the spirit and the things in the outside world are one in their excursion. The spirit resides in the mind, and the key to its secret is controlled by feeling and vital force.”¹⁸ He believed that one “who is engaged in literary thought travels far in spirit. Quietly absorbed in contemplation, his thought reaches back thousands of years; and with only the slightest movement of his countenance, his vision penetrates tens of thousands of miles.”¹⁹ In his Essay on Literature (Wen Fu), Lu Ji remarked that writing is in-itself a joy, because “it is being, created by tasking the great void; and it is sound rung out of profound si-

 Liu Xie 1959b, 154.  Liu Xie 1959b, 154.

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lence.”²⁰ The emphasis on the harmony between the tranquil and the active is consistent in these two critics who advocated that artistic imagination should be concrete and sentimental. In the meanwhile, they required imagination to transcend beyond the concrete and sentimental. Good artists should be capable of transporting their imagination between the two realms so as to render their artistic ideal. To say that the spirit and external things are joined in their excursion is to imply imagery for an artistic conception, even as such an excursion moves beyond the constraints of time and space. In such a state of creation, to put it in Lu Ji’s words, the artist “sees eternity in a twinkling, and views the whole world in one glance.”²¹ The space of a twinkling and a glance actually surpasses itself to encompass the whole universe; it reveals the infinite in the finite. Theoretical thinking also requires what Xunzi described as “being empty, being oneness, and being tranquil” (虛壹而靜 xu yi er jing).²² However, concrete thinking is all the more visual and intuitive because of its intimate connection with imageries so as to attain “the purification of the spirit” (澡雪精神 zao xue jing shen).²³ In other words, thinking is adept at grasping the balance between stillness and motion, between things in the outside world and nothingness. The activities of imagination are so intertwined with imagery that the mind must shake off the limitations of biases and desires. In such a mental state, as Liu Xie said, one’s passion pervades the mountain and the ocean upon seeing them. Concrete thinking must be activated by the sight of the mountain and the ocean; however, the purpose of seeing the mountain and the ocean is to contain Heaven and earth in one single form, and to embody all things in the world at the tip of the brush. The scenery before the eye is limited, but artistic imagery renders the essence of all that exists in the universe. The theories and philosophical trends in the period of the Six Dynasties that emphasized the close link between tranquility and motion have had a great impact on Chinese aesthetic theories. As a spiritual production, artistic creation particularly requires individuality. Spiritual production inevitably assimilates from reality its ideals that are actualized in reality. However, it is characteristic of the artistic ideal to render individualities, and artwork should be rich in singularities. Artistic creation is different from material production and scientific research because in the latter activities, scientific theory is acquired through practice and applied in material production

 Lu Ji, Essay on Literature, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter= 624701&remap=gb, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Lu Ji, Essay on Literature, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter= 624701&remap=gb, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Xunzi, “Undoing Fixation,” in Xunzi 2014, 222.  Liu Xie 1959b, 155.

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through technology. The process itself has several distinct stages, which may have different types of specialists in charge. For instance, theoretical researchers, skilled workers, and physical laborers cooperate in the same material production, just as different types of work can be distinguished in the same factory. It is a different story in the realm of artistic creation. The artist singlehandedly deals with every aspect of creation, from conception to completion. For instance, in the dramatic arts, the playwright, composer, and actors can be different persons, but each artist is responsible for the whole process of creation, e. g., the playwright conceives the plot and writes the play, the composer conceives the melody and makes the music, and the actors conceive their characters and stage the performance. An actor embodies only one character in a play, but his or her role nonetheless constitutes a complete process of creation in its own right. A good actor not only gives a realistic rendition of the role, but also gives it a personal touch. Otherwise, the audience might find the actor’s performance less than satisfactory. In short, for an artwork, the creators alone are responsible for the content and form, and conception and creation, and they are required to endow the art with individuality so that the realized artistic ideal will be singular. Content and form, and conception and creation are unified in artistic creation. Regarding the art of language, Liu Xie stated that “although the idea takes shape from spiritual thinking and the language receives its form from the idea, idea, thought, and language may be so closely related that they are experienced as one, or they may differ as strikingly as if they were a thousand li from each other.”²⁴ When literary conception and expression are consistent, the language so perfectly conveys the thought that the two become one and the same. Certainly, conceptual thinking is also particular about the consistency between language and thought. However, while theoretical thinking chiefly relies on language and signs (such as mathematical symbols), art has more choice in media than does language. Language, as the second signal system, is usually employed to convey concepts. Then, how does the art of language achieve imagery? This requires artistic skills. Moreover, poetry, fiction, and the dramatic arts call for different kinds of artistic use of language. These skills are acquired through strenuous training plus some natural talent. Apart from language, other forms of art, such as music, painting, sculpture, and horticulture, require specialized skills as well. Each form of art relies on a particular medium to furnish its content with a form. One needs to understand the nature of brush, ink, and color to paint, or understand harmony and rhythm to compose music. As a matter of fact, spiritual productions such as artistic creation evolved from physical labor. Therefore, technique and skill are quintessen-

 Liu Xie 1959b, 155.

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tial to art. Without knowledge of the skills suitable for a particular art, the proper content and the artistic ideal would certainly escape the artist. In this regard, the question of form is very important. However, content is the more important factor between content and from, and conception is the prime concern between language and conception. A literary work, when its language is so florid as to overwhelm its theme, cannot be a good read. That being said, the work of art still requires internal structure, or in Hegel’s words, art requires the form to convey the essence. How to acquire the internal structure of an artwork is an important question. Lu Ji and Liu Xie stressed the importance of artistic conception (意匠 yi jiang). Artistic conception requires artists to use their ideals as the pattern for their creations. Liu Xie thus advised the would-be poet: One has also to acquire learning in order to maintain a store of precious information, and to contemplate the nature of reason so as to enrich his talents; he must search deeply and experience widely in order that he may exhaustively evoke the source of light; he must master literary traditions in order to make his expressions felicitous and smooth. It is only then that he commissions the “mysterious butcher” [who dwells within him] to write in accord with musical patterns; and it is then that he sets the incomparably brilliant “master wheelwright” [who dwells within him] to wield the ax in harmony with his intuitive insight.²⁵

Hence, making the right choice among the myriad of images requires artistic skill. Since concrete thinking integrates conception and expression, an artist must be skillful in the employment of artistic formal structure.

The Association of Imageries The artistic ideal is to be expressed in imagery that is invested with the artist’s sentiment. An ideal cannot be without such expression. Then, how to combine all the relevant imageries? Psychologists noticed long ago that a combination of imageries follows the law of association. However, mere association is far from artistic imagination. Artistic images must form an organic entity so as to embody the ideal. It is a process that entirely relies on imagination, whereas association is often causal. What methods can be used for such a combination? Ancient Chinese poets devised three techniques to combine imageries: fu, bi, xing (賦比興 narrative, analogy, association). Fu (narrative) is to present a straightforward description of an object or event. An event always takes place in a particular time and space; hence, the law of association connects imageries in accordance with temporal and spatial distance.

 Liu Xie 1959b, 155.

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It is so with poetry and literature as well as the plastic arts and music. Bi (analogy) is to employ metaphors, similes, and symbols; hence, it necessarily involves categories. But the metaphors and similes in art and literature are broader than the analogies in logical thinking. For instance, logical thinking does not allow an analogy between different categories. The Mohist Canon inquires: “Which is longer, the lumber or the night? Which is more numerous, wisdom or grains? Which one of the four is richest, a rank of nobility, a close relative, a passerby, or a merchant?”²⁶ These divergent categories of things apparently cannot be compared. In literary writing, however, such analogies are prevalent. One might say that a farmer’s wisdom is as bounteous as their grain, or a high-born person has a lowly soul. In this way, seemingly divergent things become parallel. The ancients were fond of comparing virtue to gold and jade. The Book of Poetry sings: “My mind is not a stone; It cannot be rolled about. My mind is not a mat; It cannot be rolled up.”²⁷ Here, the stone and the mat are used to negate implied analogies. From the viewpoint of logic, the mind and the stone do not share any comparable characteristics. However, it is precisely the forte of artistic imagination to draw an analogy between things that are very unalike. Art strives to discern a faint similarity between such things in order to devise an original and singular analogy. Xing (association) is to depict something to invoke something else. The association is similar to cause and effect in logical thinking. In the objective world, an effect follows from a cause, and rational reasoning deduces an effect from a cause. But the association employed in art is broader than the two concepts in logical thinking. It can be the association of one of the meanings of a metaphor with another object, or a scenery with some emotion, and so on. For instance, the green grass upon the riverbank calls to the traveler’s mind his or her long way home; or the wild geese lingering in the course of their flight toward the south evokes the tragic story of two lovers separated by their family’s feud. Such poetic associations would be impossible in logic. Apart from fu, bi, and xing, the combination of images has recourse to the methods of contrast and supplement. Ancient Chinese poetry is particular about parallelism that tends to employ irreconcilable imageries. For instance, in a classical poem, a pine tree in the valley is contrasted with a sapling on the hill; the contrasts in the natural landscape are again used to set off the social phenomenon in which some people occupy high places merely because of their noble birth, while intellectuals of humble stock are frustrated in their pursuit of ambitions.  Mozi, “Canon II:107,” in Mohist Canon, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/mozi/canon-ii/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  The Book of Poetry, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/book-of-poetry/ bo-zhou/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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The classical piece of literature Dream of the Red Chamber contrasts two young girls as opposite representatives of the products of the Chinese traditional cultures of Confucianism and Daoism: while one girl is fond of natural beauty and freedom, the other rigorously abides by the Confucian ethical code. In addition, many minor characters in the novel enhance the contrast between the two protagonists. For instance, the carefree girl is compared to the lotus and bamboo, and a handmaid is created as her shadow figure; while the conventional girl is likened to the peony and mahogany furniture, and so on. In short, the contrasts between Confucianism and Daoism, and between the Confucian ethical code and nature enrich the backdrop of the stories in Dream of the Red Chamber. All good artworks cannot avoid the use of such techniques of contrast and supplement. Artistic techniques work together to create an organic entity out of numerous images to represent the artistic ideal. Compared with theoretical thinking, concrete thinking also uses the categories and concepts of time and space, and class, principle, and reason. However, concrete thinking does not simply apply concepts and categories, but employs various combinations of imageries to represent the ideal; and in this representation, the categories of time and space, and class, principle, and reason can be of some use. In this regard, concrete and logical thinking share some common points in that both ways of thinking are dialectical. As has been stated, in order to achieve individuality, artistic creation is particular about the unity of the tranquil and the active, the unity of content and form, and the unity of conception and representation; in order to reflect the essence of human life and the contradictory movements of essential human power, artistic creation employs three methods of combination, i. e., fu, bi, xing, to contrast and organize imageries. Concrete thinking relies on rational intuition and artistic imagination to comprehend concrete objects and to reveal the undercurrent of life in artistic imagery. Artistic imagery differs from scientific theories in that the latter employs logical argumentation and is verified in controlled experiments. Art does not employ logical argument, but combinations of imageries. A work of art itself is the realization of an ideal, a possible reality is actualized in a piece of art. Art without reality cannot be called art. Scientific theories verified by logical argumentation become mathematical models or formulas, and they might be acknowledged as scientific hypotheses before being verified. However, art cannot be an ideal before its being represented, since it needs to first render imagery that expresses possibilities for reality. When a work of art reveals profound logic in real life and expresses trends and possibilities for reality, it is a work that possesses profound wisdom and truthful knowledge. Indeed, the artistic and philosophical spheres are unified in a masterpiece.

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The Artistic Sphere and the Archetype An artistic ideal is always represented in works of art in which it creates an artistic sphere and the archetype. Art relies on the combination of structural and sentimental elements to represent the ideal, so the two elements are of equal importance. That being said, some representations of an artistic ideal place special emphasis on creating a sentimental sphere, while others emphasize portraying characters.

Theories of Expression and the Artistic Sphere The central theme of lyric poetry in ancient China is the articulation of aspiration (言志 yan zhi). The book of Shang Shu first introduces the notion that poetry is the articulation of the poet’s aspiration; Zhangzi and Xunzi adopted the notion and elaborated on it. “The Great Preface” to Mao’s Edition of the Book of Songs (Mao Shi Xu) states: The poem is that to which what is intently on the mind goes. In the mind it is being intent; coming out in language, it is a poem. The affections are stirred within and take form in words. If words alone are inadequate, we speak them out in sighs. If sighing is inadequate, we sing them. If singing them is inadequate, unconsciously our hands dance them and our feet tap them.²⁸

Poetry, music, and dance are for the purpose of making known the artist’s aspiration. Xunzi presented a similar exposition in his “Discourse on Music” and “Record of Music.” He discussed two types of poetry, one focused on emotional release, the other on the expression of the poet’s ambition. The latter is inseparable from education and political reality; hence, it necessarily fulfills some social functions by commending or criticizing certain social phenomenon. Confucius thus exhorted his disciples: “Why do you not study the Book of Poetry? The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. They teach the art of sociability. They show how to regulate feelings of resentment.”²⁹ Poetry also indulges in the sentimental, such as love and anger. Descriptions of feelings and declarations of ambition are often intertwined in the same poem, even as it might pronouncedly stress one aspect of a theme. Human virtue and essential human power

 Mao 1992, 40 – 41.  Confucius, “Yang Huo:9,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/analects/yang-huo, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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are manifested in emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, because it is human nature to be moved by external Beings. So, the stirring of human emotion relies on the imagery of objective beings, and the emotions in turn reveal themselves through a material medium, such as sound or color. In this regard, form is the vehicle of lyric poetry. Artists and poets give expression to essential human power in forms that are invested with sentiments. Hence comes the concept of artistic sphere (意境 yi jing). The concept of artistic sphere was first introduced by the poet Wang Changling of the Tang dynasty. His contemporary Jiaoran, a Buddhist monk poet, introduced the concept of seeking the sphere. However, the theoretical exploration of the artistic sphere began much earlier. Here we focus on the theories emerging in the period of the Six Dynasties that discuss the ways in which artwork represent emotion and aspiration. Traditional doctrines hold that emotion and aspiration are first transmitted through qi (breath, spirit). The character qi is rich in connotation; its foremost meaning is best expressed by Mencius, who stated that “the will is the leader of the passion-nature (qi). The passion-nature pervades and animates the body.”³⁰ Here, qi can refer to one’s courage, vision, power, or a mental and spiritual state. The “vast, flowing passion-nature” Mencius possessed is just such a fearless and courageous spiritual state.³¹ Later thinkers introduced the theory of the vigor of style, which is actually a type of courageous state of writing. In his Essay on the Classics, Cao Pi remarked that “the essence of a writing is the qi. The qi can be clear or muddy, and it is embodied in form. One cannot acquire it by force. It is just like music, even if the tune and the rhythm are the same, if the musician’s breathing varies, the performance will be poles apart. This skill is not transmittable even between father and son or brothers.”³² The qi of a prose or poem derives from the author’s personality. Just as the breathing of the singer affects the quality of a song, so does the temperance of the author give style to the writing. A poet can have a strong or gentle character, so his or her poem can have forceful or restrained qi. Qi, or style, becomes the central thought in ancient Chinese literary criticism. In his essay “Music Has in It Neither Grief Nor Joy,” Ji Kang proposed a singular theory on music. He detached aesthetic beauty from morality, stating that music was particular about harmony and rhythm, its beauty derived from the natural concord of sounds that, as objective as they were, had nothing to do with the Confucian eth-

 Mencius, “Gong Sun Chou I:2,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Gong Sun Chou I:2,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Cao Pi 2009, 313.

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ical code. However, Ji Kang also believed that music, just like poetry, conveyed a musician’s aspirations. He said that “songs are to declare one’s mind, dances to display one’s emotions.”³³ Moreover, he claimed that music would make the author’s aspirations known so long as the musician possessed a harmonious heart within, and the qi of the song would certainly disclose the musician’s aspirations. In this sense, he believed that “the heart and the principle, and the qi and the sound agree and correspond with each other.”³⁴ Aesthetic beauty lies in that consonance. Music expresses people’s ideal, so it is necessarily sensitive to the temperament, cadence, and tones of the sound. Ji Kang’s essay is important in that it treats the characteristics of artistic beauty as a theme. Scholars in the Six Dynasties had great interest in the question of beauty, particularly the relation between aspiration and qi in aesthetic beauty. In the Literary Mind and the Carving of the Dragon, Liu Xie discussed the essential elements of poetry and prose. He claimed: “The spirit resides in the mind, and the key to its secret is controlled by both the feelings and the vital force. Physical things reach our minds through our ears and eyes, and the key to their apprehension is the skilled use of language.”³⁵ So, words are the vehicles that convey poetic imagery conceived by the author. Liu Xie proposed the concept of feng gu (風骨, wind and bone) to describe the writer’s quality. He thus explained the concept: “He who would express mournful emotions must begin with the wind, and to organize his linguistic elements he must above all emphasize the bone.”³⁶ Moreover, the writer “whose bone structure is well exercised will always be versed in rhetoric; and he who is deep of wind will always be articulate in expressing his feelings. To be firm and exact in diction, and in resonance sure without being heavy.”³⁷ Here, he made clear two points. First, the writing is invested with so-called wind if the author’s feelings and aspirations are well articulated. This so-called wind is close to the mood that exudes artistic appeal. The more candid, clear, and lofty the aspiration, the easier it is to influence the reader. Second, the content of the feelings and aspirations cannot be without form. Liu Xie was specific about the style of writing and stated: “When expressions are organized on the right principles, literary bone is there; and when the emotion and vitality embodied are swift and free, there we find the purity of the literary wind.”³⁸ So, the bone is the inner structure of the writing rather than the appearance. For a poem or prose to have the so-

     

Ji Kang 1962, 122. Ji Kang 1962, 122. Liu Xie 1959b , 154. Liu Xie 1959c, 162. Liu Xie 1959c, 163. Liu Xie 1959b , 154.

