The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi 0674056094, 9780674056091

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The Dynamics of Masters Literature

Harvard-Yenching Institute Monographs 74

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The Dynamics of Masters Literature Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi

Wiebke Denecke

Published by the Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute Distributed by Harvard University Press Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2010

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© 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America The Harvard-Yenching Institute, founded in 1928 and headquartered at Harvard University, is a foundation dedicated to the advancement of higher education in the humanities and social sciences in East and Southeast Asia. The Institute supports advanced research at Harvard by faculty members of certain Asian universities and doctoral studies at Harvard and other universities by junior faculty at the same universities. It also supports East Asian studies at Harvard through contributions to the Harvard-Yenching Library and publication of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and books on premodern East Asian history and literature. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Denecke, Wiebke. The dynamics of masters literature : early Chinese thought from Confucius to Han Feizi / Wiebke Denecke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-05609-1 (acid-free paper) 1. Philosophy, Chinese--To 221 B.C. 2. Philosophical literature--China--History and criticism. 3. Chinese literature--To 221 B.C.--History and criticism. I. Title. B126.D45 2010 181'.11--dc22 2010040082

Selections from The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu by Burton Watson, Copyright Columbia University Press, have been reprinted with permission of the publisher. Index by the author Printed on acid-free paper

Last number below indicates year of this printing 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

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1968

Für Sigrid Lenk-Baustaedt und Walter-Max Lenk In ewiger Dankbarkeit für Euren Garten Eden

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Acknowledgments

This book is based on the dissertation I completed at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. I would like to express my deep gratitude to those who have helped shape this project throughout my years of graduate school: To Stephen Owen, whose books attracted me to Harvard in the first place and who has been a most commanding and most supportive advisor, always encouraging me to pursue my own visions. To Michael Puett, whose ideas attracted me to Early China and who has been a great inspiration on all fronts. To Waiyee Li, whose beautiful mind has been a source of wisdom and delight. And to Peter Bol, Wilt Idema, and Xiao-fei Tian, who have offered thought-provoking comments at different points in time. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. John Ziemer and Kristen Wanner have been remarkable editors and it has been a privilege to work with them. Colleagues at Barnard and Columbia have been congenial and supportive, and my particular thanks go to my department chair, Rachel McDermott, and to Paul Anderer, Michael Como, Bernard Faure, Bob Hymes, Dorothy Ko, Eugenia Lean, Li Feng, David Lurie, Max Moerman, Shang Wei, Haruo Shirane, and Guobin Yang. David Damrosch read every single chapter carefully and encouraged me to envision a broader audience. Beyond my institution, I owe thanks to Michael Lackner and Christoph Harbsmeier for introducing me to Early Chinese texts and supporting my path between Europe and the United States. I thank Alex Beecroft and Mioko Uchida for inspiring conversation and friendship. Various institutions have supported my work at different stages of the project. I would like to gratefully acknowledge the three-year support of the German National Merit Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) during my PhD studies. A grant from the German

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Acknowledgments

Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) and a Graduate Society Fellowship of Harvard University facilitated work on the thesis in the early stages. I am also most grateful to the Society of Fellows at Columbia University and the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, which offered generous scholarships that allowed me to proceed with revisions of the manuscript. Life would not be without my family: my extraordinary parents, my admirable sisters, and Zolti, my companion beyond time. They are undeserved blessings. W. D. Kyoto, August 2009

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Contents

Introduction: Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

1

1 The Faces of Masters Literature until the Eastern Han

32

2 Scenes of Instruction and Master Bodies in the Analects

90

3 From Scenes of Instruction to Scenes of Construction: Mozi

128

4 Interiority, Human Nature, and Exegesis in Mencius

153

5 Authorship, Human Nature, and Persuasion in Xunzi

180

6 The Race for Precedence: Polemics and the Vacuum of Traditions in Laozi

207

7 Zhuangzi and the Art of Negation

231

8 The Self-regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi

279

Epilogue: A Future for Masters Literature and Chinese Philosophy

326

Reference Matter Works Cited

349

Index

365

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The Dynamics of Masters Literature

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INTRODUCTION

Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

For centuries, Western scholars have recognized the fundamental relevance and importance of texts like the Analects of Confucius (Lunyu ) and the rich tradition that followed in Confucius’s ( , 551–479 bce) wake. Yet from the sixteenth century onward when Jesuit missionaries first began to translate these works, the Western understanding of this tradition has involved intractable problems of translation—not only in lexical terms, but in disciplinary terms as well. Just what are these texts? Often they have been considered under the rubric of “Chinese philosophy,” and yet this categorization—already problematic in the days of the early Jesuit missionaries—only became more problematic with the rise of philosophy as an academic discipline in the late nineteenth century, a discipline that was to be dominated in the twentieth century by analytic philosophy. Chinese and Western scholars alike have sought to show that the Confucian texts could be read as philosophy in the modern Western disciplinary sense, and yet the Analects and its progeny rarely resemble analytical treatises, seeming to often fall more on the side of gnomic wisdom or crafty persuasion. To the extent that they do so, they have often come under the shadow of the invidious distinction between “philosophy” and “rhetoric,” an imagined dualism of two unequal realms that ultimately goes back to Plato’s criticism of the sophists and their reputed strengths as teachers and orators. Around Plato’s time in the fourth century bce, philosophy was an anxious young discipline looking for ways to establish its

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2

Introduction

value against older, more trusted forms of knowledge such as public speech and poetry.1 But Plato’s agenda did not go unchallenged. Although filled with admiration for Socrates and Plato, Cicero—eminent politician, orator, and philosopher of the Late Roman Republic—took up the issue from the perspective of the Roman civic virtue of oratory and forcefully attacked what he considered Socrates’ (and by extension Plato’s) lamentable schism between philosophy and rhetoric: The people who discussed, practiced, and taught the subjects and activities we are now examining bore one and the same name (because knowledge of the most important things as well as practical involvement in them was, as a whole, called ‘philosophy’), but he [Socrates] robbed them of this shared title. And in his discussions he split apart the knowledge of forming wise opinions and of speaking with distinction, two things that are, in fact, tightly linked. [. . .] This was the source of the rupture, so to speak, between the tongue and the brain, which is quite absurd, harmful, and reprehensible, and which has resulted in our having different teachers for thinking and for speaking.2

In this passage from On the Orator, Cicero first cleverly concedes that philosophy should indeed encompass all the liberal sciences, but by the same token he argues that Socrates did not stand by his own convictions but robbed philosophy of its general sway by separating it into “rhetoric” and “philosophy” proper. Second, Cicero laments that students of his day have one teacher too many—a waste of resources. Third, and most significantly, Cicero accuses Socrates of disciplinary amputation. Severing “tongue” from “brain” is a crime against anatomy, against the unity of the human body as much as against the integrity of human wisdom, sapientia. Cicero populates his all-embracing realm of sapientia with Iliadic heroes, early Greek sages, and politicians who revel in the “amazing communion” of their tongues and brains. Against this backdrop of wise archaic Greek harmony, Cicero portrays Socrates as the mischievous surgeon of divisiveness. But he would not be Cicero if he did not turn the tables on himself, suggesting in the end that the schism induced by Socrates is not entirely disadvantageous to the Romans:

————— 1. Nightingale, Genres in Dialogue. 2. Cicero, De oratore III.60–61. Translation by May and Wisse, Cicero: On the Ideal Orator, 241–42.

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Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

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So, just as the rivers part at the watershed of the Apennines, the disciplines parted when flowing down from the common ridge of wisdom. The philosophers flowed into the Ionian Sea on the East, as it were, which is Greek and well provided with harbors, while the orators came down into our barbarian Tyrrhenian Sea on the West, which is full of reefs and dangers, and where even Odysseus himself had lost his way.3

The deplorable division is here transformed from an anatomical severance into a geographical watershed. In this new aquatic geography of the Eastern and Western seas—which springs, significantly, from the Italian Apennines and not from Greek territory—Rome seems quite content to contribute an equal share to the map. Since Cicero was instrumental in the appropriation of Greek philosophy and the creation of a Roman philosophical tradition, such a geography was understandably attractive: the disciplinary segregation along ethnic lines relieved the Romans of the anxiety they felt over the absence of a properly Roman philosophy, while also guaranteeing direct access to pristine philosophical wisdom, at least in its incarnation as the civic virtue of rhetoric and oratory. Cicero alerts us to the fact that, like texts themselves, disciplines need translation when they cross borders, and he suggests that they can actually gain in the process. How do disciplines “translate” cross-culturally? How do we confront on the disciplinary level the truism that every generation needs its own translations of old masterworks? How can we decide which translations are more fruitful than others? Can multiple translations be beneficial? This book explores these questions with regard to the discipline of “Chinese philosophy” and the understanding of early Chinese “Masters Literature” (zishu ), a text corpus from the pre-Qin period (before 221 bce) attributed to master figures such as Confucius and Mozi (ca. 480–390 bce), Laozi (?) and Zhuangzi (ca. 369–286 bce), Mencius (372–289 bce), Xunzi (ca. 310–215 bce), and Han Feizi (ca. 280–233 bce). We seek to understand first what modern proponents of a “Chinese philosophy” have gained from creating a Chinese equivalent of philosophy for their time and concerns, and second what we may gain from framing our inquiry into this text corpus through the lens of other disciplines, questions, and concerns for our time.

————— 3. Ibid., 245–46.

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Introduction

The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy” in Europe In contemporary China, “Chinese philosophy” is a well-established academic discipline practiced in philosophy departments that also teach “Western philosophy.” This can be traced to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when Chinese overseas students studying in the West or Japan—as well as a massive influx of Western books—sensitized Chinese intellectuals to the supreme status of philosophy in European cultural history. Chinese and Japanese intellectuals greatly admired Western philosophy, in particular logic, as the key to scientific progress, modernization, and thus ultimately as a tool of self-defense against Western imperialism, and they coined the neologism “wisdom learning” (Ch. zhexue, J. tetsugaku ) to translate the Western concept of “philosophy.” Thus the birth of the academic discipline of “philosophy” in China is intimately connected to the definition of philosophy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the West, a definition that was very much in flux as philosophy was undergoing a radical reduction from the master science that it had been until the eighteenth century and was becoming a secularized academic discipline trying to secure its place in the new struggle between the two cultures of the natural and humanistic sciences. But the concept of a “Chinese philosophy” in Europe originated earlier, namely with the Jesuit mission in China.4 Although early Jesuit missionaries such as Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) dressed in Buddhist garb, his successor Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) recognized the importance of targeting the literati class for the purpose of Christian proselytizing and consequently decided to appear in literati dress. He familiarized himself with the Confucian Classics and started translating the Neo-Confucian canon, Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) Four Books, into Latin, a translation that was not published until 1687 in Paris under the suggestive title Confucius, the

————— 4. For a thought-provoking history of the more than four hundred centuries of “translation history” of Confucianism between West and East, see Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism. See also Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius? Nicolas Standaert criticizes Jensen’s claim that the Jesuits invented the concept of “Confucianism,” but he agrees that they invented Confucius as a “philosopher.” Standaert, “The Jesuits Did Not Manufacture ‘Confucianism,’” 127. A standard Sinological account of the China mission is Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800.

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Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

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Chinese Philosopher or: Chinese Science Explained in Latin (Confucius, Sinarum Philosophus sive Scientia Sinica latine exposita). Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher was rapidly translated into various European vernaculars, and it shaped the European vision of both Confucius and Chinese thought until the nineteenth century. Assuming that the Neo-Confucian “Four Books”—namely the “Great Learning,” the “Doctrine of the Mean,” Analects, and Mencius—were all authored by Confucius or at least, indirectly, by his disciples, it presents the figure of the sage, with an extended biography and elaboration on his works. The “Great Learning” and the “Doctrine of the Mean” are not translated but are presented to the European audience through the voice of a Jesuit narrator in indirect speech. Text passages are paraphrased, and commentary snippets are adduced and systematized into a flow of argument that is more convincing as a philosophical tract of enlightenment morals than a rendering of any Chinese original. It is significant that only the Analects are presented in translation proper, yet only in selection.5 Although the Jesuit narrator’s voice at first explains passages from the Analects in straightforward paraphrase, at times echoing the language of Renaissance manuals for the conduct of rulers and princes, the narrator then leaves the stage to a direct translation of some of Confucius’s “maxims.” This is the only moment in Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher when the European reader encounters the newly baptized “Chinese philosophy” without narrative reshaping. Not surprisingly, the Jesuit narrator seems particularly worried that the aphoristic nature of the Analects might discredit the text as a tract of moral philosophy: Confucius’s third Book is quite of another Character than the two former, as to the Method and Expressions; but in the ground it contains the same Morality. ’Tis a Contexture of several Sentences pronounc’d at divers times, and at several places, by Confucius and his Disciples. Therefore it is intituled Lun Yu, that is to say, Discourses of several Persons that Reason and Philosophize together.6

————— 5. On issues of translation and the role of allegory in the cultural encounter between Jesuit missionaries and Chinese audiences and texts, see Saussy, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic, particularly ch. 1, “The Question of Chinese Allegory.” 6. I use the English edition with the title The Morals of Confucius, A Chinese Philosopher, who flourished above Five Hundred Years before the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Being one of the most choicest Pieces of Learning remaining of that Nation

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6

Introduction

The Jesuit narrator emphasizes that it is not method but morality that counts, and he is all too eager to present the Analects as a decidedly philosophical text. He successfully exploits the double meaning of “discourse” as both more casual “conversation” and a more strictly “systematic treatise,” and he also plays on the double grammar of “reason” as the particular human faculty that enables the particularly philosophical activity of “reasoning.” After the arrival of Dominican and Franciscan missionaries in the early 1630s, Rome began to question Jesuit practices of accommodating the Confucian ancestor worship of their Chinese converts. Ricci’s followers were put on the defensive.7 Consequently, China missionaries had an even stronger interest in presenting Confucius as a secular “philosopher,” not as leader of a rival cult, in order to avoid confrontation with Rome. At the same time, like the sages of Egypt, Babylon, or Judea, China’s cultural heroes and great thinkers were accommodated as precursors to a natural Christian theology, who presumably knew of god and the principles of faith by way of natural reason, not through the divine revelation Christians had received. Although the China mission was mainly concerned with whether the Christian faith was being misrepresented to Chinese converts, European intellectuals with no direct ties to the mission occasionally worried about

————— (London, 1691). It is translated either directly from Intorcetta et al.’s Latin version or through an intervening French translation attributed to Louis Cousin or Jean de La Brune (Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 1392–93). The preface to the English edition contains a telling illustration of how much a fight in China over practical questions of accommodation versus Christianization contributed to a proxy war among European intellectuals about allegations of atheism versus ecclesiastic orthodoxy. The author lashes out against Nicolas Malebranche, who was accused of favoring Spinoza’s philosophy that had been condemned as materialist and atheist. To dissipate the allegations, Malebranche had a “Christian philosopher” defeat a Chinese “atheist” philosopher in a fictional debate in his Entretien d’un philosophe chretien et d’un philosophe chinois (Conversation between a Christian and a Chinese Philosopher). In a populist gesture that criticizes the scholastic futility of contemporary metaphysics, it praises the refreshing simplicity of the Confucian writings: “There is nothing Extream, none of those frightful Subtilities, which are observ’d in the Moral Treatises of most Modern Metaphysitians (Voyez le Traitté de Morale de l’Autheur de la Recherche de la Verité, “See the moral treatise of the author of the “‘Search for Truth,’” that is Malebranche). 7. Brockey gives a vibrant account of the Jesuit mission in China from the perspective of European church politics in Journey to the East.

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Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

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the misrepresentation of Chinese “philosophy” to the Western audience. In his influential four-volume history of philosophy, Johann Jakob Brucker (1696–1770)8—a Lutheran living in the diaspora as director of the Latin school in the (Catholic) Swabian Kaufbeuren—strongly criticizes the Jesuit interpretation of Chinese texts: There have indeed been several controversies among scholars as to the trustworthiness of those collections, whereafter the Jesuits were suspected of not having given an accurate interpretation of these Chinese monuments [i. e. texts], but of having adulterated much to forward their own cause.”9

Brucker seems especially worried that the Jesuits disqualify themselves as mediators of Chinese culture by their excessive adoration for things Chinese and their “adulteration” of Chinese texts. He suspects that they distort their sources through their desire to produce the impression that the Chinese texts contain a coherent, systematic philosophy: Indeed, what is magnificently preached by not just a few about the “philosophy” of the Chinese has to be examined with utmost accuracy; and given their abject study of every part of it and their wrong-headed love for things foreign, one has to ask whether the uncertain notions of the Chinese that may be confused and do not signify anything specific, are explained with certain-sounding and clearer ut-

————— 8. Although a visionary eighteenth-century history of philosophy, which in his day circulated in Latin, German, English and Russian, Brucker’s work has received little attention since the nineteenth century. One of the major reasons for this neglect is the radical conceptual change in the nineteenth century that accompanied the birth of the academic discipline of “philosophy.” To date, the only larger monograph about Brucker, though more about his biography than his work, is an early twentieth-century dissertation by Karl Alt, a Lutheran minister from Kaufbeuren, thus clearly the work of a local aficionado with all the predictable symptoms of personal enthusiasm and patriotic provincialism: see Alt, Jakob Brucker. In order to understand the Western concept of “philosophy” that underlay the Jesuit creation of “Chinese philosophy,” we have to reach beyond the radical transformations of the concept of philosophy as a discipline that occurred in the nineteenth century. Nicolas Standaert has made an advance in this direction by considering philosophy within the seventeenth-century spectrum of sciences and Jesuit education. See Standaert, “The Classification of Sciences and the Jesuit Mission in Late Ming China,” 287–317. 9. Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, 849: “Plurima vero de fide harum collectionum controversia inter eruditos fuit, postquam Iesuitae in suspicionem venerunt, eos monumentorum Sinicorum interpretationem genuinam non dedisse, sed multa ad iuvandam caussam suam adulterasse.” Here and below translation of and emphasis in the Latin text are mine.

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8

Introduction

terances? Whether disparate meditations may be in no way related, but are forced by passion into one system by a contrived connecting line of thought? Whether allegory, sacred symbols and secrets are not often explained in line with rather recherché and well-cherished hypotheses? And so many things repressed into silence are simply conveyed into a more tolerable meaning by convenient interpretation?10

Brucker disapproves of the Jesuits’ putting Chinese thought, whose obscurity he never ceases to emphasize, into a straitjacket of philosophical systematization that appeals to the Western eye. But he also implicitly criticizes the Jesuits for fervently “preaching” ( praedicantur) Chinese philosophy when they should instead be applying their proselytizing enthusiasm to the propagation of the Christian faith. For those who opposed Ricci’s accommodationist agenda in order to protect China from a too possessively European appropriation, the Jesuit invention of a systematic Chinese “philosophy” behind Confucian texts was not the only worry. The Jesuits’ preoccupation with Confucius as the transmitter of the “Classics” appeared one-sided to a growing group of scholars in Europe who were trying to fit the overwhelming figure of Confucius into the pantheon of other “Masters.” One such scholar was Joseph de Guignes (1721–1800), who had studied Chinese under Etienne Fourmont (1683–1745)11 and had served as secretary interpreter at the

————— 10. Ibid., 850: “Maxime vero, quae de philosophia Sinensium ab haud paucis magnifice praedicantur, examinanda accurate, abiectoque omnis partis studio, et inepto peregrinarum rerum amore explorandum, anon notiones Sinensium incertae, confusae nihilque distincti significantes certis et clarioribus definitae sint vocibus? annon meditationes dispersae et nullatenus cohaerentes, in unum systema, excogitato connexionis vinculo, ire coactae sint? An non allegoria, hieroglyphica, aenigmatica multa secundum electas deamatasque hypotheses sint explicata? annon suppressa silentio multa, vel commode interpretatione in tolerabiliores sensus peracta sint?” 11. Etienne Fourmont was among the first to acquire a thorough knowledge of Chinese at home in France, and he challenged missionary scholarship from his position as a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres. He was taught by Arcade Huang, a Chinese scholar who had come to Paris and was ordered by Louis XIV to work on a Chinese dictionary. For Fourmont’s extensive correspondence with the figurist missionary Joseph de Prémare, see Knud Lundbaek, Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), 25–104. For his biography and his linguistic works, in particular his presentation of the 214-radical system of the recently compiled Kangxi Dictionary to a European audience, see Cécile Leung’s Etienne Fourmont.

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Chinese Philosophy and the Translation of Disciplines

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Royal Library under Louis XV. He taught oriental languages at the Collège de France and was associated with the eminent Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres in Paris. In an essay published in 1777, he confidently voices his dismay about the missionaries’ biased focus on Confucius: The Chinese do actually not believe that philosophy has been cultivated by anybody else except for them; but they place their first philosophers in such remote times and the history they make of it is so obscure and uncertain that it is necessary to examine its solid truth. Because the missionaries have only provided us with very little information about the subject and they talk only, so to speak, about Confucius and his doctrine, I intend to assemble in these studies what concerns the philosophers before Confucius and to talk more extensively about Laozi, whom they only mention by name. The age of this philosopher is fraught with more difficulties than they allow us to see.12

Most of de Guignes’s essay is devoted to the argument that Confucianism and Daoism, which he sees as the two great schools of Chinese philosophy, are two different versions of Pythagorean philosophy, the former oriented toward moral self-cultivation, music, cosmology, and numerology, and the latter pursuing magic and alchemy.13 De Guignes was an outspoken defender of the widespread belief that China had been a historical colony of ancient Egypt, and that its writing derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.14 It is therefore not surprising to see him arguing that Chinese philosophy was a form of Pythagoreanism, an esoteric philosophy said to have been deeply influenced by Pythagoras’ travels in Egypt. Yet, in order to counteract the exaggerated focus on

————— 12. Les Chinois ne croient pas, à la vérité, qu’on ait cultivé ailleurs que chez eux la Philosophie; mais ils placent à des temps si reculés leurs premiers Philosophes, & l’histoire qu’ils en font est si obscure & si incertaine qu’il est nécessaire d’en examiner la solidité. Comme les Missionnaires ne nous ont donné que très-peu de connoissance sur ce sujet, & qu’ils ne parlent, pour ainsi dire, que de Confucius & de sa doctrine, je me propose de rassembler dans ces recherches, ce qui concerne les Philosophes qui ont précédé Confucius, & de parler plus amplement de Lao-tse qu’ils se contentent de nommer. L’époque de ce Philosophe souffre plus de difficultés qu’ils ne nous en laissent apercevoir. Joseph de Guignes, “Essai historique sur l’étude de la philosophie chez les anciens chinois,” 269. 13. Ibid., 311. 14. The most influential proponent of this theory was Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680). On his theory in the context of his vision of China see Boleslaw Szczesniak, “The Origin of the Chinese Language According to Athanasius Kircher's Theory,” and Paula Findlen, ed., Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything.

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10

Introduction

Confucius, he unveils ancient Chinese “philosophical” Daoism—as distinct from the missionaries’ presentation of it as a popular idolatrous cult—only to unravel it as a pretentious forgery: The adepts of the Dao would not want to give precedence to the Confucian scholars. The latter presented their ancient canonical scriptures, such as the Book of Changes and Book of Documents etc., whose antiquity they praise; the former have proposed books and authors, whom they place in highest antiquity. This is how one attributes several philosophical works to Hermes Trismegistos; the partisans of this great corpus of texts regard him as their leader. Likewise, the adepts of the Dao have been equally preoccupied by their great work and have had similar ideas and the same pretentions.15

De Guignes draws an analogy to the Corpus Hermeticum, a voluminous text corpus of the Hermetic tradition that amalgamates Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Egyptian ideas. Because its documents claim to come from highest antiquity and to reflect divine revelation, the Church dated it to a much earlier time and held it up to be a precursor to Christianity, but the corpus was exposed in the early seventeenth century as a forgery postdating the advent of Christianity. Similarly, de Guignes claims, Daoism laid a false claim to antiquity out of jealousy of Confucianism’s hegemony. Considering de Guignes’s introduction to Daoist philosophy, which sprang from a similar envy of the missionaries’ monopoly on the meaning of Confucianism and Chinese “philosophy” in general, it is ironic that he brought into play a rather suspicious rival school of thought, an irony he himself admits to.16

————— 15. Les sectateurs du Tao n’auront pas voulu le céder aux Lettrés. Ceux-ci présentoient leurs ancient King, tels que l’Y-king, le Chou-king, &c. dont ils vantoient l’ancienneté; ceux-là ont supposé des livres & des auteurs qu’ils placent dans la plus haute antiquité. Cest ainsi qu’on attribute à Mercure-Trismégiste plusieurs ouvrages sur la Philosophie; les partisans du grand-oeuvre le regardent comme leur chef: de même chez les sectateurs du Tao, également occupés du grand-oeuvre, on a eu de semblables idées & de pareilles prétentions. Ibid., 299. 16. Brucker seeks to counterbalance the Jesuits’ devotion to Confucius with a careful treatment of the mythical Fu Xi , whom he considers the first “Chinese philosopher.” Fu Xi was traditionally credited with the invention of the hexagrams of the Book of Changes and was much favored by French missionaries, in particular Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) and Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), who used the Book of Changes as a semiotic master tool to unravel all secrets of Chinese culture. But the renown of the Book of Changes in Europe stemmed mostly from Leibniz’s association of the hexagrams with his

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Although there was certainly disagreement about who were the most preeminent early philosophers in China and how to interpret their teachings, European observers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not fundamentally question the existence of philosophy in China. Like the “thinkers” of ancient Egypt, Babylon, or Judea in Brucker’s history of philosophy, China’s cultural heroes and great thinkers were accommodated under the spacious roof of a “Christian philosophy,” or else a natural theology that likewise housed outright Christians, natural Christians who had forgotten positive divine revelation and only needed to be liberated from their ignorance into positive Christian belief, and full-fledged pagans; from the perspective of the eighteenth-century mission, it was particularly important to liberate natural Christians from their obliviousness of divine revelation and from their state of denial. Thus, one cannot emphasize enough that until the nineteenth century, the existence of a Chinese philosophy was unquestioned because philosophy encompassed a host of religious, moral, and intellectual sensibilities, which could definitely— even if in strongly contested ways—be mapped onto early China.

Masters Literature and “Chinese Philosophy” in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century China and Japan The concept of a “Chinese philosophy” was attractive in Enlightenment Europe because it could help resolve religious disputes over the accommodation of foreign beliefs and customs and help reflect on pressing concerns of the day related to revelation and reason, ideal government and civil institutions, and education and moral self-cultivation. In contrast, in East Asia the idea of a “Chinese philosophy” became urgent only in the

————— discovery of binary logic. Brucker repeatedly expresses his puzzlement over Fu Xi’s scientific clairvoyance and deplores the Jesuits’ neglect of his philosophical significance: “Yet, they [i.e., the Chinese] do not just consider Fu Xi a legislator, but also a great philosopher and theologian, and those who are totally full of admiration towards the Chinese, as well as those who pour cold water over the Jesuits, think all the very best of the philosophy of the Chinese.” (Ast non legislatorem modo Fohium faciunt, sed et magnum philosophum atque theologum, quotquot in Sinensium admirationem rapti, frigidamque Iesuitis suffundentes maxima quaeque de Sinensium philosophia cogitant.) Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, 853.

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Introduction

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the context of debates about modernization and reform triggered by European military intrusions and the faltering of the Qing state. Only a couple of decades separate Liu Xizai’s (1813–1881) Outline of Prose (Wengai ) from Matsumoto Bunzaburō’s (1869–1944) History of Chinese Philosophy (Shina tetsugaku shi ), but their interpretations of Chinese Masters Literature could hardly be more different. This difference can give us a sense of the stunning gap between the traditional emphasis on reading the masters as both moral and stylistic models and the vertiginously novel use of the Masters Texts for building a “Chinese philosophy” and a mode of thinking that could help reform the nation. Liu Xizai was a philologist and literary critic from Jiangsu who had passed the civil examination in 1844 and worked as a scholar at the State Academy and the Shanghai Longmen Academy. His Outline of Prose (Wengai ) was one part of his Outline of Art (Yigai ), printed in 1873 as a collection of treatises on traditional Chinese literary genres such as the exegesis of the Classics, shi poetry, rhapsodies, ci song lyrics, and qu ballads. His prose treatise covered historical writings as well as pre-Qin Masters Texts and great prose writers of the Tang and Song. His treatment of the Masters Texts is based on a traditional model that goes back at least to the Six Dynasties Period (220–589) and Liu Xie’s (ca. 465–522) The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong ). In Liu Xie’s treatise on literature, wen (“pattern,” “belles lettres,” or in Liu Xizai, “prose”) is an ultimate pattern that underlies the cosmos, ruled by the Way (dao ). Unlike the overly literary term belles lettres, wen encompasses the traditional Chinese genre spectrum of the Classics, Histories, Masters, and Literary Collections. In his chapter on the Masters Texts, Liu Xie explains how they “enter the Dao and show one’s intentions. Most importantly, they establish one’s virtue, next they establish one’s words” (ru dao xian zhi zhi shu. Tai shang li de, qi ci li yan . , ). Although this lofty formulation gives ample leeway for interpretation, Liu Xie claims two functions for the Masters genre: as a repository of moral values for self-cultivation and a model for eloquent writing, helping one to learn how to best express “one’s intentions.” This traditional model made perfect sense in a world where the Masters Texts were models of moral and literary education,

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tools to help one’s writerly creativity and cultivation. To illustrate the moral values one can learn from various canonical prose texts, he gives us at times pithy summaries of which texts “transgressed” or “embraced,” “avoided” or “conveyed” the moral law.17 To convey the miraculous nature of literary creation, he explains the liberating and exuberant flying of the giant Peng Bird in the first chapter of Zhuangzi as a metaphor for the writing process and discusses stylistic features such as the use of allegory and the shifting prosody of continuity and disruption of Zhuangzi.18 Reading the Masters Texts as canonical literature, in the broadest sense, was the traditional model of interpretation against which the propagators of a notion of “Chinese philosophy” formulated their vision for these texts. We can see this novel vision in Matsumoto Bunzaburō’s History of Chinese Philosophy (Shina tetsugaku shi) published in the 1890s in Tokyo, some two decades after Liu Xizai’s essay on Chinese prose writings. The use of the word “Shina” for China in the title shows that China had become an object for a modern type of “sinology” in Japan that differed from the premodern kangaku studies of China. In the rapidly modernizing and Westernizing Japan of the late nineteenth century, “China” had suddenly become a foreign object for scientific exploration, and an object of new national interest. Although in 1623 the Jesuit missionary Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) had already coined the term feilusuofeiya to phonetically translate philosophia and nineteenth-century translators of Western texts used a host of terms to translate “philosophy” into Chinese and Japanese, in the 1880s and 1890s the ultimately successful neologism zhexue (J. tetsugaku) became dominant in translating “philosophy” into Chinese and Japanese.19 This “wisdom study” or “study of sagehood” was not only a new word based on the venerable notion of the zhe, the wise person or sage, but it also encapsulated a new program of inquiry in which the pre-Qin Chinese Masters Texts were to play a crucial role. Mostly known for his scholarship on Indian philosophy and Buddhism, Matsumoto was born a year after the Meiji Restoration and

————— 17. Liu Xizai, Liu Xizai wenji, 61. 18. Ibid., 60. 19. See Lackner et al., A Repository of Chinese Scientific, Philosophical and Political Terms.

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Introduction

grew up to become a professional academic teaching at Kyoto University, a modern educational institution. In resonance with nineteenth-century beliefs about the relationship between race and place, he interpreted the Confucian school of Lu as a philosophy of rough and simple Northerners interested in questions of moral substance, whereas Laozi and the “school of Chu ” were developed by hot, exuberant Southerners interested in literary embellishment and cosmological speculation.20 Although his presentation of the various Masters Texts follows the traditional biographical template, which would give names, birthplace, and a short chronological biography of the master to which the text was attributed, the vocabulary he uses to describe the Masters Texts vibrates with novel concepts such as a “political theory” (seijiron ) of Mencius, and a “cosmology” (uchûron ) or “dialectics” (benshōhō ) of Zhuangzi .21 The contrast with Liu Xizai’s account could not be more pointed: in Matsumoto’s history of “Chinese philosophy,” the Masters had become historical authors with biographies rather than textual models for one’s own writing practice, and understanding them required a new set of tools that would help extract the true content of the “philosophy” (tetsugaku) and “thought” (shisō ) that these philosophical “scholars” ( gakusha ), the masters, wrote about in their texts. In Matsumoto’s history of Chinese philosophy, the notions of “philosophy,” “thought,” and “scholarship” overlap. This is also evident in Liang Qichao’s (1873–1929) Lun Zhongguo xueshu sixiang bianqian zhi dashi (On the broad trends of changes in China’s scholarship and thought) of 1902, where he discusses the Masters Texts under the label of “scholarship” and applies the concept of “scholarly schools of thought” (xuepai ) to Chinese schools of masters, Buddhist sects, and Greek and Indian philosophical schools alike. Like Matsumoto, he reconceives the pre-Qin Masters Texts as comparanda for Greek and Indian thought. When juxtaposing Greek, Indian, and Chinese thought, however, he has little to say about shared intellectual concerns and questions, instead supplying a comparative timetable of how prominent figures in each tradition such as Confucius, Plato, and the

————— 20. Matsumoto Bunzaburō, Shina tetsugaku shi, 32–33. 21. Ibid., 80, 176, 176.

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Buddha related to each other in time. The construction of synchronisms that could help place the unknown—Greece and India—within a chronological framework of the known—China—seems like a symptom of a fledgling comparative approach that failed to fully unfold in the book, also indicated by the fact that Liang did not elaborate the Indian part but left it unfinished for lack of a deeper grasp of Indian intellectual history. Still, the presence of a slot for an absent section on Indian thought is significant, because it shows that the comparison with not only Greek but also Indian philosophy drove Liang Qichao’s concept of Chinese thought. One of the earliest Chinese works to bear the novel programmatic title of “History of Chinese Philosophy” was Xie Wuliang’s Zhongguo zhexue shi , published in 1915. It was quickly overshadowed by Hu Shi’s (1891–1962) highly successful Zhongguo zhexue shi dagang (Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy), published in 1919 and reprinted within two months of its initial publication. Little known today, Xie Wuliang’s book was groundbreaking in a different way, in a way that might even explain why it quickly fell out of favor with contemporary Chinese readers. Unlike Matsumoto, Hu Shi, and many later Chinese scholars who wrote “Histories of Chinese Philosophy,” Xie highlighted the fact that “philosophy” was a Western concept. He did not take it for granted that “philosophy” was a universal phenomenon, embodied in the Chinese case in the pre-Qin Masters Texts among others. Instead he explains: “The name of zhexue does not exist in ancient writings, but takes its name from the West; in the East it is a translated term , . . .” 22 Xie explains further that it comes from the Latin term philosophia (spelled in the Roman alphabet) and quotes Socrates for further explanation of the etymology of “philo-sophy”: “I am not wise, but love wisdom , .”23 He goes on to gloss zhi “wise” as zhe (like zhexue ) “sage” and adduces evidence from the Book of Documents (Shujing ), Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji ), and the ancient dictionary Erya for the ancient form of zhe that had become the flagbearer of the novel concept of a “Chinese philosophy.”24 Thus he

————— 22. Xie Wuliang, Zhongguo zhexue shi, 1. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid.

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Introduction

both foreign-izes the term but also familiarizes the concept of “love of wisdom” by showing Chinese canonical occurrences of the word zhe. In a similar act of familiarization, he uses pedagogical similes to describe philosophy for his Chinese audience, saying that it is “like” Confucianism, like the “learning of the Way (daoxue ),” like the “learning of principle (lixue ),” like Buddhism and other intellectual movements with which Chinese readers would be familiar. Conversely, the novel term zhexue is tagged onto traditional Chinese phenomena: zhexue starts with the mythical Yellow Emperor (Huangdi ) of hoary antiquity and is thus as familiar as it is foreign. It was the intellectual and literary critic Hu Shi who moved from a pedagogical simile to the full-fledged construction of a Chinese philosophy. In 1919 Hu Shi wrote a history of philosophy based on universal claims of method and proof, objectivity and systematization. It was the fruit of his experience of studying philosophy with John Dewey at Columbia University in the 1910s and having access to first-hand knowledge of Western philosophy as taught in early twentieth-century U.S. universities, as well as access to reference works such as the Encyclopedia Britannica and the popular History of Philosophy by the German Neo-Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1915), which he often relied on in his work. Hu Shi makes his Western focus clear in his methodological preface written in the fledgling vernacular, which he had forcefully advocated in his influential “Preliminary Discussion of Literary Reform” (Wenxue gailiang chuyi ) two years earlier: “The definition of philosophy has not been ascertained. I will temporarily suggest the following definition . . .(zhexue de dingyi conglai mei you yiding de. Wo ru jin ye zan xia yi ge dingyi . . . . . . .).”25 After this Aristotelian start on the subject with the gesture of a definition, a systematic explication of the treatments and goals of philosophy—from universal history, to period history, to monographs on thinkers or subdisciplines—follows. Hu Shi accomplished a breakthrough, paving the way for the many historians of Chinese philosophy in the twentieth century who wished to join the great conversation between Western philosophers dead and alive while bringing in Chinese materials and thinkers. Their urgent desire to

—————

25. Hu Shi, Zhongguo zhexue shi dagang, 1.

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construct a “Chinese philosophy” can only be understood in the context of the political upheavals of the late Qing empire and the new Republic. The frantic search for national reform triggered an enormous amount of soul-searching and reflection on how, where, and when Chinese civilization had gone wrong. Laying claim to a royal discipline such as philosophia for China seemed at once an explanation, a solution, and a consolation. Only the spirit of scientific method and systematic inquiry could help save the nation.26 By giving these newly propagated values a precedent in traditional Chinese scholarship, these modern thinkers were attempting no less than to construct a discipline of “Chinese logic” and uncover proof for its existence in early Chinese texts.27 Although their crusade is understandable in light of historical developments taking place in the first half of the twentieth century, the existence of a Chinese philosophy is still hotly debated today, with the waning of the notion of philosophy as a guiding discipline of scientific progress (which had forced the question in all its acuteness on Chinese intellectuals a hundred years ago). 28 Unfortunately, the concept has also contributed to prejudices harbored by Western analytic philosophers against what they see as a false claim to philosophicality in the Chinese tradition. As Lin Tongqi, Henry Rosemont, and Roger Ames have recently put it: [T]he Eurocentric and chauvinistic character of most modern Western philosophy has been reinforced [. . .] The philosophical dimensions of Chinese thought, or lack thereof, should be an open-ended question, subject to discussion [. . .]; instead, the question has simply been begged against the Chinese.”29

The most ardent proponents for a “Chinese philosophy” have unwittingly reinforced such prejudices, because most of the debate over the existence of a “Chinese philosophy” continues to maneuver in a framework that unconsciously universalizes the reception of an early twentieth-century

————— 26. For the relation between national failure, reform, and literary culture in this period, see Tsu, Failure, Nationalism, and Literature. 27. For the early twentieth-century debate about “Chinese logic,” see Kurtz, “Matching Names and Actualities.” 28. For an overview of the arguments and relevant scholarship, see Carine Defoort, “Is There Such a Thing as Chinese Philosophy?” 393–413. 29. Lin Tongqi, Rosemont, and Ames, “Chinese Philosophy,” 747.

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Introduction

notion of Western philosophy in the particular historical milieu of early twentieth-century China. Among scholars today there often seems to be little awareness that historicizing the moment of the modern birth of “Chinese philosophy” would not only help answer the question of whether there is or is not a Chinese philosophy, but would also allow us to ask more relevant questions about the future of philosophical thought around the world. The early twentieth-century Chinese notions of Western philosophy were closely tailored to the national agendas of their proponents. These thinkers were not equally interested in the richness of philosophical traditions in the West: Socratic maieutics, Aristotelian categoricals, Neoplatonist mysticism, Stoic styles of living, Medieval Christian philosophy, Viennese logical empiricism, Bergsonian philosophy of life—which one do we mean anyway when we say “Western Philosophy” with a capital P? Moreover, the reductive notion of what a “Chinese philosophy” could entail leads Western and Chinese scholars alike to suppress a significant part of the Chinese texts and the early Chinese worlds of thought. The text attributed to Xunzi is most often read for its critique of previous notions of “human nature,” a theme that seems to resonate with Western discourses about human psychology since Aristotle. However, its two poetry chapters—the “Rhapsodies” (fu ) and “Working Songs” (chengxiang )—are not only not discussed by historians of “Chinese philosophy,” but they are almost never mentioned as part and parcel of the Xunzi, which I will try to show them to be. From the Han Feizi , the most prominent text of the presumable “Legalist school” represented by Han Feizi, only the chapters that portray authoritarian governance are taken into account as echoing questions of political philosophy, and the voluminous chapters of rhetorical case studies and anecdotes that would not belong in a philosophical project focused on scientific method are ignored. Furthermore, the singular quest for a “Chinese philosophy” means that even those portions of the Chinese texts that are streamlined to fit its construction are pushed into a narrow corner of self-defense. From there they are marshaled to testify for a question that was asked only out of the historical coincidence that China’s modernization and its desperate opening to Western knowledge happened just around the time when analytical philosophy came to the fore in the West.

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Toward a World Philosophy? Scholars of various stripes study the Confucian Analects, the Mencius, or the Laozi, that is, those texts that were archived in the imperial library under the label of “Masters Texts” (zishu , zhuzi baijia ) starting in the first century bce. Historians, anthropologists, religious scholars, literary and intellectual historians, historians of science, and paleographers all rely on the “Masters Texts” in their study of Early China, but the group of scholars who have laid the strongest and most prominent claim to the corpus are comparative philosophers. What can comparative philosophy contribute to the study of the Chinese Masters Texts and what do these texts in turn have to offer to comparative philosophers? One direction of “comparative philosophy,” conceived as a wellintentioned globalism that gives equal access to the accomplishment of philosophy for all peoples and histories, has taken the name of “World Philosophy.” This is an important and admirable project in the globalization processes we are currently witnessing in which states and peoples compete over hegemonic resources such as oil and food, political power and economic advantage, histories and identities. Yet, there is a danger that this approach ends up being a mixture of Enlightenment-era practices of cultural translation with more recent postcolonial apologetics (expressed both by non-Westerners and by Westerners to obviously different effect) arguing for the right of non-Western traditions to become respectable members of a fictive pantheon of “Universal Philosophy.” The earlier Jesuit practices of accommodating Chinese texts and beliefs received a more radical formulation by a group of missionaries in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries who believed that the Chinese Book of Changes (Yijing ) was the oldest text of the world and contained the main tenets of Christianity. These so-called “figurists” led by Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) and Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), were eager to match up figures and events of Chinese high antiquity with corresponding biblical phenomena: Adam, the first man, corresponded to the mythical Yellow Emperor and so on. The “figurists” produced synoptic tables of parallel histories to prove the long-forgotten presence of divine reve-

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Introduction

lation in China.30 Similarly, some world philosophers today—coupling “ideas” and presumably archetypal “themes” rather than biblical paraphernalia—call for a high degree of abstraction to ensure comparability: [The] reason for focusing mainly on ideas is to allow us to begin at a level of abstraction high enough to allow the ideas to be compared at all. This freeing of the ideas for comparison—equivalent to the clearing away of “noise” that makes the exact sciences possible—requires us to disregard as temporarily irrelevant the ideas’ simply local or individual characteristics.31

We should not forget that attempts to ensure comparability follow an important ethical and political agenda; comparability serves to strive for the compatibility of the world’s thought traditions and their representation in a coalescing horizon of globalized human values and rights. Yet a drive towards reductive comparability of Eastern and Western philosophies might ironically achieve the opposite effect and bolster Eurocentric claims in the guise of establishing “universal parameters”: The body of world-texts provides us with the great books through which we can discover the archic variables of philosophical discourse in general. But we can establish these transcendental points of contact only by a hermeneutical theory general enough to account for the comparability of such texts. Aristotle’s metaphysical causes, I submit, can be reinterpreted as such generic hermeneutical controls.32

Even if Dilworth’s perspective of 1989 sounds dated today, his presuppositions are still skeletons in the closet of approaches to “World Philosophy.” This should remind us that we need to find better ways to conceive of a

————— 30. For an example of such a synoptic graph see de Prémare, Vestiges des principaux dogmes chretiens, tires des anciens livres chinois, 402. For figurism and Bouvet see Claudia von Collani, P. Joachim Bouvet SJ. 31. Scharfstein, A Comparative History of World Philosophy, 55. Ram Adhar Mall (Intercultural Philosophy, 5) even seems to believe in the possibility of a universal philosophy when he talks about interculturality: “[I]n the field of purely formal disciplines, it stands for the internationalism of scientific and formal categories.” The mélange of the concept of “interculturality” with an untrammeled conviction that the humanities should participate in their own “scientification” stands out as a quite impossible amalgam of two fins-desiècle, the most recent and the end of the nineteenth century. 32. David Dilworth, Philosophy in World Perspective, 26.

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paradigm for world thought or philosophy that is global, worldly, and reconciliatory and at the same time culturally specific, locally relevant, and excitingly different.

“Chinese Philosophy” as “Literature”? After a good century of spirited institutionalization of “Chinese philosophy” in the East Asian and Western academic landscapes, the institutional success of the academic subject of “Chinese philosophy” has created its own raison d’être within the confines of history. Yet, some Chinese scholars have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the philosophical sway over the early Chinese Masters Texts.33 They have chosen to regard them as a literary genre and transplant them into the discipline of belleslettres—a rather paradoxical attempt at liberation from Western paradigms, since the study of “literature” itself has been institutionalized in Chinese academe over the past century under Western influence. Accordingly, there has been a wave of interest in sophisticated stylistic appraisals of the pre-Qin Masters since the 1980s by scholars such as Chu Binjie, Tan Jiajian, and Zhang Cangshou. Understanding the Masters as “literature” seemingly resonates with the traditional understanding of the Masters as moral and literary models that we saw as late as with Liu Xizai’s Outline of Art. Most of these studies trace the development of narrative framing and argumentative strategies. They see the beginning of “Masters Literature” in short “scenes of instruction” in which a master is represented as instructing disciples or rulers, a form predominant in the Confucian Analects and Mencius. The first opponents of Confucius’s followers, Mozi and the later Mohist school, developed a longer expository prose format that the Confucian Xunzi transforms into a consciously crafted essay form with a self-assertive authorial voice. Later, anecdotes, court petitions, or exempla for rhetorical practice could all become part of the “collected works” of a master, as in the case of the Legalist Han Feizi. The rise of more systematically arranged multi-author compilations such as The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mister Lü (Lüshi Chunqiu )

————— 33. For an overview of research developments on pre-Qin prose and the pre-Qin Masters Texts throughout the twentieth century in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, see Chang Sen, Ershi shiji xian Qin sanwen yanjiu fansi.

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Introduction

and Master Huainan (Huainanzi ) rivaled the model of “collected works” by one master and conveyed cosmological efficiency through their encyclopedic representation of knowledge about the cosmos. Although the teleologies are sometimes too clear-cut, these studies have the great merit of interpreting Masters Literature as an internal progressive dialogue among various Masters Texts. Yet I would argue that most Chinese studies that seek to translate “Chinese philosophy” into “belles-lettres” do not go far enough. First, the majority of them show surprisingly little revisionist momentum: they do not attempt, say, to actualize Liu Xizai’s traditional understanding of the Masters Texts by introducing it into the current discipline of “Chinese philosophy” and thereby revolutionizing its early twentieth-century assumptions. Instead, they seem written by literary scholars with the intention to take “Chinese philosophy” out for a rhetorical stroll, for a break from the recent guardians of an old tradition—namely academic departments of “Chinese Philosophy.” It is crucial to go beyond identifying and archiving literary strategies and move to questions that engage literary strategies with intellectual agendas: to explore, for instance, how certain rhetorical tropes such as tautologies, metaphors, or paradoxes relate to the intellectual enterprise of certain Masters Texts. How do narratological tropes such as the author function, narrative authority, or the dialogue form change throughout the history of the genre? How will our vision of the Masters Texts, and Early China in general, change if we read the corpus immanently, that is as an embedded inner dialogue with highly sophisticated rhetorical encoding of intellectual concerns? In short, we need to find more creative ways to capture the symbiosis of rhetorical strategies with intellectual claims.

An Immanent Historicist Approach: “Masters Literature” as Discursive Space To read the Masters Texts either as “Early Chinese philosophy” or as “Early Chinese belles-lettres” means to force them into a disciplinary spectrum that has only recently developed in China according to patterns that are particular to the reception of Western culture in China in one relatively short span of time—the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A natural way to steer clear of such anachronistic approaches is to turn them on their head and instead ask how and why the text corpus was

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first identified in the Chinese tradition. The first label for texts by Early Chinese thinkers was simply zhuzi baijia (“The Various Masters and Hundred Lineages/Schools”). This label was consolidated by Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) bibliographers who divided them into various schools such as Confucians (Rujia ), Mohists (Mojia ), Daoists (Daojia ), Yinyang specialists (Yinyangjia ), Legalists (Fajia ), and Logicians (or “Names-School,” Mingjia ). The name “Masters Texts” became one of the four headings of traditional Chinese bibliography: “Classics” ( jing ), “Masters” (zi ) “Histories,” (shi ), and “Literary Collections” ( ji ). We should keep in mind that Liu Xiang (77–6 bce), who was ordered to produce a catalogue of the Han imperial library in the first century bce, faced practical problems of archiving documents that were then still predominantly in the cumbersome format of rolls of bamboo slips and silk. Therefore, schools such as the “Miscellaneous Masters” (Zajia ), which are often understood as a specific intellectual formation with an eclectic or “syncretist” outlook, may simply describe a category for books that did not fit anywhere else in the library. Scholars are increasingly aware that traditional Chinese divisions of Masters Texts into particular schools say more about Han librarians than about the authors of the texts. This is congenial to recent classicist scholarship that reconsiders the beginnings of philosophical traditions in Greece by going beyond Platonic and Aristotelian constructs of “pre-Socratic philosophy” and placing these early figures in a broad matrix of other “masters of truth”—in Marcel Detienne’s words—such as divination specialists, poets, or cultic leaders.34 Unfortunately, most of our contextual evidence about the identity and pursuits of the masters comes from Han times, so we are trapped again in anachronistic visions that postdate the genesis of the texts, sometimes by several centuries. Thus, the strictest immanentist historicist approach has to rely on the texts themselves in reconstructing their context. Yet, the ultimate circularity of this most pure framework, which is anyway illusory because the Han transmission of these texts also shaped their content, is not its worst vice. Rather, it is both utopian and intellectually totalizing to attempt to unthink all later “contaminations” such as the penetration of

—————

34. Detienne, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece.

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Introduction

earlier Confucianism by Buddhism culminating in the Neo-Confucian movement in the Song dynasty (960–1279) or the reception of the Western disciplinary spectrum over the past couple of centuries. Although a lack of contemporary sources prevents us from giving a fullfledged historically contextualized reading of the Masters Texts, the texts themselves and their mutual references to each other provide ample context for their historical understanding. Their fierce attacks on opponents and their clever strategies to entice their audience in their own favor constitute a discursive space of shared words and concepts, dissonant interpretations, and disputed implementations. We are thus granted a most intimate view of the internal historical development of the genre of “Masters Literature” through the rhetorical maneuvers of the authors themselves. To avoid an overly literary and narrow definition of genre for the purpose of this study, it may be helpful to recall Mikhail Bakhtin’s suggestive concept of “speech genres.” He generously accommodates under that expression almost any utterance ranging from set phrases of conversation to highly elaborate literary or—as he calls it—“ideological” genres with a complex genre history. Bakhtin’s vision of a speech genre is an attempt to fight the deeply engrained perception of speakers as “biblical Adams” who utter each word with virginal candor for the first time in the history of humanity. 35 In contrast to the primordial speech of Adam in Eden, speech genres are those parts of an utterance that have already been spoken before—possibly many, many times. By virtue of being uttered and recognized as speech genres, they function as frames and triggers of the audience’s expectations. According to Bakhtin, it is this “addressivity” that makes a speech genre into an utterance rather than a sentence, and that makes a text into a work. Although one may feel tempted to reduce these phenomena to the catchphrases of “intertextuality” and “dialogism” produced by the mediators and appropriators of Bakhtin’s messy written legacy, crucial distinctions would get lost in the process. I would argue that a speech genre is a particular case of intertextuality, because it implies textual echoes not only among different texts, but among different texts that nevertheless share similarities of scene and function of enunciation. Thus, Masters Literature constitutes a “speech genre” not just by virtue of particular inter-

—————

35. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 93.

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textual echoes, but by readerly expectations about the positioning of the master figure within each instantiation of the genre. On a literal level the term “speech genre” captures well the oscillation—which is so characteristic of Masters Literature—between representations of oral speech on the one hand and the assertion of the authorial voice of written discourse on the other. Still, Bakhtin’s notion of speech genres holds a more important advantage for the study of this particular corpus of texts. Russian Formalism, a movement of literary criticism that thrived during the first half of the twentieth century and included figures like Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Vladimir Propp, and Boris Eichenbaum, vacated the function of authorial intention. But Bakhtin, a thinker on the fringes of this movement, reserved an important spot for the reader, thanks to his notion of “addressivity.” Yet, unlike reader-response theories such as Wolfgang Iser’s, which operate with imagined profiles of implied readers who are observed in the process of filling in the text’s “gaps” (Leerstellen), Bakhtin’s addressivity also eliminates the notion of readerly intention by already incorporating it into the genre economy of each text.36 By virtue of their addressivity, speech genres provide triggers that guide the reception by their audience. It needs no further emphasis that a concept that reduces the role of unfathomable authorial and readerly psychology is extremely useful in dealing with a corpus of texts for which we possess little information with regard to either authors or readers. Bakhtin’s notion of addressivity as part of the genre economy aids us in regarding authors of Masters Texts primarily as creative and often brilliant readers of earlier instances of the genre. The rise of Masters Literature with and after Confucius falls into what is regarded as the formative classical age of Chinese civilization. This period constitutes the Chinese share of the “axial age” (Achsenzeit), to use the concept Karl Jaspers coined in his influential 1949 book Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The origin and goal of history). In the wake of the unprecedented destruction of the Second World War, Jaspers sought for common human ground and saw the first millennium bce as the pivotal period during which basic philosophical systems and religions that still define today’s world and shared values formed in Greece, the

—————

36. See Iser’s Der implizite Leser and Der Akt des Lesens.

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Introduction

Near East, India, and China. Seen through Jaspers’s concept, the pre-Qin period is considered the Chinese variant of the origin of human consciousness and philosophical reflection, an assumption that puts considerable pressure on the corpus of Masters Literature as foundational texts out of which to extract evolutionist claims about presumable Chinese “cultural orientations” as they unfold in later Chinese history or even beyond history. Although taking the Qin dynasty (221–206 bce) as a cut-off point for inclusion in the Masters canon was already common in nineteenth-century treatments of Chinese philosophy, Jaspers’s notion of an “axial age” has enhanced parameters for survey histories of pre-Qin Chinese thought, which usually start with Confucius and end before the Han. This has less to do with the internal development of the genre of Masters Literature—which continued to thrive in the Han and even into the Six Dynasties Period37—than with the later scholars’ perception that the philosophically productive period of Masters Literature ended with the Han. Benjamin Schwartz’s commanding study The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985) is strongly inspired by Jaspers’s understanding of the axial age, in particular by the conviction that this period laid the foundation for basic orientations in later Chinese cultural history. In accord with Jaspers, Schwartz sketches the rise of Masters Literature against a background of pre-Confucian “cultural orientations” such as Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 bce) ancestor worship and feudalism during the early part of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bce). He emphasizes the new “axial” consciousness arising with and after Confucius that is no longer dominated by “untaught feelings,” in Edmund Burke’s terms, but finds its expression in the Masters Texts which reshape earlier cultural orientations.38 Schwartz arranges his narrative largely along the lines of Sima Tan’s “Six Schools,” although he explicitly criticizes the use of Han “school” labels for pre-Qin realities. To supplement the framework, which he apparently uses with mixed feelings for want of anything better, he includes a suggestive chapter on key discursive terms such as human nature (xing ), breath (qi ), and heart-mind (xin ) that became the shared and

————— 37. Tian, “The Twilight of the Masters.” 38. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 9–10.