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called bone, its inner structure must be lofty and erect. If the writer succumbs to florid and excessive language, the text becomes “lean in ideas and fat in words, or confused and disorganized, without unity, [these] are sure signs of lack of this kind of bone.”³⁹ In essence, a writer’s feelings and aspirations need to be manifested as qi, which is transformed into the wind and bone of the writing. The combination of wind and bone is actually the different ways of combining imageries. Lie Xie described how organization could affect the quality of the writing, stating that “it consists of feeling and ideas as the soul, of facts and meaning as the bone and marrow, of linguistic patterns as the musculature and integument, and of kung and shang, that is, the resonance of the language, as its voice and breath.”⁴⁰ In this sense, the wind and bone in a writing are signs that the writer successfully conveyed his or her feelings and ideas into qi. So, Ji Yun of the Qing dynasty remarked that qi itself is the wind and bone. The wind and bone are the qi that permeates an artwork. In his book the Record of the Classification of Old Painters, Xie He, who was contemporary with Liu Xie, also elaborated on the concept feng gu. He proposed six criteria when judging a painting: qi yun (氣韻, vitality), which is the vitality of the artwork; the bone method, which refers to the using of the brush; responding to the objects, which is the objective rendition of the form; complying with categories, referring to the application of colors; arrangement or composition; transmission and reproduction, which is to produce a replica of a masterpiece. The first two criteria are parallel to Liu Xie’s concept of feng gu. Qi yun and the bone method, the harmony of the content and form, are the quintessential requirements of a good artwork. The latter four criteria are useful only when the first two are ensured.⁴¹ Zhang Yanyuan remarked in his Notes of the Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties that this requirement implies to first establish the conception, and then concentrate on the creation. He illustrated the point with Gu Kaizhi’s painting, commenting that Gu’s conception preceded his taking up the brush. Even upon the completion of the painting, Gu’s conception still abided in order to attain the perfect spiritual aura for the painting. The conception is the aesthetic ideal in the artist’s mind, which is embodied in qi yun and transmitted by the bone method in Chinese painting. A painting succeeds in capturing reality when it possesses the bone and vitality. Vitality and conception are the primary notions in ancient Chinese painting; aesthetic critics of the Six Dynasties, though mainly focused on figure painting, stressed the artistic sphere and the vitality of the human figure.

 Liu Xie 1959c, 163.  Liu Xie 1959a, 226.  See Mair 2004, 94– 95.

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So much for a brief account of the philosophical discussion of the artistic beauty of music, painting, literature, and poetry in the period of Wei and Jin, and the Six Dynasties. It has to be noted that artistic beauty cannot be without good and truth. The artistic sphere is primarily exhibited in the wind and bone of a poem. This is the expression of the poet’s sentiments and aspirations in poetic form. As Confucius stated, poetry can stimulate the mind and may be used for the purposes of self-contemplation, teaching the art of sociability and regulating feelings of resentment.⁴² So, aesthetic beauty must be premised on good and truth. Art should have its reliance on life and should be for the sake of life. In this regard, the artistic and moral ideals are indivisible. Poetry stimulates the reader’s mind through imagery and conveys the poet’s aspirations thorough objective objects. That is why poetry is influential both in educating the people and changing social customs in general. The main interest of the literary critics in the Six Dynasties is the expressions of feelings and sentiments, so their concepts of qi and qi yun capture the vitality of the works of art that are charged with passion. In addition, the notions of feng gu and xing qi (stimulation and spiritual sustenance) are important concepts in their theories of the artistic sphere. However, these theories encouraged an unhealthy trend in artistic practice at the time; consequently, later generations were rather disappointed with the poetry of the Qi and Liang dynasties. For instance, the poet Chen Zi’ang of the Tang dynasty remarked that the poetry of the Qi and Liang dynasties was ornate and flamboyant, bereft of stimulation and spiritual sustenance. To literary critics of the Tang dynasty, the poetry of the Qi and Liang dynasties lacks wind and bone, and stimulation and spiritual sustenance. Ironically, the two aspects are precisely the focus of the theorists of the time. Indeed, it seems fair to say that the aesthetic treatises of the Six Dynasties prepared the theoretical backdrop for the blossoming of the arts in the Tang dynasty. The aesthetic ideal of the Tang dynasty is wind and bone, and stimulation and spiritual sustenance, which become the main tradition in Chinese art and literature. The magnitude of poetry accumulated over a thousand years of Chinese civilization is astonishing, the profound poetic tradition of the Chinese nation is almost unparalleled in the world. In connection with the poetic tradition, theories of the expression of inspiration and the artistic sphere constitute the central discussions in the aesthetic tradition. This rich tradition, particularly the Confucians’ poetic cultivation of gentle and honest people, is interwoven with moral education. However, as it evolved, a dogmatic tendency that promoted “writing for the conveyance of truth” prevailed. Some doctrines assimilated the teachings of Zhuangzi and

 See Confucius, “Yang Huo:9,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/analects/yang-huo, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Zen Buddhism. For instance, in Canglang’s Poetic Discourse, Yan Yu remarked that “the poets of the Golden Tang period were concerned only about inspiration and interest. Like the antelope that hangs by its horns leaving no discernible traces on the ground, their excellence lay in their crystal-like transparency, no more to be grasped than a sound in empty space, the changing color in a face, the moon in the water or an image in a mirror. The words had a limit, but the meaning went on forever.”⁴³ His poetic criticism stresses personal interest and sentiment with an emphasis on rational intuition. Yan Yu was insightful in grasping the characteristics of concrete thinking, but he ignored the tradition that treated beauty as premised on truth and good, and art for the sake of life. The wind and bone of the Golden Tang period would be unattainable were the poet to indulge in the faint and indistinct imageries of the antelope. The genuine poetic tradition of the Golden Tang period requires art to have momentum and inspiration, and to have art to serve life. Bai Juyi and Han Yu of the mid-Tang period elaborated on the genuine poetic tradition. Bai Juyi remarked that songs and poems were to be written for great events and emphasized the role of poetry as social criticism. Han Yu wrote that verses were protests against injustice. As social conflicts deepened in the mid-Tang period, the literati began to resort to art and literature to reflect and criticize social issues. Great writers of later generations inherited their tradition, believing it to be the calling of poetry and literature to intervene in history and expose social conflicts. For instance, Huang Zhongxi regarded writing as the vitality of Heaven and earth, and Lu Xun believed writing should appear as fierce as Buddha’s four guardian warriors.

Theory of Imitation and the Archetype Fine arts and literature tend to focus on narratives, particularly on the creation of artistic imagery. The realization of an artistic ideal lies in the depiction of archetype. Poetry, especially the kind devoted to the expression of inspiration, has been the locus of Chinese artistic creation. Ancient Greece began to compose narrative verse, tragedy, and comedy in the early stage of their civilization, and the achievement of Greek fine arts was already unsurpassable at that stage. Ancient Greece proposed the theory of imitation, or representation, to create archetype. Aristotle stated that tragedy imitated people better than themselves. This is the inception of the theory of imitation. Hegel treated personality as the heart of the representation

 The translation is from Rickett 1977, 43.

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of the ideal art, which meant depicting archetype. In his discussion of realism, Engels remarked that “[it] implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of archetype under typical circumstances.”⁴⁴ Archetype is an aesthetic ideal achieved through the combination of structure and sentiment. However, the emotions expressed are different from those of the lyric tradition. While the poetic tradition instills feelings into the inner structure of the artistic image, characters in the narrative arts, such as fiction and drama, unfold themselves in gestures and plots. Events take place in a particular setting, so the description of these elements can also be influenced by emotions. Nevertheless, the creation of artistic images is the focus of narrative art. The personality of a particular character in a novel or drama might reveal itself through a series of settings and complicated plots. For instance, in the classical fiction Outlaws of the Marsh, the personality of the instructor Lin, nicknamed Panther Head, is gradually developed in a series of loosely connected incidents, which in turn are placed in a larger social environment. All these particular episodes are the reflections of a typical environment. This is how the character in fiction and drama is created. Other forms of art, such as sculpture and painting, are confined by their media to select a single setting or plot to construct personality. However, the limitation of the medium can by no means constrain representations of archetype. For instance, Lessing’s essay on the Laocoön Group describes the sculpture to be depicting a single moment of a dramatic event. In this regard, painting, sculpture, fiction, and drama are well equipped to render emotionally charged plots and movements. That being said, the characters in a narrative can unfold logically in plot and settings. For instance, drama is particular about structural organization. In Occasional Notes in a Leisurely Mood, the playwright and novelist Li Yu in the Qing dynasty described the importance of structure in a drama and the unfolding of the plot in diverse settings. Essential human power is naturally manifested in the unfolding of the conflicts among characters. In this way, the personality of each character is portrayed without an actual description. Archetype in literary creations is true to life in appearance and spirit, they unite general and particular characteristics of human beings. While literary characters are representative of reality, they are nonetheless individual beings with personalities and idiosyncrasies. For instance, among the hundreds of young girls in the Dream of the Red Chamber, every person is distinguishable from the rest and unique in her personal traits. The logic of life plays out through the archetype.

 Frederick Engels, “Engels to Margaret Harkness In London,” in Marx-Engels Correspondence 1888, Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/letters/88_04_ 15.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Remarkable differences can be discerned between the Chinese and Western aesthetic traditions. Chinse poetry originated in antiquity, but narrative art emerged only in the Song dynasty around the 10th century and achieved maturity in the Qing dynasty in the 17th century. Li Yu and Jin Shengtan, two major playwrights and literary critics of the Qing dynasty, wrote many mature fictions as well as dramatic theories about the creation of archetype and narrative structures. Jin Shengtan remarked that each of the one hundred and eight outlandish men in the classical novel Outlaws of the Marsh was singular in his temperament, appearance, and mannerism. Li Yu advised writers to select one single filial deed of a piteous person if they want to develop a theme on filial piety or to concentrate the filial actions of many people on a single person; it would not suffice to enumerate all the deeds of the piteous person, or to recount one deed of all piteous people. He believed that literary characters are to be created rather than drawn from reality. The Chinese literary tradition inclines toward the pursuit of representation and the artistic sphere, so lyric influence is rather prominent in the fine arts and narrative art. Chinese painting, landscape painting in particular, expresses the artist’s sentiment. Figure painting focuses on the artistic sphere at its initial stage, striving to capture the spiritual and mental states of the person depicted while ignoring physical resemblance. Unlike the Western tradition, Chinese artists find it unimportant to study human anatomy and the nature of colors. As a result, Chinese figure painting takes an entirely different approach from Western painting. Drama and fiction emerged rather late in Chinese history; however, thanks to the long lyric tradition, the two literary genres are exceptional in their achievement of the artistic sphere. Compared with the Western theatrical tradition, Chinese drama is loose in structure, every act of a play can be staged as an entire play in its own right. Wang Guowei remarked in A History of Drama of the Song and Yuan Dynasties that “the finest aspect of dramas of Yuan dynasty […] that it achieves an artistic sphere.”⁴⁵ Classical novels, such as the Dream of the Red Chamber, succeed in the harmony between narrative and emotional expression, and the creation of personalities and an artistic sphere. The artistic achievement of the Dream of the Red Chamber is indeed unparalleled in literature.

Revolution in the Realm of Art in Modern China Modern China has undergone drastic social changes. Many thinkers have advocated for revolutions in the arts and literature. Liang Qichao championed a change

 Wang Guowei, 120.

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of style in fiction and poetry, urging a fresh artistic sphere with an old style, that is, introducing new themes into the traditional styles. Huang Zunxian followed Liang Qichao’s path. During the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi promoted a literary revolution and ushered in vernacular writing. The enlightenment writers in the early years of the Chinese Republic wished to have art to serve life and improve social conditions. This trend was healthy at its initial stage, but became excessively inclined toward political partisanship as it evolved, and almost fell into the same dogmatic trap that promoted writing for the conveyance of truth. Consequently, the freedom of writing was severely damaged. In the present day, another trend, the worship of money, constitutes a similar impedance to artistic freedom. Every artistic realm faces conflicts between traditional, native heritage, and modern Western influences. Art always wishes to retain national characteristics and to inherit traditional culture; at the same time, it is necessary to learn from other cultures so as to reflect the spirit of the age. To do so requires the transformation of some old forms, and the adaptation of new language and means to create new forms of art. All these are complicated issues. With regard to language, Chinese writing shifted from the classical to the vernacular. This is without doubt a great advancement. However, it also brings about some unexpected realistic implications that still await artistic solutions. For instance, the problem of rhyme and meter in prose poetry is far from resolved. Some forms of art that have been introduced from the West, such as movies, television dramas, and stage plays, will have to undergo a process of assimilation before Chinese artists become at home with them. With regard to artistic forms, their development is rather uneven. With regard to artistic content, artists are uncertain about the focus of their creations. Wen Yiduo held that, in order for arts to reflect the complexity of modern social life, narrative art should be the priority of the new age. Modern social life is so complex that diverse forms of art, such as movies, television shows, novels, and stage plays, should be allowed to provide the audience with a coherent narrative. With the development of the commercial economy, Chinese culture lost its sylvan charm. Nevertheless, narrative art, ingrained with Chinese national heritage, is still rich with lyrical undertones. Chinese works of art, such as the classical novel the Dream of the Red Chamber, Peking opera, landscape garden, and so on, overwhelm the audience with their profound artistic sphere. Then, how to render modernity in an artistic sphere, and how to artfully combine narrative with the lyric tradition? These are intriguing questions. Modern China has witnessed a significant achievement in aesthetics. Wang Guowei, Zhu Guangqian, and Zong Baihua borrowed Western aesthetics to develop theories of the artistic sphere in the Chinese tradition. Wang Guowei’s conception of the artistic sphere was deeply influenced by Yan Yu’s theory that promoted an

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ambience in which the audience seems to behold an antelope that hangs by its horns on a tree without leaving discernible traces on the ground. So, it seems that modern aesthetics has not taken its departure from the ancients. However, this is a one-sided view. Lu Xun’s conception of the artistic sphere entirely rejected conventional ideas. Based on his own experience of writing and his investigation of the history of fiction, he developed a theory of archetype, believing that writing should appear as fierce as Buddha’s four guardian warriors. Many modern thinkers devoted themselves to blazing a trail in aesthetic theories, but much work still needs to be done. Literary critics of the Six Dynasties prepared the theoretical foundation for the poets of the Golden Tang dynasty; their aesthetic concepts (such as conception, wind and bone, and association) and their studies of artistic forms (meter, painting technique, and calligraphy) created conditions for the thriving of literature and art in the Golden Tang dynasty. Modern China is also in need of theoretical investigations into the two aesthetic aspects, and much work needs to be done in the ways of preparation for further studies.

Beautifying Reality and the Individuality of Beauty Individualization of Perceptual Images The freedom of aesthetic activity is found in intuiting essential human power in humanized nature. Such interactions between human beings and nature, between human nature and the Way of Heaven, are through perceptual images, which are essentially the manifestation of the liberation of individuality. Wang Fuzhi claimed that “colors, sounds, and tastes are impressed on me by nature, so that in receiving them I must follow the Way that is proper to them.”⁴⁶ Perceptual qualities, e. g., color, sound, and taste, act as the media through which human beings and the Way of Heaven interact with each other. The natural orders, including the order of human society, belong to the objective Way (a natural process). The objective Way is revealed through the medium of color or sound. Everything in the world, the moon in the sky, the breeze over the river, and public life, has a distinct Way and law of necessity. The order of such objective processes is only given to people through their sense organs. Sound cannot be without ears, and color cannot be without eyes. The variegated material objects become the given data in a perceptual process, and human beings receive the Way of Heaven in their interactions with the external objects. Meanwhile, perceptual interaction leads to human

 Wang Fuzhi, “Extended Meaning in Shang Shu,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. II, 299.

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emotion and sentiment, which are exhibited in language, gestures, and facial expressions, and are communicated to external objects and other human beings. In this process, with perceptual image as the medium, the objective order also receives and is impressed with the individuality of the subject. Therefore, the individualized perceptual image is not only present in aesthetic appreciation and artistic creation, but also in the interactions between human beings and nature, and that between human nature and the Way of Heaven. Perceptual image are particulars, so are emotions and sentiment. A sense object is lively and direct, but is also fragmented, instant, and constrained by particular time and space. So, how to overcome this limitation? One of the scientific methods is to discern universality from the particulars that are treated as examples of the universal. Through imagination, art can treat the particular as individuality and use it to reveal the aesthetic ideal. Science and art, though divergent in their approaches, strive to overcome the limitation of time and space and to expose the infinite in the finite. Huang Zongxi remarked that “poets are the pure qi between the Heaven and earth, their temperaments are of the moon, the dew, the winds, the clouds, the flowers and the birds, their emotions are harmonized with the landscape, the moon, the dew, the winds, the clouds; the flowers and the birds are transient between the Heaven and earth, yet poets retain them in their soul.”⁴⁷ Natural things are transient beings; even as human emotions, appearances, and postures undergo constant change, artists have the talent to retain in their soul the essence of the transient being and transform it into an artistic image. To retain the essence is to endow a permanent nature to a transient being. How do artists achieve this? Huang Zongxi’s technique is for artists to harmonize their emotion with the landscape. Natural scenery is the particular; however, when impressed with the artist’s emotion and ideal, the scenery is individualized and becomes the artistic expression of temperament. The artistic sphere is the individualized aesthetic ideal, so is archetype. Individualized perceptual images are bridges between human beings and nature, and human nature and the Way of Heaven; they embody the objectification of essential human power. The beautification of nature and reality can be achieved in multiple ways and on different levels. While poetry, music, painting, and artistic transformation of natural objects belong to pure artistic creation, architecture, landscaping, and crafts have practical value, so theirs is a dependent beauty. In addition, religious ceremonies, images of divinities, and temple buildings are inseparable from religious beliefs that serve the utilitarian purpose of cultivating the

 Huang Zongxi, An Obscured Paragon of Virtue Awaiting a Royal Visit, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. I, 2.

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people, therefore, these forms of art also belong to the beautification of public life. When the peasants till the land or the gardeners cultivate trees, they want the crop or the tree to be planted in an orderly manner. Such effort demonstrates the laborer’s effort to beautify nature. Admittedly, the labor is for creating more profit, whereby it contains a lesser degree of individuality. The natural world can be beautiful through emotional transference without any imposition of human effort. In short, the beautification of human life and nature is fulfilled in many ways, and the achieved individuality can be varied, but it is always the individualization of perceptual images.

The Individuality of Beauty The characteristics of the individualized perceptual images are influential in the cultivation of human individuality and its freedom. The development of human beings relies on external objects. Human beings learn skills through physical labor, exercise the capacity of thinking through research and study, and develop taste through aesthetic appreciation. The cultivation of beautiful individuality needs the nourishment of individualized images. Of course, not everyone becomes a poet or a painter, since the arts do require a certain natural talent in addition to diligent practice. However, every person can acquire aesthetic appreciation of beauty and enjoy the freedom afforded by the beauty of natural scenery and works of art. A person without the individuality of beauty cannot be said to have genuine freedom. Individuality is the essential characteristic that differentiates human beings from other living beings. In the natural world, the individual is a member of a particular class and species; this trait is not the free individuality associated with human beings as subjects with human spirit. Human spirit demands to become the genuine individuality that is articulated in people’s activities, enterprises, and social interactions. All these human events are mediated thorough perceptual images that are individualized at the request of human spirit, and thereby acquire artistic qualities. In this fashion, human beings may find genuinely free pleasure. Chef Pao Ding’s proud pleasure at butchering the ox illustrates how an artisanal skill transforms into art. It is so with physical activities as well as in the spiritual realm. Scientific researchers may find more beauty and freedom in theoretical work as they investigate more deeply into their field of study. Scientific inventions and theoretical discoveries are also in need of lively imagination and inspirations; this is the freest state of the soul, in which individuality expresses itself to the fullest. Virtuous actions must be voluntary and conscious so that the agent enjoys the action itself. As Mencius puts it, “When they are rejoiced in, they grow. Growing,

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how can they be repressed? When they come to this state that they cannot be repressed, then unconsciously the feet begin to dance and the hands to move.”⁴⁸ This spiritual state is not much different from what the American psychologist Abraham Maslow described as peak experience. Regardless of the activities, once peak experience is reached, aesthetic freedom necessarily accompanies it. The development of individuality and art is more encouraged in some eras than others. In his Lectures on Aesthetics, Hegel said that the idyllic golden age and civil society are not ideal conditions for art, and he longed for the age of heroes in ancient Greece. Of course, Hegel did not mean humanity should return to that age. He was referring to the fact that human dependence in a natural economy and material dependence in a capitalist society are unfavorable to artistic creation. For instance, the Confucian ethical code deprived people of independent thought, and money fetishism in capitalist society enslaves workers; these conditions wipe out individuality and destroy creative art. Art can be turned into abstract doctrines if people overly emphasize its ideological use; human beings will be treated as members of a species and a social class if people overly emphasize class character; individuality can be nipped in the bud if people overly emphasize communal character, treating individuals as the cells of an organism, screws in the machinery, or domesticated tools. Such dogmatism is closely connected with the worship of power and with mutual dependency. That being said, the opposite extreme should be avoided as well. Individuality is in no better place if people overly emphasize economic gains and buy into the self-serving preaching that every man should be for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost, since such egoism necessarily falls into nihilism and the rejection of ideals and faith. Indeed, be it dogmatism, pragmatism, or nihilism, extreme doctrines can be anything but favorable to the cultivation of individuality and arts. Therefore, the question of how to create a society and superstructure that are conducive to the development of individuality and arts requires a thorough investigation. The individuality of the works of art differs from the individuality of reality; artistic individuality cannot be identified with the individuality required of people in social life. Pedantic Confucian scholars, though unpleasant as they are in life, can become lovable artistic figures with charming mental conflicts. For instance, the scholar Wang Yuhui in the Unofficial History of the Scholars, a novel of the Qing dynasty, is such a fictional figure. Fiction can also create genuinely unappealing villains, such as the warlord Cao Cao in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is the responsibility of arts to reflect the reality of life and to represent virtuous as

 Mencius, “Li Lou I:27,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-i/ens,last accessed June 5, 2022.

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well as odious characters. Since beauty is premised on truth and good, arts are tasked with morally condemning the villains and exposing their weakness. However, villains can be graphically rendered with individualities and endowed with formal beauty. In this way, the free individuality in the audience can truly benefit from artistic creation.

Art and the Way Individualized images are the means by which arts reveal the logic of human life and serves people’s free individuality. Admittedly, art can fabricate and exaggerate, and it can describe the dreamlike, the fantastic, and the supernatural; however, in the end, arts cannot but abide by the logic of life. Every genuine work of art possesses individuality, but also respects the logic of life. Modern aestheticist and literary critic Zong Baihua held that the Way resides in art. He believed that Tang dynasty painter Zhang Zao’s doctrine, that artists should take the natural world as teachers of external forms and look into their own hearts for inspiration, can be regarded as the fundamental condition for the creation of the artistic sphere. Zong Baihua urged the combination of the natural world and the heart and argued that the artistic sphere contained its own Way. In this sense, the artistic sphere is consistent with the philosophical sphere. He remarked that “the Way is particularly represented in art, the brilliant art gives the Way images and life, and the Way gives art depth and soul.”⁴⁹ Although his theory is much affected by pantheistic influence, Zong Baihua’s demand is valid in that the Way as represented in art and artistic imageries should be more concrete so that truth might shine through in the fictional order created by the artist. Artists learn from nature so that they apprehend the consciousness of the universe; artists look into their own hearts for inspiration so that their creations manifest the correspondence between humans and the Way of Heaven. That the Way resides in art implies the rhythmic concord between the universe and the artist. With all his contributions to Chinese aesthetics, Zong Baihua’s theory is nevertheless deficient in its understanding of the diversity of the artistic sphere; his conception of the Way chiefly makes reference to the notion in Zhangzi and Zen Buddhism, and his artistic sphere is identical with the one advocated by Sikong Tu, Yan Yu and Wang Yuyang. In the Twenty-Four Categories of Poetry, Sikong Tu thus described his idea of the masculine style of writing: “[The writer] with a return to

 Zong Baihua 1981, 68.

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energy of the primal void comes potency and masculine strength.”⁵⁰ The conception of the artistic sphere focuses on the unity of art and philosophy. This artistic sphere, which is as fierce as Buddha’s four guardian warriors (as Lu Xun described), is of equal, if not more, importance because such artwork seeks to embody the spirit of the time and the logic of reality. Indeed, great masters tend to be so. The poetry of Du Fu, one of the great masters of the Tang dynasty, is described in the poetic record of history because a huge number of his poems epitomize the diverse artistic sphere and encompass the entire picture of his time. The works of great poets, including Qu Yuan, Tao Yuanming, Li Bai and Du Fu, are the embodiment of their age. Great dramas and fictions, such as Outlaws of the Marsh and Dream of the Red Chamber, embrace people from all walks of life. These people, along with their activities, can proffer a lively picture of the historical times. In this regard, the spirit of the time is not something abstract, but is tangible as the artists themselves encountered and experienced it. The authors of the great writings witnessed the conflicts in their society and felt impelled to voice to them, so they found particular genres in which to display the social conflicts that troubled them. For this reason, great people tend to find spiritual sustenance in the prose of Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu, the poetry of Li Bai and Du Fu, the music of Shi Kuang, and the drama of Wang Shifu and Guan Hanqing. It is also these great people who bring the spirit of the times into arts. Whether an age will produce great art or not certainly depends on many conditions; it is reasonable to believe that art manifests the Way and the logic of life, but one should step out of the narrow confines of the conventional tradition and take note that artworks of fierce spirit like that of warrior can be of great importance.

 Translation from Barnstone and Chou Ping, 25.

Chapter 9 Cultivating the Ideal Character Human beings develop science, morality, and arts, and create the cultural values of truth, good, and beauty through activities that realize ideals. In this process, people change the world and cultivate the self and free individual that unite the true, the good, and the beautiful, and transform wisdom into virtue.

The Ideal Character in Traditional Chinese Philosophy Ancient Chinese philosophers were very much preoccupied with the question of how to become a sage. This question is actually the same as the cultivation of the ideal character, a question that assimilates the doctrine of wisdom into ontology and assimilates epistemology and ethics into aesthetics in ancient Chinese philosophy. In what follows, we shall examine these philosophical trends as they evolved.

The Pre-Qin Period Let us begin with the Confucian doctrine of the Way of completing the human in the pre-Qin Period. Confucius first raised the question of how to complete the human: Zi Lu asked what constituted a COMPLETE man. The Master said, “Suppose a man with the knowledge of Zang Wu Zhong, the freedom from covetousness of Gong Chuo, the bravery of Zhuang of Bian, and the varied talents of Ran Qiu; add to these the accomplishments of the rules of propriety and music—such a one might be reckoned a COMPLETE man.” He then added, “But what is the necessity for a complete man of the present day to have all these things? The man, who in the view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends—such a man may be reckoned a COMPLETE man.”¹

What we know today of Confucian thought on the completion of the human was actually transmitted through the mouth of his disciple Zi Lu, who believed that a perfect person is one who is faithful and sincere and whose action is brave. How Confucius, “Xian Wen:12,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/analects/xian-wen/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-010

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ever, what Confucius meant is that a perfect person not only possesses wisdom, integrity, courage, and talent, but is also versed in the matters of rites and music. In effect, Confucius requires the all-around development of a person’s knowledge, aspiration, emotion, truth, good, and beauty. The ideal character, in his thought, does not stop at reaching completion, but aspires to attain sagehood. In his Garden of Persuasions, Liu Xiang related a dialogue between Confucius and his disciple Yan Yuan: Yan Yuan asked the master: “what is the path to the complete man?” The master replied: “the path to the complete man is in the comprehension of the principles of one’s temperament and emotion, in the understanding of the alteration of things, in the knowledge of the reasons between the dead and the living, and in the insight into the origin of the wandering spirit. Accomplishing all these, a man can be said to be complete. Having grasped the Way of Heaven, one acts in accordance with benevolence and righteousness, cultivates oneself in accordance with rites and music. The path to the complete man is in benevolence and righteousness, and in rites and music.”²

Liu Xiang’s record is written in the Han dynasty, about 100 BCE, a time that is rather removed from Confucius’s age. However, his story faithfully conveys the Confucian doctrine of the Way of completing the human. Confucius apparently believed that the ideal character that achieves the unity of the true, the good, and the beautiful can eventually acquire sagely virtue, and thereafter fathom the secrets of nature. The Way of completing the human, that is, the cultivation of ideal character, is the pivotal question in Confucian theory and practice. Mencius and Xunzi represented the idealistic and materialistic trends in the Confucian school, but their notions of the ideal character were not dissimilar. Mencius treated the four principles —benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge—as a person’s four limbs and believed that “[a person] whose good has been filled up is what is called beautiful.”³ Xunzi stated that “[what] is incomplete and impure does not deserve to be called fine.”⁴ Both thinkers took the virtue of the ideal character as the unity of knowledge, willpower, and emotion. As to the cultivation of the ideal character, the Confucian approach is through learning, education, and cultivation. While Mencius was inclined to rely on the innate good in human nature, Xunzi believed in the elimination of the inborn evil in human nature, but both were convinced

 Liu Xiang, “Bian Wu:1,” in Garden of Persuasions, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/shuoyuan/bian-wu/zhs, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Jin Xin II:71,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Xunzi, “An Exhortation to Learning:15,” in Xunzi 1999, 21.

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that virtues can be formed through rigorous learning, education, and cultivation. Moreover, they placed the cultivation of character in the context of ethical relationship and the influence of the Confucian classics, with an emphasis on benevolence, righteousness, rites, and music. It might have been due to the fact that Mencius and Xunzi were educators that they emphasized the loving and trusting relationship between the teacher and disciple. They followed Confucius’s example in their practice to “learn without satiety” and “teach without being tired.”⁵ Mencius talked about nourishing the “vast, flowing passion-nature,” which is “produced by the accumulation of righteous deeds.”⁶ Such passion-nature, in his conception, “[is] nourished by rectitude, and sustaining no injury, it fills up all between heaven and earth […] There must be the constant practice of this righteousness, but without the object of thereby nourishing the passion-nature. Let not the mind forget its work, but let there be no assisting the growth of that nature.”⁷ He believed that rectitude, righteousness, and strong willpower could not fail to nourish the exceedingly great and strong passion-nature. Xunzi stated that “of all the methods of controlling the vital breath and nourishing the mind, none is more direct than proceeding according to ritual principles.”⁸ “If with truthfulness of mind he upholds the principle of humanity, it will be given form.”⁹ “By laying out the warp and woof of Heaven and Earth, he tailors the functions of the myriad things. By regulating and distinguishing according to the Great Ordering Principle, he encompasses everything in space and time”¹⁰ Mencius proposed the notion of seeking for the lost mind in order to return to the original state of human nature. This is different from Xunzi’s approach that seeks to cultivate virtue through the accumulation of righteous deeds. But they were in agreement about the point that every person had the potential to become as virtuous as the legendary Yao, Shun, and Yu. In short, Mencius and Xunzi shared the same notion that the ideal character that unites benevolence and knowledge can be achieved through learning, education, and cultivation. Daoists concur with the approach of cultivating the ideal character through learning, education, and cultivation, with the difference that they take the ideal

 Mencius, “Gong Shu Chou I:1,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Gong Shu Chou I:1,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Gong Shu Chou I:1,” in Mengzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Xunzi, “On Self Cultivation:4,” in Xunzi 1999, 31.  Xunzi, “Nothing Indecorous:9,” in Xunzi 1999, 59.  Xunzi, “Dispelling Blindness:8,” in Xunzi 1999, 685.

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character out of the social context. The Daoists’ notion of the ideal character is, as Zhuangzi puts it, “Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one.”¹¹ Such a character is by no means attainable through the kind of education and learning proposed by Confucians and Mohists. Laozi said: “He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Dao (seeks) from day to day to diminish (his doing). He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing (on purpose). Having arrived at this point of non-action, there is nothing which he does not do.”¹² Laozi wanted people to “renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom […] renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness” and “renounce our artful contrivances and discard our (scheming for) gain.”¹³ In short, Laozi believed that once a person discarded all cultural values and returned to the natural state that was supposed to be without knowledge and desire, one would be “like an infant which has not yet smiled.”¹⁴ Zhuangzi elaborated on this idea and proposed two methods, that is, sitting and forgetting and fasting the mind, to reach the sphere in which one became oblivious to benevolence, righteousness, propriety, music, the notions of good and evil, right and wrong, and the opposition of the self and others, thereby reaching the primordial state of Chaos. He said that in this primordial state, “leaving my material form, and bidding farewell to my knowledge, I am become one with the Great Pervader.”¹⁵ In this carefree state, “[one] mounts on (the ether of ) heaven and earth in its normal operation, and drives along the six elemental energies of the changing (seasons), thus enjoying himself in the illimitable”¹⁶ Confucians and Daoists advanced two ideas of the ideal character and divergent approaches for its realization. Daoists rejected the Confucian emphasis on learning and education since they believed that he who devotes himself to the Dao seeks from day to day to diminish his own action, and that sageness is non-

 Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies:9,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 48, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 19, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 20, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/daode-jing/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Great and Most Honoured Master:9,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease:3,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoyment-in-untroubled-ease/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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action in a natural state. Confucians were convinced of the feasibility of attaining sageness through learning. Both approaches had great historical impact.

From Han to Tang Dynasty The rulers of the Han dynasty had a policy that suppressed other schools of thought and venerated only the Confucian art. The policy resulted in the apotheosis of the historical Confucius. Divine beings are anything but man-made, which led to the thought that Confucius was a natural-born sage. Later on, Wang Chong drew a distinction between sages and spiritual beings, stating that the former can be cultivated, while the latter is a natural being. Hence, the ultimate goal of acquiring virtue through learning was to become a sage. Wang Chong’s criticism of the deification of Confucius was astute, but he failed to resolve the conflict between the sage and the spiritual being, which is in effect the contradiction between the doctrine of acquiring virtue through learning and that of preordained destiny. In the Wei and Jin period, Confucianism and Daoism were combined into one; the school of Dark Learning brought nature and the Confucian ethical code together and attempted to conflate the sage with the spiritual being. Wang Bi believed that sages were in no way different from spiritual beings. Guo Xiang claimed that “the sages often betake themselves outward to the universe so as to expand their inner soul, they follow things without any worldly care. Their spirit and breath evince not the slightest change even as their body is very much preoccupied; they are composed and calm even as they run thousands of trivial errands.”¹⁷ Sages and spiritual beings are those who are inner sage and outer king (內聖外王 nei sheng wai wang). If sages are the same as spiritual beings, how can a person become sagely through learning? Guo Xiang denied the possibility of learning to become a sage, stating that “without even inquiring into how close or how far education takes a person to the sagely state, between Yan Yuan and Confucius, there was only a tiny difference, however, even they were not able to close that distance.”¹⁸ So, Confucius is beyond Yan Yuan’s reach precisely because sageness is a natural endowment that cannot be acquired through learning. At this time, Buddhism began to assimilate metaphysical ideas. It preached that human beings can practice Buddhism in stages and gradually reach nirvana, the complete liberation. So, everyone can become Buddha through practice. Buddhist monk Zhu Daosheng formulated his doctrine of sudden enlightenment by

 Guo Xiang and Xiang Xiu 1961a, 244.  Guo Xiang and Xiang Xiu 1961b, 212.