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disputed battleground of Warring States texts.39 Although the present study intends to circumvent as much as possible the overdetermination that the axial age hypothesis imposes on the Masters Texts, it benefits from the particular emphasis Schwartz places on how key terms were reshaped and manipulated in the dialogue between contending Masters Texts. A. C. Graham’s masterful study Disputers of the Tao (1989) arranges the succession of various philosophical schools—an expanded version of Sima Tan’s “Six Schools”—along a narrative of primal human disappointment. According to Graham, the axial age and rise of consciousness in China is not merely a gratuitous emanation of human rational spirit, but is the necessary outcome of the breakdown of the pre-Confucian world order decreed by Heaven. This metaphysical crisis spins itself into a complicated love story between “Heaven” and “Man.” After repeated break-ups in Mencius, Mozi, and Zhuangzi and even declarations of disinterest in Laozi and in Legalist texts, the end of the crisis in this relationship comes with political reunification, which in intellectual terms corresponds to cosmological correlative theory and an accommodative syncretism under Confucian colors. The reader is relieved that Heaven and Man are brought together in a new synthesis and is inspired to reflect on whether the promiscuity inherent in cosmological syncretism constitutes a solution of the metaphysical marriage crisis or a mere postponement of the conflict, looking towards a new alliance that had to wait for the era of Song Neo-Confucianism. Among the studies of the pre-Qin Masters and “Chinese philosophy” that have recently been published in Western languages, Mark Lewis proceeds from a truly innovative framework. 40 In Writing and Authority in

————— 39. “There is in fact a whole vocabulary of terms which comes to be shared by a wide diversity of modes of thought. The terms themselves are such that while they may contain a certain common range of meaning, they nevertheless lend themselves to extraordinarily differing interpretation and emphasis.” See Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 174. 40. To name just a few: Bauer, Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie; Gan Shaoping, Die chinesische Philosophie; Geldsetzer and Handing, Grundlagen der chinesischen Philosophie; Anne Cheng, Histoire de la pensée chinoise. Also, the long overdue edition of Albert Schweitzer’s manuscripts on Chinese thought should not go unmentioned as works of considerable historical interest and as illustrating an unusual perspective on

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Introduction

Early China, Lewis surveys the intertwinement between forms of writing and types of authority in Early China. In his chapter “Writing the Masters,”41 he discusses what he calls “enunciatory strategies” of the texts and the development from the representation of a teaching scene, as we see it in the Analects, to the appearance of essay formats with Xunzi. For Lewis the beginning of Masters Literature is marked by the separation of authority from authorship, where authorship is a sign of subordination rather than authorial control. The present study is yet another examination of the Masters Texts. But my aim is different from survey histories of early Chinese philosophy. There is no desire for integral treatment of the development of early Chinese thought. I engage a central, core body of Masters Texts. Recently, archeology has enhanced our understanding of early Chinese thought, thanks to the excavation of ancient versions of texts and the discovery of completely unknown ancient texts that had apparently fallen out of favor and were lost to the historical record. As the study of these materials rapidly progresses, it crucially enriches and revises our understanding of Early China. Yet I have decided not to make these materials a central piece of my book and only mention them to illustrate particular points. The reason is simple: This book proposes a new disciplinary “translation” for the texts that have come to be called “Early Chinese Philosophy.” It coins the term “Masters Literature” for this corpus, uncovers the distinctive features of this genre, and traces how arguments are shaped by narrative formats and rhetorical strategies developed in the early stages of its unfolding, from Confucius to Han Feizi. While excavated texts like the Guodian materials add new insights into intellectual positions that had disappeared and uncover lineages of influence in the interpretation of Confucius’s legacy, their existence and content does not alter my argument. They, too, are part of the discursive space of Masters Literature and add historical and intellectual nuance to its development, as I showcase by example in Chapter 6. Yet, all the fundamental shifts in narrative formats and rhetorical strategies that are relevant to my argument about the na-

————— China by a German theologian, philosopher, musician, and physician who is most remembered for founding a hospital in Lambaréné, West Central Africa. See Schweitzer, Geschichte des chinesischen Denkens. 41. Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 53–97.

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ture and development of Masters Literature are evident in received texts. This is why I focus on received texts in this book. Beyond the coining of “Masters Literature” and the exploration of its nature and unfolding I attempt to undertake the following, more farranging thought experiment: What happens if we scrape away as much as possible of the disciplinary and conceptual baggage that has accrued on the surface of the Masters Texts, the interpretive barnacles in particular of the last half millennium since the Jesuit mission? Which neglected parts, problems, particular moves, concepts, and strategies of the Masters Texts come to light in this scraping process? And can those parts, problems, moves, concepts, and strategies help us see the history of Greek philosophy and its progeny in a different light, or move us into a new cosmopolitan future for philosophy and intellectual inquiry? We will return to these questions in the epilogue, after reading our way through Masters Literature from the Analects to Han Feizi and pondering the unfolding of this textual genre. The first chapter is a study of how to use earlier anachronism against later anachronisms. It captures the earliest, anachronistic constructions of “Masters Literature” that took place in the Han dynasty. After exploring the image of Masters in the texts themselves, the chapter analyzes Han dynasty taxonomies of Masters texts and schools, contrasting this vision with the perspective conveyed in the biographies of various pre-Qin masters in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian. Moving into the Eastern Han, the chapter closes with a discussion of Wang Chong’s (27–ca. 100) argument for literary creation and his provocative claim that in some ways the Masters corpus is superior to the Classics. Living in a world where sagely creativity had become problematic and was overshadowed by a thriving culture of Classics scholarship, Wang Chong nostalgically identified with the creative enterprise of pre-Qin Masters Literature. As such he constitutes a convenient endpoint for the early reception history of Masters Literature; his arguments mark the point when the canon of Masters Literature became increasingly closed, and he strove to fashion himself as a late-born “master” rather than one of the contemporary writers and scholars. After setting the stage with an exploration of early notions of Masters Literature, I venture, chapter by chapter, into close readings of seven of the most influential texts attributed to pre-Qin Masters. For each text, I discuss its place within the development of Masters Literature and ex-

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Introduction

plore how certain intellectual claims emerge with certain narrative forms and rhetorical tropes in the text. The second chapter on the Analects attempts to think through the logic of the seminal initial scene of Masters Literature, the “scene of instruction” between a master and his disciples. Here I discuss forms of social relations and community depicted in the Analects, focusing in particular on the role of the master’s charismatic body at the heart of that community. Chapter 3 on Mozi analyzes styles of expository argument that Mozi develops against Confucius and his followers as well as against the Confucian “scene of instruction” itself. The fourth chapter on Mencius argues that its discovery of interiority—as is evident for example in Mencius’s discussion of human nature—reflects a pervasive interest in depth: the temporal depth of master-disciple lineages, the depth of the human body and psychology, and even the depth of text, where deeper meaning should have precedent over literal meaning. Chapter 5, on Xunzi, shows that Xunzi constitutes a major inflection point in the development of Masters Literature, with its introduction of a host of new enunciatory strategies into the genre: Xunzi creates the master as an author who persuades his audience in first-person treatises, it employs poetry for persuasive purposes, and it adds sophisticated twists to older narrative formats of Masters Literature such as the “scene of persuasion.” Deliberately placing Laozi after the line-up of Confucian masters, Chapter 6 argues that Laozi is a consciously crafted attempt to imagine a Masters Literature outside of established rhetorical formats of scenes of instruction or persuasion. Although possibly owing to its older origin, it is highly aware of Confucian, Mohist, and other Warring States traditions and bans any historical specificity, negates grammatical affirmation, and erases people and charismatic bodies from the scene of the text in order to claim historical precedence over the Confucian tradition. Chapter 7 shows how Zhuangzi puts narrative flesh back onto the stripped skeleton of Laozi’s experiment with negation and elimination of specificity: it resolves Laozi’s paradoxes by leaping into tropes of travel through boundless space, and it populates its mock scenes of instruction and persuasion with new protagonists ranging from the imagined figures of Laozi and Confucius to craftsmen, criminals, and monsters. In the last chapter, we get to one of the most complex and most neglected texts of pre-Qin Masters Literature, Han Feizi. The chapter shows how, beyond the seemingly

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simplistic notion of a draconic state machine that manipulates human behavior through rewards and punishments, there lie vertiginous appropriations of Laozi’s concept of “non-action,” bold reimaginations of social roles, and a sophisticated vision about the art and practice of persuasion. In the epilogue I apply the insights gained from individual Masters Texts to identify key characteristics of the genre of Masters Literature. This allows us to imagine a viable future for Early Chinese Masters Texts: as a catalyst for engaging comparative approaches in literature, philosophy, and intellectual history; as a means to shake up preconceptions about the origins of philosophy in the West and to extend the repertoire of approaches to Greek philosophy; and as a treasure trove of new concepts and distinctive “styles of reasoning” that could become virulent and productive in the cosmopolitan future of philosophy.

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ONE

The Faces of Masters Literature until the Eastern Han

Describing the corpus of pre-Qin Masters Texts as “Masters Literature” is anachronistic, but the category has many advantages over one like “Chinese philosophy” that is imposed from outside the Chinese tradition. Zhuzi baijia or “various masters and hundred schools” came to be used as a genre label for texts associated with master figures and their followers. It placed the Masters Texts onto the map of the imperial library in Chang’an, among the older Classics ( jing ), the Histories (shi ), and Literary Collections ( ji ). Thus practical concerns of ordering a wealth of materials in the confines of the imperial library came to shape the corpus of “Masters Literature” just as much as attempts to create typologies based on intellectual affinities. Yet, “Masters Literature” is still a better façade to grasp pre-Qin Masters Texts than “Chinese Philosophy,” because it was coined relatively soon after the pre-Qin period in the Han and because it was an indigenous label rather than one developed in comparison to and competition with the vastly different Greco-Roman heritage in its modern European and American inflections. An epic history could be written about the variable uses of the corpus and concept of Masters Literature throughout Chinese history. First, there are the pre-Qin Masters Texts, which we can describe as a discursive space in which various master figures and their disciples share and dispute their concerns, concepts, and rhetorical repertoires. Second, there is “Masters Literature” as a typological scheme introduced during the Han

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dynasty, like Sima Qian’s elaboration on “Six Schools” (liujia ) and the library catalog of the Han History that lists 189 Masters Texts divided into ten schools. During the same period, “Masters Literature” appears as the product of authors and their particular life experiences in the biography section of Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian that contains biographies of Confucius, Laozi, Han Feizi, Confucius’s disciples, and Mencius and Xunzi among others. Then in the Eastern Han Wang Chong, while thinking through the implications of the bibliographical hierarchy of “Classics,” “Histories,” “Masters,” and “Collections,” makes a bold argument for the superiority of the “Masters” over the venerable “Classics” and for the creation of a new “Masters Literature,” over the composition of commentaries on the Classics. The next, until now rather neglected stage in the development of Masters Literature is the continued, voluminous production of Masters Texts in the early medieval period to which Xiaofei Tian has recently drawn attention. Despite this late blossoming of the genre, Tian notes a drastic decline in the production of Masters Texts in the fifth century and suggests that the sudden increase in the compilation of literary collections ( ji ) shows that the venue for expressing one’s mind, taste, and character was being grafted from the traditional genre of Masters Literature onto the newly favored genres of poetry and the compilation of personal collections.1 If Wang Chong asserted the relative superiority of the Masters over the Classics, in medieval China the Masters lost out to the Literary Collections as vehicles for personal expression and judgment. Much could be said about how Song Neoconfucians established themselves as new masters with their revival of the scene of instruction between a master and his disciples in the Buddhist-inspired genre of “Recorded Sayings” ( yulu ), or how pre-Qin Masters Texts played a major role as stylistic models for guwen prose in the Ming and Qing, but these later stages of what Masters Literature came to mean and how it was variously produced or exploited in the Chinese tradition are beyond our concern here and worth a separate study. This chapter focuses on the early stages that shaped Masters Literature as a textual genre, exploring first the direct polemics between pre-Qin

—————

1. Xiaofei Tian, “The Twilight of the Masters.”

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Chapter One

Masters, then the typologies of experts and books in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian and the bibliography in Ban Gu’s (32–92) Han History respectively, then the biographies of Masters in the Records of the Grand Historian, and, lastly, Wang Chong’s argument for a revival of the mission of Masters Literature. Because his call for exploiting the creative potential of the genre of Masters Literature is exceptionally strong and linked to Han concerns with the new culture of scholarship and study, Wang Chong is a convenient endpoint for discussing the earliest stages of the formation of Masters Literature as a textual genre in the Warring States and the Han.

The Birth of Masters Literature: Polemics between Warring States Masters Throwing the First Stone: Mozi’s “Against Confucians” (Fei ru

)

One can argue that Masters Literature was born with the first concerted attack of one master against another. A master’s authority depended on the devotion of his followers as much as on the strength of his opponents; and Masters Literature was created by voices that shared—or defied—a repertoire of themes, concepts, or rhetorical formats. As the first rivals to Confucius’s legacy in the fifth century, Mozi (ca. 480–390) and his followers not only attacked Confucius, but resorted to a generalized, systematic assault of occasionally humorous acerbity on the stereotyped concept of the enemy, the “Confucians” or “Ruists” (Ru zhe ). They thus created at a single stroke both “Mohism” and “Confucianism.” In other words, the concept of “Confucianism” emerged from the Mohists’ (Mo zhe ) desire to entrench themselves behind a securely generalized notion of “Mohism” in contrast to the “Confucians.” Mozi’s “Against Confucians” (Fei Ru ) is part of the ten “core chapters” of Mozi, which probably belong to the oldest stratum of the text, and three more of the core chapters are also devoted to refutation: “Against Offensive War”(Fei gong ), “Against Music” (Fei yue ), and “Against Fatalism“ (Fei ming ). The Mohists clearly devoted considerable effort to fighting against values they opposed rather than fighting for values they advocated.

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The history of axial-age thought in China thus begins with ridicule and parody of the opponent. “Against Confucians” depicts Confucians as beggars, greedy hamsters, and staring he-goats who puff themselves up like wild boars.2 It describes what it considers ridiculous rituals, such as their attempts to find recently deceased family members by climbing on their rooftops, looking into wells, and reaching into rat holes.3 Even the clothes they wear are deemed to be ridiculously out of fashion; such accusations in regards to their dress code were to be associated with Confucians all the way into the modern period. The Mohist portrayal of the Confucians as outdated elegantly deflects criticism directed against the Mohists themselves onto the Confucians. After all, Mozi looked to the high antiquity of the most ancient dynasty, the Xia, as an appropriate model for the present, rather than, like the Confucians, to the quite recent Early Zhou period. Fending off allegations of obsolete archaism, “Against Confucians” accuses the Confucians of mannerist antiquarianism, as displayed in their funny clothing, their old-fashioned speech, their opposition to innovation, and their use of outdated rituals and musics to seduce people. As the gravest point of critique in “Against Confucians,” Confucians fail to follow through on living out their own values, namely filial piety. Repeatedly, Confucians are shown as confusing social hierarchies and as acting unfilially. Just as they wear certain clothes only to make a good impression, they make a hypocritical (wei ) show of filiality. What is more, the chapter charges that Confucians are fond of rituals simply because ritual occasions provide them with a good excuse to pocket some clothing and good food. The later part of the chapter shifts to Confucius himself, portraying him as a pretentious, verbose, vengeful being who not only has a killer instinct, but has actually exercised it on people. This ad hominem move creates a dramatic climax that gives ultimate evidence for the argument that Confu-cians pose an immediate threat to society. Because the disciples model themselves on Confucius and are presumably inferior to the Master both in wisdom and character, the chapter concludes that

————— 2. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 39 (“Fei Ru xia”), 291. 3. This is a caricature of the mourning ritual of “Calling Back the Soul” (zhaohun ).

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given the outrageous conduct of Confucius, worse behavior can only be expected from the Confucians. The Mohist attack on Confucius’s disciples became an appealing and influential model for polemics against other intellectual camps. Apart from particular strategies of denunciation, the creation of a generic disciple—a “Confucian” who could be propped up as an authoritative representative of a “school,” only to be torn down with disputative clamor— was the significant contribution of Mozi to the formation of the concept of “schools” in Early China.

Advertising One’s Cause: Mencius, the Good Shepherd Mencius chooses a radically different strategy from Mozi’s frontal attack on his enemy. Although he repeatedly states that his highest priority is to prevent the followers of Mozi and Yang Zhu from increasing,4 Mencius more subtly advertises his cause by gently showing others the way to his own point of view. Such a strategy necessitates extended dialogue and focuses on moments when Mencius’s interlocutor seems to suddenly arrive at a deeper understanding. Often, this understanding results not only from the logic of the argument but equally from Mencius’s subtle, incremental penetration of the mind of the interlocutor in the process of persuasion. In a narrative featuring protagonists who play out the process of conversion to Mencius’s beliefs before the reader’s sympathizing eye, conversion is effected by example. Thus Mencius’s strategy adheres to the older “scene of instruction” model instead of capitalizing on the newer Mohist enunciatory strategy of expository prose that allowed for much more aggressive intellectual polemics. In one episode, a man named Xu Xing , who was remarkably successful in advertising the “teachings of Shennong” (and a proponent of what the Han called “tillers” or “agronomists” [Nongjia ], those who led a self-sufficient agrarian life), happens to entice Chen Xiang , one of Mencius’ acquaintances. After Chen Xiang turns his back on his previous Confucian teacher and defects to Xu Xing, Mencius is recruited to win him back to the Confucian cause. The stakes for Mencius’s task are deliberately set low from the outset, because in his conversations with

————— 4. Lau, Mencius 3B.9.

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Mencius, Chen Xiang only mindlessly repeats Xu Xing’s words without grasping their implications. Chen Xiang went to see Mencius and stated, “Xu Xing said, ‘The ruler of Teng is an upright and worthy ruler. However, he has yet to hear the Way. A wise ruler tills the land together with his people to make his living. He governs while cooking his own meals. Now, that Teng has granaries and treasuries means that [the ruler] inflicts hardship on the people to fatten himself. How can he be a worthy ruler?’ ”5 , ; , . , . , , ?

Chen Xiang’s short report on Xu Xing’s opinion about the state of affairs in Teng and his conviction that even a ruler should till the fields along with his subjects sets in motion a lengthy maieutic dialogue between Mencius and Chen Xiang, which predictably ends in the reconversion of the latter. Mencius starts with seemingly trivial questions that slowly build up to ultimately show the absurdity of Xu Xing’s principle of self-sufficiency: Mencius asked, “Does Xuzi only eat grain he has sowed himself?” “Yes.” “Does Xuzi only wear cloth he has woven himself?” “No. He wears unwoven hemp.” “Does Xuzi wear a cap?” “Yes.” “What kind of cap is it?” “Of plain raw silk.” “Does he weave it himself?” “No. He exchanges it for grain.” “Why does Xuzi not weave it himself?” “Because it would harm his work in the fields.”6 : ? : . ? : . . ? : . : ? : . : ? : . . : ? : .

Having exposed the weakness of Xuzi’s teachings, Mencius could just have left it at that and concluded on a triumphant note. But Mencius embarks on an argument of considerable length, taking advantage of the situation to present his own vision of governance and the precedent set by the rulers of the past. He first argues for a division of labor and introduces the distinction between the “mind-workers” (laoxin ) and “handworkers” (laoli ) to differentiate the rulers from their servants. In an

————— 5. Mencius 3A.4. My translations have benefitted from D. C. Lau, Mencius. 6. Lau, Mencius 3A.4.

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Chapter One

entertaining argument relying on historical precedent, he summons up various sage rulers such as Yu , Hou Ji , Yao , and Shun , explaining how each of them accomplished such ground-breaking cultivating work that they could hardly have tilled their fields themselves. Then Mencius shifts gears and appeals to Chen Xiang’s sense of cultural identity, branding Xuzi as a “Southern barbarian with the twittering tongue” who erroneously condemns the “way of the previous kings” and exposes himself as precisely the kind of subject the venerable Duke of Zhou (Zhou gong ) would have attacked in battle. He also appeals to Chen Xiang’s sense of intellectual lineage. To do so, he reminds Chen Xiang of his duty toward his former teacher, Chen Liang: Chen Liang was born in the state of Chu. Because he enjoyed the way of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius, he came north to study in the central states. Even Northern scholars could not surpass him in any way. He was what one would call an outstanding literatus. You and your brother studied under him for many years, and now that your teacher is dead, you turn your back on him.7 , . , . , . . , .

Mencius evokes the image of Chen Xiang’s late master, who, unlike the “Southern barbarian” Xuzi, is a cultivated Southerner who has been civilized by the “Northerner” Confucius. Although Mencius is currently playing the role of a master to Chen Xiang, he holds himself outside of the picture and instead uses a “collateral” line of Confucian transmission to appeal to Chen Xiang’s intellectual loyalty, thereby making his case appear less self-interested and thus more convincing. Mencius’s last appeal is to Chen Xiang’s economic sense. He argues that Shennong’s followers’ support of a policy that would fix prices for identical goods regardless of their quality goes against the principle that “things are unequal by nature.” Such a policy, under which people can make the same amount of money whether they sell products of good or poor quality, destroys earnest standards of craftsmanship. This polemic excursus returns in the end to more verifiable arguments after a longwinded narrative digression that entails emotional appeals to Chen

————— 7. Lau, Mencius 3A.4.

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Xiang’s sense of duty towards his cultural identity and intellectual lineage. There is no indication as to whether Chen Xiang agreed, but the fact that he is silenced almost immediately to make space for Mencius’s long explanations is evidence enough that the narrative has Mencius emerge victorious with Chen Xiang reconverted to the cause of Confucianism. In another episode, Mencius has to tackle a greater challenge. Yi Zhi , a Mohist, approaches him through one of his acquaintances, Xu Bi . Mencius first declines to meet him on account of illness, but Yi Zhi persists and comes back a second time. Mencius opens the dispute by saying that he intends to put the Mohist right in order to uphold the Way. He jumps into the heart of the matter, pointing out that the Mohists preach frugality and that since Yi Zhi proclaims to be a Mohist, the lavish burial he gave to his parents goes against his Mohist convictions. Yi Zhi and Mencius never converse with each other directly, but Xu Bi runs back and forth conveying their respective responses. First, Yi Zhi tries to convince Mencius of the superiority of the Mohist perspective by framing it in Confucian terms: Yi Zhi said, “According to the Way of the Confucians rulers in ancient times treated [their people] ‘as if tending new-born infants.’ What do these words actually mean? Well, I think that there should be no gradations in love, although the practice of it begins with one’s parents.”8 : , , ? , .

Yi Zhi smuggles the Mohist doctrine of universal love into his rendering of a Confucian vantage point, nicely adorned by a quote from the Book of Documents. Mencius sets out to achieve an equally surprising rejoinder: he disguises himself as a Mohist by zooming in on the archaic times of primitive antiquity, the origin of basic cultural inventions and human dispositions most dear to the Mohists. There were presumably cases in ancient times when people did not bury their parents. When the parents died, they were thrown in the gullies. Then one day the sons passed by and there lay the bodies, eaten by foxes and sucked by flies. Their brows started sweating, and they could not bear to look. The sweating was not put on for show. It came from the depths of their hearts and reached their

————— 8. Lau, Mencius 3A.5.

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faces. They went home for baskets and spades. For them it was an act of sincerity to bury their parents, so it must also be right for all dutiful sons and benevolent people to do likewise. Xuzi reported this to Yi Zhi, who looked lost for a while and then stated, “I have taken this point.” 9 . , . , , . , . , , . . , , . . : .

Filial piety, especially in its application to appropriate funeral rituals that the Mohists wanted to minimize and apply equally to everybody, is the combined outcome of a human disposition for terror mortis and the discovery at some point in history that burial can prevent society from the sight of decomposing corpses of loved ones devoured by foxes and flies. This of course is a weak argument against the Mohists, since they were certainly not opposed to burial per se, but to lavish ritual requirements. But there is a certain power in Mencius’s defense in the immediacy of the hypothetical scene that shows the desecration of one’s parents’ corpses. The “sweat of the heart” suggests a kind of visceral response that can only be explained by assuming that the duty to perform particular burial rituals for one’s parents is rooted in the human psyche rather than in cultural conventions. The authenticity of the physiological reaction makes Mencius’s argument for Confucian attention to particular burial rituals for one’s parents more compelling than Yi Zhi’s argument for equal love and parsimonious burial for everybody. In contrast to the previous episode, here—where more is at stake, since Mencius is arguing with a rival master and not a forlorn quasi-disciple—the effect of Mencius’s persuasion is clearly marked in the end by Yi Zhi’s declaration of defeat and submission to the better argument. Mencius finds joy in patiently making the better argument, and often appeals to common sense, to intuitions of cultural identity, and to emotional responses clad in historicized disguises. Because he tries not only to converse but to convert, Mencius often exudes a great confidence

————— 9. Mencius 3A/5. For a discussion of this passage in the context of Mencius’s polemics against rival masters, see Chapter 1.

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that he will prevail over his opponent. He is willing to grant a clemency that only one confident of victory can afford: Mencius said, “Those who run away from the Mohists are sure to turn to the school of Yang [Zhu]; those who desert Yang [Zhu] are sure to turn to the Confucians. When they turn to us we simply accept them. Nowadays, those who debate with the followers of Yang [Zhu] and Mozi behave as if they were chasing strayed pigs. They are not content to return the pigs to the sty, but go on to tie their feet up.”10 : , . , . , , , .

With pastoral undertones, Mencius offers to accept everybody who has strayed, once they are ready to “return” ( gui ) to their natural Confucian vocation. The former Mohists will come and so will the followers of the “hedonist” Yang Zhu. Mencius offers peace in an intellectual arena marked by increasingly heated disputes. This portrays Mencius as detached from all the eager disputers of his age, as the supreme shepherd who does not impose on stray pigs, but lets them come freely by their own accord. His placating clemency is attractive in a world increasingly dominated by the constraining rhetoric of fierce competition between a growing number of masters and their followers.

Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters” (Fei shi’er zi ) Mencius was concerned about the popularity of Mohism during his time and considered it his mission to win over the Mohists and the followers of Yang Zhu. But nothing in Mencius suggests a counter-attack as well planned and systematic as that found in Xunzi, whose chapter title already takes up the gauntlet thrown down by Mohist polemics, elevating the art of intellectual attack to a new level. Mozi himself plays a very small role in the chapter; he is just one of twelve masters presented for critique. But the chapter’s title and its vein of spiteful attacks clearly echo Mozi in “Against the Confucians.” Xunzi presents six pairs of Masters who roughly represent three overarching

————— 10. Lau, Mencius 7B.26.

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concerns: the concept of human nature, guiding principles in envisioning a society, and the relation to antiquity and the Former Kings (xianwang ). Each of these dyads represents an extreme stance on the issue in question, which explains why Xunzi thought of them as “imbalanced” and consequently erroneous. The first couple is the relatively obscure Tuo Xiao and Wei Mou . 11 According to Xunzi, they indulge in their nature without restraint and are uncultivated, while the contrasting couple, the also rather obscure Chen Zhong and Shi Qiu , is on the contrary reviled as putting overly narrow constraints on human nature. The second set of couples includes, on the one hand, Mozi and Song Xing , who fail according to Xunzi because they disregard the paramount importance of social distinctions and preach exaggerated frugality. Shen Dao and Tian Pian , on the other hand, are incapable of determining social distinctions, and although they elevate law to the principal shaping factor of society, they themselves are lawless. The last set of couples features, first, the famous sophists Hui Shi and Deng Xi , who are accused not only of absurd theorizing, but more deplorably of failure to take the Former Kings as a model for their actions and failure to recognize the worth of the Kings’ rituals and principles. In a rare partial contrast, Xunzi grants that Mencius and Zisi (ca. 483–402) model their visions on those of the Former Kings, but laments they do so only imperfectly. Besides, they are considered unsystematic and ignorant, and are accused of irresponsibly propagating a theory of “Five Elements/Phases” (wuxing ) with which they try to 12 mislead fellow Confucians.

————— 11. Wei Mou was the patron of Gongsun Longzi for some time. See John Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 1, 63. Tuo Xiao is not attested anywhere else. He was obscure enough to be replaced by Fan Sui, the Marquis of Ying, in a parallel passage preserved in the Hanshi waizhuan (see ibid., 64). Since Fan Sui reportedly got advice from Wei Mou on one occasion, they make a good pair. 12. Although the riddle of what precisely the wuxing—here ascribed to Mencius—refer to is far from being solved, the Wuxingpian found among the Guodian materials has provided us with evidence that it was not only used to signify the well-known “Five Phases” of correlative cosmology associated with Zou Yan (ca. 305–240), but apparently also referred to five Confucian key values. If Mencius can be related to the wuxing at all, it must have been to the tradition of the Wuxing pian and not the “Five Phases” of correla-

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Each couple is described based on the same rhetorical template. First, to increase suspense, Xunzi sketches the teachings of some masters, who first remain unnamed, in rather unappealing fashion, then deplores— with exactly the same formula used for all but the last couple of Mencius and Zisi—that the populace is easily misled by the smooth and reasonable wording of their opinions. Lastly, the closing phrase solves the riddle and gives us the names of the masters under critical attack. Let us look at the first example of this rhetorical template: Some people follow the whim of their dispositions, content to throw off all restraints just like animals. They cannot attune themselves to refined patterns and understand how to govern. Yet, since their stance seems reasonable and their words make some sense, they can mislead and confuse the ignorant populace. This applies to Tuo Xiao and Wei Mou.13 , , , ; , , ; .

The analeptic flow of argument heightens suspense and postpones the author’s pleasure of triumph over his opponents. Also, its crescendo effect entices the reader to accept Xunzi’s prejudiced appraisals more willingly.14 After making a clean sweep of the twelve masters, the chapter proceeds to contrast them with a typology of ideal figures of authority. The “sage” (shengren ) speaks according to his own categories (lei ), the “exemplary person” ( junzi ) models himself on somebody more authoritative, while the “petty man” (xiaoren ), a perversion of the ideal figure of authority, talks without any reasonable model (fa ). The exemplary ruler, to whom the world would willingly submit, has abundant capacities, indeed so abundant that he does not need to draw on them all. He immediately intuits things he does not know and treats

————— tive cosmology. However, the fact that the Shiji biography of Mencius in the Shiji mentions both Mencius and Zou Yan as propagators of a Wuxing theory further complicates the issue. 13. My translation has benefited from John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie 6 (“Fei shi’er zi”), 91. 14. Xunzi is coming down on Mencius and Zisi harder than on any of the other masters. Knoblock points out that “none of Xunzi’s books has done more damage to his reputation,” especially in its acerbant and puzzling critique of Mencius and Zisi that denounces their presumable theory of the “Five Elements.” See Knoblock, Xunzi vol. 1, 212.

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people according to their social status. Xunzi eulogizes this ideal official (shijunzi ) in mellifluous prose: This is his demeanor in the role of a father or elder brother: his cap sticks out, his robes are full, and his demeanor joyful; stout and aloof, serene and relaxed, oh so grand and magnanimous, indeed illuminated and magnificent! This is his demeanor in the role of a son or younger brother: his cap sticks out, his robes are full, and his demeanor respectful; modest and obedient, intimate and reliable, gentle and reverent, oh so smooth and bashful indeed.15 , , ; , , , , , , , . , , ; , , , , , , , .

The outpouring of reduplicated binominal adverbs gives the scene an oldfashioned solemnity. If nothing else, the sight of these servants with their majestic robes and hats and their manifold meritorious qualities is proof of their noblesse. This is just the right background against which to sketch the baseness of one’s opponents: Now I will talk about the conceited manner of YOUR students! Their caps are drawn into their faces, their cap strings dangling, and their demeanor simply arrogant; so puffed up, some nervously pattering, others lethargic, bewildered and awestricken indeed, glaring and staring around.”16 : , , ; , , , , , , .

The solemn reduplicative prosody earlier used to sketch the ideal official in glowing colors is here turned on its head and used for bitter caricature. The other master—it is not quite clear who—is attacked frontally with the straightforward personal pronoun “you” (ru ): Xunzi’s intimate form of address could not be more spiteful. The acerbic tone is the clearest echo of Mozi’s diatribes in “Against the Confucians,” where parody and defamation join hands. Yet it gains edge in Xunzi by addressing the opponent in the second person. Surprisingly, the chapter then proceeds to throw allegations not against the previously reviled twelve Masters, but at presumable heretics in the Confucian camp:

————— 15. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie 6 (“Fei shi’er zi”), 102. 16. Ibid., 103.

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the ignominious “base Ru”( jian Ru ), a collective term for those among Confucius’s disciples who are depraved in their practice of Confucianism: students in Zizhang’s lineage who run around in billowing clothes “playing Yu and Shun,” Zixia’s perfectly dressed but silent pupils who look as if they are about to “gag on a bit,” Ziyou’s utterly lazy and hedonistic band, to name a few. Xunzi has shifted his diatribe from the twelve masters to the quarreling transmitters of Confucius’s legacy. True, the attack on the twelve masters is unsympathetic and bitter, but the most scathing diatribe is reserved for fellow Confucians. Xunzi’s synopsis is one of the earliest extant attempts to give a panoramic view of different master figures and schools of thought; it shares interesting similarities with later synoptical accounts such as Zhuangzi’s chapter “All Under Heaven” (Tianxia ), Sima Tan’s “Six Schools,” and, in their wake, the “Bibliographical Treatise” (Yiwenzhi ) of the Han History. To be sure, these writers all had very different agendas when they selected their material. Although later taxonomies such as the “Bibliographical Treatise” strive to be comprehensive in their attempt to categorize and quite physically subsume all extant textual traditions under some few subheadings, Xunzi’s selections seem to be determined by personal connections between the masters figures; most of the twelve masters are somehow associated with the Jixia Academy.17 A common feature that informs these panoramas is their almost visual sense of balance, and the Xunzi chapter is particularly artful in this respect. I have already shown the careful arrangement of the master couples into three parallel sets. There is also a clearly visible progression from littleknown figures such as Wei Mou and Tuo Xiao to masters who loom largest—and dangerously close—over Xunzi’s mind, notably Mencius. This reminds us that aesthetic considerations such as symmetry, polarity, and numerology were determining factors in the design of such panoramas. It implies, in turn, that the synopses sometimes required a more or less judicious application of makeup to the master portraits to make them fit

————— 17. Guo Muruo confirms that impression by identifying Tuo Xiao, who does not appear elsewhere in the textual record, as Huan Yuan, also a member of the Jixia Academy. (Knoblock, Xunzi vol. 1, 213). Mozi may be integrated into this account, because Song Xing, another Academy member, was seen as the successor to the Mohist propagation of frugality.

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the overall scheme. They should certainly not be considered as descriptions of each master’s intellectual position with accuracy, let alone complexity. The panoramas of thinkers are impressionistic and elusive. The structural demands on the account of each individual master are considerable—in the case of Xunzi they first present a statement of his opinion on a particular overarching topic, followed by a critique and the observation that his arguments were smooth enough to elude the populace. Not only do they leave little room for a more comprehensive characterization of each master’s teachings, but they also encourage the creation of oversimplifying slogans that are shorthand labels rather than explanations of viewpoints. Thus, somebody defined as “fond of benevolence and rightness” would immediately be categorized as a follower of Confucius, although other intellectual camps such as the Mohists propagated very similar values. Similarly, an account contrasting Confucians and non-Confucians would probably associate Xunzi with “benevolence” (ren ) rather than fondness of “rules” ( fa ). Although the notion of fa plays a paramount role in Xunzi, the label would probably be reserved for thinkers associated with Legalism. This is just to emphasize that shorthand labels, encouraged by the balanced and reductive logic of the synoptical format, were marketing (or defamation) slogans that probably bore more traces of the mindset of the author than that master’s actual intellectual position.18

—————

18. Knoblock diagnoses this phenomenon as follows: “In this book [i.e., ‘Against the Twelve Masters’], we encounter an excellent example of the kind of sentence that accounts for the notion that Chinese is ‘vague and general’ and that its utterances are accordingly always ambiguous. [. . .] Because Chinese has few traces of inflection, abstract ideas sometimes seem strange and peculiar, masked as they are behind common, ordinary forms. [. . .] Recent research has uncovered many such terms, particularly important technical terms applied to technical and scientific pursuits or the specialized language of mathematics, logic, and philosophy.” Knoblock, Xunzi vol. 1, 221. I wonder whether Knoblock was particularly irritated by the notorious ambiguity of Classical Chinese in this chapter, precisely because the seeming concreteness of its subject matter raises higher expectations of clarity than it satisfies in the end. It is certainly not a speculative chapter, like Xunzi’s chapters on the significance of ritual or music, but is instead populated with very concrete people, namely the erroneous twelve masters, Xunzi’s vision of ideal scholar figures and the despicable Confucian heretical subgroups. But in the end, the expectation of using the chapter to recover lost thought systems of more or less well-known masters goes unfulfilled. The shorthand labels do little to bring to life an intellectual portrait of the individuals at stake. To explain this disappointment away, Knoblock brings into play

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Intensely intrigued by typologies—of masters, social classes, or strands of Confucianism—Xunzi was the first to use the form of the “synoptic panorama” to control intellectual diversity and criticize those with whom he disagreed. This may be the reason why Sima Qian in his biography credits Xunzi with being the first to reflect on different “ways of life”—the Confucian, the Mohist, and the Dao-oriented (Ru, Mo, Daode zhi xing ).19 Xunzi marks a moment in intellectual history when masters who had hitherto been at the center of textual attention in “scenes of instruction” dialogues fully acknowledge surrounding rivals, directing fierce attacks against their opponents and classifying thinkers and their presumable schools through the straightjacket of ideological typologies.

Catholicity in Zhuangzi’s “All Under Heaven” (Tianxia ) Whereas Xunzi saw the need to excise rivals, the last chapter of the Zhuangzi not only grants amnesty to the masters it portrays, but tries to integrate them into a catholic vision of the cosmos: All Under Heaven there are many practitioners of doctrines and techniques, and each believes he has something that defies improvement. What the ancients called “Art of the Way,” where does it exist? I say, there is no place it does not exist. But, you ask, where does the spirit descend from, where does clarity emerge from? The sage gives them birth, the king completes them, and all have their source in the One.20

————— our ignorance of contemporary “technical terminology.” This move has recently become quite popular, and it is invaluable for our understanding of any text to be aware of connotations of certain terms in legal and administrative, medical or cosmological contexts. But a lexical identification within the “specialist” domains does not resolve our problems of understanding. We still have to decide, for each particular usage of a term, which connotations are resonating in the texts and which ones are of lesser importance. In short, the line between “non-technical” and “technical” usage is tenuous, and possibly even purposefully so. I would suggest that the irritating elusiveness of this chapter is not so much rooted in our ignorance of the precise meaning of certain terms, but is instead a consequence of the synoptic form, with its esthetics of parallelism and opposition, and its proneness to reductive labels and slogans. 19. Shiji 74. 2348. 20. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 33 (“Tianxia”), 1293–94. My translations have benefitted from Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu.

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Chapter One ,

,

?

:

, ,

.

.

:

.

?

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In “All Under Heaven,” “oneness” is not endangered by the diversity of the various masters, but encompasses them harmoniously. As a consequence, various divergent opinions about governance are all identified as contributing to proper government: the Laozi-tinged “sage” with his powerful “Way and Virtue” (dao de ), the Confucian “superior person” with his attention to “benevolence and rightness” (ren yi ), and the bureaucrats with their methods of “matching of form and name” (xingming ). The problem is not divergence in opinion, but the blindfolded belief that one possesses the only truth instead of understanding that the various strands of thought need to work together as one: The word is in great disorder, the worthies and sages lack clarity of vision, and the Way and its Virtue are not in accord. So [people] in the world too often only understand one aspect, examine it, and believe it good alone. But it is just like with the ear, the eye, the nose, and the mouth: each has its own kind of understanding, but their functions are not interchangeable. In the same way, the various skills of the hundred schools all have their strengths, and at times each may be useful. But none is wholly sufficient, none is universal. The scholar cramped in one corner of learning tries to judge the beauty of Heaven and Earth, to analyze the principle of the ten thousand things, to scrutinize the perfection of the ancients, but seldom is he able to encompass the true beauty of Heaven and earth, to describe the true face of spirit’s clarity.21 , , , . , , . , , . , , . , , , , .

It is obvious that none of the masters introduced later in the chapter possesses comprehensive truth. Instead, they are all “scholars” (shi ) who with their narrow convictions do violence to the unified vision of a golden past, to the “great body” of things (dati ). The threat that the unity of the “techniques of the Way” (daoshu ) will be ripped into

————— 21. Ibid., 1298.

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pieces looms large over the chapter as a whole. Thus, the objective of the ensuing presentation of five different intellectual camps is not to criticize a random number of opponents, but to expose the danger of losing sight of unity. The goal is also to encourage each master to refrain from claiming comprehensiveness and to acknowledge that he is merely the holder of a partial, yet precious truth. The first master couple is Mozi and his follower Qin Huali . As in Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters” they are introduced off-stage, with analeptic suspense. However, rather than presenting two specific individual figures, Zhuangzi refers generically to people like Mozi and Qin Huali who preceded these two in antiquity. Thus, it claims that the master figures discussed in the chapter are only late instantiations of former styles of practicing the Way. In that sense, Zhuangzi combines Xunzi’s portrayals of master figures with Sima Tan’s taxonomy of types of expertise, which I discuss below: To teach restraint from extravagance to later ages, to leave the ten thousand things unadorned, to shun any glorification of rules and regulations, instead applying ink and measuring line to the correction of one’s own conduct, thus aiding the world in time of urgent crisis—there were those in ancient times who believed that the “Art of the Way” lay in this. Mo Di and Qin Huali heard of their views and enjoyed them, but they followed them to excess and were too assiduous in applying them to themselves. Mozi wrote a piece “Against Music,” and another entitled “Moderation in Expenditure,” declaring there should be no singing in life, and no mourning in death.22 , , , , . , , . , ; , .

The text first enumerates commendable qualities, and then credits Mozi and Qin Huali with what appear to be traces of the endangered “ancient tradition of the Way,” and finally criticizes their particular shortcomings in great detail. This pattern is followed throughout the chapter, except for a slight modification for the last master presented, Hui Shi; just as in Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters,” the last master figure is somewhat the odd man out.

————— 22. Ibid., 1304.

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Mozi is taken to task for his obsession with thriftiness and his hostility towards a cultivated life. His program of “universal love,” a standard point of contention against the Mohists in Confucian texts, which argue for the importance of social hierarchies, is not mentioned. In concluding his exposition on the Mohists, Zhuangzi allows an ambivalent admiration to shine through feelings of alienation from their way of life: Mo Di and Qin Huali had correct ideas but advocated wrong practices, with the result that the Mohists of later ages have felt obliged to subject themselves to hardship “till there is no down left on their calves, no hair on their shins.” They only wanted to outdo each other. This is the height of confusion, the lowest degree of order! Nevertheless, Mozi was one who had a true love for the world. He failed to achieve all his goals; yet, wasted and worn with exhaustion, he never stopped trying. He was indeed a scholar of great talent!23 , . , . , . , , , . !

While the author’s distaste for the Mohists’ austere physical exercises is obvious, a sincere admiration for Mozi’s talent and his imperturbable persistence is equally clear. In keeping with the chapter’s catholic overtones, the other master groups are treated with a similar mixture of criticism and admiration. The next two groups include well-known figures of the Jixia Academy. Song Xing and Yin Wen are portrayed as followers of the Mohist program of ascetic austerity, known for cutting down on basic needs such as food and sleep. Among other faults, they are guilty of having lofty ambitions, of trying to save the world, and of being discontent with their limited vision. The next group, Peng Meng, Tian Pian, and Shen Dao, are also known members of the Jixia Academy; they are praised for their impartiality and their rejection of binary choices so much despised by Zhuangzi, but at the same time they are harshly reprimanded for constantly thwarting people, garnering people’s hatred, and not knowing the Way. The fourth group consists of Guan Yin , presumably the border-guard Laozi met when going West, and Laozi himself. Guan Yin, author of the lost book Guanyinzi , is given surprising precedence over Laozi.

————— 23. Ibid., 1311.

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The portrayal of the fifth group, featuring only Zhuangzi, shows him to be the unmistakable master of words. He has a whole variety of speech figures at his disposition:24 his “goblet words” (zhiyan ) allow the speaker’s internal whim to run its course while his “weighty words” or “repeated words” (chongyan ) enable close resemblance with the outside cosmos; his “parables” appear to have a more pedagogic ring to them, “broadening” the audience rather than helping the speaker to order his thoughts. In an orchestrated gesture of modesty that carries a touch of bold pride, Zhuangzi judges his own writings as absurd, harmless, and unconventional, yet commendable. His odd ecstasy is celebrated, and the closing remark is indulgently ambiguous: “Abstruse! Obscure! This is not yet all! (Mang hu mei hu, wei zhi jin zhe , ).”25 It is unclear whether Zhuangzi, like all the other masters in this chapter, never arrived at an encompassing truth of the “ancient Way” or whether the portrayal of him was left unfinished. In any event, the closure of this section marks a significant caesura in the chapter. Five groups of one to three masters have passed before the reader’s eyes, and a sixth group is now added. Yet the sixth group is not characterized by the structural parallelism of praise, exposition of teachings in slogans, or the criticism and concluding comment that inform the portrayal of the other five groups of masters. The odd man out dragged into the ambiguous closure of Zhuangzi is the sophist Hui Shi, Zhuangzi’s closest friend, truest opponent, and at times most ridiculed interlocutor. He is scolded right away for his “many formulas and five cart-loads of writings,” for his eccentricity, and—especially pertinent after the disclaimer and indirect praise of Zhuangzi’s verbal skill—for words that “do not hit home” (bu zhong ). He possesses no part whatsoever of the “ancient Way,” only many paradoxical sayings, a long list of which is provided for the reader’s amusement (luckily for later scholars, because so little of the corpus of the logicians [Mingjia ] survives and we have to thank Zhuangzi’s impulse of ridicule to have preserved this line-up of their paradoxes). Hui Shi makes himself unpopular because he constantly argues against people’s common sense for the sake of argument.

————— 24. For a further discussion, in particular of the “goblet words,” see Chapter 7. 25. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 33 (“Tianxia”), 1344.

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Even worse, not only does he not share in a single grain of truth of the real Way, but from the viewpoint of Heaven and Earth his abilities are “no more than the labors of a mosquito or gnat ( yi wen yi meng zhi lao ).” Huan Tuan ( ) and Gongsun Long ( ) are mentioned as Hui Shi’s fellow sophists, disputing their favorite absurdities without end. The chapter concludes with the following comment: True, he [i. e. another master from the South called Huang Liao] still deserves to be regarded as the founder of one school, yet I would say that, had he shown greater appreciation for the Way, it would have been better. Hui Shi, however, could not find any peace for himself in such an approach. Instead he lost himself tirelessly in the ten thousand things, and in the end only made a name for himself as excelling in clever argument. What a pity! Hui Shi abused and threw away his talents without ever really achieving anything! Chasing after the ten thousand things, with no return, he was like one who tries to silence an echo by shouting or to prove that a physical object can outrun its own shadow. How sad!26 , , ! , , . ! , , , , . !

Unlike Mozi, who uses his talent but tragically fails, Hui Shi wastes his talent; his hair-splitting sophistry leaves him behind, with body and shadow running different courses. Although the text doesn’t mince words when claiming that Huizi wasted his life on a vain, almost ridiculous cause, the final lament honestly mourns a person who appears in Zhuangzi as the one true friend and companion of Zhuangzi—certainly an accomplishment in itself.27 Overall, this last chapter of Zhuangzi resonates strongly with Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters.” True, it mentions only eleven masters in contrast to Xunzi’s twelve, but like Xunzi, it opens with generic portrayals rather than the names of particular masters, and it repeatedly uses a rhetorical structure that balances praise and blame—except for the last grouping, where it instead heaps insult upon insult on the master Hui Shi. In Xunzi, it is the fellow Confucians Mencius and Zisi who are the objects of scorn; in Zhuangzi, likewise, it is the figure closest to Zhuangzi, the

————— 26. Ibid., 1366–67. 27. On the friendship of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi, see Chapter 8.

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sophist Hui Shi, who is excluded from any sharing in the Way and reduced to a logic-chopping mosquito. Certainly there are also clear differences, such as the choice and grouping of masters, among the texts, although Zhuangzi features an equally strong presence of masters associated with the Jixia Academy. The most significant difference between Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters” and the last Zhuangzi chapter consists of the broader framing of the six master groups. Xunzi goes to the trouble of criticizing various masters in order to provide a darker backdrop for his vision of an ideal Confucian sage who then triumphs over the various groups of descipable Confucian heretics, with Xunzi himself as the ultimate narrative manipulator of this vision. The Zhuangzi chapter, however, steps back from the contention of holding a master-truth and points to a more powerful, less sectarian ultimate truth lodged in the unity of the “Ancient Way,” traces of which survive in all teachings except for those of Hui Shi. Ironically, the text goes beyond sectarian debate precisely by integrating its own master, Zhuangzi, into the ranks of the other masters singled out for discussion. That Zhuangzi falls under the scalpel of criticism just like the other masters does not detract from his image but enhances it. Although the chapter probably dates to the early Han, and was not written by Zhuangzi, but is clearly one of the late additions to the Zhuangzi corpus, Zhuangzi would have had good reason to write a chapter that makes reckless fun of himself; whoever devised this chapter in mischievous reverence towards the Master certainly did Zhuangzi a sly favor.

The Masters as Texts and Expertise: Han Dynasty Taxonomies When Liu Xiang (77–6 bce) was ordered to produce an annotated catalog for the Han imperial library, he divided the materials at his disposition into six large categories: “Classics,” “Masters,” “Poetry,” “Military Strategists,” “Various Sciences,” and “Medicine.” His catalog was later revised to become the “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Hanshu and lay the foundation for the four categories of traditional Chinese bibliography. Liu Xiang divided the “Masters” category into ten subgroups: Confucians (Rujia ), Daoists (Daojia ), Yinyang school

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(Yinyangjia ), Legalists (Fajia ), Logicians or Names School (Mingjia ), Mohists (Mojia ), Persuaders (Zonghengjia ), Agronomists (Nongjia ), Syncretists/Miscellaneous Masters (Zajia ), and Fabulists or Story Tellers (Xiaoshuojia ). Liu Xiang’s taxonomy has been extraordinarily successful, and in particular those subgroups that overlap with Sima Tan’s “Six Schools” (Liujia ) are still widely used today in discussions of Warring States thought, often without an awareness that these taxonomies are Han visions of the Warring States past rather than descriptive of the actual Warring States intellectual landscape. Recent scholarship has reconsidered the relationship between textual traditions, master figures, and political factions in Late Warring States and Han China. One direction of inquiry has been to extrapolate from Han taxonomies to Warring States realities.28 Most scholars accept that the Confucians and Mohists very likely maintained educational institutions where students assembled around a teacher and shared a common lifestyle and ritual protocol.29 For the Daoists, Harold Roth argues similarly that masters gathered disciples around them and transmitted specific self-cultivation skills and texts.30 Other “schools,” such as the “Yinyang” school and the “Legalists,” might have been Sima Tan’s creation. They seem to refer to intellectual formations more closely tied to central political institutions that trained specialists to develop expertise in divination, calendar calculations, and strategies for the administration of a unified empire. Kidder Smith muses that the new coinages among the “Six Experts” must have appeared “funny” even to Sima Tan’s contemporaries.31

————— 28. For a careful reconsideration of Sima Tan’s “Six Experts,” see Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ etc.” 29. Most prominently, Robert Eno (The Confucian Creation of Heaven) has made this argument for the pre-Qin Confucians. 30. Roth, Original Tao. 31. “These jia must have seemed a funny thing to Tan’s contemporaries. They did not meet the usual goals of ideological labeling: to name names, mark a group of people, or impute a social organization to knowledge.” Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ etc.,” 148. Smith does not assume that the taxonomy describes groups of people employable in the imperial administration, but just circumscribes “styles of practice,” although I find that hard to believe, especially in the case of the so-called “Legalists” and the form-name methods (xingming) associated with them.

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Because extrapolations of pre-Qin realities from Han sources will inevitably assume continuity in the absence of evidence to the contrary, some scholars have been reluctant to speculate on the existence and nature of pre-Qin “schools.” Mark Lewis understands pre-Qin schools only in broader terms as “modes of authority” that were at first dominated by the authoritative presence of a master, who was eventually replaced by a corpus of authoritative texts.32 More radically, Michael Puett proposes to dispense with the notion of philosophical “schools” altogether, because “school” labels are often misleading and cloister the texts behind artificial firewalls of intellectual affiliation. Instead, he suggests focusing on the claims the texts stake and on the ways they place their claims in relation to other texts.33 Given the polemical edge of virtually all the texts that propose taxonomies of schools, this approach is crucial to understanding the ideology behind various taxonomic schemes. Han historians have analyzed the vision Han authors produced of preQin Masters in their own right. Shifting the frame of inquiry from the preQin into the Han period has great advantages, because anachronistic imagination—for intellectual historians of the pre-Qin period a complicating nuisance—is for Han historians a welcome foil to investigate contemporary concerns of relevant Han figures. In accord with the shift from pre-Qin to Han times, the question moves from whether or what kinds of schools existed before the Qin to who wanted those “schools” or pre-Qin proponents to speak for them at a particular historical moment. Mark Csikszentmihályi and Michael Nylan analyze shifts in the meaning of “jia,” or “schools/experts,” in the three Han histories, which they distinguish as three “discrete rhetorical constructions” that have to be interpreted based on how the past is specifically used in each case:34

————— 32. Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 55. 33. Puett, To Become a God, 25. 34. Csikszentmihályi and Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions,” 60. In “Which Books Did the First Emperor of Ch’in Burn?,” Jens Østergaard Petersen traces the semantic change of “jia” through a variety of pre-Qin through Eastern Han sources. He shows a change from the derogatory use of “baijia” as “anecdotal story-tellers” who tell stories about the present through the use of the past, to a positive meaning of “Masters” or “Thinkers” since the late Western Han. Petersen uses his evidence to claim that the Qin Emperor burned not the “Masters” but the “story tellers,” the “baijia” in the derogatory sense.

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In keeping with Plumb’s belief that “authority once achieved must have a secure and usable past,”35 this essay has sought to distinguish between actual events and the usable past constructed with care by successive Chinese historiographers in state employ.36

Thus, while Sima Qian uses jia for experts propagating a given approach to policymaking, the same term in the Han History evidently points to ritual transmission from master to disciple.37 Csikszentmihályi and Nylan see the new emphasis on master-disciple relationships and scholastic lineages as a response to the state’s increasing attention to the defining of authoritative texts and their commentarial traditions. In another article that looks beyond the specific agendas of particular Han works and authors, Mark Csikszentmihályi proposes three stages in the development of taxonomies of pre-Qin Masters. 38 He distinguishes an early phase during the Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 bce), during which masters transmit certain practices in institutions independent of the state. At the next stage, the transmission between master and disciple becomes isolated from its social contexts, and Masters Texts are making ideological points about “inconsistencies inherent in that type of

————— 35. Plumb, The Death of the Past. 36. Csikszentmihályi and Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions,” 99. 37. Ibid., 60. 38. Csikszentmihályi, “Traditional Taxonomies and Revealed Texts in the Han.” Broadly conceived typologies for the various venues that discuss Masters Literature are helpful for understanding their respective cultural functions. For example, Edmund Ryden (“Was Confucius a Confucian?,” 7) has proposed to use the Saussurian distinction between the “diachronic” history of a language and its “synchronic” shape at any given point in time as a metaphor to understand the discussions around early Chinese schools of thought. He states, “The diachronic definition of school establishes a lineage, but does not guarantee continuity of thought, or better, of synchronic system. The synchronic system establishes a definition of the doctrines or whatever other aspect the historian of philosophy wishes to bring out of the school but can only claim that this definition is valid for the state of the philosophy at one moment in history.” His metaphorical use of Saussurian terminology is valuable for another reason: it makes us aware that the masters’ names, figures, and lines of transmission follow a different rhetorical logic than the texts and their arguments. For example, “diachronic” constructions of master lineages in the Han Histories show little interest in the texts themselves, but focus exclusively on the proper transmission of the texts, bracketing discussions of their content. This does not, of course, mean that the texts did not play a role in the transmission, but that the rhetoric of “diachronic” descriptions of master-disciple relationships did not call for discussing them.

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transmission.” This was the moment Xunzi (or later the last chapter in Zhuangzi) was referring to when it lamented the loss of unity and proposed to regain the original unanimity by either favoring one of the divergent factions (Xunzi) or accommodating all of them (Zhuangzi). Csikszentmihályi calls this stage “interpretive,” because the stances of various Masters Texts are defined by their divergent interpretations of the past and of the moment when things went wrong. With the Han we reach a third, “generic” stage when the terminology of state institutions comes to inform taxonomies, as in the “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Hanshu, which connects certain schools with their presumable origin in ancient offices. Csikszentmihályi’s proposition of “institutional,” “interpretive,” and “generic” stages in the development of school taxonomies draws our attention to the very different agendas behind the Masters taxonomies:39 The consecutive types of taxonomy outlined above are, of course, painted with a broad brush and, therefore, contain many generalizations. However, they do demonstrate real differences in the motives behind the composition of the taxonomies used to talk about early China and suggest that, as a result, some of the categories used in different taxonomies may also be different in kind. If this is the case, then it is quite possible that categories of different taxonomies might overlap or that a particular taxonomy might not be comprehensive.40

————— 39. Csikszentmihályi’s typology is very useful for capturing the enormous shifts in the discourses of and about Masters Literature from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Han, although I would disagree on terminology. What Csikszentmihályi sees as an active questioning of the validity of transmission between master and disciple in the second “interpretive” stage I would instead describe as part of a broader narrative of decline— pervading most Early Chinese texts—that opened ample opportunities for polemicizing against one’s intellectual opponents. In other words, if the loss of unity among contending master groups is deplored it creates a welcome opportunity to fingerpoint at the depraved rivals who are responsible for that decline; I do not consider the lament over faulty transmission a questioning of the practices of transmission per se, but a clever rhetorical move to create space for one’s own claims. Accordingly, I prefer the term “polemical” to “interpretive” to characterize this stage. This also reflects that debates over taxonomies in the Late Warring States and the Early Han prior to Sima Qian happen mostly within the genre of Masters Literature itself, in contrast to the Han debates over taxonomies that often appear in historiographical works. 40. Csikszentmihályi, “Traditional Taxonomies and Revealed Texts in the Han,” 90.