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fusing the doctrines of the school of Dark Learning into Buddhism. Xie Lingyun commented that Zhu Daosheng’s doctrine of sudden enlightenment is actually an eclectic mix of Confucianism and Buddhism because Buddhism held that the accumulation of practice could made a person into Buddha, while Confucianism rejected that possibility, and held instead the view that Confucius’s sageness was a natural endowment; even the most talented and diligent disciple Yan Yuan had not the slightest chance to reach sagehood. In fact, the Confucian doctrine he referred to was entirely revamped by the school of Dark Learning. Yan Yuan could not become as sagely as Confucius because truth can only be grasped by realization rather than through gradual learning. Zhu Daosheng compromised the doctrines of both schools, claiming that sageness can be attained through learning, but the sort of learning that consists in sudden awareness of the truth. The doctrine of sudden enlightenment evolved into Zen Buddhism, which in turn was adopted by the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties. The influence of the doctrine of sudden enlightenment is so prevalent that the majority of Chinese philosophy buy into the idea that sageness can be attained through the kind of learning that consists in enlightenment. If one can study to become a sage, what kind of things should one learn? This is another big question. First, one needs to abide by the principles of consciousness and voluntariness. The pre-Qin Confucians were well versed in this topic, because Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi were all educators. In the Han dynasty, however, the Confucian ethical code demanded the people’s obedience in the name of the Heavenly mandate and discarded the voluntary principle. When actions are involuntary, the ethical principles often become mere façades. The habitual practice of such actions can make the people mendacious and sanctimonious. Ji Kang issued his challenge to the pedantic Confucians and summoned people to “do away with the ethical code and let human nature run its course.” However, his combination of the principle of voluntariness with the principle of nature neglected the principle of consciousness. At this time, Buddhism was introduced into China and assimilated into diverse schools of thought. The localized Buddhism, that is, Zen Buddhism, laid emphasis on purifying of the mind and seeing the true nature (明心見性 ming xin jian xing), claiming that the I and mortality are relative, and the I is a potential Buddha-nature. The doctrines of Zen Buddhism are rather close to Mencius’s thought. Zen Buddhism promoted sudden enlightenment, believing Buddha-nature to be innate in every ordinary person. Their preaching can be said to have greatly boosted Chinese people’s confidence, since knowing that so long as one learned all about oneself, one could eventually be in the same place with Buddha. So, a person can feel confident in being self-reliant in the pursuit of freedom. In this sense, Zen Buddhism brought together the principles of consciousness and voluntariness. Zen Buddhism can be said to have reawakened the pre-Qin Confucian tradition. Liu

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Zongyuan of the Tang dynasty revived the doctrine of the way of completing the human that was popular in the pre-Qin Confucian tradition and advanced his conception of intelligence (明 ming) and the will (志 zhi). He believed that nature endows human beings with strong and pure qi which makes intelligence and willpower possible. So, if people “use intelligence in the study of the way of the sages and strive with willpower,” ideal character can be cultivated in accordance with the principles of consciousness and voluntariness.¹⁹ During the period from the Han to the Tang dynasty, philosophical discussion of the relation between intelligence and willpower is intertwined with the debate about human effort and preordained destiny. Normative Confucians focused on the Heavenly mandate and disregarded the important role played by human willpower; Buddhists preached the state of being without the self and desires, thinking that nirvana was only reached after the elimination of the will. But it has to be admitted that Chinese Buddhists gave self-confidence its due respect, so their doctrines agreed with pre-Qin Confucianism in its emphasis on the principles of consciousness and voluntariness. This point is explicitly evinced by Liu Zongyuan’s theory.

From Song to Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucians, however, ignored the voluntary principle. They advocated the doctrine of the restoration of human nature (復性 fu xing), believing that human beings are naturally endowed with intelligence and virtue, but that the bright and intelligent mind is smothered by inclinations and desires. In order to return to the natural state, human beings should be required to preserve the Heavenly principle and eradicate all desires. Confucians of the Song dynasty described this approach as the method of pursuing learning. They were convinced that one could become a sage through learning. In his essay “The Learning in Which Yan Yuan Takes Delight” Cheng Yi stated that Yan Yuan was diligent in learning because it was the road to sagehood. Then, what is the road? In his “On the Restoration of Nature” Li Ao elaborated on the concepts of integrity (誠 cheng) and intelligence. His conception was actually not far from the Tiantai Buddhists’ doctrine of calm and insight (止觀 zhi guan) and concentration and wisdom (定慧 ding hui). The Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Lu Xiangshan, and Wang Yangming all came to advocate this doctrine. Confucians of the Song dynasty developed on Li Ao’s discourse. Cheng Hao stated: “Scholars need not to seek afar but right here in themselves. All they have to do is to understand the principle of Heaven and be committed. This is where restraint

 Liu Zongyuan 2008b, 551.

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lies as against extensive learning.”²⁰ Cheng Yi further develops the understanding principle into “investigating things and making inquiries into principle” for the sake of “the extension of knowledge.”²¹ Lu Jiuyuan said that since the mind is principle, then the cultivation of people should first of all to discover their original mind; once they achieve consciousness, they can naturally understand the principle.²² Accordingly, Lu Jiuyuan laid more emphasis on the power of the will and the role of intuition. Zhu Xi emphasized an exhaustive investigation of things, stating that “the intelligence of the human mind necessarily acquires knowledge, and everything under the Heaven necessarily possesses principles for investigation.”²³ He was disappointed at the practices of some schools of thought, that “today they’d examine one thing, and tomorrow another. They merely exert themselves on what is of practical use.”²⁴ The right methodology, in his view, is to “be perceptive of the minutest detail of everything to the point that one acquires a clear knowledge of the essence and the great function of one’s own heart.”²⁵ Zhu Xi’s account of his methodology, on the one hand, is focused on theoretical analysis, with an overwhelming emphasis on the exhaustive investigation of things, so his theory sometimes appears to be a bit cumbersome. On the other hand, Lu Jiuyuan wanted to focus on establishing the primary concerns, so his theory tends to be lacking in substance. In spite of their differences, however, their effort is devoted to knowledge. Two layers of meanings can be revealed in the effort of knowing. First, understanding things so as to acquire knowledge; second, cultivating oneself so as to enlighten one’s soul. The two aspects are actually the notions of intelligence and integrity, both of which are subsumed under knowledge. Philosophers who were against knowledge resorted to action. The debate between knowledge and action was a highly involved philosophical topic in the Song dynasty. Thinkers such as Wang Anshi, Chen Liang, and Ye Shi radically rejected Neo-Confucianism. Wang Anshi saw Neo-Confucian methods of cultivation and knowledge extension as meditation and reading, which were no more than engaging in useless learning. He claimed that Neo-Confucians believed themselves to have intelligence and integrity, in effect, they were but a rheumatic bunch who could not feel pain or itching. He belonged to the school of Pragmatic Learning that saw pragmatic affairs of government, policy, and serving the country as the

     

Cheng Yi 2004, 640. Cheng Yi 2004, 640. See Lu Jiuyuan 1980, 149. Zhu Xi, Commentary on the Great Learning, in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. VI, 20. Zhu Xi, Commentary on the Great Learning, in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. VI, 20. Zhu Xi, Commentary on the Great Learning, in Zhu Xi 2010, Vol. VI, 20.

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means to discover and cultivate talents. The school of Pragmatic Learning advocated the doctrine of completing nature as an antithesis to Confucians’ restoration of nature. Wang Anshi took perceptual activities and rational thinking as the preconditions to “continue the Way of Heaven to complete human nature.”²⁶ Chen Liang rejected Zhu Xi’s view on the question of the cultivation of the human being. He discredited Zhu Xi’s self-discipline of the mellow Confucian scholar as an efficient way of perfecting the human being, claiming that a scholar studies to be a man, not merely a Confucian scholar. He rejected the so-called profound learning of the pedantic Confucians as fragmentary and unpractical. Chen Liang believed the cultivation of the human being should aim to foster the kind of people capable of managing public affairs. Pedantic Neo-Confucian scholars, however, wished to influence the world merely by sitting there and chatting with bosom friends. Chen Liang took action, instead of words, as the criterion of a person’s intelligence and capabilities. In short, philosophers of the Song and Ming dynasties believed that the ideal character can be realized through learning. While Neo-Confucians devoted themselves to the debate of virtue and the Way of learning, anti-Neo-Confucians argued about knowledge and action with the Neo-Confucians. Wang Yangming of the Ming dynasty introduced the notion of the unity of knowledge and action (知行合 一 zhi xing he yi) that is actually an elaboration of Lu Xiangshan’s school of the Mind (心學 xin xue), with the difference that, while Lu Xiangshan spoke in general terms of the primary concerns of learning, Wang Yangming treated the substance of the heart as an unfolding process, just as the fetus developed into the complete form of the infant in the mother’s womb, but it still required several stages of growth for the infant to smile, stand, and walk. In a similar way, he believed that learning necessarily contained an original substance, the extension of innate knowledge (致良知 zhi liang zhi) constituted the original substance of learning, and the original substance and the effort were originally united since the effort was nothing but to “return to the original substance.”²⁷ In this sense, it can be said that Wang Yangming made a significant philosophical contribution by treating the human being’s mental growth as a process. However, in his keen emphasis on the effort of the original substance, he overlooked the importance of knowledge and talent in the cultivation of the human, an oversight that created much vacuity in his theory.

 Wang Anshi, “Comments on Hongfan”, in Wang Anshi 1999, 207.  Wang Shouren 2011, 32.

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From Ming to the Beginning of the Qing Dynasty Many important philosophers in the period from the Ming to the beginning of the Qing dynasty kept alive the tradition of denouncing Neo-Confucianism. Huang Zongxi developed Wang Yangming’s theory of the unity of effort and substance and introduced the notion that “the heart has no fundamental substance; what is accomplished through practical effort is its substance.”²⁸ His thesis actually derived from pantheistic persuasion that regarded the substance, that is the heart and the qi, evolved with effort. The human being’s spiritual development can be compared with the seed that grows into grain. The seed itself contains potential life, with the effort of sowing, watering, fertilizing, it gradually grows into a plant. The process is what he described as “that which is accomplished through practical effort is the substance.” Wang Zongxi stressed the importance of aspiration, believing that the ideal character needs to have steadfast aspiration and to first become a heroic personality. The spirit of such a personality is often manifested in the fierce struggles and conflicts in which the hero accomplishes great deeds that “alter the color of the Heaven and earth.”²⁹ To a certain extent, Wang Zongxi’s emphases on willpower and struggle as the way to cultivate a heroic personality contain some characteristics of modern thought. Wang Fuzhi introduced the theses of completing oneself and completing nature (成身成性 cheng shen chen xing) and establishing human nature by following emotions (循情定性 xun qing ding xing). He claims that establishing human nature cannot be separated from completing the person and his or her perceptual activities. This conviction led to him to denounce doctrines that urge people to eliminate desires and emotions. His theory intimates the all-around development of knowledge, emotion, and the will in a human being, and anticipates a philosophical return to pre-Qin Confucian theory. Wang Fuzhi maintained that the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven would have to be through perceptual and rational activities, such as seeing, listening, speech, and deeds; the I, as the subject, has a pivotal importance in his theory. He states that “the I is the master of virtues and the director of mind.”³⁰ the I is manifest in perceptual activities, in the meantime, the I receives the Way every day so that the character is cultivated through continual exercise. Wang Fuzhi did not treat the process as the restoration of human nature, but habituation that completes nature. In this process, human beings not only receive their natural endowments, but also exercise subjec-

 Huang Zongxi, Case Studies of Ming Confucians, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. VII, 3.  Huang Zongxi, “Introduction to the Poetry of Ji Xiongfeng,” in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. X, 62.  Wang Fuzhi, An Expanded Reading of the Book of Songs, in Wang Fuzhi 2011, Vol. III, 472.

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tive power. To put it in his words, the process is to help oneself to that of which one can make use. In this sense, humanity possesses the capability to create one own’s destiny (造命 zao ming). Wang Fuzhi also stressed the importance of willpower and the subject in that subjective power had an important role in the process of completing the human. This brings his theory closer to modern thought. In conclusion, ever since Confucius raised the question of completing the human, ancient philosophy has pivoted around the same questions of whether Confucianism is for the sake of learning or the Way, whether a person can become a sage through learning. These debates evolved into the conviction of learning as the way to become a sage in Zen Buddhism and for the Neo-Confucians of the Song and the Ming dynasties. Chen Liang’s conception of ideal character as great people and Huang Zongxi’s as heroic figure are divergent from Confucian tradition, but they still accept learning as the proper way to become a sage. The philosophical debate around the other question, that is, how to learn to be a sage, or, how to complete the human, is mainly focused on the notions of intelligence and the will, learning and cultivation, knowledge and action. Normative Confucians championed the restoration of nature from the perspective of intelligence and consciousness. They emphasized knowledge and cultivation to the negligence of action and the will. The anti-Confucians, however, laid stress on action and the will, in particular; Huang Zongxi’s and Wang Fuzhi’s thoughts already contain some signs of modernity.

Cultivating the New Human in Modern China Modern Chinese philosophers introduced the idea of cultivating the new human. The ancients tended to say that the old days were better than the present, and they wished to follow the traditional path in the cultivation of the human. The new human is a modern conception. Gong Zizhen prayed to Heaven to “give birth to all kinds of talents,” believing that the cultivation of talent “should follow each individual’s temperament.”³¹ The most important aspect, as he took it, lies in the eradication of the restraining and contriving arts, that is, the bondage of the feudal society. Only after being liberated from feudal institutions could people be free to follow their natural disposition and develop their individuality and independent character. After Gong Zizhen’s exposition of the liberation of individuality, the discourse on the relation between the self and the collective becomes the primary concern in modern Chinese philoso-

 Gong Zizhen 1999b, 338.

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phy. The revolution of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom led by Hong Xiuquan raised the banner of the new Heaven, the new earth, the new men, and the new world, and demanded the realization of the Heavenly Kingdom on earth through a grassroots movement. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom represented the peasants’ ideal, so they laid more emphasis on the collective power of the people, believing that the ideal can only be brought about through grassroot movements. In this regard, their thought is different from the literati’s demands for the liberation of individuality. After the Wuxu Reform of 1898, reformist Liang Qichao introduced his notion of a new people, calling for the cultivation of the people with new virtues. He stated that “the greatest humiliation is the slavery of the heart; the enslaved body is the least of the evil.”³² As a human being, the worst servitude is mental enslavement; in order to restore dignity to the people and the nation, he believed that they must first expunge the slavery of the heart, enlighten the intellect of the people, and transform the people’s conception of virtues. Only when people acquire independent characters, can a nation have its dignity. It is an insight shared among the progressive thinkers at the time. Liang Qichao and Yan Fu focused on the enlightenment of the people. With respect to the relation between knowledge and action, they took knowledge to have more weight in the cultivation of the new people, whereas revolutionaries tended to emphasize the importance of action. For instance, Zhang Taiyan maintained that “revolution brightens people’s intelligence, and competition brings about wisdom.”³³ He believed in the importance of the will, stating that revolutionaries should have perseverance and independence, and avoid the Confucian golden mean. Sun Yat-sen also championed the role of action, with an emphasis on altruism. He stated that “every person ought to strive to serve rather than exploit others.”³⁴ He stressed the cultivation of the collective spirit among revolutionaries so that they would have the power to arouse the masses to join their struggle. In short, the reformists and the revolutionaries introduced fresh ideas of independent character, but their emphases diverged over the role of knowledge and action in the cultivation of such character. During this period, in connection with the New Learnings’ opposition to the Old Learning, progressive thinkers in the final years of the Qing dynasty proposed replacing the imperial civil examination with universal education. The reform succeeded in the abolishment of the imperial civil examination and the establishment of public schools that taught New Learnings. The so-called New Learnings are

 Liang Qichao 1989a, 46.  Zhang Taiyan 1981, 181.  Sun Yat-sen 2006b, 298 – 299.

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mainly the disciplines of science rather than the study of the Confucian classics. The relationship between the teacher and student in school was also reformed; Confucius was no longer worshiped as the founding master. Democratic and scientific theories were promulgated among students; many modern educators, such as Cai Yuanpei, emerged. During the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the question of how to cultivate the new human aroused passionate debate. What outlook on life should the youths of today be taught? Hu Shi urged young people to establish healthy and individualistic views of life, claiming that, for a person to be responsible for his or her own actions, he or she should have the right to make free choices and develop an independent character. Liang Shuming envisioned ethics as the foundation of a society, treating ethical relations as derived from sincere and heartfelt affections, which, when effectuated in actions, constituted a well-reasoned Confucian outlook on life. In this regard, the Chinese tradition is different from the West in that ethics rather than the individual or society is set forth as the foundation of life. During the May Fourth Movement, discourses on the views of life still pivoted around the relation between the collective and the individual. Li Dazhao endeavored to solve the question from the perspective of Marxism, with an emphasis on the unity of reasonable individualism and socialism. He maintained that true freedom was freedom within a good order which, in its turn, should be the order of free people. The unity of reasonable individualism and socialism, as he saw it, can only be brought about in labor and revolutionary struggles. Therefore, free individual is the inevitable outcome of the worker’s pursuit of liberation, rather than favors bestowed by the rulers or authorities. Progressive thinkers such as Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, and Qü Qiübai proffered solutions to the cultivation of the new human with their insightful discourse as well as brave actions and eminent character. Chinese communists have continued the tradition and have formulated a comprehensive theory of ideal character to train party members. This theory can be summarized in three methodologies: to unite theory with practice and maintain close ties with the people, to temper and cultivate oneself, and to conduct self-criticism. In this way, the Communist Party of China and the mass organizations led by the Party have become a solid base for the education and cultivation of the new human. In these organizations, the members are required to meet the criteria of the party to enhance its moral cohesion. Many revolutionaries sacrificed themselves for the cause of liberating the country and the people from imperialism; they are the model Communist fighters the Party has nourished. That being said, it has to be noted that the tragic events of the 1930s were a warning sign of theoretical deviation. Chinese Communists treated collectivism and individualism as a pair of incongruous oppositions and rejected liberalism and democratic individualism because of revolutionary needs as well as the influ-

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ence of the movement of the Third International. With regard to the relation between the collective and the individual, they exaggerated the collective spirit while disregarding the liberation of individuality; with regard to individual cultivation, they overly stressed the conscious principle and self-criticism, without giving much attention to the voluntary principle and the development of the self. All these tendencies were actually related to Confucian influence. Normative Confucianism was always inclined to neglect the voluntary principle and bid the people to obey the Heavenly mandate and authority; the notion of the liberation of individuality did not enter Confucians’ minds. In the years of revolutionary struggles, it is necessary to educate the new human under the guidance of the Party. However, if the Party leaders are esteemed as mentors, and the leading cadres as educators, the mass will be reduced to good-for-nothing weaklings. As a result, the principle that the mass should liberate themselves will be entirely forgotten. Consequently, the cause of the cultivation of individuality could be severely injured. Therefore, the Party and the mass organizations should be the base for the education of the people, guiding people to join the voluntary cause and to temper themselves among the workers and peasants. This methodology, though attaining great achievement, does have some repercussions, mainly the depreciation of school education. It certainly is necessary for the students to lay aside their textbooks and participate in the cause of liberating the homeland under particular historical conditions. However, the doctrine that proclaims to save the nation through education should be denounced, even if such criticism might result in the depreciation of school education. The theories for cultivating the new human in modern China are the summit of all revolutionaries in history. Their theories, such as the three methodologies, are a great theoretical achievement. However, their theories do contain some one-sidedness. For instance, Mao Zedong dismissed school education as superfluous. He believed education should serve a political purpose, and its main discipline should be class struggle. As a result, the public distrusted school education and intellectuals. Mao remarked that the humblest is the wisest, the noblest is the most ignorant, and he stripped privileges traditionally belonged to intellectuals. The ideological struggles he ushered in eventually evolved into the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 and were actually directed at intellectuals. In the present climate, another trend is prevalent in school education. The trend is commonly described as “the whole nation hurtling towards commerce.” The spontaneous force of the commercial mentality dominates schools and universities to the extent that the Party has lost its moral cohesion. Accordingly, a basic notion has been forgotten: the enterprise of communism, to put it in Marx’s words, is of the people and for the people. So, this enterprise needs to be accomplished by the new human; conversely, the enterprise also aims to foster the new human to undertake the cause of communism. After all, is it not for the sake of

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becoming the new human that we pursue communism? From this perspective, it would be a sin against the nation if quality-oriented education were to be dismissed. In retrospect, this historical lesson is nothing if not painful and profound.

Cultivating the Ordinary Free Individual The cultivation of the new human in modern China aims to produce ordinary free individual in ordinary person, which differs from the ancients’ notion of the sage or the hero. The ideal character in the modern conception is not out of reach, but attainable for every ordinary person. The new human is a free individual among the common people, rather than wise and sagely. In this conception, ultimate enlightenment and absolute freedom are not the overarching goal. We acknowledge the fact that we are ordinary human beings with many shortcomings and often make mistakes, so we avoid deification of the mortal being, but we keep in mind that the human being’s essence lies in the demand for freedom and the freedom of labor. Every person wishes to pursue the ideal sphere in which truth, good, and beauty are united in one. Indeed, the ideal sphere is far from a metaphysical domain. The ideal and freedom are processes, and free individual evolves with them. Every person possesses individuality, so the cultivation of free individual should follow individual aptitude and disposition. It is up to education to provide for the free development of the potentials of each individual, so the same method might not be appropriate for everyone. While some people are apt at intellectual thinking, others are deft at handiwork; while some people are naturally musical, others are mathematically inclined, so education should adapt to the natural disposition of each person. People living in the same age might form the same ideal which, after being assimilated by individuals under particular circumstances, would turn into diverse personal ideals. That being said, universality is nonetheless discernable among diversities. For instance, we can always reach some general conclusion in summarizing the theories about the cultivation of the new human in modern China. We shall now place the question in a reasonable value system as described earlier. Human beings demand, on the basis of free labor, to reach the unity of the principle of nature and the principle of humanity, the all-around development of knowledge, the will and emotion, and harmony between the liberation of individuality and the great unity. From these basic principles, we can summarize the historical experience and deduce the general view of the cultivation of free individual among common people, and finally propose some approaches for the cultivation of free individual among common people.

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Incorporating Practice into Education In his essay “Theses on Feuerbach,” Marx advanced his views on social practice, and acknowledged the old materialistic view that human beings were products of circumstance and education but added that “it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. […] The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice [emphasis in original].”³⁵ He maintained that the changing of circumstances and the education of humanity cannot rely only on a few geniuses and sages. He believed that people should be educated in revolutionary practice. Incorporating practice into education is the basic approach to the cultivation of free individual. Practice is indeed the interaction between humankind and nature, and between the subject and the environment. Through such interactions, the environment (nature and human society) reveals to humankind the Way of Heaven and the Way of human, and the subject accordingly receives the Way to develop character. It has to be noted that the subject is not entirely passive in this interaction. In the process of transforming the environment, the subject can objectify human nature so that the human being transforms from being-in-itself to being-for-itself. Such is education in practice. Every step of an effective education is a creation, the person is active and voluntary when being educated in practice. The goal of education is for the human, that is, to enhance the value of humanity and to make freedom possible. Education should be of the human, that is, it is of the initiative of the students. Therefore, when educating people in practice, the educator needs to emphasis human dignity and initiative. To do so is to follow the principle of humanity. The harmony between the principle of nature and the principle of humanity is conducive to the development of human capabilities, wisdom, virtues, and the realization of values. The creation of all values should first come from nature and eventually return to nature. While objective reality contains potentiality for the actual world, human beings possess their necessary needs by nature, so, it is natural that the two aspects should combine into one. To return to nature implies the fact that habits will eventually become second nature for humans. After being habituated in creative activities, capabilities, and wisdom, virtues can become as if they were naturally endowed. Mencius thus claimed:

 Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” Cyril Smit (Trans.), Marxists Internet Archive, https://www. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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The superior man makes his advances in what he is learning with deep earnestness and by the proper course, wishing to get hold of it as in himself. Having got hold of it in himself, he abides in it calmly and firmly. Abiding in it calmly and firmly, he reposes a deep reliance on it. Reposing a deep reliance on it, he seizes it on the left and right, meeting everywhere with it as a fountain from which things flow. It is on this account that the superior man wishes to get hold of what he is learning as in himself.³⁶

Even as we do not endorse his view that good is innate in human nature, Mencius’ teachings that combine education with practice to mold human character are commendable. His pedagogy demonstrates the harmony between the principle of nature and the principle of humanity. The nature to which a person ultimately returns refers neither to the transcendentalist’s notion nor to Zhuangzi’s conception, but to the genuine freedom in which being-in-itself is transformed into beingfor-itself. We treat the process as a movement ad infinitum. Humanity is not at the end of its progress upon being transformed from being-in-itself into being-for-itself; its progress is an upward spiral movement; human capabilities, wisdom, and virtues can be improved in an ongoing movement.

The Unity of Intellectual, Moral, and Aesthetic Education The unity of the principle of nature and the principle of humanity requires the allaround and diverse development of human nature; hence, an organic collaboration of intellectual, moral, and aesthetic education without prioritization is imperative in the educational system. Chinese modernization needs all kinds of talents. As education accords with each person’s natural disposition, some shortcomings and insufficiencies are inevitable. However, in terms of the cultivation of free individual, people should be required to appropriately develop their theoretical thinking, morality, and aesthetics. As has been stated, truth, good, and beauty are mutually conducive to each other, with truth as the premise of beauty and good. But the truth here refers to the notion in the categories of value, connected with wisdom involved in the truthful knowledge of the universe and human life as well as the free development of human nature. The essence of wisdom consists in a person’s worldview and outlook on life, which supply a person with a social ideal and personal dreams. In this sense, the main concern of education is to establish for students their worldview and outlook on life and locate their social ideal and personal dreams.

 Mencius, “Li Lou II.42,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-ii,last accessed June 5, 2022.

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Moreover, wisdom cannot be without scientific knowledge. It would be specious to believe that scientific knowledge has nothing to do with a philosophical worldview and the cultivation of character. Scientific spirit and scientific thinking are not detached from education, the formation of which is indispensable to a scientific worldview. The fundamental knowledge and relevant scientific spirit of the modern natural sciences and social sciences are vital to industrialized production and modern life. It is also the case with the scientific view of life and the scientific worldview. In this regard, the formation of a worldview is impossible without a general intellectual education combined with a scientific education. Philosophical wisdom is intimately connected with science as well as with various forms of ideology. So, the education of a worldview cannot be detached from moral and aesthetic education. Any practice entails a particular social norm and necessarily follows certain rules. Such rules and norms must be learned and practiced to become habits that eventually assimilate into human nature and integrate into moral virtues. Virtues are the personal embodiment of moral ideals. When a person possesses a consistent, unequivocal, and steadfast virtue, it must also be the embodiment of a certain worldview and outlook on life. Chinese Zen masters and Neo-Confucians are convinced of the importance of a worldview in the cultivation of private virtues. In the present climate, if people are consistent in their actions, conduct themselves with dignity and respect others, and possess social responsibility and free individual, such people can be said to have acquired virtues, therein encompasses free individuality and the great unity (in Li Dazhao’s words). Such a person carries out in his or her actions a materialistic and dialectical view of the world, and a scientific and socialistic view of life. It is in this sense that we believe the formation of a worldview and moral education are indivisible from each other. Admittedly, moral education is not limited to issues concerning a worldview and an outlook on life but is to be expanded to all domains of social conduct, such as family ethics, working ethics, and civilized conduct. The cultivation of a worldview relies on various aesthetic activities through the arts. As has been stated, the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven is by means of individualized perceptual images. Only through this medium can truly free individuality be brought into being. Wisdom that is genuinely full of creativity must be individualized. Such wisdom as revealed in the Way of Heaven and human nature is always universal. Nevertheless, it is the universal contained in individuality. Wisdom and the understanding of the Way can only come from such individualized and free creativity. It is true that philosophical wisdom expounds and proves truthful knowledge, but rational intuition is indispensable when wisdom wants to be the free expression of individuality. To a certain extent, rational intuition denotes some aesthetic aspect since it is equal to the

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spiritual state of ease and contentment. The story of the Maiden of Yue’s art of the sword in A History of the Two Southern States of Wu and Yue illustrates well the individual origin of this kind of realization. The Maiden of Yue is summoned to the court of the King of Yue to report about her knowledge on the art of the sword. When asked about the “Way of the art,” she claimed that she did not learn the technique from anyone but invented it herself because she inhabits the wilds without human companions; her passion for the Way of fighting brings to her mind the art of the sword.³⁷ Certainly, she made painstaking efforts to master the art, but the origin of her art is a sudden realization. Such a skill that turns into one’s inherent capacity can be described as genuine talent. In a similar way, virtues must be assimilated into free individuality, wisdom into rational intuition. In this regard, it is necessary to educate people through individualized perceptual images and aesthetic activities, since these are closely connected to the realization of rational intuition for wisdom and virtues. For the purpose of education, the all-around development of the free human necessitates the organic unity of intellectual, moral, and aesthetic education. The essential question here is for people to truly acquire a scientific worldview and outlook on life. It has to be noted that the establishment of a worldview is not equivalent to a moral education. In the past, when people talked about moral, intellectual, and physical education, they wrongly implied that moral education was tantamount to the formation of a worldview, and even to the instillation of some political doctrines. Cultivating people’s worldviews cannot be detached from moral, intellectual, and physical education; the latter two need to work together to effectuate the education of the worldview. We should be wary of the one-sided emphasis that occurred in the past that treated class struggle as the sole political program and subjugated education under a political agenda, such that political and ideological education became the sole subject matter at school.

The Unity of Collective and Individual Effort Education, be it at public school, in society, or at home, is always situated in a certain social relationship. What kind of social relationship is most beneficial to the cultivation of the human? Such a relationship requires love and trust. Only when they are trusted do children willingly accept firm discipline. The greatness of Confucius lies in his wholehearted devotion to his disciples. He claimed: “Do

 Zhao Ye, A History of the Two Southern States of Wu and Yue, Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/wu-yue-chun-qiu/gou-jian-yin-mou-wai-zhuan/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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you think, my disciples, that I have any concealments? I conceal nothing from you. There is nothing which I do that is not shown to you, my disciples; that is my way.”³⁸ He also remarked: “Can there be love which does not lead to strictness with its object? Can there be loyalty which does not lead to the instruction of its object?”³⁹ A trusting relationship can only be established by a loving teacher. Such a relationship is most conducive to students “learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied.”⁴⁰ Individuality can have a healthy development when the student is respected and trusted. Students can easily feel that they are not in control of their lives when being oppressed or discriminated against; but then their initiative will not be exerted to its fullest, nor will individuality have a healthy growth. One important idea is that education must not treat learning as passive reception, but as initiative and creative exertion in which the student’s individuality is respected and given all possible opportunity to grow. Democratic institutions of socialism create suitable conditions for the cultivation of the ideal character, but it is only a potentiality, and requires much effort for it to turn into reality. The task of establishing the unity of humanism and socialism in social institutions on different levels, such as family, school, labor unions, the Chinese Communist Party, and government bodies, is a daunting one. An institution characterized by the unity of humanism and socialism can have significant importance to the cultivation of the new human. Therefore, social institutions on different levels should strive to become educational bases for free individuality and the great unity so as be the nourishing soil for the new human. This is a great and formidable project, and our society has a long way to go before accomplishing it. The cultivation of character requires objective social conditions as well as collective and personal effort. With regard to personal effort, an individual should not wait for favorable objective conditions, but should actively exert one’s initiative to cultivate the self. Regardless of one’s circumstances, each person should aspire to gain freedom. Moreover, such aspirations should be united with one’s sense of duty to the homeland and the people. As Mencius stated: “The mass of men wait for a king Wen, and then they will receive a rousing impulse. Scholars distinguish-

 Confucius, “Shu Er:24,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/shu-er/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Confucius, “Xian Wen:7,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/analects/xian-wen/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Confucius, “Shu Er:42,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/shu-er/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ed from the mass, without a king Wan, rouse themselves.”⁴¹ Even if they do not encounter a sagely king and advantageous social conditions, distinguished people can nonetheless achieve great accomplishments. In this sense, Mencius urged people not to give up hope, because people can somehow find opportunities to choose their own ways of life through continuous learning and cultivation, and finally acquire freedom. We have in the past placed too much emphasis on collective effort, while neglecting the liberation of individuality and initiative; we have forcibly implanted ideas in the students, while neglecting heuristic and individualized education. In addition, society has preached the importance of the instrumental use of people, treating each person as a screw in a large machine; individual character and initiative were usually overlooked. All in all, in the interaction between nature and the human being, and between the subject and the object, the three pairs—practice and education; the cultivation of a worldview and moral, intellectual, and aesthetic education; and collective and individual effort—are united to facilitate the all-around development of individuality. Such are the basic methods to cultivate free individual among common people. So much for an account of the cultivation free individual based on a summary of historical experience and the basic principles of value system.

Theory Transformed into Virtue The kernel of the basic methods to cultivate free individual is to turn theory into virtue. Theory refers to philosophical thought and wisdom concerning the universe and human life. It is truthful knowledge interwoven with the free development of humanity. The transformation of a truthful worldview and outlook on life into virtues implies the subject’s understanding of the theory. In this sense, theory is composed of knowledge and virtue. Cultivating character with a philosophical worldview entails that the subject progress from being knowledgeable to being virtuous.

Ontological Significance of the Free Individual A philosophical exposition of the ideal character strives to endow the concept with ontological meaning in order to unify ontology with the theory of wisdom. Ancient Chinese philosophers mostly followed this approach. For instance, Mencius saw

 Mencius, “Jin Xin I.10,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i,last accessed June 5, 2022.

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that the only difference between sages and ordinary people was that sages were the paragons of human virtue and exemplified the ideal character. He stated: “He who has exhausted all his mental constitution knows his nature. Knowing his nature, he knows Heaven. To preserve one’s mental constitution, and nourish one’s nature, is the way to serve Heaven.”⁴² Sages are the epitome of humankind who become one with Heaven, or with the substance (本體 ben ti). Such character acquires ontological meaning. Mencius and some Neo-Confucians were inclined towards transcendentalism, treating human beings as reflections of the universe, so the ultimate expansion of what is inherent in human nature could be seen as becoming one with the Heaven, thereby achieving the integration of human virtues and the Heavenly mandate. Laozi and Zhuangzi held rather different views. Zhuangzi proposed the methods of forgetting and fasting the mind to break through the demarcation between the right and the wrong, the subject and the object, and ultimately attain the sphere of no self. It is a sphere in which “Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one.”⁴³ Zhuangzi’s account of the ideal character, though different from Mencius’s account, is an ontological exposition. Chinese Buddhism assimilated first the thoughts of the school of Dark Learning, and then Confucian doctrines. To a certain extent, while the Buddhist teachings of Prajñā are close to Zhuangzi’s conception of wisdom, Zen Buddhism is more akin to Mencius’s thought. The materialistic conception of the spirit does not involve an ontological aspect. Xunzi claimed that the perfect man is “one who understands the distinctive functions of Heaven and man,”⁴⁴ which emphasizes the different offices assigned to human beings and nature. However, he did somewhat endorse the ontological dignity of the ideal character. He stated that “Heaven has a constant way of action, earth has a constant size, and the superior man has a constant personal demonstration of virtue.”⁴⁵ In another place, he said: “Heaven has its seasons, earth has its wealth, and man has his government. This is how they are able to form a triad.”⁴⁶ Because of this conviction, Xunzi believed that human beings could control the Heavenly mandate and make use of it. In this sense, sages are the paragons of ethical relationships. Xunzi’s exposition is mainly based on anthropological observation, while the formation of the triad is treated as an analogy. Some materi-

 Mencius, “Jin Xin I.1,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/jin-xin-i, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Xunzi, “Discourse on Heaven,” in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 117.  Xunzi, “Discourse on Heaven,” in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 119.  Xunzi, “Discourse on Heaven,” in Chan Wing-tsit (Ed.) 1963, 117.