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Csikszentmihályi reminds us of the eclectic nature of taxonomies, shaped variously by ideological agendas, ad hoc approximations, the desire to produce rival terms or fill in gaping holes, and other “artifacts” that heavily distort their descriptive value. This holds true not only for the Han, but already for the Warring States Period. As discussed above, Xunzi’s “Against the Twelve Masters” and later Zhuangzi’s “All Under Heaven” were showing a fascination with typologies that create similarities and differences between masters based on an aesthetics of overall balance rather than on a nuanced rendering of the intellectual position of each master. Sima Tan’s essay on the “Six Schools”—Confucians (Ruzhe), Mohists (Mozhe), Daoists (Daojia), Yinyang specialists (Yinyangjia), Legalists (Fajia), and Logicians (or “Names-School” Mingjia)—continues this method of producing typologies, with particular emphasis on the ideas of each school that should be retained and adopted in the present. This is how Sima Tan characterizes the “Confucians” and the “Legalists”: The Confucians have broad learning but are weak on essentials. They labor with little success. Therefore their program is difficult to follow through. However, their ordering of the ritual relations between sovereign and minister, and father and son, and their arrangement of the distinctions between husband and wife, the old and the young, should not be changed. The Legalists are strict and have little mercy. However, their rectification of the division between sovereign and minister, superiors and subordinates, should not be altered. 41 , , ; , , . ; , .

Except for the favored “Daoists,” Sima Tan introduces each school, and in particular the Confucian school, by first listing his misgivings about it, which in turn are counterbalanced with praise of what elements appear useful under present circumstances and should not be altered. In this condensed portrayal, “Confucians” and “Legalists” come disconcertingly close to each other and are equally praised for their emphasis on hierarchical relations in society.

————— 41. Shiji 130.3289.

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The “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Hanshu adds a few more parameters to the discursive machine—namely, an imaginary origin of each school in the Zhou bureaucracy and a canonical quotation from the Classic of Changes or attributed to Confucius to illustrate the strengths of each school of thought: The trend of the “Legalists” originates from judicial officials. They believe in rewards and in the necessity of punishments, whereby they uphold rituals and regulations. The Classic of Changes states, “The earlier kings regulated laws by making clear punishments.” This is where their strength lies. As for their flaws, they do not transform [the people] through education, and they abolish [the values of] benevolence and love. They desire to exercise governance by focusing exclusively on penal law. Offending against [a sense of] mercy and of little generosity, they go as far as cruelly harming their closest relatives.42 , , , . , . , , , , , .

The same scheme of origin in the Zhou bureaucracy—enumeration of doctrinal apothegms, which at times are justified by a saying from Confucius or a passage from the Classic of Changes, followed by a castigation of shortcomings—is played through in the descriptions of the other schools. The most significant contribution of the “Bibliographical Treatise” to the discussions around Masters Literature is the introduction of canonical hierarchies among various groups of texts, the “Classics,” “Histories,” “Masters,” and “Collections.” Suddenly the Masters Texts have not only become a particular textual genre defined by its focus on a master or by diatribes against other masters, but they have acquired a very specific position in a hierarchical chronology, which we might also generously call a highly schematic literary history. The master-narrative of this literary chronology assumes the decline of writing, history, and the cosmos starting in the ancient age when the Classics were produced and progressing to the more recent stage that saw the rise of Masters Literature. Confucius plays a pivotal role in this literary chronology. On the one hand, Confucius is the figure that gives closure to the golden age of the Classics: this is the traditional image of

————— 42. Hanshu 30.1736.

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Confucius as the author or at least compiler of the Classics. On the other hand, Confucius represents the inception of the newer tradition of Masters Literature, whose texts are deficient in comparison to the Classics and constitute a step down in the chronology of decline. Thus Confucius is the pivotal figure between the subject headings of the “Classics” and the “Masters.” The opening of the “Bibliographical Treatise” effectively dramatizes the narrative of political and intellectual decline that frames its bibliographical taxonomy: In the past when Confucius died his “subtle words” were interrupted, and after his seventy disciples passed away, their greater meaning became perverted. Thus, the tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals split into five and that of the Book of Poetry into four lineages, while the Book of Changes was transmitted through numerous lineages. Through the vertical and horizontal alliances of the Warring States and the quarrels over right and wrong, the words of the Masters were scattered and confused. By the Qin, these worries led to the burning of texts in order to stultify the masses. The rise of the Han mended the failures of the Qin and collected texts on a large scale, vastly opening the way for the offering of books.43 , . , , . , , . , , . , , , .

Confucius stands at the beginning of the history of textual learning, of the canonical traditions of antiquity, and the “Bibliographical Treatise” clearly distinguishes him from the “scattered and confused” words of the Masters that reflect the political discord of the Warring States. Confucius is thus kept outside of the “Masters” section, precisely because the “Bibliographical Treatise” portrays the “Masters” as a deficient sort of writing that had lost the greater pattern of things and contented itself with partial truths: Out of the ten [above-mentioned] schools of Masters, nine can be recommended for perusal.44 All arose when the Way of the [Zhou] kings faded, the feudal lords ruled by force, and the lords of the day had their personal preferences for various approaches [to governance]. Thus the strategies of the nine schools were created

————— 43. Hanshu 30.1701. 44. The “Treatise” excludes here the “Storytellers” (Xiaoshuojia

) as useless.

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in a fierce exchange of blows, with each drawing on one’s own perspective only and revering what one happened to be good at. [. . .] Now all kinds of schools promote their strengths, exhaust their wisdom, and strain their thought in order to illuminate their main points. Although they have blind spots and disadvantages, if you go back and combine their essentials, they are also a branch and offspring of the Six Classics. [. . .] If you cultivate the strategies [contained] in the Six Classics and peruse the works of the nine schools, eliminating their weaknesses and adopting their strengths, then you can grasp the outlines of the whole cosmos.45 , . , , , , , , .[…] , , , , , .[…] , , , .

In this conclusion we again hear a story of decline and perverted truth that is symptomatic of the overall decline of the Way. But we are also presented with a counternarrative that values the “Masters” as containing at least partial truths and that sees the “Masters” as a necessary complement to the “Classics” for those who seek to understand the cosmos.

The Masters as People: Master Biographies in Records of the Grand Historian The biographical section of the Records of the Grand Historian is a particularly interesting venue to explore what Masters Literature came to mean in the Han. This is because in the Han, the relationship between texts and taxonomies is very much guided by present concerns: taxonomies are used to sketch a panorama of different ways of contemporary policy-making, like Sima Tan’s “Six Schools,” for example, or to order books in the imperial library, like in the “Bibliographical Treatise.” Conversely, the texts are used to validate contemporary practices through the creation of lineages and historical precedent. In contrast, biographies of pre-Qin Masters have to envision and interpret the past. Certainly, the biographies of pre-Qin Masters in the Records of

————— 45. Hanshu 30.1746.

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the Grand Historian are Sima Qian’s imaginations of pre-Qin thinkers tinged by his own agenda. Also, while taxonomies share the same virtual realm as texts, biographies have to address the more delicate gaps between biography and thought, between life and work. Because we lack alternative sources in many cases, it is difficult to judge the extent of idiosyncrasy of Sima Qian’s portrayals of the pre-Qin Masters. But we are certainly in a good position to assess them in relation to Sima Qian’s overall project in the Records of the Grand Historian. First, in accordance with the vision of creative authorship that Sima Qian extols on his own example in his famous “Letter to Ren An,” Sima Qian values the pre-Qin Masters first and foremost as authors; he is particularly interested in comparing the writings they composed to the lives they lived. Second, the taxonomies and groupings of masters that appear in the biographies of the Records of the Grand Historian have little in common with Sima Tan’s “schools” of experts, which shows again that Sima Tan’s scheme was not intended as an account of the past but a vision for the present. How is Confucius, how are his disciples and followers, how are Laozi, Han Feizi, Mencius, or Xunzi described when approached not through the texts attributed to them, but through the lives they lived?

The Account of Confucius’s Clan (Records of the Grand Historian Chapter 47) Calling him the ultimate Sage (zhi sheng ) at the end of the chapter, Sima Qian distinguishes Confucius from all other masters who appear in the “Biographies” (liezhuan ) section. Confucius’s biography, in contrast, is placed into the section of “Hereditary Houses” (shijia ) of the Zhou aristocracy to honor him on a par with the feudal rulers whom he most often criticized.46 The biography focuses on Confucius’s failure as a public servant and on his humiliating treatment by contemporary rulers. Sima Qian sharply criticizes Duke Ai of Lu’s way of lamenting Confucius’s death: Duke Ai mourned Confucius and said, “High Heaven was unkind not to rather have spared this old man, letting him shield me, the One and only, on the throne,

————— 46. For a detailed study of Sima Qian’s biography of Confucius, see Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 218–38, and Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror, 29–45.

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who is so solitary and ailing. How sad indeed! Old Ni (Confucius)! There is no one to take as my model!” Zigong answered, “That the duke may die outside of Lu! The master said that ‘when propriety is lost there is confusion, when names are lost, there will be violations. Abandoning one’s intentions causes confusion, and abandoning one’s place is a violation.’ In life you failed to employ him, in death you are mourning him—that shows lack of propriety! Calling yourself “the One and only”—that shows lack of proper naming!”47 : , , , . ! , ! : ! : , . , . , , . .

Zigong makes it clear to Duke Ai that he should feel embarrassed at lamenting Confucius’s death. If one did not care to employ the person during his lifetime, how could one break into tearful laments at his death? Using a maxim left by the late Master that predicts chaos when propriety is lost and violations when a spade is not called a spade, Zigong infers that Duke Ai’s display of mourning upon Confucius’s death is just such a loss of propriety; and his arrogation of the title “the one and only” ( yi ren ), a self-address reserved for the Zhou king, is a typical example of the abuse of names rampant among the depraved and power-hungry feudal lords. Zigong here applies the very principles of subtle critique that Confucius had presumably employed in his composition of the Spring and Autumn Annals. The biography does not mention the Analects or any kind of recorded sayings jotted down by Confucius’s disciples. Instead, Sima Qian makes Confucius’s compilation of the Spring and Autumn Annals into the compensation for his failure to secure employment. In Sima Qian’s view the composition of this book, not his persona as the teacher in the Analects, is Confucius’s work of a lifetime: The Master said, “Oh, how very deplorable: A superior person who is sick and leaves the world before his name has become known. Since my Way has not spread far, how can I make myself known to later ages?” Therefore he compiled the Spring and Autumn Annals based on the historical records of twelve reigns, from Duke Yin down to the fourteenth year of the reign of Duke Ai: it centers on the state of Lu, sides with the Zhou, while relegating the Shang to the past,

————— 47. Shiji 47.1945.

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and moves things along based on the Three Dynasties. Its diction is concise, farreaching its main points. Thus, although the rulers of Wu and Chu had styled themselves “kings,” the Spring and Autumn Annals criticizes them by calling them simply “barons.” [. . .] These types of examples are promoted as yardsticks of judgment in today’s world. These principles of condemning [improper action]—they should be held up and publicized by later kings! When the principles of the Spring and Autumn Annals are carried out, rebels and scoundrels in the whole world tremble with fear!48 : , . , ? , , , . , , , . . , [. . .] . , . , .

Confucius rules through his textual regime of praise and blame in the Spring and Autumn Annals, which does not stay in the innocuous realm of exegesis, but is a tool of contemporary crime control: scoundrels of all ages tremble with fear when Confucius’s principles of the Spring and Autumn Annals are implemented. According to Sima Qian, this should be a model for future rulers. Sima Qian emphasizes Confucius the failed minister, the successful author-compiler, and the hands-on policy-maker by means of the book. That Confucius has little success with his teachings before he compiles the Spring and Autumn Annals to advertise himself to posterity adds to the drama of adversity that Sima Qian is so drawn to in his own life. Confucius writes the Spring and Autumn Annals in the face of neglect by the political establishment, just as Sima Qian wrote the Records of the Grand Historian in the face of punishment and castration. And as Sima Qian was not a master or scholar, but a historian and author, Sima Qian’s Confucius looks less like a master and more like an authoritative author,49 a vision of Confucius that Mencius had already invoked to posthumously lift his teacher into the seat of authority at court that was denied him during his lifetime.

————— 48. Shiji 47.1943. 49. Stephen Durrant captures this aptly, saying “Sima Qian, enjoined to be another Confucius, presents to us an image of the Master as he would have him. The issues of the life he presents are, time and again, the issues of his own life, and all those issues, in the final analysis, point toward the production of texts, the last and only hope for the frustrated scholar. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror, 45.

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Confucius’s Disciples and the Legacy of Persuasion ( Records of the Grand Historian Chapter 67) In stunning contrast to the portrayal of Confucius and his clan in the “Hereditary Houses” section, authorship and writing hardly play any role in the chapter on Confucius’s disciples. Confucius only appears in the context of close interaction with his disciples: Ziyou receives the teachings of the master (shou ye ); the brash and bullying Zilu eventually submits to the Master by handing over to him a pledge of obedience, which makes their relationship equal to that between a master and a vassal; and Zizhang records Confucius’s words on his sash—a reference to the only passage in the Analects that mentions writing.50 But with the exception of Zengzi , who receives the Master’s teachings (shou zhi ye ) and transmits them by “writing” (zuo ) the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing ), none of Confucius’s students is specifically associated with the writing of texts.51 Conversation and personal intimacy characterize Confucius’s relation to his disciples and their relation to their master’s intellectual legacy. Interestingly, Sima Qian grants Zigong by far the most space. About half of the seventy-seven disciples have short biographies that include their birthplaces, their age in relation to Confucius’s, and one or two episodes from the Analects that feature the disciple. The remaining half are mentioned only by name. It is intriguing that Sima Qian, after pointing out emphatically that Confucius criticized Zigong for his skill in disputation (bian ), then inserts an extended episode that has him appear in the full rhetorical armor of a Warring States professional persuader.52 In order to avoid an attack on the state of Lu, he is sent to various states by various rulers—not even in bad faith, because all of the rulers he advises feel privileged to get such good advice and are convinced that Zigong will do the best for them wherever they are about to send him. Sima Qian concludes that after showing off his skill in several brilliant persuasions, Zigong succeeds in “preserving Lu, throwing Qi in chaos, destroying Wu, strengthening Jin

————— 50. Analects 15.6. 51. Shiji 67.2205. 52. Shiji 67.2197–2201.

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and integrating Yue into the hegemonic system (cun Lu, luan Qi, po Wu, qiang Jin er ba Yue , , , ).”53 Sima Qian also praises Zigong for spearheading favorable change in five countries within ten years, which can be read as the real-world answer to hypothetical musings in the Analects, where Confucius once asks his disciples what they could accomplish in a given number of years if granted a high position.54 Sima Qian seems to suggest that finally we have a follower of Confucius who puts into practice the ruminations of his politically impotent master. That other Confucians such as Mencius would have bitterly fought against such an unprincipled vision of Confucius’s heritage seems to be precisely the point here. Zigong is a hero of words in action, and for Sima Qian it might be this quality that makes him a “good Confucian” and spiritual child of his master, although he appears in the dubious role of a brilliantly nimble, spineless persuader. The prominence given to Zigong in this chapter, combined with Zigong’s profile as a skillful persuader, reveal Sima Qian’s broader vision of Confucius’s heritage. First, Sima Qian depicts the community of Confucius’s followers as a convivial oral community, with references to writing virtually banned from the scene. Second, Sima Qian devotes most of his attention to Zigong the persuader, portraying him as the successful inheritor of Confucius’s legacy.55 Third, he inserts the biographies of the

————— 53. Shiji 67.2201. Nienhauser points out that there are many anachronistic glitches in this rather spurious story. But this fact does not detract from my point that Sima Qian wants to present Zigong as a skillful persuader, a hero of speech. In fact, it enforces it. Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe’s Records vol. 7, 71. 54. For a discussion of this episode see the section “Alternative Communities in the Analects” in Chapter 2. 55. It seems as if Sima Qian wants to make Zigong into the principal inheritor of Confucius’s lineage. Zigong’s success stands in strong contrast to two spectacular failures of transmission along the “official lineage” in the chapter. The first is a break in Confucius’s bloodline, the second in his institutional genealogy: Zisi, Confucius’s grandson and only legitimate heir after the early death of his son, leaves the community of disciples and becomes a hermit—as which he also appears in Zhuangzi. When the rich and boisterous Zigong visits him and asks whether living in such deplorably poor conditions makes him sick, Zisi snaps back with remarkable sarcasm, praising poverty as the virtue of the scholar and in turn declaring the incapacity of sticking to one’s ideals after having studied the Way as psychological “infirmity.” This criticism is said to be so effective that Zigong regrets his behavior for the rest of his life.

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two most famous Warring States persuaders, Su Qin (?–ca. 317 bce) 56 and Zhang Yi (?–ca. 310 bce), closely after the account of Confucius’s disciples, as if to suggest a connection between Confucius’s legacy and persuasion. This stands in suggestive contrast to Sima Qian’s portrayal of Confucius the author in the Master’s biography, and is also diametrically opposed to the emphasis on the textual expertise of the Laozi lineage of masters, an issue discussed below.

the Biography of the Persuader Su Qin ( Records of the Grand Historian Chapter 69) If Sima Qian draws Confucius’s heritage so close to the profile of Warring States persuaders, it is worthwhile to consider the persuader biographies in order to understand the contrast Sima Qian draws between authormasters—the Laozi lineage—and persuader-masters—the Confucian lineage. Su Qin is an interesting case to consider because of how eager Sima Qian is to restore his controversial reputation. Su Qin’s extraordinary career as a persuader and a man of speech starts with his insight that only proper study and application of book learning brings success in one’s métier: Su Qin was a native of Eastern Zhou’s Luoyang. He served teachers to the East in the state of Qi and studied with Sir Guigu. After traveling for several years, he was in dire straits and returned home. His older and younger brothers, sister-inlaw and sisters, and (their) wives and concubines all furtively laughed about him: “The custom for Zhou people has been to manage their property, put their efforts into manufacturing and trade, and to make 20 percent profit! Now that you’ve severed your roots and serve with your mouth and tongue you’re in trouble. Isn’t that fitting!” Su Qin heard it and was ashamed. Deeply hurt inside, he locked himself up in his room and would not come out. He got out his books

————— If the family line is a story of failure, so is the succession within the community of disciples. Sima Qian relates that You Ruo had been appointed to head the community after Confucius’s death. But apparently he failed in the eyes of his peers and was chased from his position. The incident that caused his removal is particularly revealing: it was not his incapacity to react to a particular event in the present, but his inability to explain the actions of the late Master, that symbolically disqualified him as the continuator of Confucius’s legacy. 56. Shiji Chapters 69 and 70.

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and looked them all over, saying to himself, “Now, for the basics of the career of an official I have already bowed down my head and received (my Master’s) writings. But if they can’t help me win high position and honor, though they are many, why should I bother?” After this, he obtained the Zhou book Secret Tallies. He hunched over it to read and recite it. After a year had gone by, he came out to test [the effects of the book]: “With this I can persuade the lords of this age!”57 , . , . , . , : , , , . , , ! , , , . : , , ! , . , , : .

Su Qin plunged into his career as traveling persuader,58 first studying with various masters and then spending years on the road. But something was wrong, and when he failed to continue making a living he returned home, only to endure his family’s derision. They faulted him for violating the customs of Zhou—of any cultivated Chinese, that is—by traveling around and not living a settled, lucrative life as a craftsman or merchant, working instead as a persuader and teacher “with his mouth and tongue” (koushe ). The remark of his clan members is an excellent foil for the description of the meteoric rise of Su Qin, who will become one of the most famous diplomats in negotiations between the vertical and horizontal alliances and the struggle over hegemony in the crumbling Eastern Zhou kingdom. Later on, the shame that Su Qin’s clan members feel about their previous scornful behavior serves to showcase Su Qin’s generosity and forgiving

————— 57. Shiji 69.2241–42. My translation has benefited from Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe’s Records, vol. 7, 97. 58. Throughout the chapter, a variety of largely interchangeable terms appear for the career path of those who make their living through “persuasion” (shui ): youxiashi , bianshi , binke . I do not believe that careful semantic distinctions between these terms can help us understand sociological differences, because as this chapter shows the terms are often blurred and potential distinctions between them are of a more rhetorical than sociological nature. Thus, the manipulation of these terms should be studied within particular texts and not throughout the entire corpus of Early Chinese writings. Many of the broader associations of the class of “persuaders” can be found in Fu Jianping, Zonghengjia yu Zhongguo wenhua.

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clemency. Everybody in his clan receives an ample share of the fabulous riches that his brilliant use of his mouth and tongue finally bring him. Returning to Su Qin’s story, it is only after the revelation that one has to read the right books and know how to apply them that Su Qin becomes a true persuader. After a year of studying the Secret Tallies (Yinfu ), he is finally prepared for his task and starts his rise as a diplomatic star. Throughout the biography, Sima Qian presents Su Qin’s most favorable side, and he comments in the end: His Honor the Grand Scribe comments: “Su Qin and his two brothers traveled as persuader among the feudal lords to make a name for themselves. The strengths of their expertise lay in mastering sudden changes. Thus when Su Qin died at the hands of an enemy agent, the world laughed about him and it was taboo to study his teachings. However, what our generation says of Su Qin is often inconsistent, and similar examples from different times are all ascribed to Su Qin. Now, that Su Qin rose from the streets of a small village all the way to unite the Six States and promote alliances was due to his outstanding intelligence. I therefore relate his deeds in chronological order so that he will not suffer a bad reputation.”59 : , , . , , . , . , , . , , .

Sima Qian’s account of Su Qin is a gesture to rehabilitate him, and the dubious class of “persuaders” in general, who were reviled for advising those rulers who offered them the greatest profit. In this account, Sima Qian praises Su Qin’s versatility and, more importantly, announces his rehabilitation by the grace of his deeds. Given that the bulk of Su Qin’s biography consists of dialogue scenes quoted from the Schemes of the Warring States (Zhanguoce ), the emphasis on his deeds, rather than words, is telling. Here, Sima Qian deems persuasions and deeds as identical, and this agreement seems to be characteristic of his portrayal of persuaders. A similar phenomenon occurs on the textual level: the scenes from the Schemes of the Warring States are not quoted, but flow directly into the narrative matrix of the biography. They are not framed as words but are the very stuff that makes

————— 59. Shiji 69.2277.

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for biographical deeds. This is similar to the way quotations from the Analects appearing in the biography of Confucius’s disciples are seamlessly integrated into the narrative matrix without any distinction between quoted texts and the relating of events. It is not coincidental that a distance between “deeds” and “words,” between “quotes” and “narrative,” and between “master figure” and “master text” is precisely, in contrast, the hallmark of the Laozi lineage.60

The Laozi Lineage and the Prerogative of Writing (Chapter 63) Against the Confucian legacy of speech and persuasion, Sima Qian reserves the prerogative of writing for the tradition originating from Laozi. He assembles Zhuangzi, Shen Buhai (d. 337 bce), and Han Feizi as transmitters of Laozi’s legacy. Although Sima Qian is not quite sure about the identity of Laozi, all three figures he proposes as candidates are associated with scribal expertise: Li Dan, a contemporary of Confucius, was archivist at the Zhou court; Laolaizi from Chu composed an influential book in fifteen volumes; and Laozi, the Grand Historian of Zhou, lived 129 years after Confucius’s death and by his office is a remote colleague of Sima Qian.61 In Sima Qian’s subsequently famous description of the encounter between Laozi and the border guard Guan Yin, he adjusts the figure of Laozi to fit the prerogative of writing claimed in his biography for the Laozi lineage. Like Confucius disillusioned by the decline of the Zhou, Laozi leaves for the West. Luckily, just before leaving Chinese territory, the border guard commands him to write a book in two parts on the “Way and Virtue.” The story of Laozi’s forced authorship is somewhat less compelling than Confucius’s noble conviction that writing is the only possible response to dire circumstances or a failed career. But it is sufficient—together with his many potential links to scribal expertise—to elevate Laozi as the ancestor of the “master-authors” in this biography.

————— 60. Sima Qian’s interest in testing the works of Masters against their deeds in life recurs in other biographies. See the biography of Sunzi, Shiji 65.2168–69; and of Guanzi and Yanzi, Shiji 62.2136. 61. Shiji 63.2139–42.

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In strong contrast to Confucius’s disciples, who enjoy the charisma of the Master’s presence, Laozi’s “followers” do not follow the actual person, Laozi, but base themselves on the book Laozi. The scribal sophistication of Laozi’s heritage reaches its first pinnacle with Zhuangzi, who is credited with the prolific penning of “parables” ( yu ). Sima Qian praises him for his skillful ridicule of Confucius in episodes like that of the “Fisherman” and “Robber Chi,” by which Zhuangzi presumably “illuminates the techniques of Laozi” (ming Laozi zhi shu ). Sima Qian also applauds his fictional anecdotes (kongyu wu shishi ).62 With Han Feizi, Sima Qian’s genealogy of Laozi-inspired Masters Texts reaches an uncanny climax. Sima Qian notes that Han Feizi was a stutterer and therefore not suited to oral persuasion, and he lauds his extraordinary writing abilities (shan zhuoshu ).63 Writing is not a correlate of Han Feizi’s oral persuasions, but his only recourse; his speech impairment forces him to develop his writing skills. To illustrate Han Fei’s brilliance, Sima Qian even has the king of Qin, after a recitation of Han Fei’s works, proclaim in a sudden outbreak of ecstasy that he would not mind dying if he could only meet the author of those lines. Apparently, Han Feizi’s sublime writing has the power to make people relinquish their will to live. Yet in the end, this power backfires and Han Feizi is driven to suicide by the very same king, because Li Si (ca. 280–208 bce), minister of Qin and former fellow student of Han Feizi under Xunzi, warns the king of Qin that Han Feizi, as a prince of the state of Han, will potentially betray the interests of Qin. Sima Qian grants nobody else in the Laozi lineage as much space as Han Feizi, who is the only pre-Qin Master to have an entire writing sample included in his biography. “Difficulties of Persuasion” (Shui nan ), which survives in a slightly different version in Han Feizi and is discussed in Chapter 8, is the piece that Sima Qian seems to appreciate most; but it is also the piece that puzzles him the most, because it illustrates the tragic gap between “words” and “deeds,” between “texts” and “biographies.” Sima Qian realizes that Han Feizi could write beautifully about the dangers of giving advice to rulers, but that in the end he perished precisely because of his powerful persuasions. Sima Qian

————— 62. Shiji 63.2143–44. 63. Shiji 63.2146.

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emphasizes that Han Feizi’s works circulated widely in Qin and that the people of Qin loved his writings. The biography enhances the tragedy of Han Feizi’s death by telling us that in the end, the King of Qin regretted his decision to have Han Feizi killed under the spell of Li Si’s slander, but that his official pardon arrived too late. It is the tragic incongruence of Han Fei’s life and work that preoccupies Sima Qian most in this chapter. Sima Qian seeks an explanation for Han Feizi’s unjust death and an opportunity to rehabilitate this brilliant author. But in the final comment on the Laozi lineage, Sima Qian mixes praise and blame, lauding Han Feizi for the clarity of his ideas but scolding his harshness: His Honor the Grand Scribe comments: “The Way that Laozi treasured was emptiness and reacted to changes with non-assertion. Therefore, when he wrote his book its diction was subtle and marvelous, and difficult to understand. Zhuangzi scattered the Way and its Virtue, and indulged in his own arguments, but his essentials go back to [Laozi’s] spontaneity. Shen Buhai called the lowly lowly, applying this to the [matching] of names with actual reality. Han Feizi drew his lines like with a carpenter’s square, cutting right through the heart of things and clarifying what was so and what was not so. But he brought cruelty and harshness to the extreme and had little mercy. All these people started out from the significance of the “Way and its Virtue,” but Laozi is the deepest and most far-reaching of them all.64 : , , , . , , . , . , , , . , .

Sima Qian’s vision of a “Laozi lineage” of Masters in this collective biography combines thinkers who, in Sima Tan’s scheme of “Six Schools,” are strictly divided into “Daoists” and “Legalists.” Sima Qian points out in his introduction to his father’s essay on the “Six Schools” that Sima Tan studied the Classic of Changes and Daoist traditions and wrote his essay to create clarity that was lacking in the confused teachings of other scholars. Sima Tan clearly favored the Dao-school by exempting it from his otherwise systematic exposition of the drawbacks of each school. The collective biography of Masters attached to a “Laozi lineage” configured by

————— 64. Shiji 63.2156.

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Sima Qian shows a different kind of sympathy for the Dao-school: it assembles a number of Masters whom Sima Qian respects for their brilliant writing. And for that purpose, Sima Qian decided not just to conclude with Laozi and Zhuangzi, but to include the most skillful writer of all, the Laozi-loving “Legalist” Han Feizi. Therefore, Sima Qian’s scolding of Han Feizi’s ruthlessness in the coda of the biography can be seen as nothing more than a ritual gesture to dispel second thoughts about his inclusion and praise of Han Feizi, the consummate author, in the Laozi lineage.

The Biography of Mencius and Xunzi (Chapter 74) As we saw in the previous biography, Laozi was hard to understand, yet it produced a seemingly uncomplicated lineage of followers assembled in one biographical chapter. The transmission of Confucius’s heritage is divided in the Records of the Grand Historian into several disparate chapters, which lack clearer connections and—in the case of the biography of Confucius’s disciples—tell many stories of interrupted transmission. The impression of dispersal is further confirmed in Chapter 74, which relates the biographies of Mencius and Xunzi alongside those of a host of other figures such as Zou Yan (ca. 305–240), Chunyu Kun , Shen Dao, Tian Pian, Gongsun Long, and Mozi. Like the biography of Confucius’s disciples, this chapter seems to be arranged by physical, geographical proximity. No master figure is at the center of this circle of personages; instead, the kings of Qi, as the sponsors of the famed Jixia Academy, constitute that center spatially and symbolically. Although Mencius was not successful in persuading King Xuan of Qi , starting with Zou Yan the other figures in the chapter all became more or less involved with the Academy: Starting from Zou Yan and the gentlemen at the Jixia (Academy), his disciples Chunyu Kun, Shen Dao, Huan Yuan, Jiezi, Tian Pian and Zou Shi, all wrote books discussing the topic of order and chaos in order to seek favor with the lords of the times. How could I talk about them all! [. . .] The kings of Qi sang their praises and from Chunyu Kun on called them all “Assembled Grandees.” They built residences for them close to the great avenues, with high gates and grand chambers, and respectfully doted on them. Looking over the retainers from the

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feudal courts of the world, one has to say that Qi was able to attract the worthiest people of the world!65 , , , , ! [. . .] , , , , , . , .

It is significant that the first mention of an Academy at Jixia sponsored by the kings of Qi appears only in a cursory anecdote in Han Feizi, that is to say in the second half of the third century bce.66 Only with the Records of the Grand Historian do we have scattered references to the Jixia Academy, and the topographical myth that formed around it and described it as a place of free debate among thinkers of the most varied hues seems to prefigure, if it existed at all, the sponsoring of scholarship by local courts in the Han, such as Liu An’s (ca. 179–122 bce) court in Huainan 67 that produced the Huainanzi. Since institutional affiliations unite the masters treated in this biography, there is no common vision like the “Way and Virtue” that the masters in the collective biography of the Laozi lineage presumably shared. This means that masters like Mencius and Xunzi, who lay direct claim to Confucius’s legacy, are interspersed with Mozi, with Shen Dao—later considered “Legalist”—or with “Huang Lao” masters such as Tian Pian. Sima Qian devotes minimal space to Mencius. He only mentions that Mencius studied with disciples of Zisi and that he failed to gain employment with either King Xuan of Qi or King Hui of Liang . Sima Qian believes that the reason for Mencius’s lack of success was that his theories were considered impractical and irrelevant for a world of constant military struggles. Sima Qian depicts Mencius as a disillusioned scholar who retires from the hostile world just to inconsequentially discuss Confucius’s teachings, the Book of Poetry (Shijing ) and Book

————— 65. Shiji 74.2347–48. 66. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi, 629. 67. Further speculating on the continuities of state sponsorship from the Warring States to the Han, Zhong Zhipeng argued that the Qin and Han system of employing “doctors” (boshi ), textual specialists at court, derived from the Jixia Academy. He bases his claim on the clear similarities among numbers, titles, names, appellations, and functions of the Jixia “gentlemen” (xiansheng ) and the Qin and Han “doctors.” See the chart in Zhong Zhipeng, “Qin Han boshi zhidu yuan chu Jixia kao,” 17.

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of Documents (Shujing ), and write his own book.68 Mencius’s public failure is contrasted with Zou Yan’s political success. Xunzi gets an equally cursory treatment that summarizes only his various official posts and his activities as a writer, although unlike with the grand “authors” of the Laozi lineage, no chapter titles are given. Despite the summary treatment of both Mencius and Xunzi, Sima Qian shows himself moved by the poignant opening of Mencius, where Mencius chides King Hui of Liang for thinking of profit rather than benevolence and righteousness: His Honor the Grand Scribe comments: “Whenever I read Mencius’s book and get to King Hui of Liang’s question ‘How can you profit my state?’69 I never fail to put the book aside and sigh. Alas, ‘profit’ is truly the beginning of chaos. The reason that our Master seldom spoke of profit70 was because he was constantly on guard against its sources. Thus he said, ‘To act based on profit often leads to ill will.’71 From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, how would the downfall that infatuation with profit brings be different?”72 : , , . : , ! , . , . , !

In Chapter 74 Sima Qian shows less concern with presenting a coherent intellectual program or particular ability that would unite the masters like in the collective biography of the Laozi lineage. He discusses the masters loosely associated with the Jixia Academy in Qi; his master line-up thus cuts across almost all boundaries of the taxonomy of the “Six Schools.” While Sima Qian had launched himself into an intriguing discussion of Han Feizi’s life and works and then chided Han Feizi for his harshness in the final comment, the opposite happens with Mencius. Although the master is treated in summary fashion in the biography, the opening of his book moves Sima Qian to sighs and reflections on the destructive powers the desire for profit can unleash in anybody, be it the Emperor or his lowliest subject.

————— 68. Shiji 74.2343. 69. Lau, Mencius 1/1A. 70. Analects 9.1. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 565. 71. Analects 4.12. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 253. 72. Shiji 74.2343.

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If the Laozi lineage of masters fascinates Sima Qian the inventor of authorship and supporter of “the Way and Virtue,” it is Mencius who moves Sima Qian the historian and inventor of the biography genre as a lens through which to write history. The struggle for profit looms large over many biographies in the Records of the Grand Historian, and based on this chapter we can assume that Mencius’s dramatic condemnation of profit might have guided his brush more effectively in writing the Records of the Grand Historian than his more obvious sympathies for the daocause elsewhere might lead us to believe.

Sima Qian’s Vision of Masters Literature in the Biographies How does Sima Qian portray pre-Qin Masters in the biography format? What shared themes or taxonomies emerge from the biographies, themes that might have become the basis for a different way of thinking about the masters had Sima Qian decided not to transmit his father’s “Six Schools”? First, for Sima Qian, the pre-Qin Masters were most importantly authors. The Laozi lineage is graced with the prerogative of writing, while Confucius’s disciples appear as an oral community with some brilliant persuaders. In contrast, Confucius himself is flatteringly portrayed as the author of the Spring and Autumn Annals rather than as a master of the oral community of disciples Sima Qian describes. Second, since Sima Qian is preoccupied with the masters as authors, he repeatedly examines the gap between the masters as agents in a biography and the content of their writings, their lives, and their works. This gap is most glaring and tragic in the case of the dazzling Han Feizi. If we were to construct a taxonomy of Masters Literature based on these biographies, it would look quite different from Sima Tan’s “Six Schools.” First, there is the split between a Confucian lineage—associated with persuasion and dispersed in various chapters with different framings, clearly showing that Sima Qian gave low priority to highlighting it as a lineage—and a Laozi lineage—quite transparently defined by the book Laozi and the ideological support of the “Way” and “virtue.” Beneath this polarity, there are various other subcategories such as fashu , xingming , and Huang Lao, which are all subsumed within the Laozi lineage and collapse the distinction between the “Daoist school” and the “Legalist school.”

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“Confucians,” “Mohists,” and “Logicians” are conflated in the collective biography that centers around masters associated with the Jixia Academy. Over the past decade, interest in the Jixia Academy has dramatically increased.73 Although the field of “Jixia studies” can look as far back as Jin Shoushen’s Jixiapai zhi yanjiu (Research on the Jixia School) published in 1930 and Guo Morou’s and Qian Mu’s subsequent contributions on the topic, research about the Jixia Academy as a space for pluralistic scholarly pursuits and the freedom of opinion seems a primary preoccupation in the China of the 1990s. Reviewers of Bai Xi’s Jixiaxue yanjiu (1998) grant the volume a visionary role in the rethinking of early Chinese philosophy.74 Sun Yikai emphasizes that the study of the debates among contending masters at the same location will break down cherished but fictitious misperceptions in the historiography of Chinese philosophy and its “schools of thought,” a historiography that has for too long been dominated by Sima Tan’s and Liu Xiang’s traditional taxonomies. Li Dingsheng, similarly, hopes for no less than the “rewriting of the history of pre-Qin philosophy.”75 Li regards Bai Xi’s study of the Jixia Academy as providing a “missing link” between thinkers and sociohistorical circumstances; he hopes that this approach will replace the still-dominant paradigm of organizing histories of Chinese philosophy according to the traditional taxonomy of texts and masters. If anything, this short analysis of master biographies in the Records of the Grand Historian should show that Sima Tan’s and Liu Xiang’s taxonomies were certainly not wrong, but that the boundaries between pre-Qin masters were drawn very differently depending on genre and the stakes of the discussion. The masters biographies put controversial flesh to the taxonomic portrayals of Masters Literature and raised intriguing questions about the relationship between Confucian thinkers and persuasion on one side, and Daoists and their pacts with books on the other.

————— 73. For an overview, see Bai Xi, Jixiaxue yanjiu. 74. Sun Yikai, “Xian Qin zhexue yanjiu de xin tupo. Du ‘Jixiaxue yanjiu.’” 75. Li Dingsheng, “Xian Qin zhexueshi gaixie youwang. Du ‘Jixiaxue yanjiu.’”

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“Classics” Versus “Masters”: Wang Chong’s Empowerment of the Masters Sima Qian’s interest in the pre-Qin Masters as authors was echoed by the Eastern Han polymath Wang Chong. Much had happened since the times of Sima Qian and Emperor Wu, which explains why Wang Chong had radically different intentions when making the pre-Qin Masters into heroes of writing and authorship: Emperor Wu had established positions for experts in the textual traditions of the later so-called “Confucian Classics,” and this move engendered a thriving culture of scholarship as the Han went on. The proliferation of scholarship was viewed with suspicion by some of Wang Chong’s contemporaries like the historian Ban Gu, who remarked thus in his comments about the Classics section of his “Bibliographical Treatise”: Explanations of five characters from a text would run to twenty or thirty thousand words. Later [this tendency] increased exponentially so that young boys who focused their studies on one Classic had become gray-haired before they could speak about it with authority. [Scholars] contented themselves with what they had learned and attacked what they had not seen, blindfolding themselves in the end. This is a huge problem with scholars!76 , . , , ; , , . .

Liu Xiang’s bibliographical scheme clarified the difference in canonical status of the “Classics” and the “Masters.” The exponential growth in the production of commentaries and scholarship as well as the new bibliographical hierarchies emboldened Wang Chong to take up the banner of the not inferior but less canonical Masters category. What was at stake in the hierarchy between Classics and Masters that was not yet so relevant to Sima Qian but would become a major issue by Wang Chong’s time? I argue that for many Han thinkers this rivalry was the decisive juncture where questions of tradition versus innovation, classicism versus modernism, and transmission versus authorship were fought out. The Masters seemed to constitute a “double canon after the canon,” a set of

————— 76. Hanshu 30.1723.

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texts that validated the canonical texts of earlier antiquity but that thereby also needed to carve out space for their own voice. Although this dilemma is less prominent in Late Warring States sources, it grew more intense throughout the Han in direct proportion to the state’s preoccupation with controlling and elevating lines of transmission for the earlier set of texts, the later Classics. This dilemma finds its strongest formulation in Wang Chong. Despite the unmistakable hierarchy between sanctified Classics and later, deficient Masters, in the end the “Bibliographical Treatise” left the relationship between the two ambiguous. As seen above, the closing remarks in the Masters section state that the Masters were a necessary supplement to the Classics. Wang Chong exploited this potential ambiguity by turning the tables on the “Bibliographical Treatise” and claiming that the Masters were actually the more reliable guide to the past and should complement the deficient Classics. In “Explaining Books” (Shu jie ), Wang Chong links worth, character, literary writings, and cosmic pattern through a play on the multiple meanings of wen (pattern/writings), shi (substance/fruit), and hua (flourish/flower): Somebody said: “Your discussions have high-minded [content], why do you need to resort to “literary pattern”/writing (wen )77? I would say in return that man is made of “pattern” and “substance,” whereas in the case of plants some have flowers/flourish (hua ) without bearing fruit/substance (shi ) and some bear fruit without flowers. The Changes say: ‘The sentiments of a sage become manifest in his utterances.’ What comes from his mouth are his words and what is collected on slips are his writings/pattern: with his pattern/writings and utterances well arranged, his substance and essence will spread far with great force. Thus the “virtue” of “pattern/writings” is just like people’s robes: mere writing is their “pattern,” real use is their “virtue,” and when you apply it to clothes you will have your “robe.” Therefore I say that things with flourishing virtue have all the more intricate patterns, things with resplendent virtue have brilliant pattern. [. . .] Brightly ornamented is the sitting mat of the grand official: When Zengzi was

————— 77. The play on the manifold meanings of the key concepts under discussion is untranslatable. I chose to translate at most two meanings, putting the semantic focus of the term in a given instance first.

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already on his deathbed he ordered his son Yuan to go and change [his mat].78 From this we can see that clothing is used to show the rank of worth. Those with worth distinguish themselves through their writings, so that when the dull cannot be told from the excellent, one simply needs to look at their writings/pattern to establish the distinction. This is not just the case with mankind, but with all beings in the world.79 : , ? : . , . : . , , , . , . , , . : , . [. . .] , , , . , , , , . , .

This opening of the chapter is an enthusiastic exposition on the workings of wen (pattern, texture, flourish, civilization, written characters, literature) throughout the cosmos: Wang Chong emphasizes that wen complements “substance” (shi ) in making human character. With other things in the world, such as flowers, wen is called hua , the blossom that can sometimes result in a fruit, or botanical “substance” (shi). Wang Chong also makes wen into the complement of “virtue” (de ), so that a person’s “literary writings” fit with his “virtuous conduct” like an upper and lower garment. Lastly, Wang Chong conflates wen, the pattern on the mats denoting official ranks, with wen, the writings of those highranking officials. This last conflation boldly forces the argument onto a plane of selfevidence: If the patterns on an official’s mat give evidence of his status to anybody who has eyes, his writings give insight into his character to anybody who can read with those eyes. Thus, to the provocative question of a fictive interlocutor as to why wen should matter in judging somebody’s character, Wang Chong snaps back with a hymn on wen in nothing less than its human, botanical, moral, social, literary and cosmic manifestations. “Pattern” rules the world: “This is not just the case with

————— 78. According to the Lij, , Zengzi became aware that his status was too low to be using the luxurious mat that the Jisun clan of Lu had presented him with. Zengzi had hardly reclined on the new mat when he expired. 79. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi fu Liu Pansui jijie, 1149. For the translation I consulted Forke, Lun–Heng; Cai Zhenchu and Zhou Fengwu, Xinyi Lunheng duben; and Yamada Katsumi, Ronkō.

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mankind, but the same with all beings in the world.” Wang Chong’s last drumbeat of his “pattern” eulogy rounds off the list of implied meanings of wen with a cosmic law of “pattern” shared by all living beings. Next, Wang Chong returns to the issue of social distinction that he had touched upon with the episode of Zengzi’s mat. He introduces us to two types of Confucian scholars: the “patterned,” that is literarily creative, Ru and the “mundane” Ru. Those who write their own works are called “patterned”/literary scholars (wen Ru ), while those who explain the Classics are mundane scholars (shi Ru ). These two types of scholars exist in today’s world and it is yet unknown which of the two is superior. Some say that the literary scholars do not measure up to the mundane scholars, because the mundane scholars explain the Classics of the ancient Sages and interpret the traditions of the later Worthies, and because their points and principles are vast and far-reaching, and they bring up nothing that is unsubstantiated. Therefore they hold regular official appointments. The most distinguished ones become Academy professors: followers flock around them in swarms to call on them from thousands of miles distance, and although they eventually die, their learning is transmitted to posterity. Literary scholars presumably come up with flowery and unbridled ideas, and because they do not contribute to today’s world, they are rarely appointed to office: not a single follower or disciple turns up at their doors, and when they die, nobody carries on their teachings. That’s the reason why [some people say that] they don’t measure up to the mundane scholars.80 , , , . : . , , , , , , , , , . , , , , , . .

Xunzi had created a burgeoning typology of subgroups of the Confucian legacy. Like Wang Chong’s distinction of the “literary” and “mundane” Confucian scholars, Xunzi’s typology smacked of polemical praise and blame: who wouldn’t want to earn the title of “elegant Confucian” ( ya Ru ) and avoid the dire epithet of “vulgar Confucian” (lou Ru )? Wang Chong distinguishes his heroes and villains by their different relationships to texts: the “literary scholars” are “writers” (zhuzuo ),

————— 80. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1150–51.

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while the “mundane scholars” merely explain and interpret (shuo, jie , ) the writings of the ancient Sages who feature higher up on the yardstick of creativity. Wang Chong’s creative hierarchy implies three gradations: the true creators are the Sages of high antiquity who wrote the Classics; the nextbest creators are the worthies (xian ) of recent antiquity who composed commentaries on the Classics; by comparison, Wang Chong’s contemporaries, the “mundane scholars,” are just the kind of sterile exegetes that Ban Gu bemoaned because they merely interpret the writings of the two other groups without producing any original writing. In spite of their lower social status, the “literary scholars” are in fact Wang Chong’s heroes, because they reverse the relentless loss of creativity inherent in his historical model of decline from canon via commentary to dull exegesis. They pay a high price for this bold move: they have a bad reputation, cannot serve in office, and lack disciples. Left without any mechanism of transmission and entrance into public memory, their names are lost to posterity. This proud renunciation of immortal fame, however, is only a rhetorical pose to enhance the boldness of the vision of the “literary scholars,” a fact that becomes obvious once Wang Chong projects his distinction between author-Confucians and exegete-Confucians onto ancient times: The work of the “mundane scholars” is very easy, so many people nowadays study for it. Since things of little importance can easily be ranked, the government set up positions for them. The work of “literary scholars” is out of the ordinary and inimitable. Although people slight their books, although their work does not include lecturing and there are no followers at their doorsteps, their writings are novel and imposing so that their contemporaries nevertheless transmit them. The former produce empty talk, the latter volumes with substance. If we compare these two types [of scholars], which has more worth? When examining the compositions and pronouncements of the worthies in ancient times, they applied themselves to their own work and shone forth in the world on their own account. Although the “mundane scholars” of the day were respected, their traces are erased unless one comes across them in the books of the “literary scholars.” The Duke of Zhou established the rites and music so that his name lived on and will never die; Confucius composed the Spring and Autumn Annals, so that his

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reputation was handed down continuously. [. . .] Thus is it not better to shine thanks to one’s own work rather than needing other people to make one shine?81 , , , . , , , , , , . , , , ? , , . , , . , ; , . [. . .] , ?

The ideal of his “literary scholars” only makes sense against the backdrop of the formation of the textual canon and the rise of scholarship during the Han, but Wang Chong is not shy about translating it back into antiquity in order to recruit the ancient sages for an ideal with which he strongly identifies himself. Confucius and the Duke of Zhou are styled into “literary scholars” of antiquity, a world where things were still in order, where “literary scholars” were famous for their brilliant writings and “mundane scholars” only made it into collective memory if a “literary scholar” was generous enough to refer to them. From the Han, Wang Chong selects people like Lu Jia (ca. 240– 170 bce), Sima Qian, and Yang Xiong (53–18 bce) as “literary scholars” and contrasts them to the insignificant Han exegetes of the Classics whose names presumably only survive because Sima Qian recorded them. Wang Chong’s “literary scholars” are not just distinguished by their books but by their intrinsic motivation and sense of vocation. They “shine thanks to their own work ( yi ye zi xian )”and are destined to write. They write out of inner necessity, which is only enhanced when they suffer unjustly: They emit from their inner hearts the “pattern”/writings with which Heaven and Earth have endowed them. Why would they do it just like that, to avoid passing idle days? [No,] they sense that falsities blindfold people, [and therefore feel forced to write] as a spring sends forth its waters, and steam rises up.82 , , ? , .

————— 81. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1151–52. 82. Ibid., 1153.

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Such a poetics of authorship in adversity goes back to Mencius’s conviction that Confucius composed the Spring and Autumn Annals out of the inner necessity to respond to the blindfoldedness of his times,83 and takes on new meaning for Sima Qian’s understanding of his enterprise of writing the Records of the Grand Historian. Mencius claims that Confucius’s writing of the Spring and Autumn Annals was a criminal offense (zui ) against the royal prerogative to commission and preserve annalistic records. This is significant because “zui” is precisely the term that Wang Chong uses when he hopes to be exculpated from his “criminal offense” of writing or “creating” the Lunheng. This makes it clear that Wang Chong very consciously writes from within the Mencian poetics of authorship, in addition to aligning himself with Sima Qian’s bold vision of authorship.84 Wang Chong’s belief in the power of authorship and writing leads him to go so far as to suggest that Han Feizi’s writings could have averted the unification of the first empire under the Qin: If the State of Han had earlier trusted its prince Han Feizi[’s words], the state would not have reached the point of collapse (under Qin pressure). That Han Feizi died was because Li Si was jealous of his literary ingenuity, not because Han’s writings and talent were exhausted, but nothing could be done about it. The harm done to plants in spring kills some, but those which survive it can grow full by autumn. If indeed Han Feizi had not been forced to die, it is hard to know what would have become of Qin!85 , . , , , . , ; , . , .

Wang Chong shows us his great admiration for Han Feizi’s literary talent. Not only does he blame Li Si’s jealousy for his death, but Wang Chong seems to also believe that Han Feizi’s survival and continuous literary output could have changed the course of world history and undone the Qin unification—quite a breathtaking leap of virtual history for a Han author to dream of! And yet, although Wang Chong seems to suppress

————— 83. Lau, Mencius 3B/9. 84. For a fascinating broader vision of Wang Chong’s notion of authorship and sagely creation see Puett, “Listening to Sages”; as well as his “The Temptations of Sagehood.” 85. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1157.

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the cruel Qin legacy by imagining Han Feizi’s death away, that very legacy allows him to override the authority of the Classics and, ultimately, claim the highest spot in the textual hierarchy for the Masters Texts. After all, observes Wang Chong, the First Emperor of the Qin ordered the burning of the Classics, not the Masters: Doomed Qin had lost the Way, destroying and dispersing [the Classics]. Although it had lost the Way, it did not burn the Masters. The Masters Texts all survived, so we can read them to correct [false] teachings and can compile them for the perusal of later people. Those later people will in turn write, just as their predecessors had produced literary creations. They are all imposing and erudite and historical records praise them, saying that their literary significance is on par with the Classics—why then would people say that the [Masters] Texts fall short of the Classics in their substance? From this perspective the Classics are deficient and incomplete: no [Masters] Texts were lost, but there are parts in the Classics that did not survive.86 , . , , , , , . , . , , , ? , , , .

Wang Chong does not shy away from bold moves to establish the Masters—the position with which he identifies—as a hitherto undiscovered potential for retrieving lacunae in the Classics. The Qin burning of books comes in quite handy, because according to Wang Chong, it was only the Classics that were burnt.87 Wang Chong even has another of the four-fold categories come to the aid of the Masters: the “Histories” presumably praise the Masters and place them on a par with the Classics. Wang Chong understands the Masters as a modern venue for literary creativity, a genre that rivals the sages of high antiquity in their creation of the Classics. Rarely has somebody asserted as strongly as Wang Chong the value of Masters Literature as a corpus of texts but also as a protected space for

————— 86. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1159. 87. Wang Chong may have boldly claimed this in order to elevate the status of the “Masters” or he may have been convinced—like Petersen (see above)—that the “baijia” mentioned in Li Si’s memorial in favor of the burning of the books definitely did not refer to the “zhuzi baijia” of Masters Literature.

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creative thinking that contrasts with the dullness of commentarial scholarship. Still, Confucius’s rhetoric of “transmitting” (shu ) versus “creating” (zuo ) was powerful enough to put Wang Chong on the defensive. Wang devotes an entire chapter to defending himself against allegations that he arrogates to himself the privilege of literary “creation.” Yang Xiong, who died about a decade before Wang Chong was born, had set an example for the subgenre of self-defenses of one’s own writings with texts like “Resolving Ridicule” ( Jie chao ). Wang’s chapter “Countering [Allegations Regarding] Literary Creation” (Dui zuo ) is written in the same pose of “self-defense”: Some say that the sages “created” writings (zuo), whereas the [later] worthies only “transmitted” (shu) it, and that the opinion that the worthies actually created is wrong. The Lunheng (“Balanced Discourses”) and the Zhengwu are such creations, they think. These works are neither “creations” nor [simple] “transmissions” [of texts]. They are “discourses” (lun)! “Discourses” supplement the “transmissions.” The emergence of the Five Classics can be regarded as “creations”; [Sima Qian’s] Records of the Grand Historian and the prefaces of Liu [Xiang’s works] can be called “transmissions”; and Huan Tan’s New Discourses and Zou Boqi’s Critical Discourses are all “discourses.” If we now consider the Lunheng and Zhengwu, they are like the discourses of Huang and Zou, so they should not be called “creations.” Producing something new that has not existed before like Cang Jie creating graphs or Xi Zhong creating the chariot is just that. The Classic of Changes says that Fu Xi created the eight trigrams. There were no trigrams before and when Fu Xi produced them, this was therefore a “creation.” 88 : , , , . , . : , , . , . , . . , , . , , . , , , . , , , .

Wang Chong defends himself by introducing a third term into the binary calculation of “creating” and “transmitting” from the Analects passage: the term “discourse” (lun ) is of course aligned with the title of his work, Lunheng, “Balanced Discourses.” He puts himself safely outside the boundaries of sagely “creation” by defining the term narrowly as “creation

————— 88. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1180–81.

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ex nihilo,” which of course only applies to the cultural heroes of high antiquity, the likes of Cang Jie , Xi Zhong , and Fu Xi. However, this humble retreat from claiming that he engages in something akin to the “creation” of the sages of high antiquity is only a preliminary stance, as we can see in the closing paragraph of the chapter: In antiquity there were envoys from court who were sent to collect poems to get insight into customs and understand popular sentiment. These poems (and their later compilation into the Classic of Poetry) were “created” among the populace— so would the kings have been justified in saying “You are only common people, how dare you make such ‘creations’?” and throwing them into prison while destroying their poems? Now you see that this was not the case, but the Poems were handed down to our times. With the Lunheng and the Zhengwu it should be like with the Poems: I hope they will be read and collected, while shortcomings are pointed out. This was my motivation to write the Lunheng. In general, the shortcoming of literary creations is that they often contain blindfolded statements and slanderous tirades. The Lunheng aims for true substance and abominates blindfoldedness: the words of chapters such as “Equality of Ages,” “Proclaiming the Han,” “Expanding on the State,” “Investigating Signs,” “Invigorating Praise,”89 “Necessity of Eulogies” contain no slanderous tirades. Producing literary creations in this fashion, I might well escape reproach (zui).90 , , . , , , , ? , . , , , . . , . , , , , .

As in the chapter “Books and Explanations,” Wang Chong can fiercely refute one notion in a rhetorical pose just to bring it triumphantly back in new guise. Here, he does nothing less than compare his work to the sagely creation of the Classics, imagining how such works must have appeared to be impudent “novel innovations” in their own times. Sensing the audacity of this move, Wang Chong lists some of his non-polemical and praiseful chapters, hoping to avoid being incriminated (zui ) for arrogating the right to sagely creation. In the same way that Mencius exculpated

—————

89. This chapter is lost. It seems to have been a companion piece to the “Necessity of Eulogies.” 90. Huang Hui, Lunheng jiaoshi, 1185.