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alists treat the spirit as a product of social history from the perspective of causal law. When people are aware of their historical position and possess a strong sense of historical responsibility, they will certainly recognize the necessary trend of history. As Ye Shi put it, “[the great emperors] apprehended and shouldered the historical tendency of all-under-Heaven.”⁴⁷ So, these great people emerge as heroic figures. The materialism of the past claimed that ideal character was either the paragon of a class or the product of social relationships and the manifestation of a social and historical tendency. This view certainly contains some grains of truth, but its definitions of the sage and the hero are often limited to a few of the upper class. The free individual introduced is found among ordinary people and accessible to the majority. Such a character surely demonstrates the nature of a class and a historical relationship, but it first of all demands free individuality. A person’s free individuality allows him or her to be not merely a member of a class, a cell of a social organ, but to possess his or her unique consistency and constancy. This singularity differentiates the person from other members of the same class and preserves his or her independence in the complex nexus of social relationships. The I is the master of the realm of values or the spiritual sphere the subject has created. The values and spiritual creation are reflections of my spirit. In this way, the I, as free individuality, acquires ontological meaning. However, this is not to imply that the I has turned into a material being. Materialists took spirit to be derivative of the material. Since the material moves in accordance with the laws of necessity, spirit can only derive from some particular forms of material. Therefore, the spirit acquires freedom only at advanced stages of development, with free individuality as genuine freedom. Fan Zhen’s conception of the body as the material substance of the spirit and the spirit as the function of the body (形質神用 xing zhe shen yong) rightly intimates the Marxist doctrine that existence based on socioeconomic reality defines people’s consciousness. This is the fundamental ontological principle. One noteworthy point is that, in the realm of values, spirit that possesses unique consistency and constancy may transform into free individuality and become the master of this realm. Free individuality reveals its values through valuation and creation. In this regard, the spirit becomes the material substance of the soul, while values become the function. The transformation necessarily results in the ontological meaning of free individuality. Works of art are reflections of artistic individuality, and virtuous actions are reflections of free individuality; in the same way, theoretical creation, if genuinely free, is also a reflection of free individuality.

 Ye Shi 1983, 637.

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Ideal, Faith, and Virtue According to the materialistic view, the spirit, as the function of the body, is materially dependent. At the same time, the spirit, being a movement, is prone to change. One’s consciousness adjusts to the changes of social life; as the years advance, one’s experience accumulates, many ideas one cherished in early youth are abandoned; different physiological or psychological states also inform one’s emotions and thoughts. It seems as if individuality, the I, is as volatile as Proteus, the old man of the sea in Greek mythology. However, as has been stated, spirit not only possesses unique consistency and constancy, but also ontological meaning. But how can this be possible? On the one hand, the spirit is neither naturally formed from birth nor immutable once it is established; rather, the spirit has great malleability. On the other hand, personality requires consistency and constancy as well as singularity. However, singularity does not imply exclusion, and constancy does not imply stubbornness; consistency is shaped in practice and education. A genuinely free individuality is only attained through practice and education, a process that can be described as the transformation of theory into virtue. Then, what is the transformation of theory into virtue? First, theory is assimilated into the ideal, then into faith, and eventually into virtue. The cultivation of ideal character ultimately relies on theories of the scientific worldview to supply guidance to life and to acquire virtue by way of the ideal and faith. In the first place, in order for theory to give direction to life, it needs to assume the form of the ideal. To this end, intelligence, the will, and emotion should be harmonized. Many great thinkers stress the importance of the steadfast will and rational understanding of the principles. For instance, Liu Zongyuan believed that intelligence and willpower were all that were needed to complete human nature, urging people to “use intelligence to understand it [complete human nature] and employ willpower to obtain it.”⁴⁸ Reason and the will can promote mutual development, so we should avoid one-sidedness in this matter. After having received some education and acquiring social experience, young people will be capable of finding their way in life, establishing their purpose for living, and formulating their ideals (social as well as personal ideals) based on their knowledge of the world and themselves. Accordingly, this knowledge informs their will and the ways they chose to realize their ideals. Upon establishing a resolution, a relatively correct worldview and outlook on life are of great importance. Youths can always gauge the possibilities of reality and their own wishes on the basis of a worldview, which attests to free will. Even as they follow the instructions of their parents,

 Liu Zongyuan 2008a, 50.

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teachers, and friends, the choices they make are nonetheless voluntary. In this regard, we describe them as having established their resolution, since they do not merely comply with exact orders. Therefore, a correct way of life can only be discovered through the concerted effort of rational knowledge and voluntary choice. Ideals proposed under these conditions cannot be empty concepts, but are enriched with lively perceptual images so as to map out every detail of their actualization and inspire passionate power. The ideal strikes deep roots in the soul only when reason, the will, and emotion are united in the process. In the second place, the ideal has to transform into faith, which is only possible through practice. All sorts of obstacles, material as well as spiritual, from within as well as without, and pronounced as well as concealed, crop up in practice. One must brave obstacles for the realization of the ideal. A steadfast will is a requisite in such a struggle; in the meanwhile, the will has the opportunity to be put to the test and become stronger. One must also gain knowledge and cultivate oneself, so that the soul is always in a state of, in Neo-Confucian words, holding the mind alert. This is so-called self-possession (涵養 han yang). The soul and rational thinking gain freedom when one is temperate and apt to self-criticism when in error. Such an enlightened mental state and concentrated willpower, when united in practice, will gradually transform the ideal into faith. A person surely becomes self-content as he or she becomes confident in faith. Confucius remarked: “They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.”⁴⁹ To love something is to set it up as a goal; such is the establishment of the will. To delight in something is to go one step further, it is to find happiness in acting in accordance with one’s ideal and faith. Just as Mencius put it: “When they are rejoiced in, they grow. Growing, how can they be repressed? When they come to this state that they cannot be repressed, then unconsciously the feet begin to dance and the hands to move.”⁵⁰ Such joy often finds expression in art. People compose verses, sing, and dance as a declaration of their faith and aspirations. Art, in its turn, cultivates one’s mind with individualized perceptual images and reinforces one’s faith. In the third place, when one enjoys doing an action, one tends to repeat that action until it becomes habitual. Habituation in a certain practice makes second nature a virtue, or, to put it in Wang Fuzhi’s words, the completion of human nature accompanies the perfection of habits. The interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven is mediated through individualized perceptual images. With  Confucius, “Yong Ye:20,” in Analects, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ analects/yong-ye/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Mencius, “Li Lou I.27,” in Mencius, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/ mengzi/li-lou-i/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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respect to reason, the ideal emerges when knowledge of the Way of Heaven is integrated with the human being’s necessary needs, and the spirit consistently holds fast to the ideal and faith. With respect to the will, one needs to voluntarily choose the ideal, exert and test willpower to overcome obstacles in practice, and preserve one’s conviction of the ideal and faith. With respect to emotions and imagination, the ideal is invested with imageries and passion. Faith gives joy to an action that becomes a habitual practice and eventually assimilates into nature. One’s willpower strengthens one’s faith by being mentally alert to obtaining a conscious state of mind. At this stage, the spirit is still under tension and has yet to relax, albeit it delights in its perseverance. Virtue is cultivated once habits turn into nature. A person achieves the unity of human nature and the Way of Heaven, and the latter becomes, as it were, inherent in one’s reason. Just as Wang Fuzhi puts it, “the ‘I’ is the master of virtues and the director of mind.”⁵¹ In a similar way, Wang Yangming astutely pointed out that “the heart has no fundamental substance; what is accomplished through practical effort is its substance.”⁵² Originally, the heart is the function rather than the substance of human beings; however, the spirit, as it unfolds in practical effort, becomes the virtuous master and the director of the mind in the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven. Therefore, the spirit always abides in its singular consistency and constancy in the vicissitudes of human life. Such an individualized free spirit eventually acquires ontological meaning. So much for the account of the transformation of theory into virtue.

The All-Around Development of Character The ontological meaning of free individual is the unity of knowledge, the will, and emotion; truth, good, and beauty are united in the all-around developed character. In ancient times, in the philosophical conception, the sages and heroes belonged to a distinct class from the masses, and freedom was also limited to the few. The free individual we are discussing here is accessible to every ordinary person. Certainly, natural dispositions cause every person to develop a singular personality. That being so, similarities are nonetheless discernable among people, be they workers, peasants, intellectuals, theorists, artists, or activists; people always seek the allaround development of rational and irrational capacities while cultivating their distinct talents. With such all-around development, the cultivated character cannot but be free. For instance, artisanal skills are for attaining the unity of truth, good,

 Wang Fuzhi, “An Expanded Reading of the Book of Songs,” in Wang Fuzhi 2011, 472.  Huang Zongxi, Case Studies of Ming Confucians, in Huang Zongxi 2012, Vol. VII, 3.

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and beauty as well as the unity of knowledge, the will, and emotion if the application of such skills is to be accompanied by happiness. In the meanwhile, for theory to transform into the ideal, and then into faith, and eventually into virtue, character should have to attain the unity of knowledge, the will, and emotion, as well as the unity of truth, good, and beauty. The unity of truth, good, and beauty is an ancient notion, introduced in the pre-Qin period in China and in ancient Greece; it is the sphere of the ideal. Unity is attained in an upward spiral movement that transforms the being-in-itself to the being-for-itself. Some philosophers in the pre-Qin period, the Golden Tang era, and the Ming and Qin dynasties made explicit statements about grasping concrete truth and the all-around development of character. In the Western tradition, ancient Greek philosophers and intellectuals in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment had similar ideas. However, some historical eras and social conditions, such as despotic regime and the age of money worship, are more unfavorable to the all-around development of human nature. Our society provides conducive conditions for all-around development, even though some alienating factors that resulted in the one-sided development of human nature still remain. In order to fully develop people’s character, social institutions need to strive to unite humanism and socialism, since only such social institutions allow people to be free from mutual and material dependence.

Chapter 10 The Road to Human Freedom To know the world is one and the same as knowing the self; in the same way, to change the world is one and the same as developing and realizing the self. Human beings cultivate free individual in the activities that transform the ideal into reality while changing the world into humanized nature and an environment that suits the development of free individual. The entirety of human history is a progression towards freedom.

The Realm of Freedom and Its Realization The first question that is relevant is the relation between an action and its end. The freedom demanded by human essence constitutes the overarching goal or end of human action. The relation between the action and its end is therefore of great importance. Human history is composed of actions, the overarching goal of which is to reach the realm of freedom for the human race. The end pertaining to human action is often considered to be the pinnacle of the action, just as the summit is the end for mountain climbers: once they have reached the top, their action is complete. The end is the terminal of an action. Upon reaching the end, the action comes to a stop. The end of material production is material wealth, the end of artistic creation is the artwork, the end of revolution is political power, and so on. Such an end can be described as the final cause of a purposeful action. People are compelled by the final cause to reach the end; the completion of the action implies the attainment of the end. In this sense, the end transcends the action. However, the end and the means are sometimes interchangeable. Just as the value of the means and intrinsic values are sometimes interchangeable, the final cause can be turned into intrinsic reason. For instance, the purpose of slaughtering an ox is for its meat; in Zhuangzi’s fable of chef Pao Ding, however, the art of butchering is itself a pleasure, its end is not limited to the meat, but is found in the entire process of the action. Zhuangzi’s fable turns the butcher’s art into a spiritual action that contains its own intrinsic end. The realm of freedom must be set up as the overarching end if humanity wishes to accomplish the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. The end is indeed beyond our reach; as Marx conceived it, it is the ultimate of human history. But the end is also intrinsic to the human race, since the realm of freedom evolves in human history. Humanity’s progress from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom exhibits an upward spiral movement. The realm of freedom can be said to be the ulhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-011

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timate cause of human action, because it is an end that lies in the distance future. The ultimate cause, in its own right, is a relative term, since, after all, it needs to unfold and hence is immanent in human history. In this regard, the realm of freedom is considered to be the immanent cause of human action. The ultimate cause is transfigured into causa sui, the self-cause, and the interaction of actions. The ultimate cause is actually the self-cause of human action, that is, the interaction of a series of events initiated by the agent. Concerning the totality of the original and factual realms, the ultimate cause is the movement of material itself, a state in which substance and function remain undivided (體用不二 ti yong bu er). With regard to the differentiated materials and individualized reality, the undivided substance and function constitute the self-cause, while everything else is the effect of a series of chance encounters. In the realm of values, the self-motion of the materials in the realm of necessity still holds the status of being the basis and precondition; however, because individuality acquires ontological meaning in this realm, the realm of freedom actually evolves in the interactions among the individualities. Therefore, the end of freedom and the road to it become one and the same. Admittedly, history does not shoot forward in a straight line, so the realm of freedom can only be reached in stages, and the path can be tortuous, but conform to an overall contour of upward spiral motion. In what follows, we shall give a brief account of the realm of freedom and the road to it in accordance with the principles of a reasonable value system. In the first place, in terms of the debate on the relation between the community and the self, that is, the unity of collective and individual principles, society will be transfigured into a union of free individuals. The realm of freedom is a society that has achieved the unity of liberated individuality and the great unity, as Li Daozhao conceived them. It is the union of free individuals, the ideal end of communism; it is achieved when the human race finally eliminates the alienation of labor and material dependence as well as mutual dependence. As the ultimate goal, such a society is the ideal to which many noble-minded people have dedicated their lives. This is the end of our future generations. In terms of the meaning that is intrinsic to activities, every significant bit of progress that humanity has made contributes to the liberation of individuality, and fosters congeniality and solidarity as well as equality and compassion in social institutions. The communist ideal of the union of free individuals is not forever beyond reach. It is our ideal, but it is also a realistic end to be fulfilled in the future. In the meantime, it is a demand originating from ordinary people’s experience of the possibility of reality in their revolutionary practice and daily life; it is the demand of human nature. True love, be it a sexual relationship, a friendship, family ties, or relationship between teachers and students, always springs from mutual respect. Only such a re-

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lationship gives people the sense of free individuality. Revolutionary organizations that have true combat effectiveness, and rational educational institutions and labor unions require the creation of loving and trusting relationships in which people have freedom of thought, dignity, and respect. Only such organizations can be full of joie de vivre. Without loving and trusting relationship, an organization can shackle individualities so much so that loses its vitality. Such phenomena do appear in everyday life. In this sense, the ideal of the unity of liberated individuality and the great unity is not beyond the reach of the human race since it is the summation and requirement of human progress. Human history is first of all the history of labor. Therefore, the organization of production plays a pivotal role in the realization of the liberation of individuality and the great unity. A certain mode of organization that combines productive forces and the materials of production is essential for actual production. The organization of production in a natural economy is characterized by human dependence that evolved from kinship to a patriarchal clan system and feudal hierarchical institutions. Then, material dependence emerged as society embarked on a commercial economy. Eventually, humanity will overcome the two forms of dependence so that the organization of production will truly become the union of free individuals. A society based on such forms of organization can be described as the realm of freedom in Marx’s conception. Human beings must be sociable in order to organize production to effectively acquire materials for living and productive capacity. Therefore, community is a necessary condition for human development. A person cannot flourish outside of an organized unity. Social community has its own historical development; it is tied to kinship and clan system in the natural economy, which is essentially based on blood ties. Xunzi noted the characteristics of kinship and remarked: “Ritual and moral principles are its standard for good form. The constant relationships of human society and the natural categories of things are its principle of order.”¹ In another place, he stated: “Ritual principles have three roots. Heaven and Earth are the root of life. Forebears are the root of kinship. Lords and teachers are the root of order.”² Rites and righteousness emerged to reinforce the sociability of kinship. This is what he described as the clear definition of class divisions which gives form to society.³ Xunzi conceived of rites as social orders that maintained human relationships according to Confucian ethical code. In a legitimate marriage, the blood tie between father and son is parallel to the relation between the sovereign and the vassals in the court. The

 Xunzi, “On the Way of Ministers:9,” in Xunzi 1999, 435.  Xunzi, “Discourse on Ritual Principles:4,” in Xunzi 1999, 606.  See Xunzi, “On Enriching the State:1,” in Xunzi 1999, 265.