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Confucius from the crime of breaking a royal prerogative, Wang Chong hopes for forgiveness from his readers, who will understand that he could not do otherwise than to “emit writings from his innermost heart.”91

Outlook What have we gained from exploring the polemical blows directed at other masters in Masters Texts, Han taxonomies, the biographies of pre-Qin Masters in the Records of the Grand Historian, and, lastly, Wang Chong’s passionate endorsement of the Masters and literary creation against the Classics and exegesis? By analyzing different types of texts that discuss the masters we gain a better sense of the forces behind the production and transmission of the Masters Texts and a clearer picture of the multiple cultural functions that the Masters genre fulfilled from its inception until the Eastern Han. Such a multiple picture, dotted by tensions and contradictions, is ultimately preferable to the search for a single consistent taxonomy. A closer look reveals that alongside multiplicity and tensions there are striking similarities in the depiction of Masters Literature in the different types of texts discussed in this chapter. In particular, Zhuangzi’s vision in “All Under Heaven” bundles shared preoccupations: it couples Xunzi’s attacks on actual masters with Sima Tan’s generic portrayals of experts; it also alludes to a polar contrast within the overall tradition of the Way between Confucian proponents and dao-school scribes, a polarity that resonates with the master biographies in the Records of the Grand Historian. On a deeper level, this polar sketch of Masters Literature resembles Wang Chong’s distinction between scholar-exegetes and scholar-authors. If for a moment we disregard the fact that Wang Chong speaks about ideal types within the Confucian tradition, we could identify Zhuangzi’s and Sima

————— 91. The diatribes against the “ordinary Ru” should not give the impression that Wang Chong consistently opposed the mainstream scholar-official Ru of his time. When he attacks an enemy outside of the Confucian camp, he can very well stand up for the Ru as a unified group. See, for example, his defense of the Ru in Chapter 12.1, “Weighing of Talents” (Cheng cai ), in which he defends the Ru against the class of scribal clerks (wenli ), in Lunheng jiaoshi, 533ff. We see again the rhetorical scaffolding of stereotyped subgroups that should not be too hastily equated with actual sociological entities or factions at court.

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Qian’s Confucians with Wang Chong’s scholar-exegetes, and their daoexperts with Wang Chong’s scholar-authors. Although pointing to such a deeper structure of similarity may seem anachronistic and far-fetched, I think it is important to trace the development within certain discursive venues and compare them with one another. The polemics in Mozi, the conversion dialogues in Mencius, and the synoptic portrait gallery of masters in Xunzi and Zhuangzi are the closest we can get to the self-perception of pre-Qin Masters with respect to rival master groups—actual and fictional. But they do not give us an image of the genre of Masters Literature, only a sense of the strategies employed to fight one’s opponents. To describe the genre of Masters Literature we have to more fully explore the corpus of Masters Literature, trying to uncover the ways arguments are voiced, the changes in the status of the Master figure, the gradual diversification of narrative and rhetorical strategies throughout the Warring States Period, and the ways the texts construct a common discursive space of contention through an intertextual chemistry that does not necessarily attack opponents directly, but inhabits, appropriates, and redefines their technical vocabulary. It is precisely this last point that should count as the strongest proof for the existence of a distinct textual genre of Masters Literature in pre-Qin times, a genre that is conceived as a discursive space. In accordance with my definition of the Masters genre as a discursive space, the seven chapters that follow revisit well-known passages from the most prominent texts in the corpus of Masters Literature. We will proceed at the slow pace of a Saturday afternoon stroll. My close readings are not intended to compete with the host of illuminating interpretations of these texts over the centuries. They only claim to be consistent in asking the question of how particular Masters Texts contributed to shaping and actively transforming the discursive space of Masters Literature from the fifth to the second centuries bce. The main goal of this book will have been achieved if the ensuing chapters on the Analects, Mozi, Mencius, Xunzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Han Feizi succeed in convincing the reader of the value of exploring how these texts shared the expansive and dramatic discursive terrain they created.

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TWO

Scenes of Instruction and Master Bodies in the Analects

Any history of Masters Literature must inevitably begin with Confucius and the Analects, because this slim collection that shows the master in word and action is both the great model and the prominent exception in the history of the genre. The “scene of instruction,” in which the master is shown in action, instruction, or conversation with disciples, rulers, or other contemporaries, was to become the seminal narrative format of Masters Literature. Yet, the collection was compiled long after Confucius’s time. Although the Analects certainly preserves very early material, it probably gained its present form in the mid-second century bce, just around the time when Emperor Wu of the Han established posts for Confucian scholars to teach the five textual traditions of the Book of Poetry, the Book of Documents, the Record of Rites (Liji ), the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Book of Changes.1 Unlike the other Masters Texts, the Analects were not named after their master and only make up a small portion of the large body of lore that accrued around the figure of Confucius and that survives in collections like the Record of Rites, the Collected Works of the Kong Family (Kongcongzi ), the Family Conversations of Confucius (Kongzi jiayu ), and the Garden of Sto-

————— 1. For the context of the Han compilation of the Analects, see Csikszentmihalyi, “Confucius and the Analects in the Han,” 144.

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ries (Shuoyuan ).2 That the collection was compiled later than many texts influenced by its material attests to the rising fortunes of Confucius’s legacy. During the Han dynasty Confucius lore was everywhere; what came to be preserved in the Analects constituted only a small fraction of it. Emperor Wu’s sponsoring of the Confucian scholars and their texts might suddenly have made a choice selection of the Master’s words desirable.

The Analects as the Exemplary Exception of Masters Literature The Analects are exceptional within the history of Masters Literature because early bibliographers did not consider them part of the Masters canon at all. Due to Confucius’s overawing stature as a master, a compiler-author, a sage, and an uncrowned king—to name just a few of his roles since the Han—the “Bibliographical Treatise” (Yiwenzhi ) of Ban Gu’s Han History lists the Analects in the Classics section. Why did the compilers of the “Treatise” place the book, together with the Classic of Filial Piety and writing primers, at the end of the Classics and before the Masters? They could not claim it as one of the Classics, because Confucius did not author or compile it as was assumed for the Six Classics. Neither could they comfortably label it as a Masters Text, because as they explain in the “Treatise,” Masters Literature has to be understood as a fruit of the political decline of the Zhou dynasty and the ever-increasing infighting between local rulers and hegemons. The compilers of the “Treatise” were eager to spare the Analects the fate of being a by-product of the intellectual contentiousness that went along with the Zhou’s political decline. In placing it alongside the writing primers, the “Treatise” highlighted the Analects’ pedagogical role as a repository of cultural values, which reflects the process of Confucius’s canonization during the Han dynasty.3

————— 2. For a convenient overview of Confucius lore in early texts, see Li Qiqian, Kongzi ziliao huibian. 3. For Confucius’s canonization during the Han, see Csikszentmihalyi, “Confucius and the Analects in the Han,” 134–162.

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The Han bibliographers had their own reasons for setting the Analects apart and inserting them between the Confucian Classics and Masters Literature proper; but the Analects’ representation of the master in dialogue with his admiring entourage became undeniably the most influential narrative ploy of Masters Literature. Framing Confucius in brief “scenes of instruction” was a bold rhetorical move, not the result of mere scribal record-keeping. It consciously presented Confucius as a master of oral dialogue. Before Confucius, sage rulers of antiquity and their ministers had been represented in direct speech and dialogue, as in the Book of Documents. In Mencius, Confucius acknowledges that he had infringed upon royal prerogative when compiling the Spring and Autumn Annals. Similarly, the authors of the scenes of instruction in the Analects boldly cast their master into the powerful role of an accomplished speaker and wise teacher, a worthy successor to the privilege of speech previously owned by sage rulers and worthy officials. The subsequent history of Masters Literature was to be a sequence of variations on the seminal scene of instruction that first appears in the materials preserved in the Analects. The choice to represent the master in conversation with his rapt entourage profoundly shaped the meaning of Confucius’s teachings. When framed in pithy scenes of instruction by his disciples’ transcription of his words and actions, simple declarative sentences are transformed into words of wisdom and bodily gestures into ritual acts. Confucius becomes a charismatic master figure, confirmed in his authority in equal measure by the loving admiration of his disciples and by his own strategic downplaying of his wisdom. This disjunction—between the master’s authority and the disciples’ authorship of episodes that showcase his authority— enhanced Confucius’s charismatic stature. Although scenes of instruction in the Analects are for the most part verbal, its compilers acted on Confucius’s insistence on the unity of words and actions: in the middle of the collection they placed one entire book showing a silent master in ritual action. Book 10 complements the image of Confucius’s rhetorical astuteness with brief vignettes of the ritual efficacy of his body in motion. Although the passages that do not name a particular master could be read as generic ritual prescriptions for the social elites of the day, their careful placement within a strategically compiled collection that is devoted to capturing the

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master as a sage is evidence enough to believe that the scenes of silent action depict no other than Confucius. As the compilers embody ritual prescriptions in the shape of the ultimate master, they also put into practice Confucius’s emphasis on the immediacy and sincerity of ritual action; in this way, they effectively dispel the anxiety of Confucians (and the thrust of their opponents’ polemics) that ritual could amount to little more than empty etiquette. The rhetorical format of the Analects is a perfectly suited tool to propagate a vision of an alternative social community of a master and his disciples that, while discussing matters of governance, is removed from contemporary political and social structures. This theme is strategically spun out in the opening sequence of the Analects, which conveys a vision of a community bound by learning, loyalty, and friendship, as well as by the lack of recognition from contemporary rulers. Confucius repeatedly rejects his charismatic position at the center of his community, displaying a modesty that is also part of the tension between a program of social hierarchy and loyalty and a powerful vision of equal-minded friendship that repeatedly resurfaces in the Analects. Confucius’s masterly modesty makes him approachable as a spiritual leader who himself is actively pursuing his highest ideals, and at the same time places his ideals beyond the reach of his own historical limitation. Confucius’s role in a community of followers embodies a prominent concern in the Analects: the connection between proper language and proper action. The charismatic master is what he does. His body language is transparent; there is a perfect match between intention and manifestation. This transparency lies at the heart of the disarmingly simple tautology that makes “rulers to rulers, fathers to fathers, and sons to sons.” The rhetorical logic of the scene of instruction through word and deed directed the attention to Confucius’s body in action and implied that his utterances and acts were transparent manifestations of his intentions, even if the disciples and readers could not always immediately grasp their significance. The claim of linguistic transparency also created the social role of a model master: if there are masters and Masters Texts after Confucius, he was undeniably the most masterly master of all.

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The Logic of Scenes of Instruction When framed in scenes of instruction the master often appears as an overpowering figure, remote and authoritative, yet intimate in his concern for his students’ development. Confucius features in such scenes in a variety of modes: he teaches through statements prefaced simply by “The Master said,” he answers questions from his audience, he delivers judgments about things he witnesses around him, and sometimes he explains or justifies himself when his listeners have been slow to comprehend. Confucius’s words and actions are just penetrable enough to make his superiority unquestionably clear to the people around him—and to the implied disciple-reader. His disciples are—with the exception of his favorite disciple Yan Hui (ca. 522–490)—most often limited in their understanding and judgment, but occasionally graced with moments of sudden realization. The master’s superior wisdom is favorably set off against their limitations, while through their occasional fits of clairvoyance they show themselves worthy of being Confucius’s disciples and becoming competent transmitters of his teachings. The contrast between the brisk brevity of Confucius’s words of wisdom and the often delayed understanding of his disciples works in everybody’s favor. Brevity (sometimes to the point of obscurity) makes Confucius prophetic, wise, and rhetorically astute. The disciples’ gradual understanding highlights the depth of Confucius’s words and the honesty of the disciples’ pursuit of Confucius’s wisdom, and it pedagogically parallels the learning process of future disciplereaders. In the Analects it is not just Confucius who plays the teacher role. Although most often he instructs his disciples, he is at times also instructed by them. Sometimes his disciples enlighten people beyond the circle of Confucius’s followers, or they are in turn instructed by outsiders. But the prerogative to make authoritative statements that are not further qualified in an ensuing dialogue with other interlocutors seems limited to Confucius, the ultimate master, and to his disciples, the transmitters of his legacy and thus second-generation masters-to-be. Single utterances introduced by the lapidary formula “The Master (or a disciple-master) said” typify the minimalist format of scenes of instruction in the Analects. Although there is no one but the master in the scene, which ends once he has pronounced his utterance, the most basic ingredient that shapes the rhetorical logic of the scene of instruction is there: the voice of the master:

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The Master said, “Who can go out without using the door? Why, then, is nobody going forth from this Way?”4 : ? ?

On its own the utterance could read as a sign directing hostel guests to a previously ignored scenic path. Uttered by the Master, it becomes an allegory to guide his audience onto the proper path in a human cosmos patterned on precedents of the Zhou dynasty. His physical presence transforms truisms into truths. The seductive promise of effortlessness results from the interplay between the blunt literal meaning of the sentence and its potentized allegorical significance. To promise facility in the pursuit of the Way implies the collusion of literal with allegorical meaning, of simple phrase with wise utterance; the saying only makes sense when Confucius is placed into the scene by the prefatory formula, because the master has to claim “this Way” as his Way, or as his transmission of the Way of the Zhou. When the master is represented in a scene of instruction, his message goes far beyond the discursive content of his utterance. In his seminal essay Confucius: The Secular as Sacred 5 Herbert Fingarette has aptly described the implications that the rhetorical format of scenes of instruction have for the meaning of the master’s teaching.6 Fingarette does not see the Analects as a repository of discursive truths waiting to be synthesized into a comprehensive philosophical system, but instead as the performative utterances of a charismatic leader with a vision of a sacred human community governed through the “holy rite”(li ). Inspired by Austin’s speech act theory, Fingarette interprets Confucius’s utterances not as definitions of philosophical vocabulary, but as charismatic statements that effect changes in the outside world. He combines Austin’s theory with the concept of magical speech to explain the characteristic effortlessness of ruling through virtue (de ) and non-action (wuwei ) proposed in the

————— 4. Analects 6.17. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 399. My translations of passages from the Analects has benefited from Lau, Confucius: The Analects; and Ames and Rosemont, The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. 5. Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. 6. The essay has stirred many debates, some of which have denigrated Fingarette based on disciplinary prejudices as a “professional philosopher and self-made Sinologist.” (See Ruskola, “Moral Choice in the Analects,” 285).

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Analects—and later, even if polemically, claimed by the Daoist tradition. Fingarette does not define key concepts such as ren “benevolence” through their referential content, but sees them as dynamic social coefficients, adaptable signifiers: It seems to me that the Western image that would serve best is one drawn from physics—the vector. In the case of jen, we should conceive of a directed force operating in actions in public space and time, and having a person as initial pointsource and a person as the terminal point on which the force impinges. The forces are human forces, of course, not mechanical ones.7

In a later article, Fingarette further elaborates on Confucius’s role as authoritative leader, arguing that “Such a person teaches—not by preaching, but merely by existing, and by that alone inspiring in others the will to participate in this Way of life, a Way that they see fulfills the very genius of human nature.”8 Fingarette’s vision of Confucius as a charismatic spiritual leader whose mere presence counts for more than his intellectual program alone illuminates perfectly the function of the scenes of instruction format, in which the master’s pronouncements on stage become words of effective wisdom and his body serves as the ultimate embodiment of ritual propriety. The framing of Confucius in scenes of instruction is anything but coincidental. It is this representation of Confucius that imparts his teachings of how to be an exemplary person ( junzi ), how to act properly as a human in the cosmos sketched around the master. Yet, from Han scholars to modern researchers such as Bruce and Taeko Brooks in The Original Analects, the Analects has often been read as a faithful, literal record of his actual words rather than as a carefully crafted mise-en-scène

————— 7. Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, 55. 8. Fingarette, “How the Analects Portrays the Ideal of Efficacious Authority,” 37. Fingarette rejects the term “charismatic” on the basis of its Christian undertones (“gift of the spirit”) and the positioning it presumably implies in the Western tradition of the inaccessible “charismatic” leader figure above the isolated masses. He emphasizes that the Chinese sage is not isolated but “his perfection can only exist as one whose life is integral to the community,” (39). I am less concerned about the semantic interferences and prefer to use the term “charisma” over Fingarette’s “authority-as-model,” which sounds somewhat too prosaic, especially in light of Fingarette’s own lexicon of superlative humanism.

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by later followers of how he would look best. This myth was first formulated in the “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Han History: The Lunyu are the words Confucius uttered in response to his disciples and people of his day and the words that the disciples spoke amongst each other and heard directly from the Master. At that time each disciple kept his own record. After the Master’s death, his followers collected them and compiled the discussions. That is why it is called Lunyu, “Discussions and Words [of the Master].” , . . , , .9

Needless to say, it is impossible to determine the historical veracity of the claim that the Analects represent “class notes” of disciples. The Analects certainly look as if they could have been compiled by disciples who seem to be all too aware that their master’s teaching would become the fountainhead of a major tradition. Indeed, unlike most other pre-Qin Masters Texts, the Analects are not named after their central master, but claim to be unaltered transcriptions of the master’s words. It is easy to see the attractiveness of the myth of recorded speech. Undoubtedly Confucius’s students were eager to preserve as faithful a memory as possible of their foremost teacher; and later generations of Confucians desired to get as close as possible to the sage master. Mencius’s lament of not having known Confucius personally is a symptom of the longing that later generations—including modern scholars—have entertained for some form of intimacy with Confucius. Yet the myth of faithful transcription of speech is highly problematic from the perspective of the Analects’ compilation history. If we accept Makeham’s argument that dates the compilation of the Analects to the mid-second century bce, the myth of the Analects as mimetic record gets an entirely new significance.10 Against the backdrop of an increasingly textualized culture of the Han and the emphasis on encyclopedic scholarship, the compilers sketched the historically innocent image of an archaic and oral Confucius. Accordingly, they selectively chose passages from the vast amount of Confucius lore that would fit this image. By arranging the

————— 9. Hanshu 30, 1717. 10. Makeham, “The Formation of Lunyu as a Book.”

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books along a rhetorical vector that went from short and pithy statements in the earlier books to longer, more ornate dialogues in later books, the compilers inscribed their desire to emphasize a more archaic-sounding elliptic portrayal of Confucius, in preference to a more loquacious and elaborated figure. It is crucial to understand this progression in the Analects as a rhetorical rather than historical selection mechanism, even if it seems to make a historical claim. By the second century bce, Confucius’s teachings could have been represented in a number of genres that had arisen in fourth- and thirdcentury Masters Literature, such as the expository essay. Yet, the Han compilers consciously chose the scene of instruction format because it represented the Master’s physical presence and was the most appropriate rhetorical format through which to convey Confucius’s charismatic authority. That the compilers of the Analects were very aware of the rhetorical power inherent in the scene of instruction is particularly obvious in their choice of passages where the scene itself is actually omitted and the audience only witnesses the overwhelming effects of a teaching that happened behind closed doors: A border official of Yi asked for an audience, saying, “Whenever a superior person came to this place, I always was granted an audience.” The followers presented him. When leaving, he said, “You disciples, why do you worry about losing office? All Under Heaven has long been without the Way, but Heaven will make your Master into a wooden bell-tongue.”11 . : , . . : , ? , .

We do not know what Confucius said to the border guard to bring about the mesmerizing revelation with which the border guard in turn instructs the disciples, but this omission creates an impression that is more powerful than the relating of the conversation between Confucius and the border guard could ever have been. It is mostly the image of the scene of instruction as a moment of revelation that the reader takes away, a revelation that produces a precise, prophetic metaphor: Confucius, the“wooden bell-tongue” that will set the bell to ring and will arouse the

————— 11. Analects 3.24. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 219.

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world. This image makes Confucius both a humble tool of the will of Heaven and an arrogating usurper of royal power: Presumably the former kings send out officials to all corners of their reign in the first month of spring with bells to remind the populace of their duties and their right to remonstrate. Thus, the sound of the bell signifies the annual renewal of the bond between the ruler and his subjects. The border guard, a liminal figure who claims to have some experience with other “exemplary persons” ( junzi) traveling between the vassal states of the Zhou Kingdom, is instantaneously enlightened to perceive Confucius’s world-shaking role to restore cosmic order to the polity. The scene of instruction is not so much omitted as transformed into a musical message of cosmic significance delivered to the disciples post factum. The displacement of verbal content by a musical message marks some of the most powerful passages in the Analects. It inverts the common logic of the scene of instruction, bringing on stage unexpected “masters” such as the border guard who, enlightened by Confucius offstage, in turn instructs the disciples about their master’s cosmic role. The inversion reinforces rather than undermines Confucius’s charismatic authority, because the very absence of the more typical display of his verbal acumen sensitizes the audience to a still more compelling message.

Insiders and Outsiders Alternative Communities in the Analects Inherent in the scenes of instruction in the Analects is a vision of a community: Confucius resides at its center, and although its members like to discuss matters of governance, it is an alternative community ambivalently removed from contemporary political structures.12 We see Confu-

————— 12. Robert Eno in The Confucian Creation of Heaven has made the enticing argument that early Confucians or “Ru” lived ecstatic lives as ritual music masters in separate communities. Whereas Eno surveys the development of the “Ru” from the Western Zhou all the way to Xunzi, my argument is limited to the vision of an alternative community conveyed in the Analects. Tu Weiming emphasizes this “communal” aspect that the rhetorical format of “scenes of instruction” implies: “[T]he rhetorical situation in the Analects is, in an existential sense, characterized not by the formula of the teacher speaking to the student but by the ethos in which the teacher answers in response to the student’s concrete questioning. And the exchange as a whole echoes a deep-rooted concern, a tacit communal

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cius meet Chang Ju and Jie Ni , self-sufficient hermits going about their plowing, or Jie Yu , a madman from Chu wildly chanting a poem to warn his contemporaries against taking office.13 Confucius is as fascinated by these antisocial figures as he feels threatened by them. They force him to justify his lifestyle: “I cannot dwell with birds and beasts. If I don’t associate with the followers of these people, with whom should I associate? As long as the Way prevails in the world, I will not change places with them.”14 , ? , .

Confucius knows he is not one of them, but he makes the point with enough desperation to reveal his irritation and insecurity. In the Analects Confucius regularly propagates the fundamental importance of active participation in political life, but he does so in a community that lives by its own rules. Jie Ni, who seems well informed about Confucius and his followers and recognizes Zilu as Confucius’s disciple, does not miss the opportunity to make fun of the contradiction between Confucius’s political ideals and his practice of building an alternative community apart from contemporary political structures. Speaking to Zilu, Jie Ni does not miss the opportunity to point out: “Shouldn’t you, rather than following a gentleman who shuns people, follow a gentleman who shuns the world?” ( , ? ) Confucius seems to have a reputation for setting himself apart from society in a way that is at odds with his emphasis of active involvement in the world. Thus Jie Ni jokingly offers Zilu a spot as disciple of himself, a hermitmaster who takes Confucius’s half-heartedness to its consequences and radically and unambiguously retreats from society. Throughout the Analects there is a clear distinction between outsiders and insiders in Confucius’s vision of community. The in-group is largely confined to the circle of disciples, although marginal figures such as the border guard of Yi can have visionary insights and be highly convincing

————— quest, for self-realization as a collaborative effort.” Tu Weiming, “Jen as a Living Metaphor,” 47. 13. Analects 18.5–7. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 1261–71. Analects 18.8 gives a list of “men who withdrew from society” and Confucius’s appraisal of them. 14. Analects 18.6. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 1270.

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figures because of the fresh outsider perspective they bring. Outsiders can also be laconically fobbed off with minimalist “virtue talk”: Duke Ding of Lu asked, “How should rulers employ their ministers and how should ministers serve the ruler?” Confucius answered, “Rulers should employ their ministers through ritual propriety and ministers should serve their rulers through loyalty.”15 : , , ? : , .

Duke Ding asks about the mutual responsibilities of rulers and officials in the form of a stringent chiasmus. The duke seems aware of his duties and eager to fulfill them. Confucius answers by simply repeating the words of the duke’s question and only adding “through ritual propriety” and “through loyalty.” Confucius may be indirectly honoring the questioner by refraining from long explanations of what “ritual propriety” and “loyalty” mean, implying that Duke Ding knows the implications of these provocatively simple key words. However, we cannot determine whether this is a case of the Master honoring the questioner or whether he is actually politely rebuffing the duke because he does not want to explain or sees no need to do so. The vision of an alternative community that is inherent in the Analects covers a vast space, ranging from the vertiginous perspective of a tremendous spiritual goal, inaccessible at times even to the Master, all the way to the desire to erase social and spiritual hierarchies in exchange for a fraternal understanding and unity of purpose. Certainly the Master is teaching and instructing. But judging from the Analects, belonging to his community appears to have provided more than a worldview shaped by a set of ethical principles. Instead, it was a lifestyle with an Epicurean sense for appreciating what a moralist might find counterintuitive. Confucius formulates his resistance to wrong-headed or pedantic pursuit of power and his vision of an alternative, blissful community most clearly in Analects 11.26, where he puts his disciples Zilu, Ran You , Gongxi Hua , and Zeng Xi to the test. Annoyed by their constant complaints that nobody appreciates them or would employ them, Confucius has the four disciples describe their vision of how they

————— 15. Analects 3.19. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 197.

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would contribute to the state if they were in office. The first three arm themselves heavily for the challenge, immediately disclosing their highflying and detailed plans about how to bring order to a state, but the Master’s palpable discontent gradually dampens their boldness. Whereas Zilu is immodest and rash, Ran You is underambitious, and Gongxi Hua ends up contenting himself with a position as a minor official. Disappointed with all three, Confucius turns to Zeng Xi, the last in the round: “Zeng Xi, how would it be for you?” Zeng Xi, who had been playing his harp, let the echo resonate, put the harp away, rose and said, “My choice would be different from those three.” The Master said, “That doesn’t matter. Each of you can speak your mind (zhi).” Zeng Xi replied, “Well, at the end of spring, when the spring clothes are already prepared, I would take a bath in the Yi River, in the company of some young men or half a dozen boys. We would enjoy the breeze at the rain altars, and then go home singing.” The master heaped a deep sigh, and said, “I am with Zeng Xi.”16 ! ? , , . : . : ? . : , . , , , , . ; !

Though Zeng Xi had been playing the harp during the conversation, he seems to have listened carefully to what his fellow disciples had to say. He feels like an outsider to the conversation and hesitates to answer, well aware that what he would say would sound different from the others. Zeng Xi does everything right to gain the approval of Confucius. While the others volunteer all too eagerly to instruct their master on how to run a state, Zeng Xi plucks away on his harp. While the others talk, Zeng Xi listens, and when asked to respond he lets his harp’s echo finish “talking” before he begins to speak. As evidenced in his deep sigh, Confucius relishes the superiority of Zeng Xi’s answer and vastly prefers a “musical” vision of the world, where people play the harp rather than sketch ambitious policy plans, and sing in chorus rather than trim their persuasions in front of a ruler.17

————— 16. Analects 11.26. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 805–11. 17. In a variation on the above passage in Analects 5.26 (Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 353), Zilu and Yan Hui discuss their ambitions with Confucius. There is no escapist turn in the conversation like the one Zeng Xi’s reply brings about, but both Zilu and Confucius mention

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This is where the Analects meet Tao Qian (365–427). In one stanza of his poetic sequence “Season’s Shifting (Shi yun ),” he reimagines Zeng Xi’s scene at the Yi River and laments bitterly that his age is too far removed from Confucius’s time to allow him to join the Master’s alternative musical utopia: My eyes run out to midstream, I remotely fancy the clear river Yi. Young men and boys, alike in study, Calmly chanting along the way home. I wish such serenity as my own, Waking and sleeping I beckon to them. Yet troubled that ours are different times, So remote I cannot reach them.18

Learning, Friendship, Loyalty: The Opening Sequence of the Analects Although the musical utopia Confucius shares with Zeng Xi is about as escapist as the compilers of the Analects ever allow Confucius to appear, the vision of an alternative community is a fundamental theme throughout the Analects. The compilers open the collection with a beautifully crafted sequence of passages about the pleasures of friendship, learning, and mutual loyalty. I will illustrate this sequencing by looking at Analects 1.1 to 1.8, which will also serve as an example of how carefully the episodes

————— cultivating good friendships, rather than political aims, as their goals: “Why don’t each of you tell me what ambitions are on your mind [zhi]?” Zilu said, “I would like to share my horses and carriages, clothing and furs, with my friends and not feel resentment if they get worn out.” Yan Hui said, “I would like to refrain from bragging about my own worth and imposing onerous tasks on others.” Zilu said, “We would like to hear what is on our Master’s mind.” The Master answered, “I would like to bring peace to the old, be trustworthy with my friends and to protect the young.” : : , , : : : , , 18. Gong Bin, Tao Yuanming ji jiao jian, 7–8. Translation from Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature, 314.

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within each chapter of the Analects are arranged based on thematic, rhetorical, and stylistic considerations.19 The Master said, “To study and then repeatedly put into practice what you have learned—is this not what it means to have pleasure? To have friends come from afar—is this not what it means to be joyful? To go unacknowledged by others without harboring resentment—is this not what it means to be a superior person?”20 : , ? , ? , ?

We do not know what questions or situation the statement is responding to, but that is precisely what sets it apart from an anecdote involving interlocutors, lending it the aura of gnomic wisdom. The Master is positing, not reacting or explaining. Authority of speech originates from the absence of a counter-voice. This is quite different from “scene of instruction” passages in which the master’s authority inserts itself into an entourage of other speakers and their concrete concerns and questions. The passage consists of a tripartite set of parallel rhetorical questions. The joy one experiences when applying something one has learned parallels the joy felt when a friend visits from far away. It is as difficult to overcome old habits with fresh insights as it is for a friend to journey over long distances, but when it happens, it is blissful. An opposite experience—of being neglected—can occasion a parallel joy when one manages to react to it without resentment. The joy of learning, applying one’s knowledge, of spending time with friends, and of conquering self-pitying resentment opens the Analects programmatically on a blissful and communal note. Master You said, “As for human beings, it is rare indeed for those who have a sense of filiality also to like defying their superiors. And it is impossible not to defy one’s superiors without being keen on initiating rebellion. The superior person concentrates his efforts on the root, for when the root has taken hold, the

————— 19. Kimura Eiichi has provided a careful and compelling analysis of the rhetorical arrangement of the Analects. He suggests that the thematic and rhetorical arrangement has a mnemonic function that helped students remember the text more easily. See Kimura, Kōshi to Rongo. 20. Analects 1.1. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 1–9.

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Way will emerge. Thus, filiality is the root of being human / of benevolence (ren / ).”21 : , , ; , , . , . , !

After the superior person’s appearance in a universe of like-minded 22 friends in the first passage, You Ruo borrows the master-voice of Confucius and introduces the superior person into the world of hierarchical relations such as filiality. The passage benefits from the pun on ren as meaning both “human being” and “benevolence.” In the opening phrase it naturally reads “as for human beings” (qi wei ren ), but at the close of the passage, the same phrase slips into the ambiguous “it is (the root) of benevolence/of being human” (qi wei ren zhi ben / 23 ). This slippage glides over into the next passage: The Master said, “It is rare indeed for those with cunning words and an ingratiating appearance to be benevolent.”24 : , !

This passage replicates the formal structure of the previous passage in positing “as for X, it is rare to have also Y.” However, it chiasmatically shifts “benevolence/human being” from its position as X in Analects 1.2 to its position as Y in Analects 1.3. This is an example of the aesthetic pleasure of sequentially arranging elements that share a similar syntactic pattern. While both passages independently explain how to judge people and measure their benevolence based on the evidence of other character traits, their occurrence in sequence tinges the reading of Analects 1.3. “Cunning words and ingratiating appearance” are connected with rebelliousness, and more importantly, what would naturally only read as ren “benevolence” becomes also ren “human being” through the pun from Analects 1.2, which states that people using cunning words and parading their ingrati-

————— 21. Analects 1.2. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 10–13. 22. A disciple of Confucius, he appears three times in the first chapter. He had presumably a leading role in the community of disciples after Confucius’s death. 23. Ames and Rosemont indicate both characters in their translation: see their The Analects of Confucius, 71. 24. Analects 1.3. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 16.

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ating appearance cannot even be called human beings (ren). This connects to Analects 1.4: Master Zeng said, “Daily I examine my person on three counts. Have I failed to be loyal in my efforts on behalf of others? Have I failed to be trustworthy in my interactions with friends? Have I transmitted something that I have not put into practice myself?”25 : : ? ? ?

Just as Analects 1.2 and 1.3 share theme and pattern, Analects 1.4, with its three negative questions marked by hu , replicates the texture of the opening passage, Analects 1.1. Two of the themes, namely learning and putting into practice, and friendship, are taken up again. But everything else is different: the master is replaced by Master Zeng, presumably Zeng Xi’s son, and associated with the transmission of the Classic of Filial Piety.26 Master Zeng, as Master You before, takes the master’s place as teacher and transmitter, but this fact is diluted by the transformation of rhetorical questions into full-fledged contemplative questions: Zengzi is not bursting with joy at being a superior person in an alternative community of friends and disciples as Confucius is in Analects 1.1, but he reports his introspective self-examination on his way to becoming an exemplary person. He does not experience the pleasure of putting into practice what he has learned, but instead shows uncertainly about whether he has correctly applied in his own life what he is already setting forth to his disciples. The lighthearted Confucius of the opening passage takes on the countenance of a pensive master-disciple Zeng who scrutinizes himself at every step. Kimura speculates that rules and educational guidelines from the “school” Confucius assembled around himself in his later years are particularly frequent in the first chapter of the Analects, which also features several of his disciples in their later role as new “masters” after the death of Confucius.27 In this vein, Zengzi’s appearance here facilitates the generational shift in Confucius’s community, because he is shown as a pensive and self-critical “second generation master.”

————— 25. Analects 1.4. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 18. 26. Commentators tend to read Zengzi’s third question regarding proper transmission in the context of his alleged compilation of that Classic. 27. Kimura, Kōshi to Rongo, 246.

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The Master said, “The Way to lead a thousand-chariot state is to be trustworthy in carrying out official duties respectfully, to be frugal in expenditures, to love the people and to employ the populace only at the proper time of the year.”28 : : , , .

The tripartite structure is carried over from 1.4, but the notion of “trustworthiness” (xin ), which had first been associated with the nonhierarchical context of friendship, is here propelled into the space of public service and the art of governing. The Master said, “A younger brother or son should be filial when at home and deferential when outside, be cautious and trustworthy, broadly love the multitude and befriend with benevolence/real human beings. If beyond all that he still has superfluous energy, then he should study the arts and textual learning (wen).”29 : , , , , . , .

As terms and themes are restated in new aphorisms, the limits of meaning expand and oscillate. “Trustworthiness” is again placed in a context outside the private sphere and connected to “filiality,” an echo from Analects 1.2. The necessary connection between benevolence and filiality, its root, is neglected here. Instead, the themes of benevolence in Analects 1.2 and friendship in Analects 1.1 and 1.4 are connected so that non-hierarchical friendship is marked as a source of models of benevolence. Not surprisingly, the topic of learning that recurs in precisely the same passages is immediately linked again to friendship. But here, the focus is not on putting into practice what one has learned, which is the greatest pleasure for Confucius and the trigger of self-scrutiny for Master Zeng. Instead, study of wen—cultural refinements such as the arts and the study of texts— is an option only for those with additional energies. The next passage gives the theme of “learning” yet another dimension. Proper education shows in one’s conduct, not in one’s claim to formal training: Zixia said, “Somebody who recognizes worthy men rather than beauty, who is able to exhaust his energies in serving his parents, who is able to give his whole

————— 28. Analects 1.5. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 21. 29. Analects 1.6. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 27.

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person in serving his ruler, and whose words are trustworthy in the interaction with friends—Even if he had never received education, I would insist upon calling him well educated.”30 : , , , . , .

This statement by the disciple Zixia (ca. 507–420), often the spokesman for book learning 31 and credited with the transmission of the tradition of the Classic of Poetry, alludes to most of the themes running through the sequence: filiality towards parents and rulers, trustworthiness in interactions with friends, learning, and worthiness as superior to beauty. The parts come together in an intriguing advocacy of proper conduct over formal education. Proper education is manifested in conduct, not time spent learning from books. Once again, friendship ( jiao ) is contrasted with service rendered to parents or superiors (shi ). What matters in friendship are trustworthy words, as stated before, but the visual pun on xin and yan , with xin graphically indicating “people standing by their word,” is only now fully developed, although xin occurs in every single passage after Analects 1.4. With Analects 1.7, the pleasant outlook on applying one’s learning found in the opening passage has turned into a hidden warning against devoting too much energy to learning, energy which should instead be spent on proper conduct and service. This line of thought is played off in the following passage: The Master said, “If a superior person lacks gravity, he will not have authority. If he studies, he will not be inflexible. Take loyalty and trustworthiness as a guiding thread, do not befriend anyone who is not as good as you, and if you have erred, do not hesitate to mend your ways.”32 : , . . . .

The sequence ends with warnings. The superior person has to show gravity, and learning is not the pleasurable activity it was in the opening passage. Although learning is not indirectly dismissed as in Analects 1.6 and 1.7, it is presented as a means to avoid inflexibility. Of greater importance

————— 30. Analects 1.7. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 30. 31. See Analects 19.5–7. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 1309–12. 32. Analects 1.8. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 33–36.

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are the qualities of loyalty and trustworthiness in oneself and others: only equals should be accepted as friends; errors should be mended. The notion of error has been completely absent thus far from the sequence, although it now resonates somehow with Master Zeng’s self-scrutiny that is driven by anxiety over going astray. The opening sequence of the Analects is intriguing for several reasons. First, it programmatically shows how carefully the compilers of the Analects crafted the arrangement of some parts of the collection, reminding us that interpretations have to be aware of the sequential context. All the passages are monologic utterances pronounced by a master; some share sets of tripartite phrases or other similarities in sentence pattern. They successively introduce a thickening web of select focal terms, which constantly reappear and take on new shades of meaning or even end up somewhere completely different; the most conspicuous example is the transitional devaluation of book learning in Analects 1.6 and 1.7, the importance of which is reinstated again in Analects 1.8. Second, the opening sequence of the Analects is not just a stream of aphorisms, but is designed to construct the image of a community of equals beyond the economy of social hierarchies (and even master-disciple relations) defined by the importance of oral communication (“communicate among friends” jiao ) and the implementation of learning for the sake of this community. Third, the opening sequence shows how important it is to read the Analects “sequentially,” and not “synoptically” as is often done when trying to construct a “Confucian philosophy” by assembling passages discussing such key terms as “benevolence” or “ritual propriety” out of context and trying to arrive at a sort of strict definition of the terms. As the analysis of the opening sequence has hopefully shown, passages exist in a metonymic field of signification in which interrelations between focal terms are constantly elaborated, severed, or reinstated. The co-occurrence of friendship relations and learning is in itself more important than what is said about them. Instead of definitions we find evocations of a set vocabulary that suggests worth and value in a semantically rather indistinguishable way. This leads interpreters into trouble when trying to distinguish an essential meaning of “loyalty” (zhong ) from an equally clear-cut definition of “trustworthiness” (xin ). Attempts to find hierarchies of primary and secondary virtues in the Analects are futile, and we cannot say

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what the summum bonum consists of in this work because we do not even know whether there was supposed to be one. The semantic edge of the focal terms is all too often absorbed into a more diffuse sense of what is right and proper. Apparently the compilers of the Analects as we have it today wanted to stress the importance of equal relationships—among “friends in learning” including the disciples and the Master—which stand out against hierarchical relations between ruler and subject, the generations and the sexes. These were the very themes they decided to place at the beginning of the Analects, the authoritative collection of representative pieces of Confucius lore.

Masterly Modesty The disciples’ awe at their master’s sageliness stands in suggestive contrast to the vision of friendship in learning and cultivation that the compilers of the Analects chose to convey in the opening sequence of the collection. It is equally at odds with Confucius’s overawing modesty, as exhibited in the following passages: “How would I dare to consider myself a sage or a benevolent man? All that can be said about me is simply that I continue my studies without respite and tirelessly instruct others.” Gongxi Hua remarked: “That’s precisely what we disciples are not able to learn.”33 : , ? , , . : . “In culture and elegance (wen ), I am perhaps like others. But when it comes to personally practicing the life of a superior person, I have not yet reached that point.”34 : , . , . The Master said, “I will never get to meet a sage; meeting a superior person would satisfy me.” The Master said, “I will never get to meet a skillful and good person; meeting someone with constancy would suffice me.”35

————— 33. Analects 7.34. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 500. 34. Analects 7.33. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 499. 35. Analects 7.26. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 487–88.

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Although we need not accuse Confucius of insincerity, such pronounced gestures of modesty cannot be taken at face value in a collection compiled by fervent admirers of the Master based, furthermore, on episodes written by fervent admirers. Confucius’s tendency to humble himself whenever others praise and uplift him is a Socratic acknowledgment of lack of knowledge or an Augustan gesture of ostentatious renunciation that dramatically increases rather than decreases Confucius’s authority. In addition, it has pedagogical value, for it magnifies the desirability of his teachings. In the passage above, the constant person, the expert, the cultivated one, the superior person, the sage—all constitute a succession of ever more ideal models in a hall of mirrors that makes the Master appear small, but in doing so allows his teachings to transcend him into limitless reflection. The Master controls the key to the mechanism whereby receding layers are multiplied, even though he humbly places himself on an inferior level within the stages of self-improvement. His ideals are more desirable at a lofty remove, while he himself is just one among others in the community of adepts devoted to his ideals. An impossibly ambitious program pursued along with an approachable teacher who is still in need of learning—what could be pedagogically more motivating? Confucius’s pedagogical modesty is even more dramatically highlighted, when, instead of subordinating himself to abstract exemplars like the “sage” or the “superior person,” he admits to his inferiority vis-à-vis certain disciples: The Master remarked to Zigong, “Comparing yourself with Yan Hui, who is superior?” He replied, “How dare I aspire to be a Yan Hui? When he hears one thing, he knows ten, when I hear one thing, I will only know two.” The Master said, “You are not his match. Neither you nor I are a match for him.”36 : ? : . , . : ! .

Yan Hui, the master-disciple, is beyond the reach of a Master who is both beyond reach and humanly close—this scenario adds one more layer of

————— 36. Analects 5.9. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 307.

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depth in the hall of mirrors and enhances Confucius’s charisma in counterintuitive ways. A variation on the theme of modesty that inversely magnifies Confucius is his depiction as a generalist rather than a specialist. Some keen outsider observers understand the exceptional value of Confucius’s reputation as a non-expert: A villager from Daxiang said, “How grand is Confucius! While broad in his learning, there is no particular area where he has made his name.” When the master heard this, he said to his disciples, “What should I specialize in? Perhaps charioteering? Or rather archery? No, I would specialize in charioteering.”37 : ! . , : ? ? ? .

While taking the villager’s compliment when he hears about the incident from his disciples, Confucius jokingly imagines some tracks of specialization to choose in the future. Charioteering and archery were part of the “Six Arts” of traditional elite education as described in the ritual classics, but it is hardly imaginable that Confucius would really have wanted to become an expert charioteer. By considering such a course tongue-incheek, Confucius makes his audience laugh and inverts the contemporary value scale that prizes professional specialists. Specialization in the Analects and in many texts of the Warring States period is associated with artisans and professional practitioners of some specific skill who serve as paid retainers to the local gentry. Confucius liked to sharply contrast the world of professional specialization with his community of disciples: When the Master was severely ill, Zilu sent some of his students to serve as retainers. Once his condition had slightly improved, the Master said, “Zilu has since long been up to such deceptive behavior! If I have no retainers and yet pretend to have some, who am I going to fool? Am I going to fool Heaven? But I would much rather die in the arms of my fellow disciples than in the hands of some retainers. And even though I would not get a grand state funeral, I would hardly die on the side of the road!”38 , . , : ! , . ? ? , ? , ?

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37. Analects 9.2. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 569–70. 38. Analects 9.12. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 599–601.

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It is certainly humbling for Confucius that his disciple Zilu sends some of his own student-retainers to help him, but the fact that they are “retainers” at all seems to be most irritating to the Master. This failed gesture of assistance only reveals that Zilu understands neither the notion of disciples nor that of retainers: if they were disciples, they would not be interchangeable from one master to the other, but would be bound in a highly particular intellectual relationship with the one Master they are serving. If they were retainers, Confucius could not have them, because the number of retainers correlates with one’s position in state service, and in this passage it is clear that Confucius could only pretend to have a social status that would entitle him to retainers. Zilu’s behavior would even offend and cheat Heaven, a gravest offense indeed. In life and death Confucius wanted to commit his body and legacy into the hands of his disciples who share his vision, instead of entrusting it to paid professionals.

The Charismatic Body of the Master Confucius’s physical body has preoccupied popular imagination unlike that of any other master of early China, with the exception perhaps of Laozi. This holds to the present day. In her memoir In the Mansion of Confucius Descendants: An Oral History written in conjunction with the 2535th anniversary of the birth of Confucius in 1984, Kong Demao, a seventy-seventh generation descendant of Confucius, dwells on the “magical properties of flesh and blood descent” that presumably give her privileged access to millennia of oral transmission of her ancestor’s teachings.39 One can dismiss this as a singular act of genealogical folly in the early 1980s, when Confucius had just started to be presentable again in Mainland China and his descendants could proudly reclaim him as their venerated ancestor. Ironically, the continuity of Confucius’s lineage was questionable from the outset: He died without an adult male heir, since his son Boyu died before him and his grandson Zisi was still a little boy when Confucius died. While the Records of the Grand Historian states just these details, later texts, in particular the Kongcongzi,40 consciously fill

————— 39. Lionel Jensen, “The Genesis of Kongzi in Ancient Narrative,” 176. 40. There has been considerable debate about the dating of the Kongcongzi. While some scholars attribute it to Kong Fu (ca. 264–208 bce) and Kong Zang (ca.

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the generational gap with impossible dialogues between Confucius and his grown-up grandson—anachronistically promoted to the role of mature heir to the family legacy. In Zisi, physical bloodline—even if undercut by a generational gap—and spiritual lineage converge, as Zisi becomes the ancestor of a branch of transmission associating Zisi with Mencius, who, as we saw in the previous chapter, was fiercely attacked by Xunzi.41 Already by Xunzi’s time legends circulated about Confucius’s abnormal physique. In “Contra Physiognomy” (Fei xiang ), Xunzi cites popular beliefs that Confucius’s “face looked like an exorcist’s mask” (mian ru mengqi )42 to argue against physiognomists. While this might be the earliest attempt to refute popular speculations about Confucius’s physical abnormalities, Xunzi places Confucius by comparison on a par with exemplary rulers of high antiquity such as Yao, Shun, and the Duke of Zhou. In the Han, Sima Qian was to confirm the image of Confucius as “uncrowned king” marked for superior cosmic rule. His miraculous birth and the congenital deformity of his head, which inspired his mother to give him the personal name “Protuberance” (Qiu ), marks the master as an exceptional being, fated from birth for a mission equal to ruling the empire.43 Sima Qian includes an anecdote in which Confucius, when in Zheng, got separated from his disciples who found him again based on a description by a person from Zheng who happened to see him standing by himself: “There is a fellow standing at the Eastern Gate. He has a forehead like Yao, a neck like (Shun’s minister) Gao Yao, shoulders like Minister Zichan, and is only three inches shorter than Yu from the waist down. He looks indeed lost like a stray dog.”44

————— 201–123 bce), the eighth and tenth-generation descendants of Confucius, Yoav Ariel believes that it is a “pseudoepigraph” of Wang Su (195–256), also author-compiler of the Kongzi jiayu. For the Kongcongzi’s dating and textual history, see Ariel, K’ung-ts’ungtzu. The K’ung Family Masters’ Anthology, 56–69. 41. For the development of the Zisi myth and its relation to Mencius and the Mawangdui and Guodian text of the Five Elements [wuxing ], see Csikszentmihalyi, Material Virtue, 95–100. 42. Xunzi jijie 5 “Fei Xiang,” 74–75. 43. Shiji 47.1905. On popular lore about Confucius’s miraculous birth see Jensen, “Wise Man of the Wilds.” 44. Shiji 47. 1921.

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When Confucius hears this from Zigong he laughs heartily and remarks that the speaker was wrong about his physique, comparing him to the sage emperors, but was right about the dog. A sage emperor, an able minister, or a stray dog—the villager is as frank as can be, and Confucius elegantly deflects the compliment by declaring himself to be the forlorn dog rather than the sage king. Even when no specific references to his body are made, Confucius’s physical presence is a fundamental, immutable element that the Analects share with other Confucius lore. Until well into the Han dynasty, lore about Confucius was written and compiled in works such as the Records of Rites, Kongcongzi, Family Conversations of Confucius, and Han Ying’s Outer Commentary [to the Classic of Poetry] (Hanshi waizhuan ). He always needs to be “in the scene,” speaking, responding to his audience and, quite often, dazzling them with his answers. Confucius lore, a vast amount of textual material compared to the slim volume of the Analects, has had a bad press: scholars distrust it because Confucius is shown as saying things that outrageously contradict his teachings in the Analects, because it is chatty and sometimes embarrassing, and because it obviously pursues agendas germane to the Late Warring States and Han (when much of it was produced) that seem to make it useless in the eyes of scholars who seek the—however impossible—“historical Confucius.” However, John Makeham has recently reminded us that it is crucial to reconsider the status of these texts. 45 First, rather than representing late and derivative romanticization of the figure of Confucius, they form part of the very repertoire out of which the Analects was compiled. To be sure, the Analects’ compilers apparently chose their passages based on linguistic pristineness as well as rhetorical and ideological consistency. But the artificial boundary between the “authentic” and the “apocryphal” starts to

————— 45. “Nevertheless, if my argument is sound, then clearly there is a need to reconsider the status of other early records of Confucius’s sayings and conversations with his disciples, in particular writings such as the “Tang gong pian” of the Liji. Hitherto the aura surrounding the scriptural status afforded the Lunyu has tended to blind commentators to the potential value of such writings as records of Confucius’s speech and actions.” Makeham, Transmitters and Creators, 24.

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fade when we take into account how Confucius lore had been floating around indiscriminately for centuries. There is a second reason why we should take Confucius lore more seriously. The “scene of instruction” remained the basic rhetorical template for Confucius lore in the Han, although by the Late Warring States many other sophisticated rhetorical formats such as the expository essay, the instruction to rulers, and the commentary form had been developed. The tenacity of the rhetorical format says much about the master portrayed: his charismatic presence in the scene could serve as a vessel of the most contradictory stances. Thomas Wilson remarks: [G]iven his diverse presence in the received texts of the Analects, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi, Huainanzi, and Mr. Lü’s Springs and Autumns, among others, he should be considered a free-floating signifier. In these texts, as much as in the Zuo Commentary, he appears as a tropic presence or plot device, a narrative voice for anecdotes pertaining to ritual meticulousness and the sanctions of traditional authority. Much like Athena in Greek legend, the Kongzi of the Pre-Qin era is fullgrown, embodied, and, above all, beyond history. This history-less quality no doubt underwrote the popular view of Kongzi in the Han as an exalted, transcendent omniscience who, alas, lived as a prophet without honor in his own time, an uncrowned king (suwang).46

Thus, Confucius lore is a fascinating window onto the Han canonization of the figure of Confucius, who proves rhetorically extraordinarily stable and yet ideologically unusually capricious. Confucius indeed does outrageous things when compared to our cherished Confucius of the Analects. There are old themes in new guises. In the Record of Rites, the Analects’ poignant and pithy remarks on the importance of rites become lengthy litanies on technical ritualistic details delivered to a largely silent group of walk-on disciples who, generically, leave the stage in the end with an enlightened smile playing on their lips.47 Second, there is history rewritten. In the opening chapter of the Family Conversations of Confucius,48 a suc-

————— 46. Wilson, On Sacred Grounds, 214–15. 47. See for instance Chapter 28 of the Liji, “Confucius at Ease” (Zhongni yanju ). 48. The “Family Sayings of Confucius” contain pre-Han and early Han Confucius lore and were compiled by Wang Su, who might have interpolated passages of his own. For

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cessful alter ego of the historical Confucius is serving Duke Ding of Lu as a governor; he proposes to the Duke that Confucianism is ready to take over not just Lu, but the entire world: Duke Ding said to Confucius, “If I study these methods ( fa) of yours, Master, how would they do for governing the State of Lu?” Confucius answered, “If you can (apply) them to the world, why should you only [use] them in the State of Lu?” 49 : , ? : , .

Confucius becomes here a successful advisor at court in a world where rulers are eager to adopt his teachings and grant him long audiences with rulers to explain the conduct, clothing, and rituals of Confucians.50 Third, the righting of the historical record and retroactive political empowerment of Confucius introduced new traits into his personal profile that clashed disturbingly with the figure of the clement teacher of the Analects. In an episode in the chapter “First Punishment” (shi zhu ) of the Family Conversations of Confucius, Confucius has been appointed police commissioner (sikou ) of Lu; after his first week on the job, he executes a high official and has his body exposed in court for three days.51 Even his disciples are put off by this, and Zigong comes forward to ask his master whether he hasn’t made a grave mistake by punishing such a well-known man of Lu. Confucius is not at a loss for words and explains

————— dating and textual history see Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, 259–61 and Kramers, K’ung tzu chia yü: The School Sayings of Confucius, 15–53. 49. Kongzi jiayu I/1B. See also Kramers, K’ung tzu chia yü: The School Sayings of Confucius, 201. 50. See Kongzi jiayu Chapter 5, “Explanations on the Conduct of a Confucian” (Ru xing jie ), where Confucius instructs Duke Ai of Lu at great lengths. The effect of Confucius’s sermon is instantaneous: Duke Ai became more sincere in words and respectful in deeds and promises to never make fun of Confucian clothing—the opening joke— and Confucians any more. Kongcongzi chapter 13 “Confucian Clothes” (Ru fu ) is less anachronistic in that it puts the instruction about Confucian demeanor and conduct into the mouth of Zigao, a third century bce descendant of Confucius. For a table of the twenty-one generations out of the Kong family featuring in the Kongcongzi, see Yoav Ariel K’ung-ts’ung-tzu. The K’ung Family Masters’ Anthology, 8. Zigao stands seven positions removed from Confucius. 51. We know from references in the Commentary of Zuo (Zuozhuan ) and Mencius that Confucius held this post, but his wielding of harsh punishments seems to be a Han dynasty fantasy that clashes with depictions of Confucius in pre-Qin sources.

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that there are five types of evils in the world and that the official he had executed exhibited them all. He then refers to cases where venerable kings and ministers of the Shang (ca. 1600–1046 bce) and the Zhou Dynasties (1045–256 bce) had to apply harsh punishment and tops off his historical justification with a quotation from the Classic of Poetry.52 Rather than arguing for the uselessness of punishments and their replacement through a regime of benevolence, as his pre-Qin persona would probably have done, the politically empowered Confucius of the Han keeps to the tools of the new empires of Qin and Han— meaning laws and punishments—to deal with his subjects, and he knows his Classics and his history well enough to defend his surprising personality change.53 Fourth, Confucius lore defends the master against types of vulgar slander that even outdid the vitriolic attacks the Mohists had directed against Confucius. Not surprisingly, this tendency is particularly noticeable in the Kongcongzi, a Kong family collection whose compilation is traditionally attributed to the eighth generation descendant of Confucius, Kong Fu (ca. 264–208 bce), but which contains materials up to the middle of the Later Han (25–220 ce). The conjunction of intellectual and bloodline lineage made the descendants of Confucius into particularly fierce defendants of their master-ancestor’s legacy. In one episode Prince Pingyuan tries to force more wine on Zigao and backs up his drinking request with an “old proverb” (yiyan ) about the supposedly fabulous drinking stamina of Yao and Shun and Confucius. Zigao snaps and instructs the tipsy Prince: According to my knowledge the worthies and sages were superior by means of the Way and virtue, certainly not by food and drink.” Prince Pingyuan said, “If it is as you say, what then is the origin of such sayings?” Zigao answered, “They come from the mouth of booze-lovers, they are words of bold provocation, they are not true.” The Prince said smilingly, “Had I not been provocative with you, I would never have heard these refined words of yours.”54

————— 52. Kongzi jiayu I/4B–5B. 53. There are also instances where Confucius orders execution in Sima Qian’s biography of him, which shows that this belonged clearly to the image of the Master during the Han. See Shiji 47, 1915. 54. Kongcongzi 13.4B (“Ru Fu”), 725. Adapted from Yoav Ariel, K’ung-ts’ung-tzu: The K’ung Family Masters’ Anthology, 136.

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Although the prince praises Zigao for the “elegant” and “refined” (ya ) words of wisdom that straighten out his vulgarities, the prince nevertheless has the last word: he reminds Zigao that without his unashamed teasing he would not have received Zigao’s precious instruction. In this episode and elsewhere, Zigao stands up as the voice of truth against slanderers who attribute outrageous behavior to Confucius not so much to attack him as to cover up their own flaws and lurid desires. Some of the Confucius lore clearly addressed issues that only came to the fore with the early imperial sanctification of the Confucian curriculum. But a reverence for the physical presence of Confucius is shared by all Confucius lore. As briefly mentioned above, the fascination with Confucius’s body predominates in numerous passages in Book 7 and the entirety of Book 10 in the Analects. Unlike the rest of the Analects, here the Master does not speak but is shown in action, and his looks, demeanor, and habits are meticulously described. Chapter 10 has disappointed many modern scholars looking for deeper discursive meaning.55 The master “shows” his disciples how to behave during court audiences or public sacrifices, or when receiving gifts, losing friends, meeting with people in mourning, driving a chariot, or when he falls ill. True, in contrast to the particularity of the rest of the Analects, Book 10 provides us with a merely generic specificity that could look like a ritual code of an ossifying early Confucian school. But I would argue that Chapter 10 is key to under-

————— 55. Arthur Waley considers the book largely a compilation of maxims from works on ritual that do not belong with the rest of the text (Waley, Analects of Confucius, 21). Bruce Brooks (The Original Analects, 67) voices his dismay more personally: “The bafflement of English-language Analects commentators at the ethical desert [my own emphasis] of LY 10 is echoed in that of English-language Bible explicators at having to deal with Leviticus. With LY 10, a new ritual emphasis enters Confucianism. Ethics reappears in the Analects from LY 11 on, but the tone of Confucianism is permanently altered in a ritual direction. It is with LY 10 that the later emphasis on li (“ritual propriety, procedure”) takes over from the earlier emphasis on ren.” Apparently, Brooks considers ch. 10 as the juncture where the Confucian “virtue ethics” of benevolence (ren), hypostatized by most modern interpreters, turns into a philosophically hardly accessible ritualism—certainly from his perspective for the worse.

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standing the texture of Confucius’s charisma and the persistent habit of later writers to capture the Master in a scene of instruction rather than presenting an expository description of his teachings. The placement of a silent Confucius in action in the very middle of the twenty books of the Analects seems too strategic to be coincidental. Some of the passages do not make it clear that Confucius is the agent of the described actions. However, seen in the context of the Analects, this homogeneous book pays tribute to the master’s physical charisma and by extension provides exemplary actions to the aspiring adept.56 The opening sequence of Book 10 (Analects 10.1–5, also 7.4) is remarkable in its repeated use of reduplicated binoms, adjectives describing body demeanor and expressions of appearance (“as if,” “seemingly” [ru ]). Analects 10.4 is the most elaborate in this respect: On passing through the entrance way to the duke’s court, he would bow forward as though the gateway did not admit him. He would not stand in the middle of the gateway, and would not step upon the threshold. On passing by the throne his complexion was as though suddenly changed, his steps were as if rushing about, his words seemed to be laconic. When he lifted the hem of his robe to ascend the hall, he appeared as though bending his body, while holding his qi flux and seemingly not breathing at all. When leaving and descending the first steps, relaxing his countenance, he seemed at ease. When reaching the bottom of the steps, he swiftly advanced as though on wings. When returning to his position, he seemed as though resuming a reverent posture.57 , , . , . , , , . , ,

————— 56. Episodes 1, 16, 17, 27 of ch. 10 clearly refer to Confucius. The only exception is Episode 6, which does not describe the master, but states the clothing requirements of the nobility for everyday use and special occasions like the mourning period or New Year’s Day. Basing his argument on a note from Arthur Waley, Bruce Brooks suggests that the material in this chapter was originally “dress and behavior prescriptions for the gentleman courtier and householder,” which only later became relabeled as descriptions of Confucius, as which they “exerted a considerable influence on his perceived historical persona” (Brooks, The Original Analects, 59). I would suggest that, regardless of the provenance of the material, ch. 10 is unequivocally associated with Confucius in the context of the Analects. The biographical connection is evident not only from the occasional direct reference to him, but also from the similarity with passages in ch. 7, which clearly refer to Confucius. 57. Analects 10.4. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 645–54.

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Scenes of Instruction and Master Bodies in the Analects .

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Here the charisma of Confucius’s body not only emanates from his ritualized modesty in the presence of a ruler, but is revealed through the obsessive use of expressions of approximation: “as though”/ “as if”/ “appearing to”/ “seemingly” are all translations of the same two words: ru occurring eight times and si twice in the space of a brief passage. Confucius’s body is described through the eyes of somebody who can talk about it only as an approximation, somebody whose perception of reality is profoundly altered by watching him. The gateway is not too small for Confucius. He could have walked right through it, but in bending down to enter the gate, Confucius makes it look too small for his body, making his act of deference, in bowing down, seem much larger. At the climactic moment in ascending the steps towards the ruler’s throne he certainly continues to breathe, but does not appear to do so, which shows his awe before the ruler through exaggeration. After having performed his greeting, he literally flies down the stairs with sublime effortlessness. Confucius’s physical appearance—pretending to do more than his physical body could ever do—seems self-effacing, but this modesty is played off against the miracle Confucius’s body effects on our perception of space and place: he appears bigger, smaller, with and without qi flow, moving on wings and immobile. The suspension of his body in vague approximation reshapes the reader’s perception of him and the space around him, so that he inhabits a supernatural ritual space. Dichotomies between pattern versus substance, of appearance versus true nature do not hold for Confucius’s charismatic body. Surface is, for once, coextensive with interiority. This ideal ritual body of the master performs the everyday surface as the sacred façade of interiority, now no longer a façade, but a true surface that is substance.

Tautologies and the Transparency of Body Language Approximate though its actions are, Confucius’s body in silent action guarantees a new type of ritual authenticity: Confucius’s actions are perfect ritual acts in which intention matches appearance, and thus body language is authentic and transparent. As Confucius sees himself surrounded by a world of false words and values, he has a great concern for the devaluation of the meaning of words:

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Ziyou asked about filial piety. The Master replied, “Today’s ‘filial piety’ means just to be able to feed your parents. But even dogs and horses can get fodder. So if you don’t respect your parents, what’s the difference?”58 . : , . , ; , ?

Clearly, “yesterday’s” filial piety embodies the truth of the matter; contemporary usage of the term is deceptive. Therefore, it is crucial for Confucius to learn again how to apply (qu ) words to meanings, how to reconnect with what has been lost. The ruling elite do not make the right connections: The Three Families [of Lu—Mengsun, Shushun, and Jisun] had the Yong Ode performed at the end of the sacrifice. The Master said, “In attendance were the various nobles, and the son of Heaven—how majestic!” What application does this ode have to the ancestral halls of the Three Families?”59 . : , , ?

In usurping royal privilege, the nobles of Lu “apply” the sacrificial ode illegitimately. Words have to be applied to the corresponding phenomena, as disciples have to apply themselves to the right company of mastermodels: [. . .] Being able to apply oneself to the example of those [models] near at hand can be said to be the method of becoming benevolent.60 , .

Benevolence is part of the facility of “correct application” and follows from it. In similar fashion, the frequent expression “this can be called” (ke wei or ke yi wei ) in the Analects is a call for correct application of words. Not the definitional power that attributes universal meaning to a term matters here, but the application of one phenomenon to another through judicious ad-hoc judgment. Confucius teaches through this particular phrase to make certain connections under particular circumstances and to rectify mismatches between people’s supposed roles and their actual actions.

—————

58. Analects 2.7. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 85. 59. Analects 3.2. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 140. 60. Analects 6.30. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 428.

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The most infallible strategy for tying words to their meaning before devaluation is of course the trope of tautology. Duke Jing of Qi is enchanted when Confucius advises him in matters of government: The ruler must rule, the minister must be a minister, the father a father, and the son a son. 61 , , , .

Tautology is ever vulnerable to semantic short-cutting, and can only make a statement in a world where words have fallen from the grace of their meaning. Thus, tautology only means something if it is secondary, if it constitutes a conscious retrieval of lost semantic values. This rehabilitation is certainly visionary and always creates its own story of previous decline; it needs to be in constant tension with an assumed corrupt language use to continue to signify. On the other hand, presenting itself as a repetition, the tautology suggests effortless applicability: The “father” just has to be a “father”; nothing more is asked for. Thus, this tautology benefits both from the prospect of becoming a mere repetition, short-cutting itself, but also from the tension of the inequality of identical terms that comes with the corrupted use of language. Suspended between comfortable identity and necessary difference, the trope of tautology is vulnerable to metaphorical or phonological slippage, potentially upsetting an unstable balance. This may explain the Master’s harsh repudiation of Zaiwo’s explanations before Duke Ai in Analects 3.21: Duke Ai asked Zaiwo about the earth altars. Zaiwo replied, “The Xia clans used pine wood (song ), the Yin people cypress (bo ), and the Zhou people chestnut wood (li ). It is said that this was to make the common people tremble with fear (zhanli ).” When the Master heard this, he said, “Do not speak of what is already done, do not remonstrate over what has already ensued, and do not find fault with what is long past.”62 . : , , , . : , , .

The Master is harsh and dismissive in front of Duke Ai when Zaiwo describes the wood types used by the Xia, Shang, and Zhou for building the

————— 61. Analects 12.11. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 855. 62. Analects 3.21. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 200–204.

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soil altars. Where does Zaiwo go wrong? Perhaps Zaiwo’s error lies in his careless use of puns: li , with its double meaning of “chestnut wood” and “to tremble in fear,” retroactively reads as song (“frighten”) into the “pine” of the Xia, and pa (“fear”) into the “cypress” of the ShangYin.63 By implication, Zaiwo criticizes all three dynasties for the intimidating way they governed the people. Puns are false tautologies, conflating two things behind the veil of one semantic unit. Conflating “ren” as “being human” and “benevolence” in Analects 1.2 was a desirable and legitimate pun, but a pun (even if unintended) that accuses the Zhou of cruelty is unacceptable to the Master. He is extremely upset, not only because it faults the Zhou, but also because it shows the danger that punning poses by creating the possibility of false alikes. It threatens the ideal of a transparent language that would guarantee the proper functioning of society. Because of the importance of tautology, outright logical paradoxes of the type “A= non-A” are extremely rare in the Analects. This made paradoxes so attractive for other Master Texts and we see how texts like Laozi pitted themselves against Confucian discourse through paradox, trying to establish their own rhetorical universe. Yet, there is one particular group of objects that allows for paradox in the Analects: vessels. Scattered throughout the book, references to vessels are paradoxical and mystifying: The Master said, “The superior person is not a mere vessel.”64 : .

The idea that a superior person should not let others “use” or instrumentalize him without his own active participation is rather common in later texts. This commonplace may have offended Zigong, whom Confucius compares to a vessel: Zigong asked, “What am I like?” The Master said, “You? You are a vessel.” Zigong asked, “What kind of a vessel?” and the Master said in reply, “A vessel of the hu and lan type [from the Shang and Xia Dynasties].”65

—————

63. The Lunyu jishi emphasizes that Zai Wo did not intend these puns, but that his faux-pas only became clear to him after he talked about how he conflated the “chestnut” of the Zhou with the ”trembling” of the people. See Cheng Lunyu jishi, 204. 64. Analects 2.12. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 96. 65. Analects 5.4. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 292. Fingarette discusses this passage in the chapter “A Confucian Metaphor—the Holy Vessel.” He takes the passage very literally, suggesting that Confucius’s remark turns Zigong into a “sacred implement”: “It is sacred not

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In two other instances qi means something like “to utilize,” “to employ according to one’s capacity.” These usages contain the danger of instrumentalization, but point also to the potential capacity of the person to be employed. In that case, the vessel signifies the precious “receptacle” of character and talent. Thus, the vessel image evokes contradictory semantic fields, which can be explored in diametrically opposed directions. Confucius saves Zigong from the ambiguity of the “vessel” image by making Zigong into an especially precious and venerable vessel. The double-faced use of this image may explain Confucius’s utterly mystifying exclamation in Analects 6.25: A gu vessel, which is not really a gu vessel—Ah, what a gu! What a gu!66 : , ! !

In a commentary attributed to Zheng Xuan, this cryptic passage gets demystified in a refreshingly pragmatic manner: Confucius said, “When I was carving a gu vessel my mind was on something else. Thus the gu was not finished in time, and I said, ‘What a gu! What a gu!’ A gu is only a small vessel. If one does not concentrate one’s mind on it, it will not be finished in time. How much more is that the case with important matters!”67 : , , . . , , .

Assuming the ambivalence of the “vessel” image, we could also imagine Confucius thinking through its possible contradictions: Persons of worth are like a gu vessel in their capacity, but not so much like a gu vessel because it implies undue utilization. But in the—not dialectical—end, it appears more valuable at this moment to use the vessel image for its precious capac-

————— because it is useful or handsome, but because it is a constitutive element in the ceremony. It is sacred by virtue of its participation in rite, in holy ceremony.” Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as the Sacred, 75. My interpretation gives less weight to the vessel image, but emphasizes Confucius’s playful stirring of Zigong’s curiosity; Confucius knows that Zigong almost certainly misunderstands his ambivalent statement that he is a “vessel” and will have to ask for relieving clarification. 66. Analects 6.25. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 412. 67. Cheng, Lunyu jishi, 414.

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ity. This passage is about as close as the Confucius of the Analects ever gets to using paradoxical language to enhance his point. That commentators like Zheng Xuan explain the paradox away by simply saying that Confucius lamented his failed carving attempts that stopped short of producing a real gu vessel shows that paradox was not a mode deemed natural for Confucius, who placed his hopes in the trope of tautology.

Outlook The material preserved in the Analects was highly influential in shaping the most seminal rhetorical format of “Masters Literature”: the “scene of instruction” in which a master is featured in dialogue with his entourage. This rhetorical format continued to be found in most of the lore that developed around Confucius in the Warring States and throughout the Han dynasty, although many other far more complex textual formats had become available by that time. This may be due to Confucius’s extraordinary role as charismatic leader and ideal sage, whose very presence mattered at least as much as his words. Confucius continued to be best graspable on a narrative stage, rather than through expository prose that explained his teachings. Confucius’s charismatic body resides in the middle of a community of disciples, which pits itself, with its general interest in “being human,” against the contemporary community of professional specialization. The vision of this community, with its emphasis on learning, friendship, and loyalty between equals, was important enough to the compilers to spell it out in the very opening sequence of the first chapter. Confucius’s body language is staged as transparent and authentic, a match between words, meanings, and actions. In an economy of signification that seeks transparency, linguistic slips such as phonetic puns were threatening, although the Analects use them whenever they work in favor of the point at hand. The reverence for the living image of Confucius, which is central to the anecdotes of Confucius lore, did not allow for a systematic explication of his “doctrine.” This may have been one reason why the Analects were compiled so astonishingly late. A whole chapter of the Analects is solely devoted to the careful description of Confucius’s body language and his body’s powers to alter the perception of the spectator. I have argued that Confucius’s transparent body language in Book 10 resonates with his emphasis on the matching between words and actions, which is also reflected

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in his matching of words with themselves through the trope of tautology. I hope to have shown how a program that strives to restore a healthy tautology between words and signification is replicated and strengthened by a master figure with a transparent body language. If Confucius’s outer demeanor matches his intended signification of proper ritual behavior, he acts out the trope of “tautology” and is himself the first and most charismatic propagator of his program. The seemingly passive role of Confucius, who is “authored” through recordings of his words by disciples in the form of dialogic “scenes of instruction,” coexists after Mencius with Confucius the author, who presumably encrypted his most essential teachings in the Spring and Autumn Annals. The tension between Confucius the oral actor and Confucius the subtle author had profound attraction for literati throughout Chinese history, and allowed later Confucians to productively sway in their pedagogical vision between an emphasis on oral instruction and a concern with immersion in scripture. But we are getting far ahead of ourselves. We now return closer to Confucius’s time and look at what one might call the initiator of Masters Literature: Mozi, for it was only with the attacks on Confucius and his followers in Mozi that Masters Literature was really born as a discursive space of contention.

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THREE

From Scenes of Instruction to Scenes of Construction: Mozi

With its vitriolic polemics against the followers of Confucius, Mozi can be said to be the beginning of “Masters Literature,” of a discursive platform where master figures were to fight fiercely over a set of shared concepts and issues. Mozi is a collection of various textual traditions relating to political thought (Chapters 1–39), mathematics, logic and optics (the “Dialectical Chapters” 40–45), and military science (Chapters 46–71). It is a summa of several thriving Mohist schools, which traced themselves back to Mo Di , the first figure to stand up against the followers of Confucius in the late fifth century bce. The Mohists were renowned for their strict school discipline and their ideological commitment to specific doctrines, such as the ones articulated in the so-called “Core Chapters” (8–37) of Mozi, ten triads of essays with the same title.1 Ironically, although we have more evidence about the Mohist factions than about most other “schools,” which the Han projected back onto the intellectual landscape of the Warring States, the Mohists had faded by the time of Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 bce). The text was practically

————— 1. A. C. Graham (Divisions in Early Mohism) has argued that the triads represent the three different schools which, according to Han Feizi, were fighting each other bitterly, and that they each address different audiences: rulers, fellow disputers, and Southerners. I limit my discussion to the core chapters of Mozi, leaving aside the “Dialectical” and “Military” chapters by later Mohists.

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forgotten until Ming times, when philologists set out to painstakingly recover a received text from the Daoist Canon. As if to compensate for two millennia of oblivion, Mozi and its eponymous Master has had a shining career over the past century as the founding text of China’s forgotten tradition of logic and philosophy of language, as a socialist rebel speaking for the lower classes, and, from a Christian perspective, as a rare proponent of universal love in China’s intellectual milieu, which was otherwise dominated by ideologies that endorsed social distinctions. In particular, the “Dialectical Chapters” and Neo-Mohist logic have inspired “what if?” questions that popular historians bring to the table today to grapple with the fact that the scientific revolution happened in Europe, not in China; they like to envision how a different world history would have unfolded had the scientific revolution happened in China under Mohist banners. Ultimately, Mohism faded from the intellectual landscape during the Han, and its disappearance has stimulated much speculation about what made it obsolete. During the Eastern Han, Wang Chong argued that the Mohists’ decline stemmed from their appeal to the populace rather than the ruling elite; in this spirit, Marxist doxographers blame the feudalist establishment for the failure of the “socialist” Mohists. Quite to the contrary, Hu Shi thought the Later Mohist scientific doctrines were subtle beyond comprehension, and Guo Moruo believed the Mohists lost their support among the populace because they only addressed the ruling class. Liang Qichao faulted their wrong assessment of human psychology and the impracticality of doctrines such as the Mohist imperative of “universal love” (jian’ai ),2 while Burton Watson suggested that intellectual and social changes during the early imperial period made many Mohist ideas unappealing and obsolete. Mohist sermons on frugality clashed with the novel deployments of imperial splendors, the movement’s obsolete religious beliefs flew in the face of a growing rationalism, and its austerity held little attraction for the men of an “urbane and aesthetic-minded society.”3 To this colorful array of speculations, I will add another factor that may have contributed to the disappearance of the Mohist school: its rigid

————— 2. For a summary of these arguments, see Tan Jiajian, Mozi yanjiu, 18–20. 3. Burton Watson, Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, 13.

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and repetitive rhetoric. This factor may seem more harmless and less culpable, because it is rooted in narrative form and not intellectual content or varying audiences’ social response. However, this chapter argues that the very idea of rigid universal rhetoric—quite apart from what ideological tenets were put through the argumentative machine—was of little use to Western Han thinkers who were busy compiling and conjoining the bewildering variety of local traditions from the old Zhou feudatories. The interrupted transmission of Mozi has far-reaching implications for both its reception history and its textual history. As for reception history, Mozi comes to us relatively unmediated by layers of renegotiations through commentaries. No later tradition claims its legacy nor offers surprising new readings of the text. As a consequence, it is much more difficult to place the Mohists along the spectrum of Chinese intellectual history than other “schools” such as the Confucians or Taoists, for whom we have a clearer sense of cultural location—though of course our vision is strongly contaminated by the teleological momentum inherent in later developments. In placing Mozi within the intellectual spectrum of the Warring States, what most defines the work is its animosity against Confucius’s followers, strongly reciprocated from the Confucian side by Mencius. Although the Mohists were conflated with Confucians in the late Warring States and Han, Mozi polemicizes against Confucius and his followers on most matters, particularly with respect to music, ritual, burials, and other supposedly unnecessary expenditures. In terms of textual history, Mozi, transmitted rather coincidentally in the Daoist Canon, is much more corrupt than most other Masters Texts; it required more philological manipulation and emendation by Qing scholars. With Mozi it is especially intriguing to consider the question of how texts fare differently under the influence of philological reconstruction. Rhetorically, tropes of repetition on the level of words, phrases, paragraphs, and even chapters (as in the triadic core chapters) dominate Mozi. We could say that it celebrates longitas, a fictitious opposite of the value of conciseness and brevitas in Greco-Roman rhetoric. The exhortation to economize in expenditures is in comically inverse proportion to the stylistic accumulation and uninhibited spending of phrases and circumlocutions throughout the text. The rhetoric of Mozi, which is quite unique among the Masters Texts, is curiously parallel to philological strategies that reconstruct corrupt pas-

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sages based on comparison of parallel passages. As a rule of thumb, philologists will understandably prefer a complementary reconstruction based on parallel evidence over a speculative addition of new semantic and syntactic elements. The rhetoric of Mozi and the logic of its philological reconstruction are so closely analogous that it is at times hard to tell how much of the rigor of the text stems from the Mohist project itself, and how much is due to its textual recovery. However, it is safe to assume that philological reconstruction based on parallel passages was more congenial for Mozi than for any other Masters Text. The process probably produced a vastly more accurate received text in the case of Mozi than it ever could have with texts like Laozi or Zhuangzi that play with unexpected and paradoxical claims.

Written Texts and “Scenes of Construction” The “Core Chapters” of Mozi, unlike the Analects, were visibly conceived as the representation of a text, not as a staging of orality. They deemphasize the fundamental importance of teaching through interaction in dialogue with a master or through the master’s particular charisma. Learning is transmitted not through personal experiences of instruction represented in written texts, but instead is codified in writing, systematically constructed on the textual site that becomes the major site of transmission. It is not coincidental that the Mohists, though fierce opponents of aggressive warfare, were later reputed to be military strategists. Their arguments, too, are built like discursive phalanges on the battlefield of disputation. Here is one of the numerous examples of rhetorical deployment in Mozi, from Chapter 6, “Renouncing Excess” (Ci guo ). This chapter argues with remarkable tenacity for frugality and restraint when it comes to the basic human needs of lodging, clothing, nutrition, mobility, and sexual relations. With minor divergences, the argument goes as follows: In those times of old when the people still did not know how to make boats and carts, they did not carry heavy loads, nor did they travel over great distances.4

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4. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 6 (“Ci guo”), 36. Bold print in the translation indicates close to literal overlap with the other four topics argued for in sequence. My translations of Mozi passages have benefited from Yi-pao Mei, The Works of Motze; and Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, Mo Ti. For an intriguing reading of this chapter in the context of debates about the creation of culture and the creativity of the Early Sages, see Puett, The Ambivalence of Creation, 51–56.

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Mozi starts his argument in high antiquity when basic cultural technologies had not yet been invented. The account of the development of human civilization through technological advances serving basic human needs was ever popular throughout China. It informed the first chapter of the New Words (Xinyu ) by the early Han scholar Lu Jia, and it played a prominent role in discussions about literature since the Six Dynasties Period, as we can see in the Preface to the Literary Selections (Wenxuan ) by Xiao Tong (501–31), or in Liu Xie’s The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. All three writers understand the history of human civilization (wen ) as an unfolding of progressive refinement, but Liu Xie is most ambivalent about the dangers of sophistication as it leads to excess, decadence, and decline. The author of this chapter, although in favor of inventions that further human civilization, is at the same time strongly opposed to excessive refinement—and excess starts for him very early. Yet, he does feel committed to include the great cultural inventions of the revered early sages and does not oppose their cultural accomplishments at the threshold of history. He condones the development of basic cultural techniques, only to halt their further advancement and keep them at their most primitive level of pragmatic benefit. Therefore, the Sage kings created boats and carts in order to facilitate the endeavors of the people. As for those boats and carts, they were durable, light and nimble, so that they could carry heavy loads and go far. The investment was small and the benefits manifold, thus the people rejoiced in them and profited from them. Laws and orders were unhurriedly implemented; the people were not worn out although the superiors made ample use of them. Thus the people turned to them.6 , . , , , , , . , , .

The existence of anything that is functional and beneficial to the common people is justified. The “creative” inventiveness of the sages is put to

————— 5. To be read as “ ” based on parallelism. 6. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 6 (“Ci guo”), 36.

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its most efficient use, so that—in the Mohists’ favorite gesture of calculating numerical benefit and loss—a small input produces a maximal effect. In the Analects the moral charisma of a ruler ( de) would attract the populace to turn to him and gladly accept being governed, but in Mozi it is the sage kings’ inventiveness that entices the people. Order in the state is dependent upon beneficial primitive “technology transfer” between superiors and their subjects. Nowadays, the rulers handle the construction of boats and carts in a different way.7 Although solidity, lightness and nimbleness are already there, they demand luxury and impose taxes on the populace in order to decorate the boats and carts, the carts with colorful textiles and the boats with carvings. Women have to put aside their weaving in order to do the embroidery, so that the people suffer from the cold, while men leave their field work to do the carvings, so that the people suffer from starvation. If the ruler of the people builds boats and carts in this way, his servants will imitate him, so that their people will starve and freeze to death. Consequently, deviousness will arise, increasing deviousness will lead to heavier punishments, and heavier punishments will throw the state into chaos. If a ruler truly wants the empire to be well-governed and hates chaos, then he absolutely has to economize in8 the building of boats and carts.9 , . , , , , . , , , . , , , . , . , .

The sage kings are not only evoked in order to give a short-hand history of human inventiveness, but are also set up as the shining contrast to contemporary government practice. This passage does not use specific and well-developed historical examples, which pervade later texts like Xunzi; nor does it directly criticize a ruler who is in the scene itself. Its rulers and subjects are completely generic, as is the audience that a generic master

————— 7. Rounds 3 (nutrition) and 5 (inter-sex relations) omit this formulation. 8. Only Round 5 deviates in wording, though not structure (“If a ruler truly wants people to be many and hates their being orphaned, he absolutely has to economize on the accumulation of women [in his harem]”). All the other items conclude in literally the same way. 9. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 6 (“Ci guo”), 36–37.

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addresses in a long monologue. The audience never gets the chance to speak, just to be at times refuted. But the surprisingly consistent closure to the argument for restraint in the five areas of human need suddenly orients the generic narrative with stringent urgency towards a more concrete implied audience: those rulers who want order. The chapter’s conclusion drives home its message: In all these five respects, the sages are frugal and moderate, while the petty men are indulgent and excessive. Moderation and frugality bring abundance; indulgence and excess bring destruction. With respect to these five, one absolutely has to be moderate. When husband and wife are moderate, Heaven and Earth will be in harmony; when wind and rain are moderate, Heaven and Earth will equally be in harmony. When wind and rain again are moderate, the Five Grains will ripen; when clothing is kept moderate, flesh and skin will be in harmony.10 , , , , , . , , .

Twice, the contrast between sages and petty men and the effects of their behavior is followed by yet another repetition of the message of frugality in the concluding sentences for each of these items. Rhymes of the poignant lines and outright repetitions—either of the first or second half of the phrase—hammer the message home once more. Although the four examples invoked here—marital relations, the seasons, the growth of grains, and clothing—only partially overlap with the five items discussed throughout the chapter, the repetitious recombination of elements makes them plausible new illustrations of the same point. This chapter exemplifies the pervasive rhetoric of the Core Chapters of Mozi. It nearly bursts with discursive saturation, running through countless examples with the same argumentative structure. It does not shy away from highly formalized repetitiveness, almost obsessively filling up every single semantic space, even when the same effect could have been achieved by simply relying on analogical reasoning. However, there is no sense that the text gains in potency in the same way that a ritual text might benefit from a highly repetitive structure. Repetition in the Mozi seems to originate both from the desire for discursive rigor—here not on-

————— 10. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 6 (“Ci guo”), 38.

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ly on a terminological, but a text-form level—and also from an aesthetics of textual symmetry as a representation of a well-formulated order that only needs to be imposed on the real world. Interestingly, the symmetrical repetitive rhetoric of Mozi that is conceived as a text, not as the representation of oral dialogue, runs parallel to Mozi’s interest in the physical transmission of texts. The core chapters of Mozi repeat over and over again the following “transmission formula”: Because in ancient times the sage kings understood the principle of honoring virtuous men and wanted to employ them in government, they wrote this principle on bamboo and silk, engraved it on plates and vessels in order to transmit it to later generations of descendants.11 , , , .

This is not simply an argument ad auctoritatem that quotes textual authority to make a point. The very point it intends to prove gains support through the bamboo and silk it is written on. Writing is a function of the ancestors’ desire to communicate fundamentals to their descendants. The repetitious and often formulaic-sounding rhetoric of Mozi does not need to be a sign of residual oral culture. To the contrary, with Mozi it could be a consequence of the fascination with the new medium of writing. The written text is a physical space, where the systematic and repetitive nature of Mohist terminology and argumentation can play out most perfectly. The charismatic authority of the immediate presence of a master is transposed into the physical presence on the writing medium; the written text has become the embodiment of masterly authority. The palpable figure of the Master in the Analects—at times surprising and revelatory, at other times amiable or severe—disappears in Mozi into the master mind of the predictable discursive machine. That is the reason why we know so much less about Mozi than about Confucius. Mozi hardly ever appears or speaks in Mozi. His discursive machine speaks for him and he remains a shadow entity. The absence of the figure of Mozi from the text makes his occasional sudden appearances all the more strange. In the “Will of Heaven Part I” (Tianzhi shang ) the figure of Mozi

————— 11. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 10, “Valuing Worth Part III” (“Shang xian xia”

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), 69.

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makes himself into the voice of truth that not only transcends the interschool quarrels between various thinkers, but Heaven itself: Master Mozi said, “I possess the will of Heaven in the same way as the wheelwright has his compass and the carpenter his square. The wheelwrights and carpenters use compass and square to measure the rectangular and round in All Under Heaven, saying ‘what fits is correct, what does not is incorrect.’ Nowadays, the writings of all the scholars in the empire are [too many] to be loaded on one cart and their utterances cannot be exhaustively enumerated. They address the feudal lords above and the various scholars below, but their teachings on benevolence and rightness are widely divergent. How do I know? Because I have received the luminous yardstick of All Under Heaven to measure them.”12 : , , , , , : , . , , , , , . ? .

This passage shows a unique act of cosmic usurpation. Both the Confucian tradition and its opponents in Laozi and Zhuangzi talk about aligning themselves with the Way or with Heaven, but it is quite a spectacular move to declare oneself to “possess the will of Heaven” and to make it into the craftsman’s tool that dismantles the falsity of all other thinkers. Most surprisingly, this passage does not add a single more specific characteristic to the personality of Mozi; the voice that speaks here belongs to a Master-measurer, a demiurge who resents the existence of his fellow thinkers and destroys them through his possession of the most divine of weapons. During this process, Heaven’s commanding power over human fate, nature’s well-being and the workings of the universe are shrunk into a ready-to-use measuring tool in the hands of the cosmically inflated Master Mozi. Not only is Mozi strongly depersonalized, but his interlocutors are also referred to mostly by their standpoint, not by name and personal opinion. Confucius is mentioned only a handful of times in Chapter 39, “Against the Ru,” and in Chapter 48, “Gong Meng.” The first half of Chapter 39 lists statements by “Ru people” (“the Ru people say X”) and their refutation by a generic voice: “In countering this argument one would say...”

————— 12. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 26 (“Tianzhi shang”), 197.

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Only in the second half of the chapter does Confucius feature directly in anecdotes, and even these are pejorative or even offensive. While others such as Duke Jing of Qi call him “Kongzi,” Master Kong, his rivals and the text address him as Kong Mou , “this guy with the surname Kong,” an appellation that is preferred throughout in Mozi. In this appellation we can see both disrespect for and depersonalization of the enemy. If the Analects address themselves to one who aspires to become an exemplary person ( junzi), it is the “real” person of superior mind and not of social position, which is the pre-Confucian meaning of the term. In the core chapters of Mozi this metaphorical usage has gained social reference again, but it refers now not to the nobility, but to itinerant persuaderscholars. Mozi frequently addresses this social class as “scholars and superior persons” (shi junzi ) and within the genre of Masters Literature only Xunzi uses this expression occasionally and with a similar meaning. Defying the conflation of a social class with a visionary ideal, there is little space in Mozi for the ideal superior person beyond the social class of the scholars (shi ). In general the core chapters of Mozi are not consistent in distinguishing different social groups: the occasionally used expression “kings, dukes, great men, scholars and superior persons” (wang gong daren shi junzi ) places rulers and visionary ideals like the “Great Ones” and scholars in the same position, most often indicting them all for wrong behavior or belief. Yet, Mozi obviously identifies with the class of scholars and opens with a grand argument for the vital importance of scholars for the well-being of the state: If a state does not preserve its scholars, then it is a doomed state. If one does not hurry when one has made acquaintance with a worthy man [to recommend him], then one neglects one’s ruler. Unless it is a worthy person one should not hurry and unless it is a scholar one should not share reflections on the state. A state that neglects the worthy and forgets the scholars has hardly ever been able to survive.13 , . , . , . , , .

This image of the scholar-official in Mozi retains traces at times of the earlier meaning of “shi” as “warrior.” The superior person is a “warrior” both

————— 13. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 1 (“Qin shi”), 1.

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of civil manners and military courage. This is particularly striking in Chapter 2, “Self-cultivation” (Xiushen ), which opens with the statement that just as there are tactics in war, the superior person should take courage as his fundamental quality. This belligerent beginning is more appropriate for a chapter on self-exertion than self-cultivation. The whole chapter treats of the ideal behavior of the superior person: His way of learning, his way with language and promises, his immunity against the temptations of fame, boasting, and unnecessary eloquence. The chapter of the same name in Xunzi situates the topic of selfcultivation between body and spirit, practice and thinking. The Mozi chapter remains within the realm of the public of a recognizable social class, and when it comes to the body of the “superior person,” it sketches a vision of self-cultivation that must have been deeply alien to the various Confucian and Daoist ideas of self-cultivation of the Warring States period: The way of the superior person consists in the following: In poverty he shows himself incorruptible, in prosperity he shows himself righteous. Towards life he shows love, towards death he shows grief. These four types of behavior must not be hollow and fake; this is why he cultivates himself. What is hidden in his mind does not go beyond love; what moves his body does not go beyond respect; what exits his mouth does not go beyond instruction. It pervades his four limbs and penetrates into his flesh and skin. Somebody who sticks to this, even until the hoar-grey hair falls out, is indeed a sage.14 , , , , , , . , , . , , , , !

The superior person has to inculcate behavior into his resistant flesh. Under his skin, he is somebody who improves himself by controlling his body. His body is not the guiding thread by which self-cultivation is spontaneously channeled as in Xunzi, but a foreign vehicle that has to be conquered and dominated. The superior person uses his body as a receptacle for his behavior.15 .

————— 14. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 2 (“Xiushen”), 9–10. 15. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 2 (“Xiushen”), 11.

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Like the other protagonists such as the master, his interlocutors, and the implied audience, the body of the superior person is subjected to a methodology of universal standards received from Mohist instruction. Universality is only guaranteed if the standards are not lodged in any one person’s body or that person’s bodily experiences, but if it is safely invested in extracorporeal values.

Recirculating Arguments The core chapters of Mozi are filled with gestures of refutation that show an awareness of the boldness of their claims, which seem to require a strong discursive defense-line. The ten triads of the “Core Chapters” argue on different levels of urgency and self-defensiveness. Chapters that invite particularly strong resistance from the Confucian camp develop inventive and striking strategies to make their case. Let us consider the third triad of the third canon, Chapter 16, “On Universal Love Part III” (Jian’ai xia ). The doctrine16 of “universal love” became one of the most derided Mohist convictions, probably ridiculed even more than the obsessive exhortation to frugality. The Mohist canon defending “universal love” is rhetorically one of the most developed canons, precisely because the composers of Mozi must have been painfully aware of how difficult it would be to defend such a doctrine, which flew in the face of traditional concerns for family lineage, respect for generational divides, and filial piety. For that matter, the doctrine also defied contemporary cultural values emphasizing blood-line and the logic of family clans. The third version of the canon deploys a particularly flamboyant sermon in favor of “universal love.” Let us go at the matter from both sides. Somebody could imagine two scholars. Let one of them hold to partiality (“partial love”) and the other to universality (“universal love”). Thus, the advocate of partiality would say, “How can I care for my friend’s body as for my own, for my friends’ parents as for my own

————— 16. Although I otherwise avoid the term “doctrine,” I believe it is most appropriate in the Mohist context. Canonization within a broader belief system, a sense of orthodoxy, anxiety about a thriving heterodoxy that has to be curbed, and the use of “canons” as a doctrinal catechism all support the reading of Mohist teachings as “articles of faith.”

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parents?” Thus, when he finds his friend in hunger, he will not feed him, when his friend is cold, he will not clothe him, when sick, he will not care for him, when the friend dies, he will not provide for the burial. Such are the words of the advocate of partiality, and his deeds are similar. The words of the advocate of universality are not like that, neither are his deeds. He would say, “I have heard that a lofty scholar in the empire has to take his friend’s body for his own and his friend’s parents for his own parents. Then he can be a lofty scholar in the empire.” Thus, when he finds his friend in hunger, he will feed him; when cold, he will clothe him; when his friend is sick, he will care for him; and when dead, provide for his burial. Such are the words of the advocate of universality, and his deeds are similar.17 . , , . : , , , . , , , , . , . , , : , , , , , . , , , , . , .

In a highly depersonalized hypothetical fashion which is rare in Masters Literature, the argument is put into the mouth of two fictional disputers of the pro and con in a scholastic debate. They are reduced to the abstract characters of the “universalist” and the “partialist.” But the two opponents are not allowed to speak to each other. Instead, they deliver their monologues in turn. Both of them ponder a way to care for their friends and their friends’ parents as they would for their own bodies and their own parents. It seems incomprehensible that basically the same words muttered by both opponents to themselves should lead, in the next step, to diametrically opposed behavior, the first one neglecting others and the second caring for them. All things being equal, the beginning and the closure make the difference. The “universalist” would act out of principle, not personal consideration. He prefaces this statement by saying he has been taught that this is the behavior of a “lofty scholar.” Such an act would meet with the highest acclaim in the Mohist methodology, but

————— 17. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 17 (“Jian’ai xia”), 116–117.

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ironically, the rest of the argument tries to convince by appealing to personal considerations. First, it challenges Confucius’s followers at their weakest point, namely the egalitarian relationships among friends, which stand outside of the economy of hierarchy with its prescribed patterns of behavior such as filial piety and parental love. Thus, the argument adduces not strangers but the peculiar relationship among friends, and, to make matters even more personal, the virtual filial piety one would owe the parents of these friends when putting oneself in their place. Second, the argument goes on to ask the reader to whom he would entrust his family if he were recruited for war, and the answer is, of course, that everybody would certainly choose the “universalist.” Here again, the Mohist position is preferred because of the “partialist’s” concern for his own family alone. In conclusion, it is “incomprehensible why people should object to universalism when the scholars of the empire listen to it.” Each of the four argumentative rounds is introduced with these words: However, among the scholars of the empire the words of those who oppose universalism have not yet halted. They object. . .18 , . :...

In the second round, the same scenario is argued through on a higher level, when “partialist” and “universalist” rulers are hypothesized. Again, the “partialist” ruler says the same things, but the “universalist” claims to act from the principles he has learned about being an enlightened ruler (mingjun ). Yet again, puzzlement about why people do not naturally accept “universalism” concludes the section, and this puzzlement is worded exactly the same way as in the first round. The next round moves away from fictional opponents and argues ad auctoritatem, but in a concrete material sense. The objection is simply that such a doctrine is impracticable, like “jumping over the Yellow River and the Yangtze while carrying Mount Tai.” Mozi claims that he is certain the Sage Kings have practiced it: I am not of the generation and age that I could have heard their voices closely and seen their faces. The way I know that this is so is because they wrote it on bam-

—————

18. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 17 (“Jian’ai xia”), 116.

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boo and silk, engraved it in metal and stone, carved it on pans and vessels in order to transmit it to the later generations of the descendants.19 , , . , , , .

Here again, the “transmission formula” gives authority to the doctrine of “universal love.” The temporal gap in transmission is not a disadvantage but rather an advantage to the argument: the written documents easily make up for physical absence. But as if he was not so sure of how convincing he is, the quoted passages—which bear at best a tenuous relationship to the argument about “universal love”—are taken from “The Great Declaration,” the now lost “Oath of Yu,” and the “Oath of Tang” in the Book of Documents and presumably the Book of Poetry. In laying down what supposedly is the “law of the sage kings,” the oaths are the closest one can get to the past sages. They are written texts that have preserved most of the authority of the sages’ lost voices. After securing the written authority of the sage kings, the chapter sets the stakes even higher. The text not only touches upon piety surreptitiously, but claims that filial piety peacefully coexists with “universal love.” Mozi shows that “universal love” is the best way to be filial, because, if one is good to everybody, one’s parents are most likely not to suffer harm from other people’s acts of revenge. In the fifth and last round, the fourth objection, namely that universalism is hard to practice, is overwhelmed by long examples of what would be much harder to practice than “universal love.” By the end of the chapter, the reader is called to “analyze universalism and put it into practice,” because it is the “way of the sage kings and of benefit to the myriads of people.” This glimpse of the third version of the third triad reveals a masterexample of Mohist rhetoric: objections and the opponents’ opinion are taken seriously, depersonalized embodiments of ideological stances are put on stage, the authority of the written is drawn upon, and much space is given to the practicability of the doctrine in question. But the argument shows little progression and offers few crescendos towards a liberating persuasion of the adversary. Instead, the argument is fought in successive rounds that most often start and conclude in identical fashion.

————— 19. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 17 (“Jian’ai xia”), 120–21.

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What is more, most strikingly in this case, the argument is made through the use of Confucian values: the first, second, and fourth round firmly count on the audience’s loyalty to the value of filial piety rather than universal love. Is this an all too obvious appropriation of the enemy’s discourse for one’s own? A pedagogy that is more likely to convince still undecided Ruist adepts of the superiority of the Mohist cause? It is impossible to decide, but this much is clear: this chapter is both a brilliant display of Mohist rhetoric and yet also a silent compromise of Mohist values, which should not include “filial piety” in the first place, and should not use it just as an expedient way to persuade an audience. The Mohist willingness to preliminarily—and of course ultimately deceptively—adopt the opponent’s opinion is remarkable and accounts for the high prevalence of counterfactuals in the text. Of course, they are polemically designed to work as “ad absurdum” arguments, where the opposite is assumed only in order to eventually prove the opponent wrong. Often, the opponent’s position is not proven absurd, but its dire consequences in the real world are imagined. Thus, these disputes use counterfactuals to show unfavorable consequences. That means they are used in arguments ad peiorem rather than ad absurdum. The third version of the sixth triad, “On Reducing Funeral Expenditures Part III” (Jiezang xia ), is a compelling case. Mozi claims—with the confidence of ultimate triumph— that he would happily endorse lavish funerals if only they enriched the country. Master Mozi said, “If you examine it carefully, do you think the words of those who—though unlawfully—uphold lavish funerals and extended mourning serve the state well? In case of the burials of kings and dukes and other persons of importance, the inner and outer coffins would have to be double, the burial site would have to be luxuriant, you would need many layers of garments and elaborate patterns of embroidery. [. . .].20 [Take] these words and rules and this behav-

————— 20. Here follows an entertaining caricature of the elaborate procedures surrounding the corpse and the mourner: “[The mourner] should weep without restraint with a feeble voice. Dressed in sackcloth and a flax hat, his snivel should run its course, he should live in a mourning hut, sleep on a coarse straw mat with a lump of soil as his pillow. On top of that, he is forced not to eat in order to look emaciated and dress in thin clothes in order to freeze, so that his face and eyes look sunken and his complexion turns dark. His ears and eyes should not perceive any more and his hands and feet not be strong enough to use. If the mourner is a high official, he should only be able to get up when supported, only walk

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ior as the [right] way, then kings and dukes and other important persons cannot come to court early [. . .]. Implementing this will mean for the farmers that they cannot go out to their fields early and come home late. . . . Implementing this will mean for the various craftspeople that they cannot repair ships and carts or make vessels and bowls [. . .]. Using these [rules] to seek wealth is like seeking a good harvest by prohibiting ploughing. A theory of enriching [the state] cannot be gained from this.”21 : , , . , , , , . [. . .] , , [. . .] , [. . .] , [. . .] , , .

The same case is argued in painfully repetitive rounds for the effects of lavish burials on vital concerns of the state such as increasing the population, regulating jurisdiction, preventing large states from attacking smaller ones, and receiving blessings from the spirits. Over and over again, Mozi strongly denies the usefulness of lavish funerals for any of these areas and instead sketches the disastrous consequences for the community and the whole state if Confucian funeral rituals are practiced. There is little generosity in Mohist counterfactuals: Assuming an abstract opponent’s standpoint does not grant this opinion any intellectual space. It serves to show the Mohist disputer’s mastery of the other’s repertoire, enabling him to ridicule it with relish and preparing the reader to accept the infallible correctness of the Mohist position.

One Name, Two Things: Confucian and Mohist Chain Arguments Chain arguments, called “heaps” or sorites in Greco-Roman rhetoric, concatenate logical deductions or inductions in quick succession. Because of

————— when having a cane. And all this goes on for three years.” , , , , , , , , , (“Jiezang xia”), 173f. 21. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 25 (“Jiezang xia”), 171–76.

,

,

, +

Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 25

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their fast pace they can cover substantial ground in no time and are therefore ideal for staking grand claims that link the particular to the most general, a speck of dust to the workings of the cosmos. Although chain arguments appear in most Masters Texts, the single best-shaped and most influential chain argument in Early Chinese literature is arguably the “Great Learning,” a chapter of the Record of Rites that Zhu Xi elevated to one of his new canon of Four Books. If Zhuangzi is best at using chain arguments to mock and parody people’s faith in logical reasoning, Mozi, at the other end of the spectrum, is most serious about relying on chain arguments to describe and prescribe the workings of society and the cosmos. While relying on the same rhetorical trope, Confucian and Mohist uses of it could not be more different. As a background against which to appreciate the use of chain arguments in Mozi let us look at the “Great Learning,” which claims to contain the key to “enter the gate of charismatic power” (chuxue ru de zhi men ). It is a belief in this power of virtue that sustains the chain argument about how self-cultivation of the individual benefits the state: When the ancients wanted to illuminate their illustrious charismatic power, they first ordered their states. Wanting to order their states, they first made even their clans. Wanting to make even their clans, they first cultivated their bodies. Wanting to cultivate their bodies, they first rectified their minds. Wanting to rectify their minds, they first made their intentions upright. Wanting to make their intentions upright, they first perfected their understanding. Perfecting one’s understanding implies the observation of things. Once things are observed, understanding comes. Once understanding has come, intentions are upright. Once intentions are upright, the mind is rectified. Once the mind is rectified, the body is cultivated. Once the body is cultivated, the clan is made even. Once the clan is made even, the state is well ordered. Once the state is well ordered, the empire is at peace. From the Son of Heaven all the way to the common people it is all one. They all take self-cultivation as their root.22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

—————

22. Liji zhushu 60 (“Da xue”), IA.

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The chain descends from Heavenly virtue or charismatic power (de), through the ancients, the state, and families, all the way to individual subjects. The larger part of the chain is located within the individual: the body, the mind, the intentions, understanding, and the observation of things. All these interior processes are a mirror image of Heavenly de, but they also guarantee that this charismatic power can unfold throughout the empire from the common people to the Son of Heaven. When the chain ascends again, ensuring its effectiveness by coming full circle—in time and space—from the ancient sage rulers to the current Son of Heaven, a fundamental transformation has taken place, from a grammatical causative to a spontaneous passive. Whereas in the descending half of the chain the ancients actively brought about all the changes down to the common individual in order to “illuminate the illustrious virtue (de),” in the second ascending half of the chain this causative of the past becomes a simple passive. Through this “charismatic transformation” understanding comes by itself, the mind is rectified by itself, and so forth. This is the paradox, tension, and fascination of Confucian selfcultivation: through the subject’s proactive practice of cultivation, things fall into place simply through proper transmission of “virtue,” the underlying arch of this chain argument. The “Great Learning” makes plausible that there is an inevitable connection between individual behavior and the overall state of the empire. It carves out space for the transformative power of self-cultivation on the level of the individual, but also roots the ruler’s governing in the osmotic diffusion of virtue upward rather than in the direct exercising of power from above. The chain is two-directional: it works bottom-up and topdown. Wherever you start it, “illustrious virtue” will reveal itself and work its magic, as long as you have just one sage in the whole empire. How does this magic circulation of virtue in the “Great Learning” compare to the claims Mozi coaches in the form of a sorites? Introspective self-cultivation, which the “Great Learning” emphasizes so strongly, is of little relevance to the Mohist program, and the body is an exterior social player, not a receptacle of charismatic virtue. However, the question of how rulers and subjects should interact is equally urgent in Mozi. Yet instead of serving to describe responsive diffusion of virtue between rulers and subjects, chain arguments in Mozi create uni-directional hierarchies that help rulers impose unified standards on subjects in the natural state

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From Scenes of Instruction to Scenes of Construction: Mozi of anarchy. The triad “Agreeing With Superiors” (Shang tong up this problem:

147 ) takes

How do we know that the principle of agreeing with one’s superiors and singular standards can govern the empire? Why not examine the theories of the ancients and investigate how they ordered their government? In ancient times when Heaven had first brought forth the people, there was no real leader; people were just on their own. And if you have people just on their own, then one person will have one standard, ten will have ten, hundred will have hundred, a thousand will have a thousand until you cannot count them any more. Thus the so-called “standards” became countless. Everybody was upholding his own standard and rejecting that of others, such that there was strife among the strong and struggle among the weak. Therefore Heaven23 wanted to unify the standards in the empire and thus selected a worthy person and established him as Son of Heaven. Because the Son of Heaven knew that his force was not sufficient to order the empire alone, he selected his aides and established them as the Three Dukes. Because the Three Dukes knew that their force was not sufficient to assist the Son of Heaven alone, they also divided it into states and set up feudal lords. Because the feudal lords also knew that their force would not be sufficient to order everything within the four regions, they selected aides and established them as ministers and officials. Because ministers and officials also knew that their force would not be sufficient to assist their lords, they selected aides and established village elders and clan leaders.24 ? . , , , . , , , , , , , . , , , . , , . , . , . , . , .

————— 23. The text has “empire” , which is redundant in this sentence and should be read as “Heaven” , which delegates power to the “Son of Heaven.” See Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu, 91. 24. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 13 (“Shang tong xia”), 91.

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According to Mozi the ancient sages had to impose this strictly top-down chain of command ranging from Heaven to the clan leaders in order to impose unity on a world whose natural state is egotistic chaos. This vision of beginnings was to run counter to cosmological frameworks developed in the Late Warring States and Early Han that assume mutual responsiveness as the natural pattern of the cosmos. According to Mozi’s model of social order, delegation of power happens only because authority figures have limitations and need “aides” to exercise their power. The chain stops on the level of the clan elders and does not reach into the “minds” and “intentions” described in the “Great Learning.” When Mozi rebuilds the cascade bottom-up he gives some clues as to how the standards in the empire can be unified: Thus Master Mozi said, “Why not let each member of the clan organize his purposes and identify them with those of the clan leader?25And let the clan leader give laws and proclaim to the clan, ‘Whoever discovers a benefactor of the clan should report it and whoever sees a malefactor of the clan should also report it. If upon seeing a benefactor you report it, you are like a benefactor yourself. When the superiors know it they will reward you, and when the people hear it they will praise you. If you fail to report a malefactor, it is as if you were a malefactor yourself. When superiors know it they will punish you, and when people hear it they will reject you.’ For this reason all the people of a clan will wish to receive their superiors’ reward and praise and wish to avoid denunciation and punishment. Thus when they report what is good and what is not good, the clan head will know the good people and reward them, and will know the violent people and punish them. With the good rewarded and the violent punished, the clan will inevitably be well ordered.”26 : , , : , , , . , , , . , , , . , , . , , , . , , .

————— 25. This passage is corrupted and has been reconstructed in parallel to the other corresponding paragraphs. 26. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 13 (“Shang tong xia”), 93.

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The same is argued in turn in ascending order for the clan leaders, the feudal rulers, and the emperor, whose ultimate indebtedness to Heaven is clearly highlighted. The ideally brief treatment of each level in a half-phrase in the “Great Learning” corresponds to a whole paragraph in Mozi. In contrast to the “Great Learning’s” elliptic rhetoric of facile self-rectification that simply follows the flow of charismatic virtue, Mozi carefully contrives a hierarchical system in which the leaders on each relevant level need to align their standards with the next higher one and attain their goals through rewards, punishments, and mutual self-supervision. Needless to say, the Mohist vision of bringing rulers and subjects into accord is far more vulnerable and far less compelling than the vision in the “Great Learning.” Mozi refuses to exploit grammatical slippages like the shift in the “Great Learning” from a causative use of zheng as “rectification” to a medium passive use of the same character zheng as “selfrectification.” The rhetorical trope of polyptoton, use of the same word in different grammatical functions, is the key to the efficiency of charismatic virtue. Thus, the responsive, self-fulfilling chain in the “Great Learning” could not be more different from the rigid, hierarchical chain in Mozi, which needs physical vicinity and oral communication between people in order to function, and cannot fall back on the cosmic resonance produced by the power of charismatic virtue. However, in Mozi we can also find visions of resonance and responsiveness between things. Chapter 3, “On Dyeing” (Suo ran ), uses the powerful image of the dyeing of cloth to address the issue of influence through resonance: When Mozi watched somebody dye silk, he sighed and said, “If you dye it with blue, it will become blue, if you dye it with yellow, it will become yellow. What you dip in changes, and so will its color. When you dip it five times, it will inevitably change color five times. Thus, one absolutely has to be careful with dyeing.” But this is not only the case with the dyeing of silk. With states, there is “dyeing,” too.27 , : , , , , ! ! , .

————— 27. Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu 3 (“Suo ran”), 11–12.

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What follows is a list of Shun, Yu, and King Wu and the virtuous officials surrounding and “dyeing” them. There follows a list of evil rulers and their evil influences, and a list of virtuous feudal lords and of evil feudal lords with their respective sources of influence. After emphasizing again that the “right kind of dyeing” (ran dang ) guarantees order in the empire, the argument is taken to the level of the scholars: “But this is not only the case with the ‘dyeing’ in states. With scholars, there is ‘dyeing,’ too.”28 The examples given are short and hasty, as if the chapter’s momentum through this round of argument has been lost. The chapter ends on a lost quotation from the Book of Poetry, echoing the concern with exposure to the “fitting” influence: “One has to choose what is fitting (bi ze suo kan ).” The logic of “illustrious virtue” is closer to “Dyeing” than to the downward imposition of standards. What is “dyed” changes its nature, so that the emerging object is ran , naturally the way it is, having acquired a new nature altogether instead of just responding to external regulations of behavior. For this one serious gesture towards a pun on “ran,” this chapter is unique in Mozi and is as “poetic” as the book ever gets. However, “dyeing” in Mozi is still far removed from “illustrious virtue” in the “Great Learning,” because it is a metonymical rather than transformative process; whatever one is close to—in lineage or profession— will determine the “nature” of one’s “dyeing.” Close vicinity is still required for influence through resonance.

The Deathly Rhetoric of Mohism Mozi is a link between the Analects and the thriving of Masters Literature in the fourth century. Generally speaking, the rhetorical setup of the “Core Chapters” could not be more different from the Analects.

————— 28. This passage is developed more elaborately in Chapter 4 of Book 2 of the Lüshi Chunqiu, “On the Proper Kind of Dyeing” (Dang ran ). This chapter lists both Confucius’s and Mozi’s teachers and disciples and presents them as the two forefathers of teacher-scholars: “Many are the followers of Confucius’s and Mozi’s learning who have became famous and respected in the world. They are innumerable and all who have been “dyed” have received their proper measure. , , Lüshi Chunqiu jiaoshi II.4 (“Dang ran”), 96.

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Although most of the chapters are cast as sparse remnants of a dialogue between a questioner and a respondent, vaguely reminiscent of that between a master and disciple, this written representation of an oral “scene of instruction” becomes the still orally-represented written “scene of construction” of a text that has taken over the authority of the master. The highly situational narrative “scenes of instruction” in the Analects are replaced with the ghost narrative between generic, almost never specified voices engaged in mechanical refutation rather than in versatile dialogue. Even if Mozi’s rigid and strangely powerless rhetoric cannot be made responsible for the disappearance of the Mohist schools, it contributed to their demise for at least four reasons. First, Mozi’s rhetorical format does not emphasize the relationship between master and disciple that became crucial to the New Text ideology that came into prominence in the Han. Instead it reveres the materiality of the text—not the character of the teacher—and its power to transmit ideas. Second, it did not shape the image of a master in his charismatic activity of transmitting ideas. The head of the school was only the master mind of a discursive machine, not a speaking prophet with an entourage of disciples. The third factor is the rhetorical procedure of this discursive machine: chain arguments, which in cases like the “Great Learning” elegantly guarantee the proper interaction between rulers and subjects through a charismatic flow of virtue, describe in Mozi brittle hierarchies of power delegation and anxious mutual suspicion and control. This was hardly a rhetoric either a ruler or his subjects would want to harness to promote social harmony in a conflicted new empire. Even if Mozi appears philosophically as one of the most attractive Masters Texts to some Western scholars,29 it is rhetorically alien when viewed from within the tradition of Masters Literature. Lastly, Mozi is limited by its desire to design an objective terminology for absolute standards of judgment, and so it fails to create a sympathetic audience. The rulers are almost always chastised, and the scholars are often harshly criticized. The rhetoric of Mozi fails to produce a consistent implied audience that it could address graciously. Rhetorically speaking, nobody could feel part of the Mohist project. It is therefore somewhat ironic that the Mohists were reputed to live under strict discipline within

————— 29. See for instance Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, 95.