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hierarchy characterized by personal dependency is inevitable at the beginning of human history, but it gradually becomes a repressive force for the cultivation of individuality. In modern times, after the overturn of feudal institutions, community was transfigured into modern industrialized production. Collective organization is the form of production in modern industry and is characterized by a compartmentalized division of labor and scientific procedure. In such a form of production, every worker is a member, as if he or she were a screw in the collective machinery, the operation of which is dependent on materials. The collective machinery is an agent that transforms raw materials into products. In a capitalist society, capitalists own the means of production, so they are in control of the production process and occupy the upper rungs of the ladder in society. Material dependence is historically inevitable in such a form of production, so the worker is deprived of the all-around development of individuality. Therefore, individuality is given no opportunity to emerge. It is only in a communist society that the human race acquires the free development of individuality, and society is transformed into a union of free individualities. Marx described the union as the realm of freedom. The capacities of each individual can be fully developed in such a union. The collective is by no means the opposite of individuality, nor does it hinder the free development of individuality. The notion of the sagely king becomes redundant in this society, as do great heroic figures who have been placed above the common people. It is a society of equal, loving, and free individuals. Certainly, people still need to engage in production, since the more advanced production is, the more demanding human needs become. After all, the society is still in the realm of necessity in which producers are united to conduct most human material exchanges between humankind and nature through scientific means. Human production is in accordance with the laws of necessity, and therein lies freedom as well. On this basis, people can proceed to develop, with the humanity itself as the end, their creative talents and diverse skills, and cultivate truth, good, and beauty. In this regard, society becomes a unity that treats every individual’s free development as the prerequisite of the free development of the human race. In the second place, from the perspective of the principles of a reasonable value system that allows the all-around development of the human being, the realm of freedom and the road to freedom for humanity entail the full establishment of essential human power and civilized culture. The realm of freedom is indeed the ideal sphere of the true, the good, and the beautiful, in which culture and essential human power are given free development. All-around development, to put it in Li Dazhao’s phrase, is the transformation of the flesh and the soul, i. e., material and spiritual development. Li Dazhao saw the two kinds of transformation as two cultural movements, one changes the spiritual aspect of human society, while the other the economical aspect. The two movements, like the wheels of a

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cart or the wings of a bird, cannot exist without each other. The spiritual and economical changes eliminate the opposition between mental and physical labor and bring about the ideal unity of socialism and humanism. Freedom, as the realization of the ideal, concentrates on human nature and culture that are the expression of essential human power. As has been stated, essential human power is created and nurtured in culture. Therefore, cultural development and essential human power are closely connected. With respect to culture, material and spiritual transformations are inseparable; with respect to essential human power, the free development of the human spirit is not to be isolated from productive practice. In addition, manual and mental labor can further facilitate mutual development. The division between manual and mental labor is a long-established social practice, a necessary phenomenon in a society with lowlevel productive forces. Such a division of labor is accompanied by the unilateral cultures and human nature nurtured in such conditions. As a result, the cultures of the people, the elites, the artisans, and the literati are mutually exclusive to the extent that folk culture is unable to overcome its spontaneity, while elitist culture loses its vitality for the lack of having a nourishing soil among the people. Therefore, such exclusiveness is unfavorable to the development of culture and essential human power. In order to have healthy development, folk culture and elitism should be integrated to bring together the ideal and the reality. As Lu Xun puts it, it is to plant trees and flowers in fertile soil. Indeed, some historical times that are more favorable to the concerted development of the material and spiritual, such as the pre-Qin period in Chinese history, ancient Greece, and the Renaissance in Western civilization, are able to nourish thinkers who advocate theories of the all-around development of individuality. The all-around development of culture and essential human power is conditioned on fully cultivated rational and nonrational faculties as well as on consciousness and unconsciousness. It is actually tantamount to the full development of reason, emotion, and the will, truth, good, and beauty. Human beings are not born with innate knowledge of the world and the self. Even to the present day, our knowledge of the world and the self is very limited. Having said that, human action is nonetheless conscious, and human consciousness strives to abide by rational guidance. Therein lies the distinction between the human race and the lower animals. In this regard, human culture is different from the bees making beehives and the spider weaving its web, since it is an outcome of conscious and rational action. In effect, the unconsciousness underlies the consciousness and the nonrational faculties exert their influence spontaneously, as they do not always entirely follow rational guidance. Therefore, it can be said that human culture requires the combined effort of rational and nonrational powers, the conscious as well as the unconscious. For instance, religion has a significant influence

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on cultural development, but religious persuasion involves a large number of nonrational, and even anti-rational or superstitious elements. In this regard, human nature does have its share of animal nature. Any culture inevitably interweaves the beautiful with the plain, the good with the bad. Cultural heritage is a given; and many people, in receiving tradition, fail to acquire a clear understanding of its dual nature. They accept the whole tradition without first making an inquiry into its positive and negative aspects, an attitude that betrays the receivers’ nonrational and unconscious mind. In this sense, the creation of culture and its inheritance involve both rational and nonrational powers. Human beings often neglect to understand their own creations, their use of their creations is more often than not based on nonrational assessments. As society and circumstances undergo changes, new interpretations of culture become urgent. For instance, slave labor in particular historical conditions contains inhuman elements, but many cultural miracles, such as the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China, would not be possible without slave labor. The power of the enslaved population was not acknowledged at that time; however, is recognized thousands of years later. Artisanal creation is another such example. The work of handicraft tends to be spontaneous, and its aesthetic significance has to wait for recognition by later generations. It can be said that such interpretations reveal the latent significance of artisanal works, since the power of their original creators is unconscious and only perceived in later ages. We certainly should be wary of rushing into irrational conclusions here. As our society advances, reason increasingly occupies the dominant position, and nonrational and unconscious power rely on reason to provide relevant interpretations. Moreover, along with the development of essential human power, human desires, emotions, intuition, and instinct are gradually invested with rationality; irrational inclinations are accordingly in decline. That being so, we should watch out for rational despotisms, such as normative Neo-Confucian idealism, that can lead to bloodshed through rational persuasion. Our mission is to attain the harmony of the rational and the nonrational as well as the harmony of knowledge, emotion, and the will, to create a culture that encompasses the true, the good, and the beautiful, and to transfigure essential human power into virtues. In the third place, we must touch on the unity of natural and human principles that are embedded in the debate about the relationship between Heaven and humanity, and the reasonable value system and the realm of freedom that amount to the humanization of nature and the naturalization of the Way of human. The goal of the realm of freedom is to realize the unity of natural and human principles, and to achieve the unity of nature and humanity. The spirit evolves from natural evolution, and human beings create culture and values through free labor so that the spirit is transfigured into free individual, and eventually reaches the sphere in which humanity and nature become one. This unity can be interpretated from two

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perspectives. First, concepts such as values, virtues, and beauty mean nothing to the natural world as original reality; they are relative to human beings and to the functions of beings-for-ourselves. Reality contains values in potential states that are yet to be actualized. Potentiality exists outside of human consciousness. In terms of original reality, Heaven and humanity do not interfere in each other’s affairs. Therefore, human beings can transform nature and create values through their struggles in order to humanize nature, realize the realm of values, and build for the human race a true, good, and beautiful habitat. Second, the humanization of nature is tied to the naturalization of humanity. The Way of human has its origin in human nature, which is by nature neither benevolent nor beautiful. However, human beings are capable, through inherent instinct and potentialities formed in the long course of social practice, of making use of viable possibilities to create values and cultivate the Way of human. It has to be noted that what the original reality provides us with is viable possibilities, and what human nature inherently possesses is instinct and potentialities. Potential powers can be brought into actualization, and viable possibilities can be used to create values; human nature is thus transfigured into the Way of human by concerted effort. The Way of human comes from nature, and eventually returns to nature. Only in this way, can it truly be the expression of virtues. In this process, the Way of human, as the expression of virtues, is naturalized. The realm of freedom, therefore, is both humanized nature and the naturalized human. For instance, when peasants sow seeds and workers plant seedlings, they want the plants to be arranged in an orderly manner so that they will grow into a beautiful sight. Nature thus has the impress of a human mark. Such is the humanization of nature. In the meantime, the Way of human manifests itself in the natural world, so that the peasants and observers are nurtured by the same aesthetic experience. Therefore, human beings and nature undergo a process of mutual benefit and attain the unity of opposites. Labor enables human beings to be differentiated from the lower animals and to stand in opposition to nature. Human beings will eventually overcome alienation and reach the unity of the human being and nature under particular conditions through struggle. This creates values and procures freedom; or, it is the concerted effort to realize the ideals through viable possibilities and human potentialities under certain conditions. In this process, potentialities become actual powers. For instance, the human being’s social instinct becomes a moral force in actual life, and sexual love is elevated to artistic talent in particular conditions. In a similar way, the logical categories and values that emerge from historical development and cultural practice also transform from being-in-itself to being-for-itself, and feed into actual powers of the spirit so as to become a part of wisdom. Free creation is always the outcome of human potentialities that transform into actual powers, which brings about humanized nature and the naturalized human. The

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“I,” in this sense, becomes free individual and strives to apply what it acquires from reality to reality. Consequently, logical categories turn into ways of thinking, values into virtues, and wisdom into actual power. Thereby, the sphere of freedom that is also a philosophical sphere, in which Heaven and the human become one and the same, is finally attained. In the value system, free individual is the substance, and the thing created in freedom is the function. However, individual life is finite, as Zhuangzi lamented: “There is a limit to our life, but to knowledge there is no limit. With what is limited to pursue after what is unlimited is a perilous thing.”⁴ So, he proposed sitting and forgetting the world and fasting the mind in order to reach the sphere of identification with the Great Way. This is his so-called spiritual sphere of absolute freedom, in which “Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one.”⁵ The infinite sphere is reached not through knowledge but wisdom. We cannot bring ourselves to agree with Zhuangzi’s mystical exultation of the primordial state of chaos, but there is nothing mystical about the agent’s rational intuition becoming one with nature so that the spirit apprehends the infinite in the finite. As a matter of fact, ordinary people may have a similar experience in creative activities. This is neither to return to the primordial chaos nor to human nature as Neo-Confucians conceived it. Rather, it is not only the transformation of theory into virtues through human effort, but also the fulfillment of the humanization of nature and the naturalization of virtues; in this process, the collective of free individuals establishes the realm of freedom that unites humanity and nature in cultural life. All these actions are creations of free individuality and are thus invested with individual characteristics. Admittedly, in relation to individuality, the realm of values is diversified. However, in relation to the union of free individuals, the realm of values is the product of the all-around development of human nature as well as the product of the humanization of nature and the naturalization of human. In this sense, the realm of values is objective and universal, it is not in the least a subjective illusion. The philosophical sphere to which philosophers and artists aspired has its specific emphasis because of its particular characteristics; it is expressed as the opposition between Confucianism and Daoism in ancient philosophy, such as between Mencius and Xunzi, and Zhu Xi, Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming. Divergent and even opposing views are inevitable in an ancient civilization. As Zhang Xuecheng put it, the contention between Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan is eternally indispensable; Huang Zongxi made a similar remark about the learn Zhuangzi, “Nourishing the Lord of Life:1,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/nourishing-the-lord-of-life/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  Zhuangzi, “The Adjustment of Controversies,” in Zhuangzi, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/adjustment-of-controversies/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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ing of the hundred ideas. That being said, an investigation into philosophical development from the perspective of the unity of logic and history can certainly extract a universality that is not to be understood in the abstract, but in its dynamics. This is intrinsic to the development of individuality. The Book of Changes claims that “all [thoughts] come to the same (successful) issue, though by different paths; there is one result, though there might be a hundred anxious schemes.”⁶ This statement can be said to be the law of the development of philosophy and wisdom as well as the realm of freedom.

The Prospect of Chinese Development The first section of this chapter has been devoted to general issues concerning human progress towards the realm of freedom based on the principle of values. Our chief concern, however, is the prospects for Chinese society. Our inquiry into this particular question is also based on the principle of values and can be expounded in three points. First, Chinese society will have to become an organism that is capable of selfadjustment and improvement. Our ideal is to attain the end that is the unity of liberated individuality and the great unity, and the unity of humanism and socialism, so that Chinese society becomes the union of free individuals. Then, how to reach this end? Mao Zedong proposed to eliminate classes and approach the great unity in stages, proceeding from the people’s republic to socialism, and finally to communism. He believed that gradual completion was the only right path for achieving the great unity in the People’s Republic of China in which the organ of dictatorship is directed at the enemy while the people enjoy a democratic regime; and for correctly dealing with the conflicts of two different natures so as to create a political situation that is centralized yet democratic, disciplined yet free, unified yet individualized. His doctrine is reasonable in that the conflicts of two different natures must be dealt with in different ways in order for the state to be firmly established. However, later on, Mao Zedong introduced class struggle as his sole political agenda and consequently fell into dogmatism and voluntarism, forgetting his own claim that democracy and socialism are impossible without the liberation of individuality. In a country based on a small-scale peasant economy, socialism without liberated individuality inevitably turns into centralized rule that promulgates fantasies of agricultural socialism in which neither the liberation of individuality

 Zhuangzi, “Xi Ci:4,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext. org/book-of-changes/xi-ci-xia/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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nor socialism can be possible. An agricultural socialism is, if anything, a distorted socialism. Now, we want to build a socialism with Chinese characteristics and open up to the rest of the world; our political agenda is no longer class struggle. This is the right move, even as the liberation of individuality has yet to become the center of attention. Modernization is a monumental project that includes economic reform, the advancement of productive forces and political democracy, promulgation of the rule of law, and the development of education and the cultivation of the people. All these aspects can benefit or hamper each other, so none of them should be neglected. Our modernization should be approached from a systematic and dialectic perspective. Due to the lack of dialectical awareness, we have experienced many metaphysical and pragmatic inclinations that have added further complications in our society. Therefore, the first priority in Chinese modernization is to clear up the alienating forces that have combined the worship of power and money left by semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The worship of power and money is the worst of evils in the Chinese heritage, it constitutes the archenemy of freedom. In order to vanquish the forces of alienation, political, economic, educational, and cultural reforms must be combined to achieve a comprehensive renovation of society. Only an organic collaboration among all aspects of social reform can gradually create a self-adjusting and improving society that is full of vitality. Chinese society at the present stage is far from reaching the goal. Second, in terms of the principle of all-around development demanded by culture and essential human power, we should encourage contention among numerous schools of thought and re-evaluate our cultural heritage. We need a clear awareness that Chinese society has been backward, ignorant, and poor, and literacy has been extremely low. Hu Shi once remarked that China was plagued by five demons (poverty, disease, ignorance, corruption, and social unrest); indeed, the five demons still haunt us. We have a brilliant cultural tradition, but it does have many shortcomings when confronted with the overbearing Western cultural influence. Consequently, people began to doubt the historical destiny of Chinese civilization, wondering if it would come to an end and became an antique destined for the museum. Many people are troubled by this problem. Intellectuals and thinkers in modern China have reflected on the prospects of Chinese culture and raised the debate about the relation between the old and the new culture, and between Chinese culture and Western culture. Chinese communists rejected both the view that urged complete Westernization and the view that held that Chinese culture should be the substance, while Western culture should be the function. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai believed that the culture of the people’s anti-imperial and anti-feudal struggle required a national form, scientific content, and the will of the general public. This view has been acknowledged as a scientific conclu-

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sion. Practicing this line of thought, Chinese Marxism has made great accomplishments. That being so, it has also brought about some unhappy events, such as the Great Cultural Revolution. So, after the tumultuous ten years of the Cultural Revolution, many people were doubtful about whether it was even possible to continue being guided by the ideas of Chinese culture with national characteristics. Different opinions emerged and the debate was vehement. It is common—and also a good sign—for a society to sustain a healthy discussion of different points of view. After all, we have long left behind the exclusive veneration for the Confucian classics and the worship of the person of Mao Zedong. It is fitting that we are creating an age in which hundreds of schools of thought contend with each other. In order to construct a new culture, China must conduct a comprehensive investigation of its tradition and acquire a thorough understanding of the cultures of other nations. This task requires the efforts of many people and includes a diversity of issues that demand precise research. Therefore, different schools of thought and divergent opinions inevitably emerge. The situation confronting us is the contention of numerous schools of thought on a cosmic scale. Every person can, in his or her own capacity, voice opinions on the question of how to solve the conflicts between cultural heritage and Western influence, as this question is best solved through open discussion. The process will certainly be laborious, because open discussion is not yet a well-established practice in China. However, free discussion and contention among numerous schools of thought are the right means to re-evaluate the Chinese cultural heritage. All things considered, criticism, adaption, and improvement of our cultural tradition is indispensable to the creation of a new culture. Without a doubt, it will be a gradual progress to understand, adapt, and improve traditional heritage. Thousands of years of history have endowed the Chinese cultural tradition with tremendous power, tantamount to a habitual force, that functions spontaneously in the people’s minds, be it good or bad influence. Regardless of the question of whether the people are conscious or unconscious of its influence, the habitual force acts on their unconscious instincts. In the past hundred years, modern Chinese have made great efforts to reflect on the cultural tradition, but a clear understanding has yet to be achieved. Our goal is to reach the all-around development of culture and essential human power. In our pursuit of the goal, we should bear in mind that some aspects of our cultural tradition ought to be disavowed, while others should be promoted. In effect, some notions have undergone fundamental changes in modern times. With respect to the debate on the relation between the old and the new ways, modern people believe that the ideal is in the future rather than in the remote past, and that it is realized through the revolutionary struggles of the people. This perspective is far removed from ancient notions. Moreover, the authoritarianism of the old society has been replaced with the modern principle of freedom, and Confucian teachings have

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been replaced with scientific thinking. All these new notions are fundamental reforms that can be described as a continuous discontinuation of our heritage that constitutes revolutionary reform. The long history of feudal despotism nourished great veneration for Confucianism in Chinese society; for instance, Neo-Confucians urged the people to preserve the Heavenly principles and eliminate human desires, advocated rational despotic rule, and justified fatalism, so their teachings impeded the all-around development of culture and individuality. Modern thinkers called for revolutionary reforms and triumphed in political revolution by resorting to the people’s actions to overthrow the despotic regime. In the process, the potential revolutionary worldview of the people is transformed from being spontaneous to conscious. However, the conscious state is far from complete. It will be an arduous process to entirely eradicate the forces of habit formed over thousands of years and the partiality encouraged by rational despotism. Moreover, the opposition between rationalism and non-rationalism has yet to be resolved. Therefore, we must continue the criticism and selection of cultural heritage. But having said that, even as some aspects of our cultural tradition should be discarded, this by no means implies that the entire tradition is to be dispatched to the museum. This suggestion, in my opinion, is anything but sound. The fine qualities of the Chinese cultural tradition ought to be promoted. The goal of the all-around development of culture and essential human power cannot appear out of thin air, and its realization requires the continuation of the fine aspects of our cultural tradition. Freedom and tolerance in cultural and scholarly discussion and a willingness to learn from other cultures are the foundation on which we pursue the all-around development. Our cultural tradition, though rather flawed, contains many qualities that can be conducive to our present enterprise. Of course, we should be aware of the detrimental elements inevitably hidden in our cultural heritage that originated in the autocratic regime. However, tolerance and free speech are indeed often encouraged in ancient China. For instance, the pre-Qin period and the Golden Tang era witnessed hundreds of schools of thought; progressive thinkers of the Ming and Qing dynasties openly contended with Neo-Confucians and advocated for the idea of the all-around development of individuality; and the May Fourth Movement of 1919 was distinguished by its free speech and exuberant modern ideas. In general, Chinese culture has been eclectic and all-embracing, possessing a majestic power. It is a power with great momentum, even as it contains some dross, just as great rivers and oceans take in whatever flows into them. With regard to science, ethics, and art, Chinese tradition has evolved national characteristics and a deeply rooted naïve dialectical tradition, in particular, the principle of consciousness in moral action and the doctrine of inspiration in aesthetics. These characteristics are distinct from the Western tradition. These traditional characteristics certainly have their pros and cons, so it is vital for us to learn