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the institutional structures of a “school.” Yet it might have been the overriding importance of the school as a physical institution (as opposed to the adherence to a textual canon and its exegesis) that doomed them to obsolescence when the institution dissolved under the impact of the Qin and Han unification.

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FOUR

Interiority, Human Nature, and Exegesis in Mencius

Tugh Temür, known as Emperor Wenzong (r. 1328–32) of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), devoted himself to Chinese cultural values and practices, founded a Confucian academy, and bestowed the title “Second Sage, Duke of the State of Zou” ( ya sheng Zouguo gong ) on Mencius (ca. 372–289). Mencius was thus officially honored as the second sage after Confucius and received a temple name related to his ancestral home close to Confucius’s birthplace Qufu in today’s Shandong Province. This was the outcome of a long process of canonization that had its roots in the Mid-Tang, when Han Yu declared Mencius the legitimate inheritor of the Confucian lineage, and culminated in the Song and Yuan, when Mencius developed into a centerpiece of Neo-Confucian discourse and became one of Zhu Xi’s “Four Books.”1 The label “Second Sage” describes well the status the text of Mencius enjoyed since the Tang and Song. But curiously, this qualification was already fitting for the Warring States Period when the text was written. Mencius represents the figure of Mencius as a second sage after Confucius. In this sense, the reception history of the figure of Mencius and his appearance in Mencius coincide in intriguing ways. It is almost as if Mencius had set its hero up to become the “Second Sage” of the Confucian

————— 1. For a survey of the reception history of Mencius see Huang, Mencian Hermeneutics.

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pantheon some one and a half millennia later. This chapter argues that Mencius’s position vis-à-vis Confucius is key to understanding many seemingly unrelated claims in Mencius about human nature and psychology, textual exegesis, and human physiology. Even the choice of the dialogue form in Mencius, which models itself rhetorically on Confucius lore as we see it in the Analects, casts the figure of Mencius as a second Confucius. The novel form of the expository essay that we see in Mozi is discarded in favor of the dialogue form, which in Mencius can be considered a conscious return, a holding on to the rhetorical charisma of Confucius, the master staged in dialogue. The theme of “human nature” has received a curiously disproportionate amount of scholarly attention in discussions of Mencius. Mencius’s conversations with Gaozi in which he expresses a view of “human nature” (xing ) as inherently inclined towards goodness are usually read against Xunzi’s fierce critique of Mencius’s view in “Human Nature Is Evil” (Xing e ). In this way the history of early Confucianism can be sketched as a history of polar bifurcations and crossroads. The issue of “human nature” could only become so popular because of a set of felicitous coincidences that occurred between Mencius’s day and modern times. First, although Mencius gave the term xing long-lasting prominence in the Confucian tradition, he was responding to previous notions of xing 2 and contributing—not least by sparking Xunzi’s most violent criticism—to disputes around what became one of the most hotly debated terms in the Late Warring States. Second, by the Song dynasty at the latest, the question of the “nature” of “human nature” stood at the center of Confucian morality and cosmological notions of self-cultivation. And third, the Western philosophical paradigm through which Masters Literature has largely been read in the modern period has projected Platonic and Aristotelian notions of ethics, nature, and culture onto Mencius’s discussion of xing.

————— 2. See Graham, “The Background of the Mencian Theory of Human Nature.” In Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature, 7–66. Also, the recently excavated Guodian texts show us that xing was a prominent topic of discussion before Mencius.

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These changes have led to a shift away from the understanding of Mencius as a text with its own context to the use of Mencius as a proxy in current debates about “nature” versus “nurture,” a shift that has produced interesting scholarship in its own right. A. C. Graham has shown how Mencius appropriated the concept of “human nature” from his predecessor Yang Zhu and how it fits in with other protagonists of the debate.3 For Graham, Mencius’s assertion of the inherent benevolence of mankind is a strategy to deal with a metaphysical crisis triggered by a perceived disjunction between Heaven and human morality.4 Chad Hansen gives a less generous reading of Mencius’s dealing with this “metaphysical crisis” and sees Mencius’s stance as an unconvincing reply to Mozi, who had forcefully called for universal standards as an antidote to the Confucian caseby-case approach to moral action. According to Hansen, Mencius just avoided Mozi’s challenge by grounding morality on the equally shaky basis of an innate potential endowed by Heaven. Hansen barely conceals his disapproval of Mencius: “Paradoxically, Mencius’s philosophical ineptitude may be the secret to his eventual cultural dominance.”5 Even beyond Mencius’s philosophical ineptitude—as Hansen dubs it—it is doubtful why Mencius would even want to abide by Hansen’s standards of being a “philosopher.” In his spirited attack on Mencius’s bias Hansen is caught in his own claims to “philosophicality.” More recently, Michael LaFargue has expressed the wish that discussions of Mencius let go of their anachronistic assumption that “human nature” is a psychobiological scientific entity. Instead, we should move closer to the context of Mencius’s contemporary concerns and rhetorical choices: If it [i.e. human nature] is not such an objective entity, then we cannot ignore the structure of Mencius’ thought on this subject. By “structure” I mean such things as: what were the concerns motivating his thought about human nature; under what assumptions did his thought proceed, shaped by what categories; what was most basic to his thought on this subject (were his values based on his views of

————— 3. Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 111–32. 4. On the complex interrelations between early Confucian, Mohist, and Yang Zhu’s thought traditions as reflected in a text from the Guodian materials, see Defoort, “Mohist and Yangist Blood in Confucian Flesh: the Middle Position of the Guodian Text ‘Tang Yu zhi Dao.’” 5. Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, 154.

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human nature, or vice versa); and what implications and conclusions did he associate with his views of human nature?6

LaFargue asks little-discussed, yet critical questions of fundamental importance for our appreciation of Mencius. Robert Eno addresses some of them intriguingly by tying together Mencius’s episodic format of dialogue scenes, its moral message, and its concern with lineage: My intention here is to explore certain features of the disorderliness of ethical discourse in the Mencius. [...A] basic goal of Mencian ethical discourse seems to be to provide for members of Mencius’s tradition clear insight into the character of ethical authority, as conveyed through exemplary figures essential to the teaching lineage—most importantly, Mencius himself.”7

In the light of LaFargue’s questions and Eno’s reflections, we need to ask what function the discussion about “human nature” has within Mencius as a whole. Why was Mencius so very passionate about this debate? This chapter argues that there is a close connection between Mencius’s attraction to the concept of “human nature” and Mencius’s role as the first textually traceable disciple who cared about representing himself as the inheritor of Confucius’s legacy. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, I explore how Mencius portrays himself as the first exegete of Confucius’s personal legacy. Second, I show how many concerns in Mencius are related to the notion of depth—depth in temporal, textual, and physical senses. We can say that by creating a Confucian lineage with the figure of Mencius as the second generation, Mencius created Confucianism itself, giving the necessary temporal depth to this first step of lineage production. In launching itself onto extended paths of interpreting passages from the Book of Poetry and Book of Documents, which are highly revered in the Analects but mostly only cursorily mentioned, Mencius created textual depth through exegesis. He divorced literal meaning from transferred, “deeper” significations. In a parallel move to the generation of textual depth, Mencius created depth in

————— 6. LaFargue, “More ‘Mencius-on-Human-Nature’ Discussions,” 8. 7. Eno, “Casuistry and Character in the Mencius,” 189–90. Zhang Cangshou’s attention to the Mencius’s rhetorical features such as its colloquial simplicity, its trenchant brevity in argument, and its inquisitive unveiling of opponents’ self-contradictions is also noteworthy in this context. See Zhang Cangshou, Xian Qin zhuzi sanwen yishulun, 25–40.

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the body by clearly dividing the accessible, visible surface from the interiority of the heart-mind. As an outgrowth of this concept of the body, Mencius created depth in the representation of human interaction: when Mencius is in dialogue with rulers, he is represented as a “master of depth” who is able not just to fathom but even to inhabit the mind of his interlocutors. Third, the exploration of various meanings of depth in Mencius prepares us to return to the question of why Mencius was so passionate about the notion of human nature. I argue that Mencius’s discovery of depth led to an increased anxiety over possible shifts—tectonic diastrophisms— between the “inner” and the “outer” of lineages, texts, bodies. Thus, the claim that human nature follows an inherent potential stabilizes the relation between the inner and the outer by connecting them firmly through a dynamics of inner latency and outer manifestation. This dynamics only works, of course, if the inner potential is considered benign. Thus the fascination with depth in its temporal, textual, and bodily dimensions links concerns in Mencius that seem otherwise far apart. The notion of depth also helps understand why Mencius, in other aspects so faithful an exegete of Confucius, cared to elevate a notion that had played no part in the Analects—human nature—to a radically new prominence that was only to increase in importance in the Confucian tradition for millennia to come.

Mencius, the Belated Disciple Confucius in Mencius Mencius was born a good century after Confucius’s death. Mencius himself laments that he was not Confucius’s immediate disciple, but he is also quick to emphasize that he nevertheless did have access to the immediate experience of the Master’s aura through other people: Mencius said, “The radiance of a superior person wanes after five generations, so does the influence of a petty person. Although I did not have the luck to be a disciple of Confucius, I have learned indirectly from him through others.”8

————— 8. Lau, Mencius 4B/22. My translations have benefitted from D. C. Lau’s translation of Mencius.

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Mencius was still close enough to Confucius to feel the Master’s charismatic radiance (ze ). He had to make up “privately” (si ) for the temporal gap between them by receiving (shu , later glossed as qu ) other people’s reports about Confucius. “Qu” means “picking, choosing” from the transmission through other people, but it also means “inferring” information from what others say about him. Yet, Mencius is also close to the impending loss of Confucius’s charismatic impact after five generations. This point is crucial for Mencius’s belief that the transmission of Confucius’s legacy is first of all a prophetic mission. The above passage assures us that there are ways to experience Confucius’s aura even after his death. But it also expresses worries that the possibility of “inferring” that experience is about to expire—one more reason for Mencius to act. Mencius’s “private” way of availing himself of Confucius’s legacy stands in contrast to the “public” community of Confucius’s seventysome disciples to which Sima Qian devotes a whole biography chapter in the Records of the Grand Historian. They were close to the Master during his lifetime, but it is significant that they mostly figure in the historical records as walk-on actors that offset the Master’s effect on people. True, they are credited with committing Confucius’s words to writing, and some of them are associated with the transmission of specific exegetical traditions, such as Zixia with the Book of Poetry or Zengzi with the Classic of Filial Piety. In contrast, Mencius, though no direct disciple, is the first to transcend the role of a tool of direct transmission, becoming a new type of master, distant in time to Confucius, but close in spirit Sima Qian claimed that Mencius actually did write Mencius, and although there is no way to ascertain this, it fits nicely with the fact that Mencius seems to care a lot about authorship and is eager to portray Confucius not so much as a speaking but as a writing master. It would not be surprising if Mencius’s own valuing of writing triggered a search for Confucius’s role as an author:9

————— 9. Michael Puett reads Confucius’s “authoring” (zuo ) of the Spring and Autumn Annals as an attempt in Mencius to claim it more literally as an act of (sagely) “creation” (zuo), thereby transforming Confucius, the self-declared “transmitter” of the past, into a true sage as depicted in the Analects. See Puett, Ambivalence of Creation, 56–57. This read-

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Mencius said, “When the wooden clappers of the true King fell into disuse, songs were no longer collected. When songs were no longer collected, the Spring and Autumn Annals were written. The Sheng of Jin, the Tao Wu of Chu and the Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu are the same kind of work. The events recorded concern Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin, and the style is that of the official historian. Confucius said, ‘I have applied didactic principles therein. ’”10 : , . , , , . , . : .

Confucius’s authoring of the Spring and Autumn Annals is part of a narrative of decline. This narrative begins with the wooden clappers that officials used when traveling through the countryside, collecting songs about grievances and complaints that were to be brought back to court and responded to by appropriate changes in policy. In a first step the custom of song collecting disappeared, but the lyrics of the songs were written down. This meant, of course, that the mutual flux between popular complaints and central politics came to a standstill and was fixed in writing by scribes at the central court. Now, Mencius argues that when the collecting of songs from the periphery ceased, annalistic works such as the Spring and Autumn Annals were written. The integration of the Annals into this scheme implies that the Annals, although dealing on the surface with major historical figures such as Duke Huan of Qi (r. 685–43) or Duke Wen of Jin (r. 636–28), and although cast in the language of the historian, is in fact a critical commentary on its times. Obviously, the plaintiff has changed locations—the popular will of the periphery is replaced by the critical spirit of Confucius, who is close to the center of cultural production, even part of it, but at a safe distance to the political establishment. But as Mencius pronounces through the mouth of Confucius, the significance of the work is the “application” (qu ), the “inferences” to be drawn from Confucius’s text. Paralleling Mencius’s way of appropriating Confucius

————— ing reinforces my argument below that Mencius created a lineage for himself by integrating Confucius into the line of those sages from the distant past, which he himself revered so much. For Sima Qian’s representation of Confucius as a figure of textual authority see Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 218–38. 10. Lau, Mencius 4B/21.

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through “analogical inference” from other people’s words, Confucius sets up his legacy in writing in such a way that later people can make “inferences” about proper behavior—and about the charisma of Confucius himself. Confucius is presented as an encrypter who writes for those who know how to decode and “take” (qu) him. Another passage in Mencius places Confucius’s authoring of the Spring and Autumn Annals within an even broader context of cultural decline. This extended passage not only explains Confucius’s actions, but goes a step further to show how Mencius envisions his own role in relation to the history of cultural decline in general and Confucius’s authoring of the Spring and Autumn Annals in particular: Gongduzi said, “Outsiders all say that you like arguments. May I ask why?” “Why would I like arguments?” answered Mencius. “I have no choice. The world has existed for a long time, sometimes in peace, sometimes in chaos. In the time of Yao, the water reversed its flow, flooded the central regions. Snakes and reptiles settled there, and people had no stable place to live. In lower regions, people lived in nests; in more elevated regions, they lived in caves.”11 : , ? : ? . , . , , . , . , .

The conversation starts with a question from Gongduzi, one of Mencius’s disciples. Gongduzi is puzzled that the master has a reputation for being infatuated with argument and techniques of persuasion, probably knowing that on other occasions Mencius claimed to distinguish himself sharply from persuaders and itinerant teachers. Gongduzi’s question triggers a lengthy response, in which Mencius justifies why “arguments” and disputation are necessary in his world. Given the incumbent threat of further decline because of the rampant polemics of the Mohists and the followers of Yang Zhu around him, Mencius claims that he has no choice other than to speak up. Mencius presents the interschool polemics between Confucius’s followers and the Mohists as yet another version of an ageold pattern of decline that had already started in the times of Great Yao. After the deaths of Yao and Shun, states Mencius, the Way of the Sages

————— 11. Lau, Mencius 3B/9.

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declined, tyrants arose, and together with the appearances of their luxurious parks, decadent artificial ponds, and lakes came the arrival of wild beasts and pests. The next phase was even more catastrophic: When the world declined and the Way fell into obscurity, devious teachings and violence did arise again. There were murders of kings and fathers. Confucius, in fear, composed the Spring and Autumn Annals. To compose annals is the prerogative of the emperor, therefore Confucius said, “It is through the Spring and Autumn Annals that people will understand me; and it is through the same Spring and Autumn Annals that people will condemn me.”12 , , , . , . , . : ! !

Confucius’s authoring of the Spring and Autumn Annals was an act of apprehensive fear ( ju ), his way of coping with a declining age. Mencius emphasizes that the urgency of the tasks justified Confucius’s infringement on royal prerogatives when writing the Annals. Confucius is aware that he has committed a criminal offense (zui ) for which he may be reprimanded; but he also proudly asserts that this crime will be his mark of distinction and will be understood by those who sympathize with him. Introducing the terminology of criminal offense heightens our expectations about how Mencius will deal with the even more degenerate age of his own time: Sage kings no longer create, feudal lords do as they please, people with no official position are uninhibited in their opinions, and the words of Yang Zhu and Mo Di fill the Empire. The teachings in the empire go back to Yangzi or Mozi. Yang advocates that people should focus on themselves, which implies a denial of one’s ruler; Mozi advocates universal love without discrimination, which implies the denial of one’s father. [. . .] When the path of benevolence and rightness is blocked, then we show animals the way to devour humans, and sooner or later it will come to humans devouring other humans. That is my fear. I must protect the way of the former sages, combat Yangzi and Mozi, and banish their excessive words so that heretic teachings cannot emerge.13 , , , . , , . , ; ,

————— 12. Lau, Mencius 3B/9. 13. Lau, Mencius 3A/9.

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This is the dark picture of Mencius’s age: devoid of worthy rulers and filled with irresponsible and uninhibited partisans of ideas that demolish proper human relationships, such as those between subjects and rulers, fathers and sons. In the same way Confucius feared ( ju) the indulgence of the feudal lords in his age, Mencius now fears ( ju) the indulgence of the Mohists and Yangists and sees it as his task to avoid “cannibalism” of the way of the former sages. It is significant that Mencius here not only puts himself in relation to Confucius, but also inserts his own name into the virtual lineage of former sages. This becomes clearer in the closure of the passage: Were a sage to rise again, he would not change my words. In ancient times Yu controlled the Flood and brought peace to the empire; the Duke of Zhou subjugated the northern and southern barbarians, expelled wild animals, and brought safety to the people; Confucius completed the Spring and Autumn Annals; and rebellious subjects and scoundrels had great fear. [. . .] The Duke of Zhou wanted to punish those who denied the existence of their father and ruler. I, too, wish to continue the legacy of these three sages by rectifying the hearts of men, laying to rest heretic teachings, opposing extreme behavior, and banishing excessive views. It’s not that I like arguments. I have no choice. Whoever can combat Yangzi and Mozi with words is a true disciple of the sages.14 , . , , [. . .] , . , , , , ; ? . , .

Confucius figures with the Great Yu and the Duke of Zhou as one of the “three sages,” among whom Mencius positions himself as the contemporary member. Each of them had different ways of coping with decline. If Confucius composed the Spring and Autumn Annals, Mencius is obliged to engage in disputation for the sake of combating the Mohists and Yangists. Along with tightly knitting a lineage of both rulers and masters that stands up to increasing decline, Mencius has here also supplied us with a

————— 14. Lau, Mencius 3B/9.

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justification for why Mencius is largely true to the dialogue format of the “scene of instruction.” Although the representation of Confucius in dialogue may have its origin in the jotting down of course notes by his disciples, it is perfectly plausible that Mencius resorts consciously to the representation of persuasion and argument in dialogue. In the same way that Confucius authored historical prose, Mencius authors a representation of the strategy he brought to the table for fighting the decline of his age, namely argument and persuasion.

Mencius, the Prophet In securing Confucius within a lineage of fighters against decline going back to the ancient sages and in depicting Confucius as a transmitter, author, and failed ruler, Mencius puts considerable weight on the figure of Mencius as Confucius’s distant disciple. Producing lineage requires proof that one is worthy of being seen as part of that lineage. Radiating prophetic self-confidence was one possible way of providing such a proof: When Mencius left Qi, Chong Yu asked on the way, “Master, you look a bit unhappy. I heard from you the other day that a superior person does not reproach Heaven or other people.” “That was one time, this is another. Every five hundred years there must appear a true king, and in the meantime there should appear somebody from whom an age takes its name. From Zhou to the present, it has been over seven hundred years. The five hundred mark has passed and the time seems ripe. It must be that Heaven has no desire to bring peace to the empire yet. If it did, who is there in the present time other than myself? Why would I be unhappy?”15 . : . : , . : , . , . , . , . , ; , , ? ?

There is an enticing tension in this passage between grievance over Heaven’s delay in sending a true king and the hidden happiness claimed in the ambivalent concluding rhetorical question. Mencius’s disciple Chong Yu

————— 15. Lau, Mencius 2B/13.

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detects a touch of sadness in his master’s demeanor, but also uses this observation as an opportunity to take the master to task for one of his previous statements about how the superior person never feels reproachful. At first, Mencius’s answer seems to tip the balance in the direction of disappointment: that time was a different occasion, but now he is puzzled by heaven’s delay in sending a true king or at least an exemplary minister into the world. Yet Mencius suddenly shifts gears when he speculates that he, truth be told, is the only one in his generation whom Heaven might have destined for that purpose. The concealed happiness ( yu ) is nourished by disappointment with the present combined with a future of potentially unrivaled promise. Mencius perfectly fits the role of a prophet who is living in the firm expectation of a future—to be salvaged by himself—and who is preaching in a still-desolate world. He derives credibility precisely from this oxymoronic state of mind.

Mencius, the Exegete In the Analects, Confucius is never really forced to give detailed interpretations of passages from the Book of Poetry or Book of Documents, the textual traditions he considers so important. His remarks are at best cursory when it comes to dealing with specific passages from these two texts. Mencius faced the challenge—and took the opportunity—of redeeming the promise of their importance and occasionally explaining these texts to his followers. Given the contradictory richness and variegated origin of these early texts, explicating them was not always easy. One particularly difficult case that is amply discussed in Mencius is the ambivalent profile of Shun in early sources. Shun symbolized a choice against hereditary succession because he was appointed emperor through the ruling Emperor Yao. Shun was chosen because he was a paragon of virtue and piety, but then there are several moments in his biography when he behaves anything but piously towards his parents. Knowing that his parents and his brother apparently attempted to assassinate him made it easy to explain this impiety away. But still, the offense against the protocol of piety had to be addressed and redressed:

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Mencius said, “There are three ways of being an unfilial son: The worst is to have no heir. Shun married without telling his father, because he was afraid he would not have an heir. To the superior person, this was as if he had told his father.”16 : , . , , .

No textual contradiction or puzzlement is acknowledged here. The passage assumes that the reader is familiar with the issues concerning Shun’s parents and would therefore agree that, since they were unlikely to give their assent, a higher priority of filial piety—namely having a heir— should be tended to, even if it involved an infringement against lower forms of filial duty such as informing one’s parents of one’s marriage plans. But the text does not say that Shun’s behavior was merely acceptable. It makes a point of saying that it was as if Shun had told his parents. Improper behavior is not just explained away, but it is converted into proper behavior by the discerning gaze of the superior person. This passage prepares us for far more extensive conversions of literal wrongs into higher truths. This time, what is at stake is Shun’s relation to his father (“the Blind Man”) and to Yao after Yao’s abdication. Both relationships, predictably, create problems, because they both entail competing hierarchical regimes: as former emperor, Yao should not be considered Shun’s subject; and as father, the “Blind Man” should not be a mere subject of his son Shun: Xianqiu Meng said “it is now clear to me that Shun did not treat Yao as a subject. But the Book of Poetry says, ‘All territory under Heaven is the king’s; all people on the borders of the land are his subjects.’ Now after Shun became Emperor, if the Blind Man was not his subject, what was he?” “This is not what the poem says. It is about those who were unable to tend to their parents because they labored for the king’s business. They were saying, ‘This is all the king’s business. Why are only we overburdened?’ Thus, in explaining a poem, one must not permit the literary patterning to affect the understanding of the words; and one must not permit our understanding of the words to affect our understanding of what was on the writer’s mind. We use our sense

————— 16. Lau, Mencius 4A/26.

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to reach back to what was on the writer’s mind—this is how we get it.’ If one were merely to take the sentences literally, then there is the poem Yun han that says, ‘Of the remaining people of Zhou not a single one survived.’ If you take this as literal truth, it would mean that not a single Zhou subject survived.”17 : , . : , ; , . , , ? : , ; , . : , . , , . , . , : , . , .

Mencius explains away the literal meaning of a stanza from the Book of Poetry in order to preserve the image of Shun’s dutiful piety towards his father. To accomplish this, he recurs to a transferred meaning. He does not offer this transferred meaning as a possibility, but claims forthrightly that the literal meaning is wrong. With another example from the Book of Poetry he demonstrates that literal meaning often needs to be read for deeper truth. He wisely chooses a couplet that is disproven by the very continuity of Zhou heritage and therefore easily reduced ad absurdum if taken literally. Between these two examples he makes a few comments about the general rules of healthy reading of the important texts. His exegetical armory consists of “literary patterning,” “words,” and “intentions.” He warns us not to misunderstand “words” by following the superficial literary patterning. In turn, one should not misunderstand the poet’s “intentions” by imposing peculiar meanings of isolated “words.” He proposes an empathic method, where meaning is set on the way—in reverse direction to the moment of the poem’s composition (ni )—towards meeting the poet’s intentions. This implies, of course, that the exegete is given ultimate control over where to locate the middle way between meaning and intentions. It is thus the exegete, Mencius, who calibrates the degrees of interpretive depth at his own whim.

————— 17. Lau, Mencius 5A/4.

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Creating Depth We have already seen how Mencius creates temporal depth for himself and Confucius’s lineage, extending far beyond Confucius to the ancient sages. Also, Mencius proposes a hermeneutics that devalues the textual surface in favor of a “deeper,” transferred meaning to be plumbed by a skilled exegete. We will now touch upon two other areas that show a similar appreciation for depth.

Mencius, Therapist of Rulers Without a doubt, Mencius is the most adroit therapist among the preQin master figures. Rulers praise him for his capacity to look into others’ hearts, even to expose themselves to their own hearts and to move them to corresponding actions. As King Xuan of Qi says, full of admiration, The King said, “The Book of Poetry says, ‘The heart is that of another person, but I have fathomed it.’ That’s just how you are. When I looked back into myself I did not understand my own heart, although it was me who had acted in this way. When you described it for me it resonates with my own heart. What made you think that my heart would befit that of a true King?”18 : : , . . , , . , . , ?

The King of Qi eloquently quotes from the Book of Poetry to describe the experience he has while talking to Mencius. He is stunned by Mencius’s capacity to understand the deep recesses of the King’s mind more clearly than the King himself. This capacity, combined with Mencius’s ability to proceed in slow, measured steps with his questions, often enables Mencius to be truly effective in persuasion, especially when it comes to seemingly incorrigible personalities: Zhuang Bao went to see Mencius. “I had an audience with the king,” he said, “and he told me that he loved music. I didn’t know what to say.” Then Zhuang Bao added, “What about the love of music?” Mencius answered, “If the King has

————— 18. Lau, Mencius 1A/7.

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a great love for music, then there is some hope for the state of Qi.” When Mencius had an audience with the King on another day, he said, “Is it true that Your Majesty told Zhuang that you loved music?” The King blushed and said, “I am incapable of appreciating the music of the Former Kings. I only love the popular music of our day.” “If you have a great love for music, then there is some hope for the state of Qi, regardless whether it is modern or ancient music.” “Can I hear more about this?” “What is more fun, enjoying music by yourself or in the company of others?” “In the company of others.” “What is more fun, enjoying music with only a few or with a crowd?” “With a crowd. In the company of many.” “Your servant asks to be allowed to speak to the king about music and the way to enjoy oneself.”19 , : , , . : ? : , ! , : , ? , : , . : , ! . : ? : , , ? : . : , , ? : .

Mencius gains the ruler’s confidence by provoking his astonishment. Zhuang Bao does not know how to handle the ruler’s musical foible and falls silent, dropping out of the role of the eloquent persuader. The next time Mencius goes to see the ruler, he asks him directly; the ruler blushes shamefully. He might have expected that Mencius would generously pass in silence over his confession of love for popular music, and so he is astonished that Mencius instead hails his foible. After the bond is established through Mencius’s surprise attack, the therapeutic dialogue starts, and a back-and-forth exchange ensues until it reaches the point when Mencius can push through his own point of view. He tells the ruler that what is crucial is the way he enjoys himself, not what he enjoys: Suppose Your Majesty would enjoy a hunt here, and when the people heard the sound of your chariots and horses and saw the magnificence of your banners they would say to each other, shaking their heads and knitting their brows, “Our king loves hunting, so why does he let us come to dire straits? Fathers and sons don’t meet, and brothers, wives and children are parted and scattered?” The reason

————— 19. Lau, Mencius 1B/1.

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would simply be that you failed to share your enjoyment with the people. [. . .] Again, suppose you were hunting here, and when the people heard the sound of your chariots and horses and saw the magnificence of your banners they all looked pleased and said to one another, “Our King must be in good health, how could he otherwise go hunting?” The reason would simply be that you shared your enjoyment with the people. Now if you shared your enjoyment with the people, you would be a true King.20 , , , : , ? , . , . [. . .] , , , ? ? , . , .

Mencius leads the king through the minds of his subjects, only to ultimately reach the king’s own heart, persuading him that popular music, hunting, and other royal pleasures are not just admissible for the king, but should also be an absolute pleasure for his subjects, if he would only share them. Mencius makes it easy for the king by suggesting unconditional pleasure. The flirtation with a charismatic tautology in the closing sentence conveys the effortlessness with which the “king” could become a true “King”: “if you, the present king, shared your enjoyment with the people, you would be a true King.” Here Mencius has an undeniably populist tone, one that is gentle on the royal heart.21 Like no other Masters Text, Mencius affords us vistas into the psyche of rulers, or, to be more precise, into the psyche of rulers who are capable of personal cultivation. Rulers are inclined to let Mencius see into their hearts, in the same way as they “take in” Mencius’s advice. Sometimes King Hui of Liang is depicted as a willing patient who doesn’t need to be persuaded to listen to Mencius’s words in the first place, but asks for them. In Mencius 1A/4 he declares that he is ready to listen to what Mencius has to say, and in the ensuing passage the King confesses his shame that his state lost vast territory to Qi, Qin, and Chu during his reign. He does not leave it at that, but continues,

—————

20. Lau, Mencius 1B/1. 21. At the beginning of book 1B there is a cluster of passages that proposes sharing with the populace as a panacea for the dealing with cravings for luxury. See Lau, Mencius 1B/1, 1B/2, 1B/3, 1B/5.

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I feel deep shame and wish, in what little time I have left before death, to wash away this shame. How can I do this?22 , , ?

Mencius advises him about ways to practice benevolent government towards the people, to reduce punishments and taxations, and to avoid interrupting farm work so as to prevent famines and so forth. He closes with an affirmative exhortation: It is said: “The benevolent person has no match.” I beg of Your Majesty to have no doubts.”23 : . !

Like a good therapist, Mencius truly cares about his patients. He is willing to assure them with affirmative gestures, rather than forcing them with a more confrontational tone onto a path of cleansing self-reflection. He considers that using harsh words towards the ruler is close to being physically offensive and warns in Mencius 4A/1 that one should never cripple the ruler by telling him that he is incapable of improvement and of properly implementing advice from others. Mencius empathizes with his patients, even with their foibles, which he tries to combat. Despite his disapproval of wars and hegemonic expansion, he might use military analogies simply because he knows that the king is fond of war. Mencius treats his patients’ foibles so forgivingly that they are not ashamed to admit to them. King Xuan of Qi is of that type. He listens to Mencius’s words about the way of benevolent government, or of felicitous diplomacy with neighboring states, but then successively unravels what he considers his weaknesses ( ji ) that prevent him from following Mencius’s advice. Whether the king is too fond of military prowess and war24 or whether he is too fond of money and profit, or of women and beauty,25 Mencius always finds a way out for him. Sometimes he takes the bull by the horns and advises King Xuan to increase his foibles, for example to be even fonder of military prowess. At other times, Mencius applies the panacea of sharing with the populace, virtually advising the King that “shared

————— 22. Lau, Mencius 1A/5. 23. Lau, Mencius 1A/5. 24. Lau, Mencius 1B/3. 25. Lau, Mencius 1B/5.

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foibles are strengths.” Both strategies overcome the foibles by the back door, leaving their façades still standing. This subtle procedure of persuasion considerably increases the king’s confidence in his chances of selfimprovement—and Mencius’s success in his persuasion.

Mencius, the Psychometrist of the Body Mencius’s gaze can see deeper into the ruler’s heart than the ruler himself can. He is a measurer of hearts and minds, a master of psychometrics. The ability to both diagnose and skillfully console a progressively repentant ruler, thereby setting him on a path towards improvement, seems a rare talent that a sage might conceal from ordinary audiences. But Mencius seems willing to share parts of the secret and to explain his method of psychometrics in more general terms: Mencius said, “There is nothing more ingenuous in people than the pupils of their eyes. They cannot conceal their wickedness. When a person is upright in his heart, his pupils are clear and bright; when he is not, they are clouded and murky. How can people conceal their true character if you listen to their words and observe the pupils of their eyes?”26 : , . . , ; , . , , ?

Mencius’s interest in the pupils as the gateway to the heart is remarkable in the corpus of Masters Literature. It is a diagnostic secret that enables anybody to decide whether a person has something to hide or not. That the pupils of a dishonest person would be clouded and murky stands in literal parallel to this person’s desire to “cloud” and hide his evil intentions. It is highly significant that “observing people’s pupils” is mentioned along with another diagnostic method, “listening to people’s words.” This passage shows clearly that Mencius conceives of his bodily diagnosis of the human psyche as complementary to his exegetical endeavors—be they with words or texts. Both pupils and words are the “telling” surface of the

————— 26. Lau, Mencius 4A/15.

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heart-mind—as the “depth” of the body—and of signification as “deeper” meaning.27 Mencius’s role as the master exegete undercuts the authority of canonical texts by creating a deeper meaning under the control of the exegete rather than the author. But the underlying canonical text could also function as the ultimate center from which signification radiated. In fact, in order to secure his position as master exegete, Mencius has to ensure a dynamics of latency through which the inner manifests itself on the outside. Inner and outer become so closely intertwined that they can almost freely change positions. This latency is suggestively described in the following passage, again formulated both on the level of the body and on the level of words: What a superior person follows as his nature, that is to say, benevolence, righteousness, the rites, and wisdom, is rooted in his heart, and shows itself in his face, giving it the luster of life. They also show in his back and extend to his limbs: the four extremities don’t speak but convey them without words.28 , . , , , , .

This is an abridged and more pointed formulation of the “four sprouts” (si duan ) of human morality in Mencius 2A/6. Mencius said, ‘Everybody has a heart sensitive to the suffering of others. The Former Kings had such a heart and this manifested itself in their compassionate government. When exercising compassionate government with a compassionate heart, ruling All Under Heaven is as easy as rolling it on your palm. [. . .] A heart of pity is the germ of benevolence; a heart of shame, of righteousness; a heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; a heart knowing right and wrong, of wisdom. People have these ‘four sprouts’ just as they have four limbs. To have these four sprouts but to say one is incapable of practicing them is to cripple oneself; to tell one’s ruler that he is incapable of practicing them is to cripple one’s ruler.” : . , . , , .

————— 27. For a contextualization of Mencius’s physiological notion of morality within Warring States and early imperial received and excavated texts, see Csikszentmihályi, Material Virtue. 28. Lau, Mencius 7A/21.

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Apart from the fact that the present passage presupposes the “four sprouts,” while the much more frequently discussed passage Mencius 2A/6 explains them, there is a crucial difference in the rhetorical presentation of the “sprouts.” In Mencius 2A/6 they are described as related to the four limbs of the body through a simile: “Man has these four sprouts just as he has four limbs” (ren zhi you shi si duan ye, you qi you si ti , ). In the present passage the relationship between the “sprouts” and the body is not just a handy analogy: they are the very same thing, since they extend into various parts of the body from their root in the heart. The sprouts are “rooted” ( gen ) in the heart. While rooted in the heart as the basis of human nature (xing), they manifest themselves on the face: actually, since “xing” and “sheng” would have been homographs in Mencius’s times, when radicals would not necessarily have been added to the graphs, the manifestation of the “sprouts” of the heart on the face is close to the very “color of human nature” or, as translated above, “luster of life” (sheng se ). The “sprouts” also extend into the four limbs. It is the last phrase that is most telling of Mencius’s way of connecting textual exegesis to the body: “The four limbs don’t speak, but convey [the four sprouts] without words through yu” (si ti bu yan er yu ). Yu describes the process of “understanding” both in a receptive and in a causative way: “to understand” but also “to make oneself understood” and, in a more technical, exegetical sense, “to explain through analogy or illustration.”29 In Mencius the term can appear in both the general and a more technical meaning, so the four limbs “make themselves understood” or “manifest” themselves as the extensions of the “sprouts in the heart”; but

————— 29. Mencius uses yu both in the more general (receptive and causative) sense, and in the more technical sense of “analogy, illustration.” Zhuangzi uses the term overwhelmingly to refer to “analogy.” “Illustrations of Laozi” (Yu Lao ) from Han Feizi comments on specific Laozi passages and shows the term yu as part of the technical vocabulary of early exegesis. For the use of yu in early exegetics of the Book of Poetry, see Riegel, “Eros, introversion, and the beginnings of Shijing commentary.”

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they also “illustrate” the sprouts, explaining them through the rhetorical device of analogy. Taken together with the passage on pupil diagnosis, the sprout passage leads us to conclude that Mencius envisions the manifestation of the “sprouts” of human nature on the outside of the body as parallel to the manifestation of poetic meaning on the surface of words or texts. The text of Mencius confirms his notion of “manifest depth” with a circular move: because we possess an inner nature, we can expect certain manifestations of it on the outside, especially in the region of the face; and because our body shows certain expressions on the outside, we can infer from them the person’s psyche. That this reasoning is circular does not distract from its attractiveness, but quite to the contrary ensures a most perfect circulation between the “inner” and “outer.” Now, Mencius’s reliance on the notion of depth to explain bodies, texts, and his relation to Confucius was vulnerable to dislocations, disturbances in the relation between “inner” substance and “outer” manifestation. This provided a powerful motivation for his unprecedented claim that human nature emanates from an inherently good potential. The goodness of human nature serves to stabilize the relation between inner substance and outer manifestation, connecting them firmly through a dynamics of benign latency that safeguards proper outer manifestations. In short, the trope of “depth” symbiotically informs what is considered one of the central intellectual issues in Mencius, the innate goodness of human nature.

Protecting Depth Let us reformulate our statement about the relationship between inner dispositions and outside manifestations: we should not describe this relationship with the potentially derogatory term “circular,” but instead point out that this relationship is one of codependency. In order for this system of corporeal and textual exegesis to work, we have to ensure that the relationship comes full circle. There are moments in Mencius when the threatening possibility that the relationship becomes disturbed by interferences is actively dismissed in order to affirm the relationship of codependency. When arguing the importance of proper burial rituals, Mencius begins to speculate about the origin of such rituals:

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There were presumably cases in ancient times when people did not bury their parents. When the parents died, they were thrown in the gullies. Then one day the sons passed by and there lay the bodies, eaten by foxes and sucked by flies. The brows started sweating, and they could not bear to look. The sweating was not put on for show. It came from the depths of their hearts and reached their faces. They went home for baskets and spades. For them it was an act of sincerity to bury their parents, so it must also be right for all dutiful sons and benevolent people to do likewise.30 . , . , , . , . , , . . , , .

This passage explains both the historical and psychological origin of burial rituals. Mencius seems defensive when he emphasizes that the people who saw the devoured corpses of their parents were not just putting on a show, but that the relationship between the depths of their hearts (zhongxin ) and their external reaction was immediate and transparent. Their facial expressions were “manifestations” emanating from within. We can now return to the beginning of the chapter and consider why Mencius’s role as the master exegete of his master Confucius’s legacy is intimately connected to his vision of “human nature.” The exegete, as the diagnostician of human nature, had to believe in an unintercepted, transparent relationship between text and interpretation, between outer manifestation and inner latency. Once he lets go of the transparency of this relationship, he loses control of both texts and minds. It is this anxiety— which we have encountered in Mencius’s speculation on the origin of burial rituals— that is reflected in the famous dialogues between Mencius and Gaozi on “human nature.” As seen in the following passage, Mencius is acutely aware that things can interfere with the transparency of the relation between latency and manifestation. Mutilation through outer interference is one way in which the transparency of the relationship can be destroyed: Gaozi said, “Human nature is like the qi willow. Dutifulness is like cups and bowls. To produce benevolence and righteousness from human nature is like

————— 30. Lau, Mencius 3A/5. For a discussion of this passage in the context of Mencius’s polemics against rival masters, see Chapter 1.

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making cups and bowls out of the willow.” “Can you,” said Mencius, “make cups and bowls by following the nature of the willow? Or must you mutilate the willow before you can make it into cups and bowls? If you have to mutilate the willow to make it into cups and bowls, do you then also mutilate people to make them benevolent and righteous? If people of this world bring disaster upon notions of ‘benevolence’ and ‘rightness,’ it will certainly be because of your words!”31 : , ; , . , . : ? ? , ? , !

To carve and “ignominiously kill” (qiang zei ) human nature in order to achieve benevolent and righteous behavior is probably the most intrusive disturbance of the dynamics of manifestation and latency. This passage is the shortest of the dialogues on human nature and is often considered an incomplete analogy designed as an “appetizer” for further discussion of the issue.32 However, in addition to the more frequently discussed Mencius 6A/4 in which Mencius redresses Gaozi’s view that “benevolence” should be considered “internal” (nei ) and “rightness” “external” (wai ), this passage offers some suggestive clues about Mencius’s position on the relation between latency and manifestation. First, Gaozi’s “internal”/“external” distinction appears as a division of the bowls into “material” and “form.” While for Gaozi material is amorphous, for Mencius even raw material has a predisposition, a “nature” endowed with the potential of form. In other words, latency and manifestation are coextensive. Second, in this passage Mencius is far more distressed by Gaozi’s opinions than in any other passage where he discusses the issue of human nature. In Mencius 6A/4 Mencius leads Gaozi’s assumptions ad absurdum, and the way he closes his polemic—on the example of the culinary pleasure of a roast—is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. In Mencius 6A/2, which we will look at shortly, Mencius wins out by deviously appropriating Gaozi’s analogy of human nature and water, employing it for his own purposes. In the present passage, however, Mencius is not as

————— 31. Lau, Mencius 6A/1. 32. See Lau, “On Mencius’ Use of the Method of Analogy in Argument,” 239.

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determined to have the last word in an argument about human nature. Instead he is horrified by the violence33 implicit in Gaozi’s proposed analogy and closes in the voice of a distressed Cassandra: “If people of this world bring disaster upon notions of ‘benevolence’ and ‘rightness,’ it will certainly be because of your words!” Mencius feels an unmistakable distress about the prospect of the destruction of the transparent relation between the inner and outer, and the latent power the inner holds over the outer. He tries to find a perfect counter-analogy that could drive out the nightmare of the carved bowls. Not surprisingly, this opportunity presents itself in the immediately adjacent passage, where Gaozi himself helps him find the ideal analogy: Gaozi said, “Human nature is like whirling water. Give it an outlet in the East and it will flow East; give it an outlet in the West and it will flow West. Human nature does not distinguish between good or bad just as water does not distinguish between East or West.” Mencius said, “Water certainly does not distinguish between East or West, but does it show the same indifference to high and low? Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. All people have the potential to be good; all water has the potential to flow downwards. Now in the case of water, by splashing it one can make it shoot up over one’s head, and by forcing it one can make it stay on a mountain. But how could that be the nature of water? It is the circumstances being what they are. That people can be made bad shows that their nature is no different from that of water in this respect.”34 : , , . , . : . ? , . , . , , ; , . ? . , .

————— 33. In a reading of this passage, Michael Puett has drawn attention to Mencius’s tendency to avoid the vocabulary of creative crafting: “Mencius would not approve of the vocabulary of creative construction so often employed by the Mohists. Indeed, even Confucius’s view of cultivation as a process of organizing and patterning one’s raw substance would be too strong: for Mencius, the analogy can only work if it is used to discuss nourishing and bringing out something that is already there. For this reason, the process of cultivation is more analogous to a farmer helping grains to grow than to a craftsman working raw material.” See Puett, Ambivalence of Creation, 58. 34. Mencius 6A/2.

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It is gravity that inspires Mencius to utilize and refine Gaozi’s water analogy. The change from “bowls and cups” to “water,” from the solid to the liquid state, is favorable to blurring the boundaries between “form” and “material,” which Mencius had found wanting in Gaozi’s previous remark. But this change of state is not sufficient. Mencius has to make sure that the “material” is not just “liquid material,” but that it has an intrinsic form, a “nature” of its own, and that is gravity. Gravity is the best way to describe the working of latency. In this sense, the water analogy is the most apt expression of Mencius’s concern with ensuring the coextensive continuity of the inner and outer, of mind and body, significance and text.35

The Nature of Mencius’s Analogies about Human Nature Why is Mencius so passionate about the issue of human nature in his conversations with Gaozi? And why are the analogies Mencius spins out and develops in these conversations among the finest samples of arguments by analogy in Mencius? If one considers the discussions to be the Chinese contribution to a universal discourse about “human nature,” they are mere illustrations of Mencius’s philosophical position on the issue, external flourishes to the underlying core issues at stake. According to this approach, different images in these analogies could have done equally well

————— 35. Another example of the use of the water trope is Mencius 7A/24: “Mencius said, ‘When he climbed Eastern Mountain, Confucius felt that Lu was small, and when he climbed up Mount Tai, he felt that the world was small. Thus it is difficult for water to meet the expectations of someone who has seen the ocean, and it is difficult for words to meet the expectations of someone who has studied under a sage. There is an art to judging water: Watch for its ripples. There is luster in the sun and moon and their light will shine from the least crack that will admit it. Flowing water is the kind of substance that does not flow further until it has filled all the hollows inside. Thus, a superior person pursues the Way as his goal and does not get there before he has perfected his beautiful pattern.’” (Emphasis added).

In this passage, “water” and the “superior person” stand in chiasmatic relation: While water fills up crevices before it flows outside, the superior person’s inside emanates into a beautiful pattern on the outside. The chiasmatic juxtaposition enhances the sense of “fluidity” between latency and manifestation that is—very much in Mencius’s interest— so blurred that it makes external interference almost impossible.

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to convey the universally true concepts that are presumably the meat of Mencius’s arguments. D. C. Lau, however, gives the analogies a far greater intellectual role. 36 He sees a negatively heuristic purpose in them, explaining that they are most helpful not in the way they draw parallels, but for the moments when similarities break down and the particular analogy has run its course. They are momentary stages, momentous tools of the thinking process. I would push this reading even further, saying that analogies such as “willow wood” or “water” are not just illustrating images, but conceptual metaphors with philosophical virulence. They enable Mencius in the first place to conceptualize the dynamic of depth, the interdependence between latency and manifestation. While the bowls-out-of-willows analogy is a horrifying warning against conceptual metaphors that are destructive to that relationship, the revised water analogy is the perfect code to stabilize the relation between inner substance and outer pattern. In other words, these images are not just analogies that illustrate a universal concept of human nature, but they are models for proper “manifest latencies” in Mencius and for a novel discourse of interiority and depth. Viewed from within the entire book of the Mencius, the dispute about “human nature” is not aimed at finding universally true parameters of human psychology. Instead, it establishes Mencius as a master of depth: as the first master to create a lineage by declaring himself the master exegete of Confucius’s heritage, the diagnostician of human bodies and minds, and the therapist of rulers’ hearts.

————— 36. Lau’s suggestion to draw parallels between Mencius’s use of analogy and Mohist rhetorical practice is particularly interesting, because it shows how Mencius, on his prophetic mission against Mohism, cannot help using the weapons of his opponents. See Lau, “On Mencius’ Use of the Method of Analogy in Argument,” 261. For a discussion of arguments by analogy in the Mencius in relation to Mohist terminology, see Lei Shujuan, “Mengzi leibi lunzheng fangfa fenlei de lilun yiju.”

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FIVE

Authorship, Human Nature, and Persuasion in Xunzi

Xunzi marks a crucial inflection point in the development of Masters Literature, as it introduces a variety of new discursive strategies into the genre. Most importantly, the text introduces the emphatic use of the first person voice. Previously, masters had “spoken” through the disciples who transmitted their master’s words in written records. In Xunzi, we see the figure Xunzi presumably speaking in his own right, arguing for his ideas and against his opponents. This new rhetorical format, the expository essay, constituted a radical change, an innovation that was to fundamentally alter the face of Masters Literature. After Xunzi, the essay form quickly became a popular discursive strategy of Masters Literature, and the collected works of Xunzi’s disciple Han Fei show even more courageous experiments with new discursive strategies like the commentary form. I address the Han Feizi’s exegetical and anecdotal commentary on chapters from Laozi below, but I want to emphasize here that Xunzi constitutes the overture to an explosion of new discursive strategies in Masters Literature. Most of these strategies, like essay and commentary, required the appearance of a self-asserting “authoring voice” on stage. Recently, Michael Puett has pointed out how Xunzi rejoices in a vocabulary of human creativity such as “to create/to write” (zuo ) or

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“to bring about through artifice” (wei ), which when interpreted as philosophically “voluntarist” terminology has negative connotations of forced imposition.1 Puett’s argument for the importance of human agency and creativity in Xunzi stimulates our curiosity to explore how the assertion of human agency plays out in the notions of authorship we can glean from Xunzi and how agency is developed on the level of the narrative structure of the text itself. The excision of the master’s visual presence in the essay form has profound implications: His surroundings, including his disciples and interlocutors, disappear, taking with them the “discursive capital” represented by their appearance as devoted followers. Instead, the ideas of intellectual rivals and the texts attributed to them are overtly attacked. The master’s physical aura is replaced by his voice, which is no longer framed and reported but is disembodied and direct. The “scene of instruction” conveyed magisterial authority through the aura of the master, fleshed out in the witty interplay with his audience, his body language and palpable impression on his surroundings. The loss of this persuasive force issuing from the master’s physical presence posed a major challenge for the new essay form, even as it offered new possibilities for persuasion. How is the “loss of aura,” to adopt Walther Benjamin’s words in a different context, compensated for? How is authority conveyed by other means in these selfauthored monologues, and what new vision of authorship do they suggest? It is true that much of the master’s “loss of aura” dates back to Mozi, where both audience and master are depersonalized into place-holding puppets that are running a discursive machine of doctrinal exposition. But except for a few spectacular passages like the one analyzed above, where a first person voice claims to measure and dismiss all intellectual adversaries with his universal tool, the “Will of Heaven,” nobody really claims this voice, and the form of a rudimentary dialogue between master and disciples still dominates the text.2

————— 1. See Puett, Ambivalence of Creation. 64–73. A provocative example is a passage in the first chapter: “The exemplary person is good at manipulating things through artifice .” See Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 4. 2. Homer Dubs points out the influence of Mozi on Xunzi’s essaistic prose, or “connected written compositions,” as he calls it. See Dubs, Hsüntze: The Moulder of Ancient Confucianism.

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Some Notions of Authorship in Early China In Late Warring States and Early Han texts, we can find several rather different notions of authorship.3 Out of the various notions of authorship that developed in this period, the following four are particularly important to contextualize the notion of authorship in Xunzi: the author as cosmic mediator; the author as encrypter; the author as stimulated self; and the author as decipherer. The author as cosmic mediator figures in The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mister Lü (Lüshi chunqiu , ca. 239 bce) and is further developed in the Han dynasty in the afterword to the Master Huainan (Huainanzi ). In the afterword to the twelve monthly “Almanacs” ( ji ) of the The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mister Lü, Lü Buwei (?–ca. 235) explains the motivation for his project: In the eighth year of Qin, when Jupiter was in Tuntan, in autumn, there was a new moon on the jiazi day. On the day of the new moon somebody asked me about the “Almanacs” on the twelve months. I, the Marquis of Wenxin, answered him, “I have successfully learned what the Yellow Emperor used to teach the Zhuanxu Sovereign: ‘There is a great circle above and a great square down. If you can make them your models, you will be like parents to the people!’ I heard that in the times of pure antiquity everything was modeled on Heaven and Earth. Generally speaking, the twelve ‘Almanacs’ were recorded [to show principles of] order and chaos, rise and decline, [to show the patterns of] long life and untimely death, of good fortune and calamity. Each ascertains indications in Heaven above, confirms with signs on Earth below and examines mankind in the middle. Thereafter people will not be ignorant of right and wrong, nor of the permissible and impermissible.”4 , , , , , . : , , , , . , . , , . , , , .

————— 3. For a discussion of various notions of authorship up to the Eastern Han and Wang Chong, see Puett, “The Temptations of Sagehood,” 23–47. 4. Lüshi Chunqiu 12.10a. My translation has benefited from John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, Annals of Lü Buwei, 272–73.

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Lü Buwei does not explicitly say that he authored the twelve “Almanacs.” He answers the question about his work by quoting the teachings of the Yellow Emperor about efficient governance patterned on Heaven and Earth. The “Almanacs,” supposedly written collaboratively by a number of scholars and then edited by Lü Buwei, record the patterns of Heaven and Earth that contain the secrets of success and failure in life and government. Here, the notion of the author is that of a scribal observer of cosmic patterns, a medium through whom the existence of these patterns is revealed to ensure their recognition and active mimicry in the human world. This refusal of agency, the emphasis on mediation, verges on the notion of an author malgré soi-même, a conspicuously absent author disguised as a “transmitter.” The role of human creativity is strongly downplayed. The “author as encrypter” came to be a powerful model of authorship in Chinese historiography, perhaps because the official institution of the “historian” (shi ), whose function it was to record events and words and organize those records in local archives, called for the attribution of authorship—even if only generically by virtue of office. The genre of Masters Literature lacked such an institutional affiliation; quite to the contrary, its protagonists often lamented their lack of official employment by a deserving ruler. For historiography the notion of “subtle words” (weiyan ), incisive but cryptic utterances by authoritative figures like Confucius, determined the notion of authorship. It was the most basic assumption on which the commentaries of the Spring and Autumn Annals, with their speculations about Confucius’s intention in composing it, built their intricate interpretations. The notion of “subtle words” posits the intentionality, even hyperintentionality, of an author figure, and the commentators are happy to jump into the gaping void between literal meaning and construed hyperintention, ventriloquizing the absent yet omnipotent author. Thus, historiography, much more than poetry, called for the existence of an author, of the author Confucius, the master-encrypter. The notion of “subtle words” worked across the divide between the written and the oral, but by extension operated also within the realm of the written alone. To repeat the passage from the “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Hanshu discussed above:

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In the past when Confucius died his “subtle words” were interrupted, and after his seventy disciples passed away, their greater meaning became perverted. Thus, the tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals split into five and that of the Book of Poetry into four lineages, while the Book of Changes was transmitted through numerous lineages. Through the vertical and horizontal alliances of the Warring States and the quarrels over right and wrong, the words of the Masters were scattered and confused. By the Qin, these worries led to the burning of texts in order to stultify the masses. 5 , . , , . , , . , , .

In this passage, the “subtle words” of the master are inseparable from Confucius’s physical presence of oral performance. His words die with him, whereupon his teachings and the scholarship on the classics he compiled are distorted due to inter-school struggles. In this brief survey of the fate of learning and scholarship since Confucius, the famous “Qin burning of the books” was not even the gravest disaster. The greatest loss, like a Platonic suspicion, occurred in the transition from the oral to the written, from Confucius’s “subtle words” to their textual transmission. A major task of the commentaries to the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu ) was to fill this gap, although the need for compensation was no longer seen as driven by the oral-written divide, but by Confucius’s “encrypting” of deeper meaning in the text itself. Thus, the “secret teachings” of Confucius were lodged not in the oral but in the written text, and could be uncovered with due patience. The author as encrypter became the notion par excellence of the author in commentarial literature. Needless to say, this is the notion that allows for the greatest variety of readings of a text and gives the greatest speculative liberty to its commentators. In contrast, Sima Qian construed the author—himself as well as Confucius—as what we can call a “stimulated self.” For him, authorship originated from the individual’s desire for self-expression in response to hardship. When he attributes the Spring and Autumn Annals to Confucius in his “Letter to Ren An” (bao Ren An shu ) he is buttressing his own claim to authorship of the Records of the Grand Historian and justifying his decision to choose the disgrace of living on after castration over

————— 5. Hanshu 30.1701.

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honorable suicide. All his newly ordained “authors”6 are presented as examples of human beings who suffer hardships and respond to them by writing texts. Sima Qian’s notion of authorship is poetic in that it resonates with the early poetics of the Book of Poetry. In the “Great Preface” to the Book of Poetry this model appears simplified into a notion of authorial transparency—which Sima Qian’s brilliantly complex and ambiguous historical narrative does certainly not embody—where the author expresses what is on his mind, and in turn the conditions of his time can be recognized from his text. The chapters of Xunzi I discuss below show yet other notions of authorship. Xunzi contains fascinating experiments with authorship, the conventions of Masters Literature, and even poetic genres like early forms of the “rhapsody” (fu ) genre. First, I will discuss Chapter 23, “Human Nature Is Evil” (Xing e ), in which the author Xunzi takes the role of a decipherer who sets out his arguments in trenchant expository prose, appropriating concepts and expressions from other masters’ discourses for his own use in order to unravel a true meaning previously obscured by rival masters. We will then turn to the two poetry chapters: “Working Songs” (Chengxiang ) and “Rhapsodies” (Fu ), which are so unique in the history of Masters Literature that scholars have doubted their relation to Xunzi or his school. In light of the idea of the author as decipherer, however, these chapters make perfect sense as coming from a group of people around or after Xunzi’s time who experimented with the use of poetry for the discussion of character formation and government. Yet, we will see that the Xunzi corpus not only contains such innovative experiments with new discursive forms and authorial voices, but also elaborated and diversified the forms of the well-worn “scenes of persuasion” in Masters Literature.

Human Nature and the Essay Form Human nature is evil. Any good in humans is acquired through conscious creation (wei ). Human nature is from the outset tending towards a fondness for

————— 6. He also mentions King Wen of Zhou (Yijing), Qu Yuan (Lisao), Zuo Qiuming (Zuozhuan), Lü Buwei (Lüshi Chunqiu), Sunzi (Bingfa), and Han Fei (Han Feizi). For a translation, see Stephen Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature, 140 f.

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profit. If he indulges this fondness, it will lead him into competition and strife, and all sense of courtesy and deference will disappear. [...] Flowing from human disposition, competition and strife arise unavoidably, followed by transgression of proper distinctions and disturbances of natural principle, resulting in violence. Thus, the transformation through the laws of a teacher and the Way of ritual and rightness is necessary so that courtesy and deference arise, following natural patterns and principles and resulting in order. If we look at it in this way, then it is evident that human nature is evil and that any good in humans is acquired through conscious creation.7 , . , , , [...] , , , . , , , , . , , .

Put positively, Xunzi claims that human nature is evil in order to make space for human creativity and the importance of learning. This theme connects the chapter to Chapter 1, “Encouraging learning,” a link that is all the clearer in the passage immediately following. It evokes the same image of warped wood that needs to be straightened through the application of the “steaming” that is learning. The chapter on human nature does not start immediately with the attack on Mencius’s view for which it has become notorious, but sets out to justify a positive anthropology of human education and creativity. The quoted passage is one of twelve consecutive “rounds” of arguing the point that opens the chapter and closes each new round: Human nature is evil and any good in humans is acquired through conscious creation.8 The obsessive repetition of the same claim reminds us of the canon chapters of Mozi, in which often not only the closure but even the argument structure is replicated with little variation in different “rounds.” This similarity shows Xunzi’s indebtedness to Mohist techniques of exposition, and yet the differences are significant: the Xunzi chapter gives a clearer progression from simpler to more astute arguments and from a beginning to a climactic conclusion. It starts by stating its claim about

————— 7. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 434–35. My translations have benefited from John Knoblock’s Xunzi. A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols., and Burton Watson’s Hsun Tzu. Basic Writings. 8. Some “rounds” conclude only with the statement about man’s evil nature and omit the part about human conscious creation.

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human nature, and then gives a description of its dire effects in the world and how people would have to be “straightened” through the model of the sage kings. Only in the fourth round is Mencius’s counter-thesis introduced and of course sharply criticized, then repeated again in the ninth round. But the restatement of the critique is not merely a repetition, because by that time the text has already argued for the conscious creation of rules of “ritual and rightness” based on the model of the sage king; in round eight, it has shown the necessity of diligent study to actively appropriate these rules. As if this were not already enough, in the meantime Xunzi has even subversively appropriated Mencian diction and turned it to his own purposes: He argues that the reason for mankind’s desire to be good is that his nature is evil. Cunningly, Xunzi admits that Mencius’s view of human nature is correct in that it is—as wishful thinking—a valuable guideline for human effort. But Mencius’s confusion of inborn nature with desired nature proves all the more Xunzi’s point that human nature is evil, since one desires most what one does not have. Before the explicit critique of Mencius is taken up again in the ninth round, the argument has already run its full course. Xunzi concludes in round eight that hard study is the only way to live with our predicament. The ninth through twelfth rounds are the aftermath of the main argument, though they contain a remarkable reflection on the nature of argumentation: Those who are good at discussing the past must demonstrate the validity of their words in terms of the present, and those who are good at discussing Heaven have to prove their words in relation to mankind. Generally speaking, they prize that disputations and evidence match as the two halves of a tally. Thus they sit on their mats expounding their theories, they stand up to show that they can be practiced widely, and straighten themselves to show that they can be carried out everywhere. Now, Mencius claims that human nature is good, but the disputations do not match evidence like the two halves of a tally.9 , ; , . , . , , . : . .

————— 9. Xunzi jijie, 440–41.

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This passage is intended to illustrate the ultimate defeat of Mencius’s view: not only is his opinion wrong, but his technique of argumentation is unsound. The meta-critique is most devastating. It is a clear sign of a very personal and deliberate attack on one master by another who is asserting himself as the author of opinions and judgments, someone who no longer hands the task of representing his strongest convictions over to his disciples.

Interludes between Poetry and Masters Literature in Xunxi Chapters 25, “Working Songs,” and 26, “Rhapsodies,” have garnered little attention from scholars interested in Xunzi’s thought. Despite the fact that in the Han, Liu Xiang granted them a more prominent position in the collection, the Tang commentator Yang Liang considered them as “miscellaneous writings” and placed them towards the end of the thirty-two-chapter work.10 Without a doubt, the inclusion of whole chapters of poetry in a work of Masters Literature is exceptional; we must ask why compilers and later bibliographers would have wanted to link them to Xunzi and his followers. Above we analyzed Xunzi’s role in expanding the repertoire of discursive forms in Masters Literature, in particular its innovative development of a first-person essay form. I argue that the “Working Songs” and “Rhapsodies” belong to what we might broadly call Xunzi’s project, because they are similarly innovative experiments to find new discursive forms for making arguments about proper living and governance. The “Working Songs” chapter consists of fifty-six stanzas lamenting the vices of the age, heaping praise upon the sage kings, and proposing a vision of good and efficient governance. 11 There has been much speculation about the title, but it is safe to say that the may refer both to folk songs sung to accompany physical labor and also to the “minister” who

————— 10. See Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 171. 11. Their authenticity is often doubted because of the assumption that “legalist” tones in the latter part of the chapter are not in accord with Xunzi’s overall “worldview.” See Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 281.

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should be “accomplished in his merit” (cheng ).12 A conflation of popular and elite meanings was certainly intended, because these two interpretations of a rather opaque title point to a significant characteristic of the chapter: In using song performance formulas the stanzas pretend to be a written record of folk songs, but their moralizing attempt at unabashed doctrinal exposition in highly unusual meter belies this pretense. They are in fact an elite genre claiming connection with the world of folklore and folk songs.13 Let me sing a working song, the ruin of our generation! The stupid and benighted, oh yes: the stupid and benighted bring down the worthy and virtuous! Those rulers of mankind who are without worthies Are like the blind without their minister, How they stumble around!14 : , ! , , !

The first stanza sets the tone for the whole chapter in that it is both a lament of the frustrated scholar who is not recognized by his ruler and, by implication, an argument for employing worthy people in government. This theme is certainly familiar from the subgenre of “scholars’ frustration rhapsodies” inspired by Qu Yuan’s (ca. 340–278 bce) moving lament in “Encountering Sorrow” (Lisao ).15 Stanza 44 admits that the song form, though an unusual medium, is explicitly used for “illustrating” ideas about governance: We observe past events in order to take precautions. Order and chaos, right and wrong can also be understood from them.

————— 12. In terms of traditional commentators, the former view is supported by Yu Yue, the latter by Yang Liang. See also Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 169. For the opinions of some modern Chinese scholars, see Ruan Tingzhuo, “Xunzi ‘Chengxiang’ pian mingyi kao,” 231–35; and Göran Malmqvist, “A Note on the Cheng shianq Ballad in the Shyun Tzy,” 352–58. 13. Du Guoxiang emphasizes Xunzi’s inspiration by folk songs. See Du, “Lun Xunzi de ‘Chengxiang pian,’” 158–83. For views on the prosodic form see Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 171. 14. Xunzi jijie, 457. I have adopted Knoblock’s numbering of stanzas. 15. Helmut Wilhelm coined this expression. See Wilhelm, “The Scholar’s Frustration.”

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I have entrusted (these words) to the “Working Songs” In order to illustrate my ideas.16 , , .

.

The author is putting poetry to the service of discerning between right and wrong in the governance of a polity. With a gesture of overt didacticism he explains and defends the use of poetic form for the discussion of issues germane to Masters Literature. Although it is unclear whether the historical Xunzi did indeed live in Chu and serve as the magistrate of Lanling , many chapters in Xunzi show a clear awareness of Southern traditions as they are preserved in works like Songs of the South and Huainanzi. The “Working Songs” and the “Rhapsodies” in particular reflect that awareness and write their own lament and advice for their time. There are moments in the scarce biographical material about Xunzi that resonate with Qu Yuan’s fate: Liu Xiang relates in his preface that Xunzi was dismissed from his post as magistrate of Lanling by his patron Lord Chunshen (Chunshen jun ) due to slander. When Lord Chunshen tried to reinstate Xunzi in his post, Xunzi sent a letter, a rhapsody, and a song of protest, just as Qu Yuan lamented the king of Chu’s neglect of him in “Encountering Sorrow.”17 Of course, Xunzi did not commit suicide as Qu Yuan supposedly did, but the almost obsessive contrasting of worthies (xianren ) who do not meet with recognition in their time (bu yu shi ) with slanderers (chanren ) who mislead their rulers and in their jealousy try to destroy the worthy echoes Qu Yuan’s “Encountering Sorrow.” The second half of Stanza 42, “Alas, what kind of a man am I! The only one not to meet with recognition in this chaotic age! , ”18 shows the loneliness and resentful pride worthy of a Qu Yuan. While the “Working Songs” chapter chooses figures like Wu Zixu (?–485 bce) and Confucius as models of worthies with a tragic fate, the only person Qu Yuan lets pass through the boundaries of his alienation is the mysterious “Peng Xian ,” a shaman or a virtuous minister during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 bce) who drowned himself

————— 16. Xunzi jijie, 468. 17. Xunzi jijie, 558. For a translation of the preface see Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 272. 18. Xunzi jijie, 467.

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and whose example Qu Yuan claims to follow at the end of “Encountering Sorrow.” Also, just as Qu Yuan states his sad case (chen ci ) to Emperor Shun, to whom he gives a history lesson,19 Xunzi states his case to his audience in Stanza 34, prophesying that an age that confuses good and evil will end in disaster and chaos.20 The “Working Songs” chapter shares many gestures with “Encountering Sorrow,” including the contrast between the worthy and the slanderers, the loneliness of unrecognized talent looking for models that share their sad fate, but largely remaining lonely and rejected avec noblesse, as well as the gesture of “stating one’s case” and reflecting on examples of rise and decline in history. At the same time, there are more differences than similarities: First, the luscious cosmic travel imagery in “Encountering Sorrow,” which serves as the reader’s guiding thread as Qu Yuan flies through earthly and celestial realms, is virtually absent from the “Working Songs.”21 Second, in place of the marvelous words Qu Yuan wastes in restless travel, floral cultivation, and unsuccessful erotic encounters with historical and celestial beings, Xunzi economically devotes itself to doctrinal exposition—which play out in its mounting diatribes against the Mohists (Stanzas 3 and 17), fleshing out his program of self-cultivation (Stanzas 15, 16, 17, 20), and lecturing on the deeds of the sage emperors of antiquity. In short, the voice in “Encountering Sorrow” wants us to allegorize the fate of the figure of Qu Yuan, while the “Working Songs” wants us to accept hands-on instruction. A third crucial difference is that Xunzi no longer has access to the emperors of yore. He cannot meet with Emperor Shun as Qu Yuan so naturally does; instead, the sage emperors are presented as remote, though authoritative, models of conduct for current rulers, especially in the way

————— 19. Possibly Shun is giving Qu Yuan a history lesson, because the context also allows for Shun to be the speaker. 20. Xunzi jijie, 464. 21. We can see some scarce signs of travel imagery in Stanzas 22 and 35. Stanza 22 says: “This working song has run its course, its verses have not stumbled. When the gentleman travels its route, he easily reaches the end…” , , Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 178. Stanza 35 uses the image of the “overturned chariot” for the crumbling of the state. “Encountering Sorrow” uses the same image, although the allegorical and the literal fit together much better, because Qu Yuan is indeed traveling by chariot while reflecting on the king’s “chariot of the state.”

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they recognized and employed talented scholars (see Stanzas 25 and 27). Neither space nor time is permeable for Xunzi; while Qu Yuan is everywhere and always, Xunzi is here and now. Thus, “Encountering Sorrow” and the “Working Songs” are almost more different in their similarities than they are alike. Yet, their poetry always returns to the same themes of pride, rejection, and the depravity of the world. Also, we should not forget that the “Working Songs” figure as “miscellaneous lyrics” (zaci ) under the category of “miscellaneous rhapsodies” in the “Bibliographical Treatise” of the Hanshu and is the first piece discussed in Zhu Xi’s Later Works from the Chu tradition (Chuci houyu ).22 At the very least, bibliographers must have sensed that this Xunzi chapter shared enough with the rhapsodic tradition to be grouped among “rhapsodies” rather than among “song poems” ( geshi ). The “Rhapsodies” are an uncannily similar case of resonance and difference, in this case obviously a resonance with the genre of rhapsodies. The bibliographical categorization of the “Rhapsodies” from Xunzi is more self-explanatory than that of the “Working Songs,” which seems to be a genre in its own category. In the Hanshu, Xunzi’s rhapsodies represent one of four “schools” of rhapsody composition: that of Qu Yuan, Lu Jia, Xunzi, and the “miscellaneous” rhapsodies. What distinguishes these rhapsodies from those by Song Yu (fl. 3rd century bce) and Sima Xiangru (179–117 bce), representatives of the Qu Yuan strand, or those by Yang Xiong, from the Lu Jia strand?23 A look at one example shows fundamental differences from the rhapsodies by these writers: Here is a thing: How naked and bare its form, Constantly transforming like a spirit. Its achievement covers the world,

————— 22. Hanshu 10.1753. See also Göran Malmqvist’s “A Note on the Cherng shianq Ballad in the Shyun Tzy,” 353. 23. As David Knechtges points out, the rhapsodies from Xunzi, although often regarded as the first representatives of the genre, deviate so much from extant Han rhapsodies that some scholars do not consider them part of the rhapsody genre at all. The dating and mutual relation of the five rhapsodies contained in the chapter is highly disputed, and the attribution of the title of “rhapsodies” to the chapter may be late and spurious. Knechtges shows how the five pieces resemble a genre of riddles, but also points to features shared with the traditions of Han rhapsodies. See Knechtges, “Riddles as Poetry,” 25.

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And it has beautiful patterns for myriads of generations. Ritual and music are completed through it, Rich and poor distinguished by it. It nurtures the old and helps raise the young, With it alone one can survive. Its name is not beautiful, It is the neighbor of cruelty.24 [. . .] Your servant in his ignorance does not recognize it And requests in answer a divination from the Five Great Ones. The divination of the Five Great Ones says Does not its body have female charm and its head resemble a horse? Does it not constantly transform itself, though never grow old? Is it not expert in thriving and awkward in aging? Does it not have a father and mother, yet lack female and male? In winter it lies in hiding, roams about in the summer, It eats mulberry and spits out a thread of silk, Begins in chaos and ends in order. [. . .] This refers to the natural pattern of the silkworm.25 , . [...]

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The five rhapsodies preserved in the chapter all share a similar storyline, although they are allegorical riddles about topics as diverse as “ritual,” “understanding,” “clouds,” “silkworms,” and “needles.” They are divided into two parts of almost equal length. In the first part, a speaker in a subordinate position proposes an unknown object (“Here is a thing . . .”) and goes on to supply his audience with detailed statements about the object. Pretending ignorance, he asks a dialogue partner in higher position, a king, or in this case the mysterious “Five Great Ones” what the object in question is. They first answer by asking rhetorical questions (“it is not X?”);

————— 24. Phonetic pun on “silkworm” (can ) and “cruelty” (can 25. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 477–79.

).

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then, approaching the solution to the riddle, they make qualifying statements; finally, they solve the riddle (“this refers to X!”). This narrative arrangement turns much of what we see in extant Han dynasty rhapsodies on its head. First, it speaks about an unknown object, not, as usual, something a king sees and asks his courtier to rhapsodize on; and instead of ending in the capillaries of exhaustive description, the narrative is brought back in the second part to end with a single word: it ends with one word, with the solution of the riddle. The second important difference is that it is not the king but the courtier who asks for explication. Thus power relations are inverted from the usual scheme as we see it in most of Song Yu’s or Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies. Usually, the courtier is asked to speak and then takes over almost completely, but in Xunzi rhapsodies the courtier is bold and brash enough to ask the king to entertain him, and then they distribute the work equally, the courtier asking in detail and the king answering in just as much detail. However, the halves are not really equal in this case: while the courtier’s description is vague enough to leave the solution to the riddle unclear, the rhetorical answers of the reply seem to presuppose an understanding of the solution. The answering voice does not share the courtier’s gradual unveiling and furnishing of hints, but is more interested in elaborating copiously on what it already knows yet does not disclose until the end. It is the king, or here the “Five Great Ones,” who entertain the courtier with l’art pour l’art rhapsodies. As we see, the narrative arrangement of Xunzi’s rhapsodies inverts most of the conventions we know from extant Han rhapsodies; in the Hanshu, Ban Gu considers these rhapsodies the ancestor of a “school” of their own. After Qu Yuan and Lu Jia, Xunzi figures as the first of twentyfive authors who in total composed 136 rhapsodies. That his rhapsodies are set apart from the “Qu Yuan” category indicates that, although certainly considered “rhapsodies,” they are different enough to call for distinction from other sub-strands of the rhapsody tradition. On the one hand, the two poetry chapters in the Xunzi corpus stand out and seem hard to reconcile with the bulk of that corpus. Like Yang Liang, we can dismiss them as “miscellaneous” and leave them to literary scholars interested in the messy early history of the rhapsody genre. Yet, whoever composed them and placed them in the Xunzi corpus was right in assuming that they do have a clear relationship to the intellectual pre-

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occupations evident in Xunzi. Xunzi marks the inflection point in Masters Literature where we see the rise of an unprecedented, strong authorial voice. This voice speaks its opinions and directly attacks its opponents (“Human nature is evil”); it can create “art songs” that are similar enough to “Encountering Sorrow” to prove an acquaintance with that tradition but different enough to be unique and highly idiosyncratic (“Working Songs”); and, lastly, this voice plays with riddle forms and rhapsodic conventions to mount arguments about proper behavior and governance.

New Versions of “Scenes of Instruction” in Xunzi Alongside the innovative authorial strategies I have just discussed, Xunzi of course contains chapters that employ well-known tropes of Masters Literature, such as “scenes of instruction” and “scenes of persuasion.” In order to get a fuller picture of the broad range of narrative tactics newly created or innovatively expanded in Xunzi, I will here analyze some of their uses. The contention that Chapters 8, 15, and 16 could not have been written by Xunzi presupposes that only texts by later followers would represent a master in conversation, as in the case of the Analects. However, by Xunzi’s time the “scene of instruction” was such a conventional rhetorical format that we can assume that authors could well represent themselves in dialogue. By the Han, traditional critics saw no problem in attributing to the courtier Song Yu himself the rhapsodies in which he converses with the king of Chu and gives brilliant samples of his eloquence. Even if modern critics doubt their authenticity, it is significant that a protagonist’s presence in the textual scene did not preclude his authorship, at least in the genre of rhapsodies, if not in Masters Literature. The three chapters I discuss here are admittedly not the most interesting and compelling of Xunzi, but they are important for their different ways of further developing the various dialogue forms of Masters Literature. Chapter 8, the “Teachings of the Ru” (Ruxiao ), is a curious conglomerate of Confucian hagiography: it establishes a Confucian pantheon, most notably by defending the Duke of Zhou against alleged prejudices. It also proposes a typology of sub-strands of Confucians, or “Rus,” which distinguishes “vulgar Ru,” “small Ru,” “elegant Ru,” and “great Ru.” Eulogies for commanding figures of the past alternate with visionary praise of the ideal sage:

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If a person cultivates the model of the hundred kings as easily as distinguishing black from white; if he responds to situational changes as if counting one and two; if he performs the essential points of the rituals with ease as if merely moving his four limbs; if at crucial moments he adroitly establishes his merits just like the circular proclamation of the four seasons; if he brings the good in the populace to peace, order, and harmony and if the myriads of people then stand unified as one: if all this holds, one should call this person a sage. Oh, so well-balanced, he possesses the principle, And so majestic, he himself is respectful! Oh, so manifold, he possesses end and beginning, And so calm, he is able to endure long! Oh, so joyous, he tirelessly reaches out to the Way! Oh, so shining, he uses the brilliance of his understanding, And so cultivated, as he practices proper norms and categories! Oh, so solemn, he possesses patterned refinement, And so serene, as he rejoices in the generosity of humankind, In hiding, he dreads the inappropriateness of humankind. If all this holds, one should call this person a sage.26 ,

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Displaying the taste for verbose hyperbole characteristic of Han rhapsodies, the passage falls into Chu-meter to elaborate on the advantageous features of the ideal sage. Interestingly, no historical figure is praised in rhapsodic style in this chapter; only the generic model of sagehood is graced with such an opulent panegyric. It serves as a guiding thread towards sagehood in a chapter that revolves both around ancient sages and around how to become a sage oneself. Apparently anybody regardless of

————— 26. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 130–33.

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class and talent could become a sage through assiduous study, a point the chapter emphasizes by featuring a hypothetical dialogue of a generic commoner with the master: If I wish to be noble though I am low-born, wise though stupid, rich though originally poor, would this be possible? I say: This can only happen through study. One who studies and puts it into practice is called a “scholar.” One who fervently loves it, is an “exemplary person.” One who really understands it, is a “sage.” What would prevent me from becoming at most a sage or at least a scholar or superior person? A moment ago, I might have been a befuddled man along the roadside, yet all of a sudden I may become a peer of Yao and Yu. Is this not a case of being lowborn yet becoming noble!27 , , , ? : . , , ; , ; , . , , ! , , !

The voice of an ideal commoner asks the master how to become noble, wise, and rich; in his answer, the master takes over the perspective of the commoner. The apparent dialogue between an asking disciple and the advice-giving master dissolves into a shadow dialogue, where the master rushes from one side to the other, impersonating both roles in the dialogue. With the conflation of the master and disciple roles, the dialogue form excises the master figure and becomes “autodidactic”: the adept-master applies the method of auto-suggestion and is now confident enough to teach himself how to become a Yao. Apart from this new rhetoric of a dialogue scene, there is also a more conventional dialogue included in the chapter, in which Xunzi persuades King Zhaoxiang of Qin that Ru scholars are beneficial to the state. King Zhao(xiang) of Qin asked Master Sunqing,28 “Are the Ru scholars indeed of no benefit to the state?” Xunzi answered, “The Ru scholars model themselves on the Ancient Kings. They praise rituals and rightness, are careful as ministers and sons, and treasure their superiors to the utmost degree. If the ruler of mankind employs them, they exercise their function at his court correctly. If he does not

————— 27. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 125f. 28. That is, Xunzi, often called “Sun” due to a taboo on Han Emperor Xuan’s personal name.

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employ them, then they retreat, assemble the common people in serenity and are always obedient subjects.”29 : . : , , . , ; , .

The king does not approach the master wanting to know whether Ru scholars are of benefit, but starts with the provocative assumption that they are useless. The master-persuader starts with his back to the wall and has to make a strong case to invalidate the king’s prejudice. However, he is not inclined to give a forceful polemical performance, but instead sets out to describe the Ru scholar in patient detail: their adherence to the ancient kings, their honoring of ritual, their respect of hierarchies and obedience. He calls them the “treasure of the sovereign” ( guojun zhi bao ) and recounts anecdotes of how Confucius exemplified filiality and rectitude. “If you had Ru scholars at your court, then the style of governing would become refined, and if you had them in subordinate positions, popular customs would become refined. A Ru scholar in a subordinate position conducts himself as I have just described.” The king asked, “If that is so, what is a Ru scholar in a superior position like?” Xunzi answered, “If in a superior position, oh, how commanding and great he would be! His mind and ambitions would be stable inside, he would practice rituals and principles at court, his laws and rules, weights and measures would all be correct according to his office, and among the people below loyalty, trustworthiness, love, and benefit would become manifest.”30 , . . : ? : , ! , , , .

Xunzi finally comes to the point of the question: Ru scholars are beneficial at court because they “beautify government” or “practice beautiful government” (meizheng ). He does not even invoke the more serious moral registers of the Confucian program such as the “moral transformation” (hua ) that Ru scholars stimulate in their subordinates, but uses the aestheticizing expression “beautiful government,” associated in the

————— 29. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 117. 30. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 120.

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Book of Documents with the ideal government of the sage kings. We hardly expect that this benefit will appeal to the King of Qin, with his desire for power, territory, and possessions. Thus, literally, having Ru scholars at court is of merely “ornamental” benefit; there is no talk of the strategic advantages, economical and demographic growth, and gain of new territory that a persuader would advance in the Schemes of the Warring States (Zhanguoce ). This dialogue primarily serves to highlight Xunzi’s brilliant eloquence, and only therefore is it not surprising that the king appears not dissatisfied at all. The attractive description of a Ru scholar in a subordinate position nurtures his desire to hear the even more marvelous prospects for a Ru scholar in a superior position. The master is happy to supply them and thus brings his rhetorical performance to closure: The Book of Poetry says, “In the East or West and the North or South everybody would submit to him.” That’s what I mean. If the Ru scholar is in a subordinate position over the people, he is just the way I first described him. If in a superior position, he is how I described him last. Since that’s how it is, how could anyone say that they are ‘without benefit to the state’?” King Zhao answered, “Well argued!”31 : , , . . , , ! : !

By pointing briefly to the two types of Ru scholars he has described, the Master rejects, now with suddenly increased leverage, King Zhao’s prejudice that Ru scholars would be of no benefit to the state. At the end of a successful persuasion in the Schemes of the Warring States, rulers are most often “pleased” ( yue ) with the outcome of the persuasion (shui ), at the prospect of advice that will further their interests. Here the king of Qin seems pleased most of all with Xunzi’s skill in argument (shan ). As a “scene of persuasion” the dialogue is not very successful, because the process of persuasion often requires the element of a sudden realization or altered perception on the part of the listener. The king is only unintentionally polemical in the beginning and is then reduced to supplying questions that justify Xunzi’s lecturing on the typology of Ru scholars and

————— 31. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 121.

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their benefit to the state; the king’s final praise acknowledges the Master’s verbal skill. If not impressive as a persuasion, this dialogue is very successful as a rhapsodic eulogy for the king’s edification and entertainment. It is the stimulation of the listener’s desire to hear more, the interest in going through typologies of a phenomenon, that connects this passage to protorhapsodies such as Zhuangzi’s famous exposition on swords, where he distinguishes the “Emperor’s sword,” the “sword of the great nobility,” and the “sword of the ordinary man.”32 The king offers no major resistance to a case that has to be argued, but supplies with his short lines the “entry” for the courtier-entertainer to elaborate on types of things, in this case Ru scholars and their usefulness in different positions. These two scenes from Chapter 8 are beautiful examples of how the conventional “scene of instruction” and “scene of persuasion” are put to new uses and effects in Xunzi. The internal dialogue of commoner who wants to teach himself how to become a sage king links the rhetoric of the scene of instruction to that of the newly emerging essay form, in which the first-person speaker might formulate questions which he goes on to answer himself. The seemingly more conventional dialogue between the king of Qin and Xunzi in turn connects the “scene of persuasion” to the later genre of rhapsodies. The king shows that he is well entertained, but not necessarily that he has learned anything that he intends to put into political practice. Like the persuaders in the Schemes of the Warring States, Xunzi does not defy the notion of “benefit” as the Mencius programmatically does in its opening passage. He agrees that it is the duty of the ruler to care about profit. But what for him counts as profit is certainly different from the standards of Warring States persuaders. It is less obviously pragmatic and political, but pleases itself in retreating to an “aesthetical” level of governing. Still, we would be mistaken if we thought that Xunzi did not also style himself as a master persuader in the fashion of persuaders as they appear in the Schemes of the Warring States. Chapter 15, “On Warfare” (Yibing ), shows him in full rhetorical armor. One of the longest chapters of Xunzi, it adheres almost completely to the dialogue form as we hear King Xiaocheng of Zhao, Lord Linwu, one of his generals, and Xunzi discuss-

————— 32. Zhuangzi Chapter 30, “Discoursing on Swords” (Shuo jian Zhuangzi jiaoqian, 1215–27.

). Wang Shumin,

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ing principles of warfare. At first, Lord Linwu and Xunzi confront each other. Lord Linwu uses the language of military specialists and emphasizes tactics and strategic advantage, while Xunzi again denies the too obviously practical and technical, arguing that the most important precondition for successful warfare is the support of the people. Xunzi “civilianizes” the problem of warfare and expounds on the Confucian values of benevolence and paternal care for the people as not only civil but martial virtues. After another objection by Lord Linwu (who adduces the famous military experts Sun Wu and Wu Qi to argue his point that only strategic advantages count), Xunzi gives a long explanation of his position that almost meanders into an essay in its own right. The king is duly impressed, and Lord Linwu is relegated to the position of asking, not answering. They ask Xunzi about the warfare of a true king, the abilities a general should have, and the military regulations a king should abide by. Xunzi gives detailed analyses of particular strengths and weaknesses of different feudal states. The optional semantic slippage between the more archaic meaning of shi as “warrior” and its more common meaning in the Warring States of “scholar” gives him better leverage to argue that a state employing many such “scholar-warriors” will be strong and successful. Lord Linwu always congratulates Xunzi on his “well-argued” (shan ) speech and supplies the next topic for him to expound on. Then, two disciples challenge Xunzi from diametrically opposed directions, as if they had listened to the previous conversation between the Lord, the King, and the Master. As the voice of conventional Confucianism, Chen Xiao asks him why he, as a promoter of benevolence, takes up the despicable topic of warfare at all, while Xunzi’s famous later disciple Li Si takes the side of Lord Linwu and claims that Qin’s strength is due to the successful tactics of military specialists, not to benevolence and rightness, as Xunzi argues. The chapter is remarkable for several reasons. As is often pointed out, it affirmatively admits into the arena of Confucian dispute the topic of warfare, which usually appears only as a theme for criticism in the Confucian decorum of topics. And although Xunzi makes an argument for the Confucian values of benevolence and rightness, his broad experience shows that he argues as an expert on warfare and is not merely mobilizing this unusual topic for yet another argument for Confucian values. Second,

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in the long chapter, several interlocutors challenge the Master just enough to be eloquently instructed by him in great detail. This is a perfect chance to show off the Master’s versatility in dismissing a variety of arguments and having the last word. Third, the line-up of interlocutors is fictional in the sense that it does not present them in a plausible scene of a particular dispute, but provides the figure of the Master with a number of ideally difficult opponents for rhetorical exercise. Thus, the “scene of persuasion” in which Xunzi argues against Lord Linwu in front of the king glides over into a “scene of instruction,” where the Master meets the counter-arguments of his disciples. This is a brilliant synthesis of the master’s different social roles, which are most often represented separately in Masters Literature. Although there are original variations on the dialogue form, such as the autodidactic internal dialogue in Chapter 8, most of Xunzi does not use dialogue. From the point of view of genre development, the “scene of instruction” and “scene of persuasion” were the established discursive strategies of Masters Literature. Therefore, falling back on discursive frames that had accrued historical authority was certainly the safest way of arguing a highly controversial case, namely an affirmative integration of the topic of warfare into the Confucian horizon of discussion. Unlike Mencius, Xunzi does not shy away from taking on its opponents’ most dubious and controversial terminology and using it for its own ends. This is one of the reasons why Xunzi is so much richer thematically and stylistically than Mencius, whose Ciceronian classicism derives in part from its overt refusal to appropriate terms and themes from the hands of its enemies. We have already seen one example of this in Xunzi’s affirmation and Mencius’s decisive repudiation of discussing the concept of “profit” (li ). In a sweeping refutation of the Mohist program of universal love, mutual profit, and saving of expenditures, Chapter 10, “On Enriching the State” (Fu guo ) argues for social distinctions for the sake of universal love, for due attention to “real” profit, and for saving expenditures through music and ritual, all of course polemical statements that turn Mohist doctrine on its head. After the text tosses Mohist terms around for a while, something quite different emerges: A policy of “not providing profit to the people, yet taking profits from them” is not as profitable as “taking profit from them after having provided profit to

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them.” A policy of “using the people but not loving them” is not as meritorious as “using the people only after having [shown] one’s love.” A policy of “providing profit to the people, and only then taking profit from them” is less profitable than “providing profit to the people and not receiving profit from them.” To “love them and thereafter use them” is not as meritorious as “loving them and not using them.” Those who “provide profit and do not take it away” and those who “love but do not use” will take the empire. Those who “provide profit to the people and only then receive profit from them” and those who “use the people only after having first bestowed love on them” will protect their altars of soil and grain. However, those who “do not provide profit to the people, yet take profit from them” and who “use them but do not love them” will imperil their country.33 , . , . , . , . , , [ ]. , , . , , .

Behind this confusing veil of spiraling rhetoric—typical of a logician like Huizi or Zhuangzi’s parody of him—the message itself is fairly simple and clear: best and most worthy of the empire is the ruler who does good for the people without taking anything from them, and second best is the ruler who does good for them and only thereafter takes something in exchange. But the ruler who first takes from the people is the worst kind of ruler, and his state is doomed. It is noteworthy that these basic Confucian ideas are clad in the language of degrees of profit: maximum profit, long-term profit, and “real” profit. “Providing profit to the people” (li min ) is the key characteristic of good rulers in Mozi and, not surprisingly, one other main Mohist article of faith, namely universal love, is evoked in this chapter of Xunzi. While applauding the Mohist concern for “profit,” resistance to the Mohist doctrine of “saving expenditures” (already polemically obvious in the title “On Enriching the State”) appears several paragraphs later and is intriguingly interlaced with the problem of universal versus selfish/partial love: The way to make the empire universally self-sufficient lies in marking class divisions. To examine the soil and mark off the acreage, to clear out grasses and plant

————— 33. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 192.

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the grains, to fatten the fields with dung—all of that is the business of farmers and the common people. To keep to the right season in using the people’s workforce, initiate what will maximize their efforts, harmonize and unite the Hundred Clans and ensure that they are not lax—all this is the business of the commanders. That the heights are not parched and the low regions are not flooded, that cold and heat correspond to their interval and the Five Grains ripen in time—all this is the business of nature. But the business of the sage rulers and worthies is to universally protect people, universally love them, universally regulate them and ensure that there is no freezing and starving among the Hundred Clans even in the case of bad harvests, floods and droughts. Mozi’s words sparkle, yet worry too much about insufficiency in the empire. Insufficiency is in fact not a common worry in the empire, but Mozi’s exaggerated private [selfish] grief.34 : , , , . , , , , . , , , , . , , , , , . . , .

Mozi is defeated through his own words and weapons. His admonition to be frugal is exposed as a private obsession, and such “privateness” is of course anathema to Mozi’s defense of universal love. Also, the Mohist hobby-horse of “universal love” or “universality” ( jian ) is transposed to the problem of self-sufficiency. The way to reach “universalism” in this case is by a path precisely opposite to that of Mohist universal love: by maintaining class divisions (here fen ; in Mozi the antonym of “universality” is usually bie ”). While maliciously turning the words in the Mohist’s mouth, the speaker in this passage is insolent enough to feign complete innocence by literally stating that the sage ruler’s main responsibility is “universal love.” However, since “universality” is then also mechanically applied to the issue of state protection and regulations, the poignancy of the Mohist advocacy of “universal love” loses its edge. It is applied to too many different contexts that pull in opposite directions. We could go so far as to say that Xunzi protests the Mohist manipulation

————— 34. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie, 183f.

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of language by showing how particular Mohist doctrines would crumble if subjected to the Mohist desire to create an unequivocal, abstract linguistic universe.

Outlook Our point of departure in this chapter was the proposition that in “Human nature is evil,” Xunzi argued not so much against Mencius’s notion of benign human nature as in favor of a greater role for human selfcultivation and creativity. Although Xunzi’s argument is characterized by fierce bouts of attack against Mencius, already the second phrase of the chapter highlights Xunzi’s conviction that all good in humans stems from their conscious, creative activities (wei ). This insight opened new ways of connecting various seemingly unrelated concerns and chapters of Xunzi. Xunzi’s argument for human agency and creativity is framed in the radically new form of the expository essay. Although Mozi was the first of the Masters Texts to be written in the style of a treatise of mostly expository prose, Xunzi put this textual strategy to use by experimenting with an authorial voice that directly expresses its convictions and beliefs, likes, and dislikes through exposition, poetry, or in dialogue. As Xunzi and Mencius disagreed about the “nature” of human nature, they inevitably also disagreed about notions of authorship. It is quite suggestive that these readings of both Xunzi and Mencius relate their views about human nature to their notions of authorship. On the surface, Mencius renounces claims to authorship for himself; but Mencius’s elevation of Confucius to the author-encrypter of the Spring and Autumn Annals is part of a more complex agenda to claim a position as the first exegete of Confucius, the first—if temporally distant—disciple who “reads” for posterity the figure of Confucius, his intentions, and the books from higher antiquity that matter to the Master’s project. Thus, Mencius made himself a master-exegete with secret control similar to that of an author, and the conventional form of the “scenes of instruction” in Mencius can be interpreted as an abstention from claiming authorship more directly.

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But in creating depth on the level of intellectual lineage—and on many other levels, as we saw in the previous chapter—Mencius had to assure that Confucius’s intentions and utterances were coextensive with Mencius’s own interpretations. To hold his position as the master-exegete of Confucius, the coextensiveness of the “latency” of Confucius’s heritage and its “manifestation” in Mencius’s exegesis had to be a matter of course and had to be stabilized by comparable claims about the natural manifestation of human nature’s benignity—claims that actually reinforced each other in circular fashion. Xunzi, in contrast, had nothing to lose in giving up a “naturalized” relationship between inner latency and outer manifestation. Quite to the contrary, intruding into that relationship strengthened the case for human agency and creativity and made the claim of authorship viable in the first place. In this context it is significant to mention that Xunzi did not just perturb Mencius’s creation of depth through the goodness of human nature, but also destroyed Mencius’s creation of depth through lineage. No wonder, for the unique spot next to Confucius that Mencius had created for himself as master-exegete and prophet afforded no room for anybody else. Unless one declared oneself a disciple of Mencius, one was sure to be excluded from the lineage. Thus it made perfect sense for Xunzi, who cared so much about the proper transmission of Confucius’s legacy, to violently attack Mencius on as many grounds as possible. Yet Xunzi went beyond this necessary step: he dismantled not just Mencius but many other followers of Confucius’s disciples as “deviant” Confucians. If Mencius had attacked the Mohists and Yangists, the former having previously attacked Confucius and his followers, Xunzi was the first to fiercely and systematically attack proponents of his own, Confucian, lineage. Xunzi created a vision of “heretics”— that is sub-strands of one’s own lineage perceived as deviant—within the Confucian tradition. It may not be an exaggeration to presume that Xunzi’s preoccupations with notions of orthodoxy and heresies were triggered by Mencius’s attempt to secure for himself unique access to Confucius’s legacy and to monopolize its exegesis.

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SIX

The Race for Precedence: Polemics and the Vacuum of Traditions in Laozi

Next to the Analects, Laozi is another anomaly among the Masters Texts because it consists of mostly rhymed verse, not prose like the bulk of Masters Literature. Like the Analects, the text stood both inside and outside Masters Literature proper. The master to whom it is attributed became as iconic a figure as Confucius and was increasingly surrounded by thick layers of legends and lore. Ever since Laozi himself was proclaimed to have given revelations to millenarian leaders like Zhang Daoling , the founder of the Daoist sect of Celestial Masters, in 142 bce, this 5000character “Classic of the Way and Virtue” (Daodejing )—as it was called after its canonization under Emperor Jing of the Han dynasty (188–141 bce)—came to serve as holy scripture in institutionalized Daoism. More than 700 commentaries have been written on Laozi, half of which are extant, and with more than 250 translations into Western languages to date, it may well be the most translated (and most divergently translated) East Asian text. It was also one of the earliest Chinese texts to be translated into a foreign language, with a Sanskrit translation dating to the seventh century bce.1

————— 1. Alan Chan, “The Daodejing and its Tradition,” 1.

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Laozi as Polemical Verse Unlike the Analects, which stages its master in careful detail in scenes of instruction, Laozi lacks a master at its center; it speaks in a disembodied, anonymous voice to its reader and is purged of any particulars or props that would help locate the reader in time and space. Only Zhuangzi put narrative flesh on this disembodied voice and created Laozi as an actual master figure. In this chapter I argue that the emptiness that inheres in Laozi´s minimalist rhetorical make-up is predominantly intentional rather than primordially innocent, polemical rather than mystical. With his suspiciously generic and bold name “Old Master,” Laozi has traditionally been seen as a figure preceding Confucius or at the latest as a contemporary of Confucius. Looking at the text of Laozi, however, it is clear that the pervasive polemics directed specifically against Confucian values and ideas can only date to a time when Confucius’s legacy had become well established. I argue that Laozi was intentionally written in a way that would make it look as old as possible against the backdrop of its opponents such as Confucian schools, and that what in the later tradition came to be interpreted as a mystical dimension was partly a product of Laozi’s polemics against Confucianism. Laozi is an ingenious attempt at chronological usurpation, defying common rhetorical formats of Masters Literature, purging almost any reference to specific places and times, and thereby attempting to claim a place at the very beginning of Masters Literature, disinheriting the Confucians of this monopoly. It is a brilliant attempt, without peer in the Chinese tradition, to build an intellectual universe out of an artificially created vacuum of previous traditions. Instead of talking back to its opponents in rhetorical formats common in Masters Literature, it relocates its polemical thrust into an archaicized rhetorical universe. The attempt at chronological usurpation was highly successful—after all, plenty of scholars, starting with Sima Qian in the Han dynasty, have believed that Laozi preceded Confucius. But the traces of polemical attacks on specific Confucian concepts show that, even if parts of the text might belong to an older tradition of gnomic wisdom, at the point of its redaction the text was conceived in harsh response to Confucian values.

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Laozi is a unique phenomenon against the background of more predominant Warring States rhetorical formats such as the “scene of instruction” or the expository essay form. 2 It is rhymed, there is no dialogue, and the dynamics between master and disciple are replaced with a textual collage of aphorisms in which a thetical anonymous voice utters words of gnomic wisdom. This very format gives it the look and force of archaic oral poetry.3 William Baxter acknowledges the unique rhetorical format of Laozi, considering it part of a “distinctive tradition of philosophical verse with strong oral elements.”4 Michael LaFargue has suggestively fleshed out the dynamics of how this distinct philosophical verse tradition might have taken shape by applying methods of “form criticism” developed by Rudolf Bultman and others since the 1930s. Biblical scholars used form criticism in order to explain contradictions and anomalies in early religious literature and scripture through positing plural authorship and tracking down traces of an original oral setting of transmission of these texts. Form criticism searched for the meaning of the texts by reconstructing the original life context (“Sitz im Leben”) that produced them. LaFargue describes Laozi as a heavily layered text, with early oral sayings supplemented by a textual collage of polemical aphorisms and selfcultivation sayings.5 According to this view Laozi should therefore not

————— 2. The dating of Laozi and its redaction is hotly debated and varies between 500 and 200 bce. For a brief overview of some of the debates based on linguistic, stylistic, and archeological evidence from the recently excavated Laozi versions of Mawangdui and Guodian, see Boltz, “Lao tzu Tao te ching,” 269–71 and 281–84; Baxter, “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu,” 232; and Alan Chan, “The Daodejing and its Tradition,” 4–6. 3. Unlike other Masters Texts, Laozi offers the opportunity to derive clues for the dating of the text based on rhyme schemes. Liu Xiaogan in his attempts to date the text has approached Laozi as a “poetic” text and sees it as a link between the Book of Poetry (Shijing ) and the Songs of the South (Chuci ), arguing for a date closer to the Book of Poetry (Liu Xiaogan, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters, 172–86).William Baxter agrees with Liu’s suggestion and shows that the rhymes in Laozi must be later than those in the Book of Poetry, because some of the rhyme categories reconstructed from the Book of Poetry are already conflated in Laozi, but also prior to the Chuci and the Zhuangzi, which distinguish fewer rhyme categories than Laozi. Because the change of rhyme categories does not coincide with the chronology of actual language change but is subject to linguistic inertia, as well as stylistic and generic considerations, dating based on rhyme is as problematic as other dating methods. 4. See again Baxter’s “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu,” 249. 5. See LaFargue, Tao and Method.

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be studied as a coherent philosophical system, but as the expression of the faith of an early “Laoist” community of self-cultivation. Thus, Laozi is a “scripture” that can only be properly understood by somebody who already believes in it, and that expresses the world-view (“Lebenswelt”) from within the circle of believers.6 Because form criticism presupposes the existence of an early community of practitioners, LaFargue is forced to imagine a community of “Laoists,” early believers whose self-cultivation practices supposedly centered around Laozi and found expression in it. The power of LaFargue’s vision is that he describes Laozi as a text that has a positive and, in principle, accessible message rather than being willfully obscure. In the face of the hundreds of commentaries and modern translations that have struggled with Laozi and produced interpretations so vastly divergent that they sometimes do not seem to refer to the same text, this is a radical departure. Quite diametrically opposed to LaFargue, Chad Hansen reads Laozi decisively as a “philosophical system,” as part of a “philosophical culture which stresses epistemology and semantics.”7 He sees Laozi as a “critical philosophy” that inverts conventional value judgments, quite in the manner of Nietzsche’s “critical history” in Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben (On the advantage and disadvantage of history for life). In drawing up a cursory history of thought in early China, Hansen distinguishes three dialectical stages: first, “conventional knowledge,” which corresponds to Ruist wisdom in the Warring States; second, “knowledge of reversibility,” which is the stage of a “critical philosophy”; and third, “skepticism-mysticism,” which would not only invert conventional values to show their inappropriateness, but would radically question the possibility of any stable value judgment at all. Therefore it is not surprising that Hansen strongly opposes mainstream interpretations of Laozi, be they in popular literature or in scholarship, that take the text as an expression of metaphysical reflection and mysticism. The metaphysical reading assumes an ineffable “Way” (or Nature or God for that matter) that cannot be described through language except by elaborate celebrations of its

————— 6. Ibid., 245. 7. See Hansen, “Linguistic skepticism in the Lao Tzu.”

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ineffability in paradoxical and often negative, “apophatic” language. Typically, where language fails, a mystical union with the ineffable divine force can help bridge the gap between believer and the inaccessible divinity. Although Laozi does not use the language of a mystical union as is typical for Christian mystics, there are many good reasons for the popularity of metaphysical readings that take Laozi at face value. First, with the introduction of Buddhism into China, commentaries on Laozi clearly tried to compete with the intricate Buddhist metaphysics of negativity by reading metaphysical dimensions into Laozi.8 Thus metaphysical readings of Laozi are certainly justified from the perspective of its later reception history, even if they say more about the effects of Buddhism on China’s intellectual landscape than about Laozi as a pre-Qin Masters Text. Secondly, the cultural ennui that has gripped many Western intellectuals since the nineteenth century has made metaphysical readings of Laozi a welcome respite from occidental rationalism and dualism, because the text seems to offer a non-dualist organic and innocently naturalist vision of mankind’s place in the cosmos. Many Chinese intellectuals have endorsed such a reading, believing that the Chinese tradition of thought shared more with European continental traditions of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and “life philosophy”—broadly speaking the skeptics of objective knowledge—than with Anglo-American analytic philosophy, representing the believers of rational progress. This chapter will move away from the extended context of Laozi’s uses for the understanding or competition with Buddhist metaphysics or its relieving effects on modern cultural ennui. Instead, we will see how Laozi places itself in the competitive landscape of Warring States thought, both situated within the genre of Masters Literature and also challenging some of its most fundamental conventions.

————— 8. Interesting examples are Tang dynasty commentaries such as Li Rong’s and Chen Xuanying’s. See Isabelle Robinet, “Later Commentaries,” 119. Intriguingly, Konrad Wegmann relies on scrupulous textual comparison to show that in comparison to the Mawangdui version, later redactions of Laozi reveal a tendency to introduce negation into positive discourse and to add paradoxical formulas (“Umwertungsformeln”) such as “in practicing non-action nothing will be left undone.” He hypothesizes that these textual changes happened under Buddhist influence. See his “Laozi-Textversionen im Vergleich,” 337n 70.

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Voicing in Laozi One of the most fascinating grammatical features of Laozi is its extremely high incidence of first-person pronouns. Instead of conveying intimacy with the speaker, the use of the first-person pronoun here suggests a speaker of cosmic proportions. In Chapter 16 he describes how he observes the “return of things” from a grand panoramic overview of the cosmos. In Chapter 67 “the whole empire” turns to the first-person speaker to praise his practice of the Way, and the speaker in turn discloses his “three treasures” of modesty, frugality, and yielding. Many other voices feature in Laozi, such as the above-mentioned voice of gnomic wisdom, but there is also a paraphrastic voice that rephrases expressions and closely resembles the voice of a commentator elaborating on key phrases in the passage. There have indeed been speculations that such “commentarial” passages have intruded into the original text. Laozi’s polyphonic “textual collage,” to use LaFargue’s term, does not contain what seem to be such commentarial intrusions only by accident. They are programmatic. We may even say that, allegorically speaking, they represent the “ingestion” of the master’s voice in a text that is part of Masters Literature, but has wiped out the presence of the master in active dialogue with his disciples and opponents.9 The form of the textual collage and the absence of the master figure in Laozi have profound implications. First, the reader of Laozi is not placed into a virtual community of fellow-disciples to witness the instruction of his predecessors, for no first-hand disciples feature in the text. Quite to the contrary, the reader is left to self-reflection, exposed to a powerful positing voice in the “philosophical,” or we might say, “gnomic present.”

————— 9. What the text itself does not offer by way of conversation between the master and his disciples has been filled in by the proliferation of myths around the figure of Laozi since the Han. In several legends, Laozi gains “alternative” disciples that restore him as a conventional master figure of Masters Literature. There is, for example, the border guard Yin Xi who functions as his scribe and writes down Laozi when the master leaves China for the West. The legends about his “conversion of the barbarians” (huahu ), apparently developing in response to the challenge of Buddhism to religious Taoism, make Laozi the Chinese “master par excellence” who turns those lost to Chinese civilization into faithful disciples, a theme with undeniably Confucian overtones. See Kohn, “The Lao-tzu Myth”; and the relevant chapters in Kohn’s God of the Dao.

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The second person indirectly appears in imperative and prohibitive speech only. The first-person speaker of cosmic proportions seems to speak to himself rather than to any imagined audience. As a second implication, both past and future disappear in the face of the “gnomic present.” Compared to a text like Xunzi, which is replete with historical anecdotes and generous in providing a sense of the intellectual scene around its authors, Laozi purges any reference to past or present figures, to political conditions, or to rival thinkers. The complete denial of the existence of surrounding traditions has easily tricked scholars into assuming a rather early date of composition for Laozi: its anonymous voicing, absence of references to real places and historical time, and a seemingly pristine purity of simple and repetitious syntax are all easily misinterpreted as proof of the absence of other traditions and the text’s “archaic” origin. Laozi depopulates textual space to a minimalist repertoire of characters and references. As some of the few identifiable agents in the text, the actions and sayings of previous “practitioners of the Way” are occasionally invoked: Those who in ancient times were good at practicing the Way penetrated the subtle, marvelous and mysterious to such depth that it goes beyond understanding. Going beyond understanding, were I forced to describe their appearance, I would say: “Cautious were they, as if crossing a river in winter, Hesitant, as if fearing their surrounding neighbors.”10 :

,

,

,

.

.

,

————— 10. Laozi 15. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 117. See also Laozi 65. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 312. My translations of Laozi have benefited from the following translations: Lau, Chinese Classics, Tao Te Ching; LaFargue, Tao and Method; Waley, The Way and its Power; Henricks, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching; Ellen Chen, The Tao Te Ching. I will stick to the received text and only in special cases refer to the excavated Mawangdui materials. William Boltz’s detailed textual studies of the excavated Laozi material have made a great point of showing that translations should not unsystematically jump between versions before an in-depth comparison of all available versions exists. See his critique of D. C. Lau’s reedited translation in his “Textual Criticism and the Ma wang tui Lao tzu,” 185– 224.

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What follows is a rather long rhapsodic praise of the marvelous ancient practitioners of the Way, which goes beyond the scope of Laozi’s usual laconic brevity. Although some also consider it a treatise on statecraft, Laozi contains only the most minimal references to political institutions and offices.11 If “kings” and “marquises” occasionally appear, they feature only in the most generic sense, sometimes even merely as an image of superiority. Chapter 62 explains how the “promotion of the Way” through the speaker’s words would be much better than sending jade disks for the enthroning of the “Son of Heaven” (tianzi ) or the installing of the “Three Dukes” (sangong ), but this is about as specific as Laozi ever gets regarding political realities. As a third important implication, the form of “textual collage” demands and thus trains skills of associative reasoning. As gnomic aphorisms, comments, and striking images follow one another, the guiding thread of their joint composition has to be spun by the reader. This is all too easily misinterpreted as a mystifying, willfully obscure side of Laozi and has been happily welcomed by present-day esoteric communities in search of powerful texts with puzzling abysses of deep significance. With Michael LaFargue12 I would decidedly argue that Laozi is not willfully obscure but surprisingly straightforward—despite outer appearances; it just teases our associative intellect. I would even argue that despite its overwhelmingly negative and paradoxical rhetoric on a grammatical level, Laozi has a decisively positive outlook: it takes a stance for skillfulness (shan ), boldly challenging the overwhelming use in Confucian texts of the same word shan as “moral goodness.”

Pleading for Skillfulness Shan occurs frequently in Laozi. Rather than being the moral antonym of “evil” (e ), it often means “being good at” or “having a particular skill”: Those who are good at (shan) walking do not leave traces. Those who are good at speaking do not show flaws.

————— 11. Not surprisingly, the two Han Feizi chapters commenting on Laozi eagerly select these passages for discussion. 12. See LaFargue, Tao and Method, 156.

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Those who are good at calculating do not use tallies or chips. Whoever is good at closing does not need a key and yet (the door) cannot be opened. Whoever is good at binding does not need rope or cord, yet (the knots) cannot be undone. Thus the Sage is always good at saving people, and does not reject them; good at saving things, and does not reject anything. This is called “clothed in clarity.” Thus, the skillful person is the teacher of the not-yet-skillful. In turn, those who are not yet skillful are the material for the skillful. He who does not treasure his teacher or does not love his material, though he may possess much learning, is far astray. This is called “fundamental secret.”13 . ,

. ,

. .

.

.

.

.

,

,

,

, ,

.

. .

Shan here does not mean “moral goodness,” but signifies the expert practitioner of some particular skill. Unlike the Analects and Xunzi, where the petty expert is contrasted with the cultivated generalist, Laozi speaks from and to the skillful expert-to-be. And the “real” expert does things in counterintuitive ways: when walking he does not leave traces, when locking the door he does not use a key. It is precisely the defying of his intuition that makes him stand out as an expert (shan ren ). In this Laozi passage it is clear that shan ren has to mean “skillful expert” and bu shan ren points to those who have not yet reached the highest level of skillfulness. The experts can be practitioners of the Way, but also the Way itself: The Way is hidden and nameless. Yet it is the Way alone that is good at supporting them and bringing them to fulfillment.14 .

,

.

————— 13. Laozi 27. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 174. 14. Laozi 41. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 228.

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Even things without agency can be experts of skillfulness: Ultimate skillfulness is like water. Water is good at benefiting the myriad beings and does not contend, but settles in places everybody else disdains. Therefore it is close to the Way. Skill in house-building means the ground. Skill in the mind means depth. Skill in companionship means benevolence. Skill with words means trustworthiness. Skill in governing means order. Skill in affairs means ability. Skill in making a move means timeliness. Simply do not contend, and you will be without fault.15 , ,

. .

,

,

,

,

.

,

,

,

.

.

The passage invites comparison with the Mencian notion of the moral goodness of human nature that resembles water. At least the Heshanggong commentary gestures in this direction: The person of ultimate goodness “has the nature of water (ru shui zhi xing ).”16 Yet the next phrase unambiguously employs the typically Laozian meaning of shan as “skillfulness,” the water’s skill in being able to benefit the myriad beings. Obviously, nature and the Way do possess agency in Laozi, even rivers and oceans: The reason why rivers and oceans can be the king of the hundred valleys is that they are good at being low. Therefore they can be kings of the hundred valleys.17 ,

,

.

Quite in contrast to the received wisdom that Laozi embraces a “naturalist” worldview, nature here is clearly part of the economy of skillfulness.

————— 15. Laozi 8. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 89. 16. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 89. 17. Laozi 66. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 316.

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The universe in Laozi is pervaded with the agency of acquired skill; and the cosmos is imagined as the acting body of a practitioner of selfcultivation, not the other way around. The semantic shift of shan from predominantly meaning “moral goodness” in Confucian writings to almost exclusively meaning “skillfulness” in Laozi is symptomatic of the text as a whole, which emphasizes doing something well over being good in order to establish a new usage of shan that redirects the Confucian focus on moral virtue towards skills of body manipulation and self-cultivation. Many rhetorical strategies in Laozi are designed to find a fresh or refreshed language in order to build a discursive counter-universe. Thus the pervasive negativity and paradoxical polemics of the text are not necessarily an ontological statement about the nature of the divine Way, but chiefly serve to establish a counterdiscourse to conventional Confucian wisdom. Needless to say, Laozi is always seen, along with Zhuangzi, as the founder of a counter-tradition, but that counter-tradition might have a stronger polemical and rhetorical edge than ontological gravity.