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from the Western tradition to make up for our deficiency. In this way, our new culture, in acquiring a thorough understanding of Chinese and Western cultures, can be expected to have a more comprehensive development. On this account, the contention and thriving of numerous schools of thought are an indispensable necessity. Third, with regard to the debate on the relation between Heaven and humanity, and the ideal sphere in which human beings and nature become one, we ought to promote Chinese traditional wisdom and carry on the philosophical revolution. The philosophical revolution emerged in modern China was informed by fierce political struggles and modern Western thought. It advocated competition and struggle, calling upon the people to combat against nature. This quality is entirely foreign to ancient philosophy, which places emphasis on the golden mean, mediation, and unity. Modern Chinese thinkers, such as Zhang Taiyan, believed that competition yielded wisdom, and revolution produced intelligent people. Revolutionary theories introduced the notion of competition to the Chinese mind; later on, Chinese Marxists singled out class struggle as the most important aspect of competition. Naturally, progressive thinkers have great sympathy for many ancient philosophical ideas, such as Xunzi’s combat against Heaven, Liu Yuxi’s intense rivalry between Heaven and human beings, and Wang Fuyi’s creating one’s own destiny. But some modern thinkers focused so narrowly on the power of the heart as to lean towards voluntarism and dogmatism. The notions of competition and rivalry, though modern inventions, can nonetheless encourage extreme tendencies. Human beings may strive to become nature’s master in the combat against nature, but freedom is only attained through unity with nature after it is subdued. Humanity must reach harmony with the natural world so that internal nature, i. e., human nature, has access to free development. This is actually similar to the ancient conception of the philosophical sphere in which Heaven and humanity become one. Humanity cannot be content in a servile position before nature but must endeavor to dominate nature through struggle and knowledge; nor can humankind be antagonistic toward nature, which would be as good as destroying human nature; nor can the human race impair the dynamic balance between humans and nature. Therefore, the right approach is to be firmly grounded in social practice in order to effectuate the dynamic unity of humans and Heaven in the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven. Such is the necessary conclusion we have reached after a logical and historical investigation of ancient and modern Chinese philosophy. Wisdom gives humanity the highest degree of freedom; when wisdom is transformed into virtues, free individuality acquires ontological meaning. In the interaction between human nature and the Way of Heaven, through the humanized nature and the naturalized Way of human, free individuality achieves a dynamic

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harmony between humankind and nature. The dynamic unity in our conception is contrary to the dogmatic philosophy of struggle and static unity. The oneness of Heaven and humanity in Confucians’ conception is a static unity that belongs to metaphysics. Their doctrine of the restoration of human nature evinces a metaphysical inclination and errs in treating the moral norms of a particular historical stage as universal; accordingly, it conflates the necessary with the inevitable. A classic example of universalizing moral norms can be found in the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, who treated the Supreme Absolute as the ultimate good and believed that what is endowed by Heaven is nature, that the full array of diverse natural ways is the Way, and that the cultivation of the Way is education. In their minds, moral education can restore the original state of the human race, which would eventually lead to the unity of Heaven and humanity. Humanity, upon attaining the Supreme Absolute in the unity, can be said to have returned to its original state. In this sense, their conception of the unity is as static existence rather than as dynamic development, and their metaphysical inclination inevitably leads to fatalism. Other schools of thought proposed alternative answers to the relationship between Heaven and humanity. In its exposition of the good, the Book of Changes states that “the successive movement of the inactive and active operations constitutes what is called the course (of things). That which ensues as the result (of their movement) is good; that which shows it [good] in its completeness is the natures (of men and things).”⁷ Hence it deduces that “the superior man, in accordance with this, nerves himself to ceaseless activity.”⁸ So, the Book of Changes treats the interaction between Heaven and humanity as a dynamic movement. Wang Fuzhi elaborated on the notion of cultivating the good to complete nature, believing that human nature can be improved and renewed in ceaseless activities on daily basis. Wang Fuzhi saw human nature and the Way of Heaven as influencing and transforming each other through the perceptual activities of seeing, hearing, tasting, and so on. Seen from the perspective of social practice, his theory can be understood in the following terms: on the one hand, people understand the world and themselves in practice, ceaselessly transforming beings-in-themselves to beings-for-ourselves so as to humanize nature; on the other hand, people make use of humanized nature to cultivate essential human power so as to naturalize the Way of human. In the process, the human race acquires a higher degree of freedom in the interaction between Heaven and humanity and moves closer to  “The Great Treatise I:5,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https:// ctext.org/book-of-changes/xi-ci-shang/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.  “Qian:1,” in Book of Changes, James Legge (Trans.), Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/book-ofchanges/qian/ens, last accessed June 5, 2022.

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a society of free individuals that is based on the all-around development of individuality, and in which the productive forces become common wealth. The profound philosophical tradition of Chinese naïve dialecticism is rich in wisdom; a wisdom that understands humans and nature, being and essence, the knowledge of the world and the self as a dynamic movement of the unity of opposites. This is the quintessential point of Chinese dialecticism. In terms of ways of thinking, the logical categories of class, cause, and reason place special stress on their being opposite yet complementary notions. In terms of freedom, we have conducted a comprehensive investigation of the theories of freedom and value in the history of Chinese philosophy and extracted a reasonable value system that features the unity of the principles of nature and humans, the principle of the allaround development of humans, and the unity of the collective and the individual. The national characteristic of wisdom in ancient Chinese philosophy is all the more accentuated in modern times, particularly when it is being measured against Western thought. The modern Chinese philosophical revolution has attained great achievements, however, if we continue to improve our understanding of Western as well as Chinese culture to facilitate philosophical discourse, including thorough investigations of ways of thinking and theories of value, and summations of views of the world and the self, Chinese wisdom will certainly reach an even higher sphere.

Postscript Feng Qi (1915 – 1995) was one of the few original, systematic philosophers in the second half of the 20th century in Chinese mainland. His unique contribution to philosophy is his theory of wisdom. He is also remembered for his expertise on the history of Chinese philosophy. Feng Qi was born in Zhuji County, Zhejiang Province. He was enrolled in the department of philosophy at Tsinghua University in 1935, where he studied with Jin Yuelin (1895 – 1984), Feng Youlan (1895 – 1990), etc. His study was interrupted because he was actively involved in the anti-Japanese war. He resumed his study in 1939 at South West Associated University joined by Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Nankai University. After he finished his B.A., he entered the graduate school and finished his M.A. thesis in 1944. After that, he taught at Yunan University, Tongji University, Fudan University, and in 1951 he came to the newly established East China Normal University (ECNU) where he spent the rest of his life. He passed away suddenly in March 1, 1995. Soon after his death, a committee was formed in the Department of Philosophy, ECNU, to edit and publish Feng’s writings. The first edition of Collected Works of Feng Qi (hereafter Collected Works, 10 volumes) was published by ECNU Press from 1996 – 1998. In 2015 the Department launched a series of activities commemorating the centennial anniversary of Feng’s birth. One of them was the publication of the second and expanded edition of Collected Works (11 volumes), again by ECNU Press in early 2016. Feng’s most important writings are the “three discourses on wisdom” (Knowing the World and Knowing the Self, The Dialectics of Logical Thinking, and Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful – all were published posthumously in 1996) and “two histories of Chinese philosophy” (The Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy, first published in 1983 – 1985, and The Revolutionary Process of Modern Chinese Philosophy, first published in 1989). Human Freedom and the Values of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is translated into English mainly by Jeanne Haizhen Allen. Christopher Ahn and Liu Liangjian help to polish the translation. This team is led and organized by Prof. Gong Hua’nan with the support from the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences (20WZXB014). Prof. Yu Zhenhua, Prof. Yao Xinzhong, Prof. Yang Guorong, Prof. Fu Changzhen, Dr. Hong Cheng, Dr. Xiang Feng, Mrs. Xia Haihan and Mrs.Zhu Huahua have also made invaluable contribution. We want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all those involved in this project of translation.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-012

Glossary artistic conception 意匠 yi jiang artistic sphere 意境 yi jing aspiration, willpower, resolution 志 zhi associations 興 xing beauty 美 mei bright numinous awareness 昭明靈覺 zhao ming yin jue calm and insight 止觀 zhi guan character 人格 cherishing oneself 貴己 gui ji completing nature 成性 cheng xing completing the human 成人 cheng ren obedience to destiny 順命 shun ming concentration and wisdom 定慧 ding hui create one own’s destiny 造命 zao ming doctrine of the Five Phases 五行 wu xing establishing human nature by following emotions 循情定性 xun qing ding xing exert the mind to the utmost 盡心 jin xin extension of innate knowledge 致良知 zhi liang zhi fasting the mind 心齋 xin zhai fine force 精氣 jing qi for the sake of the self 為我 wei wo good, beneficence 善 shan Heavenly allotted destiny and human effort 命力 ming li innate capacity 良能 liang neng integrity 誠 cheng intelligence 明 ming intention 意yi laws of necessity 必然之理 bi ran zhi li moral character, virtue 品德 pin de natural endowment 气禀 qi bing natural principles 當然之則 dang ran zhi ze natural ruler 天君 tian jun occasions 數 su power of the heart 心力 xin li pragmatic learning 事功之學 shi gong zhi xue proper measure 正權 zheng quan restoration of human nature 復性 fu xing school of Dark Learning 玄学 Xuan Xue school of Mind 心學 xin xue self-possession 涵養 han yang sitting and forgetting 坐忘 zuo wang situation 勢 shi spirit as the function of the body 形質神用 xing zhe shen yong study of humanity 仁學 ren xue https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-013

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substance 本體 ben ti substance and function remain undivided 體用不二 ti yong bu er Supreme Absolute 太極 tai ji true man 真人 zhen ren truth 真 zhen understanding 明 ming understanding and self-consciousness 覺解 jue jie unity of knowledge and action 知行合一 zhi xing he yi untroubled ease 逍遙 xiao yao vital energy 气 Way of Heaven 天道 tian dao Way of human 人道 ren dao without-self 無我 wu wo

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Index Aristotle Bai Juyi Bazarov

52 – 54, 171, 191 191 179

Cai Yuanpei 213 Cao Cao 198 Cao Pi 187 Carlyle, Thomas 105 Chen Duxiu 85, 161, 194 Chen Liang 78, 119, 208 f., 211 Chen Zi’ang 190 Cheng Hao 25, 207 Christianity 23, 101 – 104, 154 Confucius 8 f., 22, 24, 40, 53, 61, 69, 73 – 79, 81, 83, 102 – 104, 107, 113, 124, 144 – 146, 149, 155, 161, 164, 172 f., 175, 186, 190, 201 – 203, 205 f., 211, 213, 219 f., 225 Copernican 105 Dai Zhen 75 – 77, 109, 146 f. Dark Learning (Xuan Xue) 10, 24, 75, 132, 205 f., 222 Dewey, John 15 Dong Zhongshu 75, 78, 154 Du Fu 200 Engels, Friedrich 20, 35, 38 f., 68, 70, 101, 129, 149, 166, 192 Feng Youlan 53, 62, 117, 147, 152, 243 F. L. G. Frege. 57 Freud 29, 111 Fromm, Erich 105 Gong Zizhen 13, 27, 85, 107, 109 f., 132 f., 137, 211 Gu Jiegang 94 Gu Kaizhi 189 Gu Yanwu 83 Guan Hanqing 200 Guan Zi 156 Guo Xiang 10 f., 205 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985757-015

Han Yu 133, 191, 200 Hegel 5, 14 f., 17, 41, 51 f., 115, 140, 183, 191, 198 Heidegger 140 Hermeneutics 65 Hobbes, Thomas 30 Hong Xiuquan 120, 125, 128, 212 Hu Shi 13, 29, 85, 194, 213, 237 Huang Zongxi 26, 56, 80 f., 83, 109, 176, 196, 210 f., 226, 235 Huang Zunxian 194 Ji Kang 10 f., 53, 187 f., 206 Ji Yun 189 Jia Sixie 43 Jiaoran 187 Jin Shengtan 193 Jin Yuelin 13 f., 62, 243 Kang Youwei 27 f., 86, 125 f. Kant, Immanuel 4, 14, 55, 106, 149, 154, 169 – 171 Laozi

9, 22 – 24, 66, 68, 73 f., 80, 114, 124 f., 129, 173, 175 f., 204, 222 Lenin, Vladimir 42 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 178, 192 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 99 f. Li Ao 24, 207 Li Bai 130, 200 Li Dazhao 30, 40, 47 f., 86 f., 120, 125, 134, 213, 218, 231 Li Quan 11, 108 Li Yu 192 f. Li Zhi 75, 83 Liang Qichao 13, 38 f., 85, 132, 161 f., 169, 193 f., 212 Liang Shuming 63, 137 f., 213 Liu Xiang 202 Liu Xie 180 – 183, 188 f. Liu Yuxi 240 Liu Zongyuan 11, 149, 207, 224 Lu Ji 180 f., 183

252

Index

Lu Jiuyuan 208, 235 Lu Xun 40, 52, 85 – 88, 110, 134, 138, 161 f., 166, 170, 191, 195, 200, 213, 232

Tao Yuanming Turgenev, Ivan Vienna Circle

Mao Zedong 14 f., 18, 63, 120, 126 – 128, 148, 214, 236 – 238 Marx, Karl (Marxism) 3, 5 – 7, 16, 19 – 21, 29 – 32, 34 f., 37 f., 67 – 72, 94, 101, 113, 133, 135, 140, 146, 167, 192, 214, 216, 228, 230 f. Maslow, Abraham 198 Mengzi (Mencius) 8, 45, 47, 54, 65, 81, 131, 139, 145, 152, 164, 167, 170, 173, 187, 202 f. Moore, G.E. 32, 54, 68, 70 Mozi (Mohist School) 8 f., 23, 28 f., 47 – 50, 53, 70, 73 f., 76 – 78, 142 – 144, 146, 149, 151, 184 Neo-Kantian 60 Nietzsche, Friedrich Ouyang Xiu

110

200

Phenomenological 5 Piaget, Jean 33 Plato 41, 59, 94 Plekhanov, Georgi Valentinovic 52, 170 Positivism 13,110,140,141 Pragmatism 48,51,70,87,106,115,134,198 Qü Qiübai 13,14,41,63,87,88,213 Qu Yuan 94, 200 Quine, Willard Van Orman 99 Rodin, Auguste 176 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Ruan Ji 53 Russell, Bertrand 57

30

Sartre, Jean-Paul 5, 140 Shakespeare 71, 136 Sikong Tu 199 Socrates 164 Spinoza, Benedict 14, 144 Sun Yat-sen 13, 28, 86, 125 f., 212 Tan Sitong

85, 132

200 179 57

Wang Anshi 24 f., 76 f., 208 f. Wang Bi 10, 75, 205 Wang Changling 187 Wang Chong 10, 24, 205 Wang Fuzhi 12, 26 f., 33, 76 f., 80, 83, 85, 109, 123 – 125, 139, 155, 176, 195, 210 f., 225 f., 241 Wang Guowei 61, 110, 178, 193 f. Wang Shifu 200 Wang Yangming 25 f., 56, 83, 85, 133, 207, 209 f., 226, 235 Wang Yuhui 198 Wang Yuyang 199 Wei Yuan 153 Wen Tianxiang 168 Wen Yiduo 194 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 57, 140 Xie He 189 Xie Lingyun 206 Xiong Shili 62 Xunzi 9, 11, 23 f., 28 – 31, 50, 53, 70, 76, 79, 81 f., 107 f., 124 – 126, 143, 153, 158, 175 f., 181, 186, 202 f., 206, 222, 230, 235, 240 Yan Fu 12, 27 f., 85, 161, 212 Yan Yu 191, 194, 199 Yan Yuan 73, 83, 109, 202, 205 – 207 Yang Zhu 81 f. Ye Shi 78, 119, 208, 223 Ye Xie 178 Zen Buddhism 11, 24, 82 f., 85, 104, 108, 132 f., 191, 199, 206, 211, 222 Zhang Heng 115 Zhang Taiyan 12 f., 15, 28, 85 f., 107, 110, 115, 133, 161, 167, 212, 240 Zhang Xuecheng 235 Zhang Yanyuan 179, 189 Zhang Zai 80, 155 Zhou Enlai 237 Zhu Guangqian 62, 171, 178, 194

Index

Zhu Xi 25, 75, 78 f., 82 f., 154, 168, 207 – 209, 235, 241 Zhuangzi 6, 8 f., 22, 24, 30, 74, 80, 82, 85, 89, 94 – 96, 98, 100, 108, 113 f., 124, 132 f.,

169 f., 173 – 176, 190, 204, 217, 222, 228, 235 f. Zong Baihua 61, 194, 199

253