Renaming the Familiar Apart from its more radical moves to position itself outside the generic conventions of Masters Literature, Laozi often engages with and contests rival discourses. “Renaming” is one of the most ubiquitous strategies by which Laozi contests received meanings. Mostly, renaming appears in the form of polemical paradoxes that negate the accepted and ascribe worth to the seemingly worthless. Act through non-action, work at non-working, acquire a taste for the tasteless!18 ,

,

.

The Analects had promoted non-action, but not in the poignant formulation of a blatant paradox. Such logical paradoxes have often been associated with either sophist brain gymnastics or exaltation of the unspeakable

————— 18. Laozi 63. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 306.

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divine Way beyond human comprehension, but this phenomenon recedes into the background once we translate wu as a prohibitive: Just act, do not “act.” Just work, do not “work.” Just taste, do not “taste.” .

.

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This version sounds quite blunt. Because it is not paradoxical, it sounds philosophically less suggestive.19 The quotation marks point to the conventional usage of the word, which the passage strongly criticizes and intends to replace with the “real” meaning, the meaning without quotation marks. What is conventionally called “acting” is certainly not “real” acting: thus one should act and not “act.” The most direct way to establish a new meaning of the word “to act” is to negate its conventional associations. Even if no new meaning is directly offered, the message to reject the conventional one is clear. It is also the most graphic negation of the program of “Correction of Names” in Analects 12.11, where Confucius asserts that for ensuring proper governance, “the ruler must rule, the minister must be a minister, the father a father, and the son a son ( jun jun, chen chen, fu fu, zi zi , , , . ” In destroying the tautological universe of the “Correction of Names,” Laozi is impressively self-confident and exceedingly economical in the way it asserts its own discursive universe and restores a temporarily uncontaminated freshness of meaning to longstanding terms of intellectual debate. Polemical paradoxes are a colorful field for experimentation in Laozi. On a literal level, what is considered worthless is all of a sudden cherished, and there is a secret pleasure in appreciating the base, even the vulgar:

————— 19. Linguistically speaking, this translation plays on the difference between the “use” and “mention” of a term, between its “referential” and “quotational” meanings. Hansen calls them “linguistic” (referential) and “metalinguistic” (quotational) meanings. See his “Linguistic skepticism in the Lao Tzu,” 328. I would argue that many of the polemical paradoxes in Laozi dissolve into a difference between the usage with proper reference, which Laozi endorses, and the improper conventional usage, which it intends to criticize. Laozi places this critique precisely by relegating the conventional meaning to a semantically weak “metalinguistic” position.

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Through “doing” studies, there is daily increase, through “doing” the Way there is daily loss. Loss and still more loss, until one arrives at “non-doing.” Through “not doing anything” nothing is left undone. For taking over the world, one has to be constantly without affairs. Once there are affairs, one is unworthy to take over the world.20 ,

,

,

,

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On its literal surface, the passage shocks by openly praising destruction and loss. By elevating the opposites of “benefit” (li ), a cardinal value in Mozi, this passage touches on a particular anxiety of the Mohists. Only the seriously literal meaning of “loss” as resulting in complete “nonaction” makes this shock effect possible. The reader is led to ask whether “loss” in this case is really such a bad thing and comes to the conclusion that the passage talks about a new kind of “loss,” not the conventional meaning of loss. Defying what is so characteristic of the Late Warring States period, namely explicit competition around the meaning of key terms such as “benefit,” Laozi creates new meanings for old words by implying their opposites with ostentatious brazenness, often attributing value to what conventionally has negative connotations: “A great state of the lower category is the mare of the empire, the whore of the empire” (Laozi 61); also “In leading the people towards serving Heaven, nobody could be better than a peasant” (Laozi 59); or “Those who in old times were good at practicing the Way did not illuminate their people, but would make them stupid” (Laozi 65). It is important to emphasize that the Analects often contrasted contemporary usage of a word with its “real” meaning (shi ), which has been lost in the hopelessly depraved present. However, in the overwhelming presence of polemical paradoxes, Laozi’s plea for choosing the “fruit/the real thing” (shi ) sounds quite surprising and fresh in the following passage:

————— 20. Laozi 48. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 250.

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Highest virtue is not virtuous, therefore it truly has virtue. Lower virtue never loses virtue, therefore it has not true virtue. Highest virtue does not act and has nothing to act out; lower virtue does not act, but has something to act out. Highest benevolence acts, but has nothing to act out; highest rightness acts and has something to act out. Highest ritual acts and nothing responds, therefore it rolls up its sleeves and forces people to comply. Thus, after the Way is lost, there is “virtue”; After “virtue” is lost, there is “benevolence.” After “benevolence” is lost, there is “rightness.” After “rightness” is lost, there is “ritual.” As for ritual, it is the thin edge of loyalty and trust and the beginning of disorder. Prescience is the flower of the Way and the beginning of stupidity. Thus, the eminent person dwells in abundance, not scarcity; that person dwells in the fruit, not the flower. Therefore, he rejects that and picks this.21 , . ,

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The beautiful image of choosing the fruit (shi ) over the flower (hua ) forces the passage to literally praise the “real”—the second meaning of “shi”—as the valuable. This is a rather rare move in Laozi, which would typically opt for “emptiness” (xu ) when choosing between the polarity of the “empty” and the “real.” But from the binary of “fruit/real” and “flower” the “flower” gets apparently discarded as the emblem of showy flourish and appearances. This chapter, the opening of Laozi’s “virtue” part, starts with a paradoxical statement on virtue that parallels the opening chapter of the part on “the Way.” As we will see, this passage involves a simpler paradox than

————— 21. Laozi 38. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 212.

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the one in Chapter 1, since “virtue” always appears with the same meaning. There are no direct historical references to either exemplary figures or rival teachings and intellectual opponents in Laozi. However, this chapter constructs a negative history of the Way out of cardinal Confucian values such as “ritual propriety,” “benevolence,” and “righteousness.” The Confucian values are presented as degenerate forms of the genuine great “Way” and “Virtue.”22 Both logically and historically, Confucian values are relegated to an inferior position and only have a role to play in the story of decline towards “stupidity”—another shocking term, which this time really means what it says.23 The next step of rhetorical ingenuity to prove Ruist values wrong is not their denigration, but, quite to the contrary, their outright appropriation, supplemented with the claim that Confucians are not “Confucian” in their application. Chapter 19 is quite effective in this regard: Abandon sagehood, discard wisdom, and the people will benefit a hundredfold. Abandon benevolence, discard righteousness, and the people will return to their duties as sons and brothers. Abandon cleverness and discard profit, and there will be no more robbers and stealers. 24 ,

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Only when degenerated values like wisdom, benevolence, and righteousness are discarded can one again become a “good Mohist” who benefits the people abundantly and a “good Ruist” who properly attends to his filial duties. Thus, only Laozi can help Confucians, or for that matter Mohists, to become more genuine versions of themselves. In most cases, Laozi denigrates Confucian and Mohist writings, but it also contains invectives against other traditions. In Chapter 20, the speaker apparently plays with elements of the Chuci tradition that became

————— 22. Another similar passage that arranges cherished Confucian values in a spiraling line of decline is Chapter 18. 23. That the primordiality of “the Way” and its temporal precedence to anything else in the world mattered immensely to the authors of Laozi is also obvious from the playfully absurd genealogy in Chapter 4: “I do not know whose child (the Way) is, but it seems to precede the di ancestor.” 24. Laozi 19. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 136.

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part of the lament over lack of recognition by Qu Yuan, the virtuous minister of Chu, in “Encountering Sorrow”:25 Oh, the mob is beaming with smiles, as if enjoying the Tailao sacrifice, as if climbing a terrace in spring. I alone am still, without a single sign, Oh, so indiscriminate like a child who still hasn’t smiled, So exhausted like somebody without a home! The mob lives in abundance, only I alone seem to have missed out. What a mind of a fool I have! The commoners are radiant, only I am benighted. They are so sharp, only I am dull. (Churning like the ocean, blown about without end.) The mob has its means for action, yet I alone am stubborn like a lowly peasant. But wherein I am most different from the others is that I treasure the nourishing mother.26 , , , .

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————— 25. Scholars rarely acknowledge the clear resonance of this passage with the Chuci tradition, but Michael LaFargue points it out in Tao and Method, 371. In “Ich und Nicht-Ich im Daodejing” Wolfgang Bauer points out resonances with several Book of Poetry poems, but does not mention the Chuci tradition. In his article, Bauer is in search of an historical anthropology of the Ego in Laozi and, after pointing out the disproportionally frequent occurrence of the first person pronoun in the text, distinguishes among the Ego of the “argumenting philosopher,” the “projected Ego of an ideal person” that inhabits the voice of sages and rulers, and a “self-contradictory Ego” that both wants, but also laments, its alienation from the world. Bauer considers Chapter 20 the most intriguing utterance of the “self-contradictory Ego” and as such, as the most revealing passage regarding the notion of the ego in Laozi. I am well aware that my argument may run into problems of chronology if we assume that Laozi and the Lisao are roughly contemporary. However, as we can see with the “Nine Songs” from the Chuci, some of the typical tropes of the Lisao—the notion of purity and floral decoration as well as the sense of noble alienation, the desire for distinguished selection from a vulgar crowd—may go back to earlier material that informed texts like the Lisao. 26. Laozi 20. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 140.

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Qu Yuan’s obsession with repeatedly contrasting the success of the mob with his own abjection and loneliness is structurally replicated, though with significant variations. First, the speaker seems to lament his lonely dejection, but at the same time he makes sarcastically proud confessions of his “stupidity,” or his “benightedness,” that fly in the face of aristocratic pride as we know it from the pure, fragrant, plaintive, and self-righteous Qu Yuan. The suspicion that the speaker is satirizing a plot similar to the rhetoric of “Encountering Sorrow” for his own benefit is confirmed in the surprising closure: instead of following Qu Yuan in his alienation and despair, the speaker in Laozi proudly advertises his exclusivity and distinction. He claims that he alone treasures the “nourishing mother.” Even if it is unclear whether this expression refers to a specific selfcultivation technique or is just a playful new coinage whose imagery is suggestive enough to gesture towards something specific, it is clear that the speaker in Laozi is more than happy to be alienated from the others. Pride and assertiveness take the place of Qu Yuan’s self-pity and selfdestruction.

A Small Dialogue about “The Way That Can Be ‘Way-ed’” (dao ke dao

)

The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; The name that can be named is not the constant name. The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, the named is the mother of the myriad things. Strip yourself of all desire, and you will observe its deep mystery. Succumb to desire, and you will only touch its surface. These two emerge together, but have a different name. Together they are called “darkness.” Where the dark is darker than darkness, that’s the Gateway of Subtleties.27 .

,

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————— 27. Laozi 1. Chen Guying, Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie, 53.

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Some phrases are coined to stick. Such a phrase is dao ke dao in this most famous of chapters from Laozi. Rather than venturing yet another overall interpretation of this passage I intend to use arguments around the phrase dao ke dao to showcase the intricate intertextual chemistry between Masters Texts, which is evidence for the intellectual complexity of Late Warring States’ discourses and speaks to their wide circulation in written form. After comparing Laozi’s use of dao ke dao to passages from the Xing zi ming chu (“Human nature stems from heavenly decree”), a text recently excavated at Guodian from a tomb dating to around 300 bce that also contained Laozi fragments, we will see how Xunzi at least half a century later picked up on the dialogue between these two texts and tried to settle accounts between them.28 Although interpretations of the first phrase dao ke dao fei chang dao are legion, often the first and third dao are taken to refer to the noun “the Way,” whereas the second dao is read as a verb with the meaning of “to speak of/to say.” According to this reading the passage makes a presumably mystical point about the ineffability of the Way, which is precisely defined by not being definable. Interestingly, a phrase similar to Laozi’s dao ke dao occurs also in the Xing zi ming chu, but to vastly different effect. Stylistically resembling Laozi, the Xing zi ming chu is a dense parading of potent terms that lacks references to specific historical space and time. The only vaguely mentioned agent is the generic “Sage” (shengren ). However, its vision of how to cultivate the Way is radically different from that of Laozi. Michael Puett has argued that the text focuses on the ques-

————— 28. Paul Goldin has argued in a 2000 article that Xing zi ming chu and other Guodian texts might represent a branch of Confucianism associated with Gaozi (who appears as Mencius’s interlocutor in the Mencius) and that Xunzi went on to develop these views more fully. He sees resonances between the Guodian texts and Xunzi in their concept of human nature (xing), their emphasis on self-cultivation through rituals and canonical texts, and the importance they attribute to music in the process. My analysis below of the disputes around dao ke dao in Laozi, Xing zi ming chu, and Xunzi supports Goldin’s much broader analysis of Xunzi’s indebtedness to views in the Guodian texts. Not only does Xunzi seem to defend the stance of the Xing zi ming chu against Laozi, but he turns the question of human conscious manipulation of the Way into an overall argument for Confucius orthodoxy against those who, like Laozi, advocate a natural Way. Goldin, “Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts.” For Goldin’s argument about what he sees as Xunzi’s peculiar notion of xing, which Xunzi might have adapted from views already expressed in the Guodian materials, see Goldin, Rituals of the Way.

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tion of how to refine one’s nature (xing ) and that, unless cultivated and educated to proper responses to particular situations (qing ), our nature would be controlled by desires and outside impulses. The text opens: In general, although humans possess nature (xing), their mind is without a fixed purpose (zhi). It depends on things and only then becomes active; it depends on pleasures and only then is moved; it depends on repeated study and only then becomes fixed.29 , , , , .

In this process of refining one’s nature into proper ethical responses, education plays a critical role, because it is the reason why humans, although possessing the same nature, ultimately use their minds in different ways: As for everyone within the four seas, their nature is one. That they are different in the way they use their minds is brought about by education.30 . , .

The text mentions the human way of education as one of four other ways (the meaning of which we do not know) and makes a strong point about humans as the only ones who can, through insight and intention, actively affirm the Way. Here is the passage we are looking for: As for the Way’s four techniques, only the human way can be way-ed (i.e., only the human way involves a fixed purpose) (ke dao). As for the other three techniques, the person is moved and that is all. , . , .

Obviously, whatever the other three techniques are, the “human way” is clearly superior to the other three, because it involves a fixed purpose, precisely what we need to refine our nature. Then, in a move that is unimaginable in Laozi, the Xing zi ming chu gives a concrete suggestion of the type of education needed, namely, the study of the classical books of antiquity: As for the poems, documents, rites, and music, their first expression was generated among humans. With the poems, there were activities and [people] put

————— 29. Puett, “The Ethics of Responding Properly,” 44. Chinese text modified from Guodian chumu zhujian, 179. 30. Ibid., 47.

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them into practice. With the documents, there were activities and [people] spoke of them. With the rites and music, there were activities and [people] raised them.31 , . , . . , .

Interestingly, the traditions of antiquity that became compiled into the Book of Poetry, Book of Documents, the Record of Rites, and the Classic of Music are not attributed to any historical circumstance or authoritative compiler figure in the same way that Xunzi connects a canonical curriculum with Confucius. Not only do these texts appear as emanations of human nature, but they are “naturalized” products of human making in a context that argues by nature rather than—like Xunzi—by culture and history. In addition, they seem to be part of the peculiar “human way” (rendao ) that is distinct from the three other “dao techniques.” Against the background of the educational program of self-cultivation expounded in the Xing zi ming chu, let us examine the passage that obviously resonates with the first line of Laozi. Puett suggests that in light of the Xing zi ming chu the first Laozi line could well be read as saying: “The Way that can be way-ed is not the enduring Way,” implying that “there is a more enduring Way than the path forged by human intentionality.”32 In contrast to the current understanding, all incidences of dao in this Laozi line are permutations of the same word, namely “the Way.” If we take this mutual challenge seriously—Puett assumes that the two texts were either pitted against each other or against a third, now-lost, text—the meaning of the famous Laozi opening changes radically. Instead of making a point about the mystic ineffability of the Way, it criticizes the channeling of the “Way” through human intentionality and education. Let us complicate the picture with the help of Xunzi, a text roughly from the mid-third century—thus about half a century later than the Xing zi ming chu and the Guodian Laozi. Chapter 21 of Xunzi, “Dispelling Benightedness” (Jiebi ), seems to respond to both texts, but clearly takes the side of the Xing zi ming chu and advocates the intentional manipulation of the “Way” by human agents. Xunzi does not just restate the point, but, quite interestingly, embeds it in a larger argument for the

————— 31. Ibid., 49. 32. Ibid.

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necessity of Confucian orthodoxy. He opens on a lament over the blindness and benightedness of people who possess only partial truths—a reference to those who do not follow Confucius’s “Way”: It is a common human peril to be blindfolded (bi) by one corner of the truth and stay in the dark about the greater pattern. If corrected, one may return to the proper path, but if one continues to be of two minds, then there’s trouble. The world never has two ways, and the sage is never of two minds. Nowadays, the feudal lords adhere to diverging ways of governance and the hundred schools propound diverging doctrines. Thus, inevitably, some of them are correct (shi), while others are wrong ( fei), some result in order, but others in disorder.33 , , . , . , . , , , .

Xunzi then marshals a number of historical figures to back its observation: among the rulers of antiquity, the evil Jie and Zhou were certainly “benighted,” while the Emperor Tang and King Wen were illuminated paragons of virtue. It does the same for ministers and argues then that among the masters, Mozi, Shenzi, Huizi, and Zhuangzi were benighted, while the only illuminated master was, as expected, Confucius. Accordingly, Xunzi claims Confucius as the only comprehensive guide among a number of other masters who are diverging (yi), even devious, and who only possess a partial truth that falls short of the Way: As for the Way, it is of constant shape, yet accommodates all changes. One corner of it will not suffice to evoke it (in its entirety).34 , .

For Xunzi, the tradition associated with Laozi is certainly one that has only “one corner” of the truth. This becomes clearer once Xunzi talks about the ideal practitioner of the Way, the generic sage (shengren) who appeared as the only agent in the Xing zi ming chu. The Sage understands the dangers of practices of the mind, and he sees the disasters resulting from benightedness and occlusion, thus he is without desires or dislikes, without beginning or end, without distance or intimacy, breadth or shallowness, past or present. Instead, he impartially spreads out the ten thousand

————— 33. Wang Xianqian, Xunzi jijie 15 (“Jie bi”), 386. 34. Ibid., 393.

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things and strikes a balance (heng). Thus, the mass of deviations (yi) do not succeed in benighting him and throwing his categories into disorder. What does “balance” mean? I say it is the Way. Therefore, the mind absolutely has to understand the Way. If the mind does not understand the Way, then it does not affirm the Way (ke dao), but may affirm what is the Non-Way (ke feidao).35 , , , . . ? : . ; , , .

In Xunzi, the Sage is the practitioner of “techniques of the mind” (xinshu ), which are the main subject of two self-cultivation chapters in the Guanzi (“Techniques of the Mind” (Xinshu ) and “Inner Workings” (Neiye ) that for Harold Roth are akin to the tradition of Laozi.36 Unlike in the Guanzi chapters, in Xunzi the most important “technique of the mind” is to gain understanding (zhi ). The notion of zhi is paramount for relating to the “Way,” because only correct understanding will allow the practitioner of the “techniques of the mind” to affirm (ke ) or reject (fei ) the ultimate Way. In contrast to the reserved argument of the Xing zi ming chu for the importance of human intention in relating to the Way, the passage from Xunzi considerably strengthens this argument by transforming auxiliary modal ke as in ke dao into a full verb with the meaning “to affirm,” that is “to affirm the Way.” Let me quickly summarize. Xunzi mounts an argument for an orthodox, unified Confucian Way against the benightedness (bi) of other masters. The only technique for practicing the “constant Way” or the “balanced Way” is to hold to unity—politically and doctrinally, but also psychologically by “unifying one’s mind”—and to gain an understanding of the Way so that one can intentionally affirm things that belong to the proper Way. Ultimately, the positive nuance of “where the dark is darker than darkness” (xuan you xuan) in Laozi 1 is ironically challenged by Xunzi’s castigation of the “benightedness” of his age, and through an imagery of light and darkness throughout the chapter that clearly favors bright illumination.

————— 35. Ibid., 394. 36. See Roth, Original Tao.

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I suggest some preliminary conclusions of our disentangling of the intertextual chemistry between these three texts. By the early fourth century, various texts claimed different techniques for dealing with the “Way” and for tuning human agency to the universe. Laozi apparently pitted itself against texts like the Xing zi ming chu that affirmed, or even exalted, the use of human intentionality in the manipulation of the Way. At least half a century later, Xunzi not only supports the line of argument proposed by the Xing zi ming chu, but makes this one issue of contention into an overall argument against other masters and for the exclusive authority of the followers of Confucius. To make a very long story very short, our copy of the Xing zi ming chu ended up buried and forgotten for 2300 years; Xunzi’s contribution to the debate remains sort of “buried” in a chapter that has more often been described as of “Daoist influence” rather than of contention against Laozi; and last, due to some Hegelian ruse of reason that is inexplicable, an interpretation of the Laozi line that no longer reflected the contention among the three texts became predominant. This is a fine example of how the recovery of buried texts helps us reorient our readings of received texts in unexpected ways.

Outlook The Laozi passages I have discussed show how ingeniously Laozi denied, but also appropriated and contested, rival intellectual discourses of the Late Warring States. Despite outer appearances and the text’s desperate attempt to seem primordial and autonomous in relation to other traditions, its profound involvement with Confucian, Mohist, and even Chuci traditions reveals its keen awareness of the discursive battlefield of Late Warring States China. Laozi’s denial of historical context cleverly creates a completely unprecedented intellectual niche, and is a brilliant attempt to make a strong bidding for its own ideological, historical, and cosmic precedence in the fierce competition among schools, books, and opinions in Late Warring States China. Laozi’s banning of the historically specific, the grammatically affirmative, and the charismatically embodied was the single most important counter-strategy against—in the broadest sense—Confucian rhetorical staples such as the “scene of instruction,” the “scene of persuasion,” and the essay form. In this sense, and only in this sense, my readings coincide with the stereotypical contrasting of the “Confucian” with the “Daoist”

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tradition. It is not an exaggeration to say that the history of Masters Literature subsequent to the appearance of Laozi—or some more widely circulated compilation similar to it—consists mostly of experiments of how to best play off these diametrically opposed rhetorical formats (along with their intellectual implications) or how to best profit from both. Contaminated with the Warring States polemics it strove to transcend, Laozi was able to create a radical rhetorical counter-universe too believable to be explicitly recognized as wrong, but too polemical to be true. This achievement makes Laozi, even if not the oldest, at least one of the boldest Masters Texts.

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SEVEN

Zhuangzi and the Art of Negation

The most iridescent of the Masters Texts, Zhuangzi offers something for almost every taste. Anthropologists may be interested in Zhuangzi for its rich mythological topology of rare places, creatures, and people. Scholars of Daoism evoke it as early evidence of the existence of breathing techniques and meditation practices not clearly spelled out in other early texts like Laozi. Intellectual historians hail Zhuangzi as the beginning of Chinese aesthetics. Literary scholars discuss it as the beginning of Chinese narrative, or—if they choose to credit Buddhist influence with the “invention” of fiction and to push it into the Six Dynasties Period—treat it at least as an early repertoire showcasing the art of crafting parables and anecdotes. Historians of philosophy welcome it as a radical manifesto about language, society, and nature in a highly sophisticated “literary” format, which creates considerable confusion about just how seriously Zhuangzi means all that it says. Zhuangzi has fascinated Anglophone audiences since the publication of Herbert A. Giles’s translation in 1889.1 In a review of that translation, Oscar Wilde concludes: It is clear that Chuang Tzu is a very dangerous writer, and the publication of this book in English, two thousand years after his death, is obviously premature, and

————— 1. Giles, Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist and Social Reformer. This translation was immediately followed by James Legge’s, which appeared in The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Taoism in 1891.

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may cause a great deal of pain to many thoroughly respectable and industrious persons. It may be true that the ideal of self-culture and self-development, which is the aim of his scheme of life, and the basis of his scheme of philosophy, is an ideal somewhat needed by an age like ours, in which most people are so anxious to educate their neighbors that they have actually no time left to educate themselves. But would it be wise to say so? It seems to me that if we once admitted the force of any one of Chuang Tzu’s destructive criticisms we should have to put some check on our national habit of self-glorification; and the only thing that ever consoles man from the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them. There may, however, be a few who have grown wearied of that strange modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To these, and such as these, Chuang Tzu will be welcome. But let them only read him. Let them not talk about him. He would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas, and his whole life was a protest against platform speaking. “The perfect man ignores self; the divine man ignores action; the true sage ignores reputation.” These are the principles of Chuang Tzu.2

Feigning concern for those citizens of the Victorian Zeitgeist who may feel offended by Zhuangzi, Wilde’s irony reserves the text for a few chosen ones who defy stultified enthusiasm—which Wilde suspects beneath pathological self-glorification and hypocritical philanthropy mentioned repeatedly throughout the review—and instead choose to put their minds to use. Zhuangzi as the enfant terrible of the social platforms of the day such as dinner parties and afternoon teas is the languid fantasy produced by Wilde’s discomfort with the culture of his day. Wilde’s advice to read but not discuss Zhuangzi is appropriate for a collection that delights in making an eloquent point of the futility of words, and it is a common stance people take in talking about Zhuangzi. This Masters Text seems to unleash a desire to disappear into it, to inhabit and perform it rather than to expound on it—even if this desire is, ironically, often couched in words. Because Zhuangzi invites people to do what it itself does—wax eloquent about the uselessness of talk—it more easily becomes the starting point for scholarly attempts at inspired philosophizing than any other of the Masters Texts—for better or worse. This tendency is enhanced by the fact that Zhuangzi is considerably less implicated in claims of intellectual lineage than the Confucian texts.

————— 2. Wilde, A Chinese Sage, 19–20.

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True, in featuring a figure with the name “Laozi” Zhuangzi succeeded in creating what was later called a “Lao-Zhuang lineage.” But, in its unique way, Zhuangzi floats on top of the generously applied label of “Early Daoism.” Its happy abstention from the will to rule and serve sets it apart from Laozi and from the HuangLao vision of a cosmic administration of the universe through the “law” of the Way. Its joyful celebration of death is diametrically opposed to immortality practices and the world of alchemy in religious Daoism that emerged in the third century ce. And its capricious sketching of a rather freakish cosmos is worlds apart from the grand correlative scheme that later Daoist Yinyang masters imposed on a calculable cosmos. Thus, if Zhuangzi is “Daoist” it is only so on its own distinctive terms. It hovers between highly complex treatises and simple anecdotes with recurrent points, between deriding and celebrating the power of language, between humiliating proponents of sophistic logic in the figure of Huizi and befriending them, and between the ephemeral indulgence in rhetorical pyrotechnics and the insistent claim to some deeper truth. Scholars have tended to explain Zhuangzi’s formidable flippancy in creating and handling these tensions by using loaded philosophical vocabulary such as “anti-rationalism” and “skepticism,” sometimes also reducing it through a scheme of multiple “schools” supposedly represented in the messy compilation of Zhuangzi. A. C. Graham sees Zhuangzi as a response to what he considers Mohist “rationalism”: The metaphysical crisis marks a parting of the ways between rationalism, at its purest in Later Mohism, and anti-rationalism, first articulate in Chuang-tzu. [. . .] Chuang-tzu, in spite of a delight in playing at logic with his friend Hui Shi, is driven in the opposite direction by his identification of the influences from Heaven with the spontaneous in man, to be evoked by aphorism, poetry and parable.3

Graham sees narrative devices such as poems and parables as part of a different intellectual regime that cannot be subjected to criteria of logical consistency. He sees the same “anti-rationality” at work in the overall structure of the collection. Graham hears voices of different ideological hues at work and—in order to distinguish what he considers different in-

————— 3. Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 110.

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tellectual camps—refines the traditional division of the book into genuine “inner” (1–7), and later “outer” (8–22), and “miscellaneous” (23–33) chapters.4 He distinguishes “primitivist” chapters (8–11), presumably influenced by Laozi, from “Yangist” chapters (28, 29, 31), containing remnants of Yang Zhu’s teachings against which Mencius reacted so strongly; Chapters 12–16 are considered as “syncretist” in outlook as Chapter 33, which preserves some of Hui Shi’s doctrines. While the “primitivist” chapters sketch a vision of anarchic freedom and the desire to shake off the oppressive effects of the process of civilization, the “Yangist” chapters are characterized by a more self-centered concern for the preservation of one’s vital energies; the “syncretist” label is not so much an intellectual stance as a description of an eclectic attitude that lacks intellectual conviction. This lack of an intellectual agenda of the syncretist compilers of Zhuangzi is in part made responsible for Zhuangzi’s philosophical inconsistency. Although Liu Xiaogan has suggested similar subdivisions, he has done so with radically different conclusions.5 Unlike Graham, Liu sees the text as the summa of writings by the historical Zhuangzi and by a later Zhuangzian school. Thus, Liu sees in Graham’s “syncretist” figure an intellectual program, one that is closely related to the lineage of the historical Zhuangzi. More recently, Brian Hoffert has further pursued Liu’s argument by strongly emphasizing that the syncretist compilers intended to create a “Taoist classic” of Zhuangzian flavor.6 Hoffert sees the earliest traces of a school formed around or just after Zhuangzi’s death in what he calls the “Great Scope School” (dafangjia ) and the slightly later “Northern Darkness” lineage (beiming ). Hoffert’s analysis transforms Graham’s eclectic syncretist collector into an intellectually plausible thinker and committed transmitter of a Zhuangzian school lineage. This opens a radically new perspective on Zhuangzi and encourages its readers to look for a new level of similarities between the identified substrata of the text rather than to diagnose them as different intellectual programs.

————— 4. Graham, “How much of Chuang-tzu did Chuang-tzu write?” 5. Liu Xiaogan, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters. 6. Hoffert, “Chuang tzu: The Evolution of a Taoist Classic,” 347.

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Graham’s refined scheme of diverging intellectual stances in Zhuangzi has not prevented scholars from assuming and discussing an overarching message in the text. In particular, the question whether Zhuangzi encapsulates a skepticist or relativist thrust has received considerable attention. A collection entitled “Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in Zhuangzi” illustrates both the uneasiness many scholars sense in applying the label of skepticism to Zhuangzi as well as their desire to hold on to that qualification by introducing subtle nuances and subspecies of the term. While acknowledging a basic inseparability of message and medium, the editors of the volume confess that they chose to focus more on “philosophical content” than “literary form.”7 But it is difficult to exclude Zhuangzi’s sophisticated use of narrative strategies from questions of intellectual content. As Graham says, “There is no clear line between Chuangtzu as sophist and as poet finding words to abolish the distance between self and other.”8 It is paramount to understand that keeping “form” out of discussions of “content”—to use the editors’ terminology—is not a mere issue of a disciplinary power struggle between “literature” and “philosophy.” This interpretive move produces (and then reads from) an artificial second text, lodged in the realm of ideas freed from their formal embodiment. It constructs a formless mental representation of the text that displays intention and signification without linguistic representation. The desire to hold on to a fixed “intellectual content,” the skepticist message in Zhuangzi, is pronounced in the volume. It is instructive to survey some of the strategies proposed to accommodate any notion of skepticism within the discussion of Zhuangzi. Most essays introducing “weak” versions of skepticism are nevertheless eager to uphold the notion. Paul Kjellberg, for example, qualifies Zhuangzian skepticism as “aporetic” or “therapeutical” skepticism: Skeptical arguments might be thought of as ‘therapeutic’ rather than ‘conclusive,’ since their function is to cause a change in the listener rather than to prove a particular point. Aporetic skepticism of this sort, which deploys therapeutic arguments designed to generate uncertainty, is better understood as a philosophical

————— 7. Kjellberg and Ivanhoe, Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in Zhuangzi, xiv. 8. Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 184.

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practice, analyzed in terms of its methods and goals, than as a position in the usual sense.9

Eric Schwitzgebel finds an equally “therapeutic” use of skeptical arguments in Zhuangzi: By far the more common effect is a momentary twinge of doubt, a brief amusement, and eventually a willingness to concede that we probably do put more stock in our beliefs than they truly deserve. My position is that Zhuangzi appreciated all this. His skeptical arguments are not meant to be taken literally and are not intended to convert the reader to any sort of radical skepticism. Rather, what Zhuangzi sought to do with his skeptical arguments was to generate the more modest type of doubt that is the province of the everyday skeptic.10

Neither Kjellberg nor Schwitzgebel further qualify their arguments about Zhuangzi as propagating “everyday skepticism” or a “philosophical practice” rather than a “philosophical stance.” Although the terms are suggestive, it is unclear what kind of implications they would have for our reading of Zhuangzi, because the distinctions have little explanatory power for the world of Late Warring States China. Yet, Graham provides a quite suggestive qualification of the skeptical thrust in Zhuangzi: Chuang-tzu’s skepticism is not in itself a novelty for the Western reader, far from it; what is perhaps strange to him, in Chuang-tzu as in Nietzsche, is that there is no vertigo in the doubt, which pervades the most rhapsodic passages of a philosophical poet who seems always [. . .] to gaze on life and death with unwavering assurance.11

————— 9. Kjellberg, “Sextus Empiricus, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi on ‘Why be skeptical?’,” 20. For comparative purposes, I think that the cynics would make a fruitful parallel Greek case for Zhuangzi. If we are to believe Diogenes Laertius’ vivid picture of them in the sixth book of his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, they rejected logic, preached frugality, and with relish committed outrageous breaches of social decorum. Also, they were known as writers of humorous and coarse verses featuring people of lower social status such as servants, craftsmen, and women. Diogenes argues against the common opinion that they did not constitute a philosophical school at all, but merely preached a “way of life” (entasis biou). The ambivalent perception of their enterprise reflected in Diogenes’s argument seems to resonate well with the distinction between “philosophical practice” and “philosophical stance,” which Kjellberg introduces here in order to describe the skeptical thrust in Zhuangzi. 10. Schwitzgebel, “Zhuangzi’s Attitude toward Language and his Skepticism,” 91–92. 11. Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 186.

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As in the case of Nietzsche, there is something uncanny in the way Zhuangzi seems to move without impediment between nihilistic sarcasm or satire and affirmation of life and meaning. According to Graham, the absence of vertigo, of the panicky realization of the possibility of constant reduction ad absurdum, will be surprising to readers of Zhuangzi and Nietzsche alike. In this chapter I try to pinpoint the source of this puzzling “affirmative skepticism” that Graham detects in Zhuangzi. As a radical alternative to the epistemological reading of Zhuangzi as somehow “skeptical,” David Schaberg has recently suggested reading Zhuangzi as a collection of scripts belonging to a performance repertoire associated with the Chuci and the genre of rhapsodies ( fu ): [The] points of contact with fu and Chuci suggest that Zhuangzi, like these other works, may be read as records of a repertoire: as a collection of materials for persuasions, entertainments, and other verbal presentations. To characterize the work in this way is not to deny its philosophical importance or to remove it from its crucial place in accounts of early Chinese intellectual history: it does include much of the best philosophical reasoning known from early China. But closely reasoned and even playfully reasoned passages of philosophical argumentation are relatively rare in the work, and they are overshadowed by a surrounding mass of anecdotes and other material that, taken as a whole, shows more bulk than variety. [. . .] But from the perspective of Warring States and Western Han performance practice, including oratory and entertainment, the philosophical high points of the text are exceptional, not typical.12

Schaberg considers the repetitiveness of scenes, plots, and corresponding expressions as the strongest argument in support of his claim that Zhuangzi is the script of an oral repertoire. Yet, how can we distinguish repetition in Zhuangzi from repetition in other Masters Texts such as Mozi, where it is clearly related to reliance on and production of written texts? Why should the kind of repetitiveness we encounter in Zhuangzi point to an oral repertoire? Why should the formulaic and repetitive in general point to mimetic representations of an oral performance repertoire? On the example of the first chapter of Zhuangzi I attempt to show how repetition can be a consciously deployed rhetorical device, more a— potentially satirical—manipulation of tidbits of oral traditions than a

————— 12. Schaberg, “Economies of Scale in Zhuangzi.” Unpublished paper, 11.

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transcription of them. What Schaberg elegantly characterizes as “intellectual and imaginative stretching”13 is at times of such rhetorical and conceptual complexity that it is hard to imagine Zhuangzi as a conglomerate of oral performance pieces. Is Zhuangzi not often too freakish and uncanny to make for a successful storyteller repertoire? Also, the conceptual vocabulary used in Zhuangzi undeniably marks it as a lively participant in the internal polemics between various Masters Texts and traditions. Thus, speakers in Zhuangzi know all the tricks of the storyteller’s trade, but need to be seen as polemical rhetoricians who clearly want to join the conversation of Masters Literature. This chapter attempts to make Zhuangzi plausible from within the tradition of Masters Literature. Zhuangzi shares with Laozi an agenda to displace surrounding master discourses, especially those of the Confucians and Mohists, together with the Logicians (Mingjia , also translated as “Sophists”), whom we may consider related to the Mohist discourse. If Laozi developed modes of paradoxical speech for that purpose, Zhuangzi seems caught in a permanent dilemma, in the strong tension between the necessity of negating language and affirming the ineffability and the uselessness of language on the one hand, and a fierce urge to restore and affirm the power of language as the brilliant instrument of the persuader, entertainer, and imaginative polemicist on the other hand. This tension between the desire for negation and the urge for affirmative creation produces a host of Zhuangzi-typical strategies, of fictional solutions to the logical problem of paradox. In the balance of this chapter, I explore these strategies first at the level of rhetoric and then at the level of narrative form.

Shifting Pointers in Zhuangzi Logical and Spatial Pointers in “Discussion on Making Things Equal” The famous centerpiece of Zhuangzi, its Chapter 2, “Discussion on Making Things Equal” (Qi wu lun ), opens with Nanguo Ziqi’s powerful explanation of the pipes of Heaven and Earth and closes with Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream. In between, the text reflects on the thing that

————— 13. Ibid., 13.

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is language and castigates the blindness of Mohists and Confucians with their definite and mutually exclusive notions of what is “so” (shi ) and what is “not so” ( fei ). Deictic expressions such as “so” and “not so”— logical pointers—and “this” and “that”—spatial pointers—abound in the middle section of the chapter. While the logical pointers always meet with disapproval, the spatial pointers are more ambivalent. They can be coextensive with the logical pointers—as would be a statement “here” contradicted by another statement “over there”—but they can also refer more neutrally to different spatial positions that may co-exist. The logical pointers are indeed irreconcilable; they are binary, discrete, and do not allow for an in-between. The spatial pointers, in contrast, allow for a continuum between the “this here” and “that there.” This different nature of the pointers is fully exploited for the text’s argument: The Way is obscured if by a petty scale; words are hidden by flowery flourishes. Therefore we have the “so’s” and “not so’s” of the Confucians and Mohists, each claiming that what others say is “not so” is indeed “so,” each claiming that what others say is “so” is indeed “not so.” If you want to claim that what others say is “not so” is indeed “so” and that what others say is “so” is indeed “not so,” the best thing is to use clarity. Every thing is a “that there”; every thing is a “so” [or: a “this here”]. From the perspective of “that there,” it is invisible; from the perspective of true understanding, it can be understood. This is why we say that “that there” grows out of “this here” and “this here” is also contingent on “that there.” This is saying that “that other” and “this here” arise together.14 , . , . , . , . , . , . .

The mutually exclusive claims to a single truth, which for the one is “so,” but for the other is “not so,” can only be resolved by clarity (ming ). It is significant that throughout the chapter a vocabulary of illumination and clarity promises proper judgment of the contradictory claims of the Confucian and Mohist factions. After making this point, the text suggests that we can avoid the irreconcilable “so’s” and “not so’s” by retreating into their spatial counterparts: shi—until now used in the meaning of “that is so, that is right”—is also used as the spatial pointer “this here” in contrast

————— 14. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 56.

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to “that over there” (bi ). Space allows for inclusion, for a vantage point that transcends itself, that makes it possible to comprehend the continuum of space. After making this crucial move of conflating the logical with the spatial in the word shi, the text continues: A contingent “so” is a contingent “not so”; a contingent “not so” is a contingent “so.” And this being so, the Sage does not go this way but instead reveals it in the light of Heaven—which is also a contingent “so.” “This” is also “that other;” “that other” is also “this.” “That other” is a unity comprehending “so” and “not so”; “this here” is also a unity comprehending “so” and “not so.” Is there really a “that other” and “this,” or is there no “that other” and “this”? When “that other” and “this” can no longer find their complement, we call it the “Pivot of the Way.” And only when the pivot finds the very center of the ring can it respond and never be used up. The “so’s” are one of the things never used up; the “not so’s” are another of the things never used up. Therefore I say that the best thing is to use clarity.”15 , . , , . , . , . ? ? , . , . , . .

Now we not only hear that the liberating “clarity” is the light from Heaven, whose manipulation the Sage understands, but that the logical and the spatial pointers are placed into a new mutual relationship. The word shi is now replaced with ci , thus marking the contrast between the logical and spatial pointers, and the two spatial pointers are each taken to embrace the binary logical pair of “so” and “not so.” In other words, both the “this” and the “that over there” have a “so” and a “not so.” If we add this mise en abyme effect, where the logical dyad is contained in each spatial pointer, to the conflation of shi and fei and shi and bi in the previous paragraph, the result is that binary oppositions are resolved into a middle ground, here called “Pivot of the Way” (daoshu ). The obsessive use of deictic expressions in the previous passages has put considerable strain on the reader’s patience, and even while proposing

————— 15. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 58. Translation modified from Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature, 116.

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a solution by two different ways of combining logical and spatial pointers, the text has also prepared the reader to ultimately let go of the pointers altogether: To use a finger pointing out to convey the lesson that pointing out is not pointing out is not as good as using a non-pointing out to convey the lesson that a pointing out is not pointing out. Or to use a horse to convey the lesson that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to convey the lesson that a horse is not a horse. Heaven-and-Earth are a single case of pointing out. And the thousands and thousands of things are a single horse.16 , ; , . , .

After the text has played around with deictic expressions and their shifting references, we come to a preliminary closure of the argument. Once horses enter the scene, it becomes obvious that this part of the “Qiwu lun” Chapter picks a fight with two chapters from Gongsun Longzi , namely “Discussion on the White Horse” (Baima lun ) and “Discussion on Pointers and Things” (Zhiwu lun ).17 Gongsun Longzi’s “Zhiwu lun” ruminates on the relationship between linguistic “pointers” and their references, while Zhuangzi’s “Qi wu lun” takes aim at the people who fingerpoint. Although up to the penultimate phrase, Zhuangzi had persuasively inhabited the technical terminology of Gongsun Longzi, the closing sentence holds a hilarious surprise: “Heavenand-Earth are a single case of pointing out. And the thousands and thousands of things are a single horse.” The combination of “Heaven” and “Earth” into a single concept, a single “pointer” constituted antithetically, would sound reasonable to Gongsun Long, but the parallel between zhi and ma restores a more corporeal meaning of zhi that undermines

————— 16. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 58–59. Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature, 116. 17. The five surviving chapters of the Gongsun Longzi are the only integral chapters surviving from the “School of Names” or Logicians (Mingjia). Since we will continue to encounter the paradoxes of the “white horse” and of “hard and white” as examples of fruitless sophistry in other Masters Texts, I give the chapter titles here: Chapter 2, “Discussion on the White Horse” (Baima lun); Chapter 3, “Discussion on Pointers and Things” (Zhi wu lun); Chapter 4, “Discussion on Continuity and Change” (Tong bian lun ); Chapter 5, “Discussion on Hard and White” ( Jian bai lun ); Chapter 6, “Discussion on Names and Realities” (Ming shi lun ).

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the seriousness in the tone of this passage. Based on that parallel we would translate: “Heaven-and-Earth are a single finger. And the thousands and thousands of things are a single horse.” This witty double entendre is certainly playing a joke on the pretentiousness of technical parlance—at the expense of people like Gongsun Long. Yet, the tongue-in-cheek closure to the passage should not distract us from the fact that the mise en abyme of conflated spatial and logical pointers is a serious argument in itself, a “better” solution to the issues Gongsun Longzi cares about. Zhuangzi brilliantly blurs the line between parodic assault and the art of sophistical dialectics and at the same time delights in walking that fine line. It is the reader who has to deal with the ambivalent messages: if he discovers at the end of this passage—after laboriously attempting to think his way through all the “so,” “not-so’s” and “over theres”—that he has been taken in by Zhuangzi’s jibe at Gongsun Longzi, he gets a good laugh out of it, not just about Gongsun Longzi, but at the readerly earnestness with which he had sought true comprehension of the text. At the same time, following the suggestive conflation of spatial and logical pointers, the reader is presented with a solution that may just make Zhuangzi the better logician. Further down in the chapter, Zhuangzi explains why the sophists have only false understanding: Zhao Wen playing on his harp, Music Master Kuang supported by his staff, the sophist Hui-zi leaning braced on his armrest of beechwood—three masters whose knowledge was so close! It swelled to fullness in all of them, and they carried it to the end of their years. Yet in their passion for it, they took it as different from what was other; in their passion for it, they wanted to shed light on it. What was other was not placed in the light when they shed light on something, and thus they ended up in obscurities of “hard” and “white” [. . . T]he Sage takes measures against the glare of slick bewilderments. He does not practice “taking things as so” but gives them a place in the general. This is called “shedding light.”18 , , , , , . , , ,

————— 18. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 66. Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature, 117–18.

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Zhuangzi and the Art of Negation .

.

,

,

. [ . . .] .

243 ,

The harp-player Zhao Wen, the musician Kuang, and Zhuangzi’s friend the sophist Huizi, end up in benightedness and “obscurity” (mei ) precisely because they are so eager to “shed light” on things (ming ). Their eagerness and passion (hao ) lead them to distinguish an “other” (bi ) from their own standpoint and they try to shed light on this “other.” Obviously, they shed the light from their viewpoint only, which according to Zhuangzi is not a proper use of light for the illumination of “the other.” The light, which Zhuangzi propagates as a solution to the problem of artificial distinctions, is not a localizable light source at all, but a sort of surround-light emanating from Heaven—as mentioned in a previous passage in Zhuangzi—that is controllable from a middle, “mean” ( yong ) position in which the sagely observer dwells. The sagely eye is non-perspectival. Thus here, we see a distinction between the sophists’ improper manipulation of light—that is only from one perspective—and the sage’s use of light from a non-perspectival center of vision. To get a more palpable impression of this strange non-perspectival middle position, let us look at one of the anecdotes that follow the essayistic exposition in Chapter 2. We find Master Mynah (Ququezi ) and Master Tallbeech (Changwuzi ) in vivid argument about the nature of the Way. Master Mynah—one of those creatures that embodies mindless chattiness in Zhuangzi—utters some trite statements about the grandness of the Way. Thereupon, he receives a scolding for his ignorance from Master Tallbeech—true to the substance of the punning between “wood,” “material” (cai ) and “talent,” “substance” (cai ). Tallbeech makes the same point as the “Butterfly dream” (which immediately follows the story of Masters Mynah and Tallbeech), namely that we can never know whether we are dreaming or we are just dreaming about dreaming. Then, he draws an analogy to the nature of knowledge. Nobody can decide which of two diverging opinions is right or wrong. Drawing in a third party does not change the situation, because an outsider will approach the decision with his own preconceptions, favoring one or the other not out of knowledge but out of personal preference. This being the case,

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[N]either you nor I nor anyone else can decide for each other. Shall we wait for still another person? But waiting for one shifting voice [to pass judgment on] an other is the same as waiting for none of them. Harmonize them all with the Heavenly Equality, leave them to their endless changes, and so live out your years. What do I mean by harmonizing them with the Heavenly Equality? Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument. Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!19 , ? ? : , . , ; , . , . , , . , , .

The “boundless” (wujing ) seems to refer to the middle position previously expressed as “Pivot of the Way” (daoshu) or “the mean” (yong). This expression of boundlessness is an interesting variation, because it turns the “middle position” inside out, transforming the most centered into the most peripheral. The solution Master Tallbeech proposes in order to gain clarity is to leap into limitless space, ultimately beyond space altogether. So far we have seen two major steps designed to liberate us from false claims to definite truths. First Zhuangzi projects the binary logical pointers of “so” and “not so,” over which other masters fight endlessly, onto a spatial continuum of a “here” and “there.” Although the spatial differentiation between “here” and “there” could be equally erroneous, if conflated with a “so” and “not so” as in the case of the sophist Huizi, it allows Zhuangzi to imagine a “middle position,” placatingly lodged in the center of the continuum between “here” and “there.” In a second step, visible both in the passage on Huizi’s false understanding and in the anecdote of Master Mynah and Master Tallbeech, the middle space is despatialized and transformed into an absolute space, devoid of perspective, where the center and the limitless periphery coincide.

————— 19. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 91. Watson, Complete Works of Chuang-tzu, 48–49.

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Fleshing out Shifting Pointers: Space, Travel, and Understanding Gaining enlightened understanding as one travels through space is a recurrent motif in Zhuangzi. This particular kind of wisdom roaming is emblematic of Late Warring States and Early Han ascension literature, in which initiated practitioners claim or show their control over the cosmos through self-cultivation and the mastering of specific techniques. It is also a prominent motif in the Chuci tradition. In the centerpiece of the Chuci, “Encountering Sorrow,” the speaker—presumably the loyal minister Qu Yuan lamenting the lack of appreciation from the king of Chu—sets out to look for a mate, a soul-mate, but does not succeed in his pursuit, despite traveling through all of Heaven and Earth. The cosmic travelogues contained in the Chuci have been considered late traces of archaic shamanistic spirit travels. However, Michael Puett has recently argued convincingly that the itineraria should be read in the context of divinization discourses that arose in the Late Warring States.20 According to Puett, the variation of the travel motif in the “Ten Questions” from the Mawangdui materials, in parts of the outer chapters of Zhuangzi, and in “Far Roaming” (Yuanyou ) from the Chuci all share a program of self-cultivation similar to the “Inner workings” (Neiye ) chapter of the Guanzi, which promises the practitioner arrogation of divine powers and control over the cosmos. Puett argues that the spirit travels constitute a radicalization of these self-divinization discourses, because they do not focus on the control of the cosmos, but on the liberation of the spirit from bodily form, opening the doors for a dualism between “form” and “spirit.” Puett shows that, even if the motif of spirit travels had earlier roots—“Encountering Sorrow” might be such an earlier formulation preceding the rise of self-cultivation literature—the motif was radically transformed, if not reinvented, in the Late Warring States and Early Han context of self-divinization discourses.21

————— 20. See Puett, To Become a God, Chapter 5, “The Ascension of the Spirit: Liberation, Spirit Journeys and Celestial Wanderings.” 21. With the Han, the travel motif continued its history of quite diverse applications and variations, especially in the genre of rhapsodies ( fu ). Some pieces use the travel trope as a hyperbolic praise (or hyperbolic satire) of imperial power—like Sima Xiangru’s “Rhapsody on the Great Man” (Daren fu ). In the Eastern Han Ban Biao’s

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Below I analyze some uses of the travel motif in Zhuangzi, focusing on formulations of the motif that seem to be specific responses to this historical context. After looking at travel in the first chapter of Zhuangzi, “Free and Easy Wandering” (Xiaoyao you ), we explore radical variations on the travel motif—where travel becomes a sign of ignorance, not of spiritual accomplishment and enlightenment. More than anything else, the negative variations suggest that Zhuangzi consciously experiments with the travel motif, rather than just echoing surrounding discourses. Arguably Chapter 1 is a proleptic illustration of Chapter 2, a fleshed out, narrativized form of the shift from logical to spatial pointers suggested in that chapter. At first there seems to be little resemblance between the two chapters, because the main focus in the first chapter is not on travel and because the traveling creature is the bird Peng, not an adept of specific self-cultivation techniques. In suggestive ways, the voice of the narrator in the beginning of Chapter 1 is a perfect instantiation of the sage’s dwelling in a “middle position,” from where he is aware of both the traveling, aweinspiring Peng bird and the narrow-minded, ignorant dove: In the Northern Darkness there is a fish named Kun. The Kun is so huge that no one knows how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird named Peng. No one knows how many thousand li the back of the Peng bird measures. When he rises up to fly, his wings are like clouds covering the sky. When the sea begins to move, this bird sets off for the Southern Darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven.22 , . , . , . , ; , . , . , .

————— (3–54) “Rhapsody on Traveling North” (Beizheng fu ) transposes the itinerary from air to land, such that the experience of cosmic awareness is reduced to the earthly proportions of travel adventures. Sun Chuo’s (ca. 314–371) “Roaming the Tiantai Mountain Ridge” (You Tiantai shan fu ) superimposes the travel to a real place—the whole mountain of Tiantai Buddhism—with the search for Daoist immortality and Buddhist enlightenment. Yet, the cosmic thrust of the travel motif had also a powerful influence on descriptions of the creative process of poetry composition since Lu Ji’s (261–303) “Rhapsody on Literature” (Wen fu ). 22. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 1 (“Xiaoyao you”) 3–4. Modified from Watson, 29.

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The speaker here is both ignorant and knowledgeable. He does not know the length and the wing-span of the Kun fish and the Peng bird, but he can claim positive expertise in topography and names. In Laozi, namelessness and erasure of time and place are powerful forces helping a sage to restore primordiality and lay claim to a deeper truth, but the first act of the speaker in the opening of Zhuangzi is to determine places and names: the fish Kun, the bird Peng, the Northern and the Southern Darkness, the Lake of Heaven. Up until this point, we find ourselves in the landscape of a mythical narrative, a narrative that creates and arranges figures, placing them emblematically in a mythical present. We expect the entrance of other protagonists or of symbolic moments of crisis and dénouement. To our surprise, however, the text goes on to replay the same beginning by framing it as a quotation from some unknown book of marvels: The Universal Harmony records various wonders, saying: “When the Peng journeys to the Southern Darkness, the waters are roiled for three thousand li. He beats the whirlwind and rises ninety thousand li, setting off on the sixth-month gale.” Wavering heat, bits of dust, living things blowing each other about. The sky looks very blue—is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and reaches no end? When the bird looks down, all he sees is blue, too.23 , . : , , , . , , . , ? ? , .

Zhuangzi quotes extremely rarely from other texts, and when it does, it seems to invent miraculous sources in order to ridicule the very concept of adducing texts to legitimize a claim.24 Here the invention of an imaginary quotation is parodical and programmatic. The title of the work Universal Harmony (Qixie ) resonates with “making things equal” (qiwu ), the title of Chapter 2. That the work supposedly records “wonders” or “oddities” ( guai ) seems quite in line with the numerous stories empowering freaks, cripples, and wondrous creatures in Zhuangzi. The

————— 23. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 1 (“Xiaoyao you”), 6. Modified from Watson, 29. 24. One of the most entertaining examples is the story of grave-robbers in Chapter 26, “Considering Things External” (Waiwu ), who outrageously recite imaginary stanzas from the Book of Poetry while going about their ignominious business.

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imaginary book seems a mouthpiece of Zhuangzi, and the trope of textual authority is this time a bit more seriously intended, or at least it is as visionary as it is imaginary, the meticulous indications of time and size support that glimmer of serious intention. While such petty positive knowledge would probably be satirized in many other contexts in Zhuangzi, it has a more complex role in this passage. It does indeed assert the incredible nature of these creatures and thus validates the initial story in a way that would be out of the question in other contexts in Zhuangzi. After some further praise of the navigation skills of the Peng bird, the text shifts to a close-up of an audience that suddenly appears on stage as the listeners to the opening tale. As if being entertained by a storyteller with a chatty audience, we hear a cicada and a dove making fun of the Peng bird story: The cicada and the little dove laugh at this, saying, “When we make an effort to fly up, we can get as far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don’t make it and just fall down on the ground. Now, how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the South!” If you go off to the green woods nearby, you can take along food for three meals and come back with your stomach as full as ever. If you are going a hundred li, you must grind your grain the night before; and if you are going a thousand li, you must start getting the provisions together three months in advance. What do these two creatures understand? Little understanding doesn’t measure up to great understanding; the short-lived don’t measure up to the long-lived.25 : , , , ? , , ; , ; , . ! , .

Now a third voice joins the conversation and derides the cicada and the dove, who have been mocking the storyteller’s opening. This third voice is a narrator who does not so much comment on the Kun fish and Peng bird as point to the narrowmindedness of the two mediocre creatures. Put into the language of the pointers in Chapter 2, the narrator does not conceive of the Peng bird and Kun fish as something “other” (bi). Quite to the contrary, in the second paragraph he glides along with the bird’s perspective, inhabiting the all-encompassing vision the bird enjoys from high above.

————— 25. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 1 (“Xiaoyao you”), 10. Modified from Watson, 30.

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As if the double telling of the story through a storyteller voice in the beginning and a quotation from a book of wonders were not enough, the text prepares itself for a third retelling of the story of the Kun fish and Peng bird: Among the questions of Tang to Qi we find the same thing. In the bald and barren North, there is a dark sea, the Lake of Heaven. In it is a fish which is several thousand li across, and no one knows how long. His name is Kun. There is also a bird there, named Peng, with a back like Mount T’ai and wings like clouds filling the sky. He beats the whirlwind, leaps into the air, and rises up ninety thousand li, cutting through the clouds and mist, shouldering the blue sky, and then he turns his eyes south and prepares to journey to the Southern Darkness. The little quail laughs at him, saying, “Where does he think he’s going? I give a great leap and fly up, but I never get more than ten or twelve yards before I come down fluttering among the weeds and brambles. And that’s the best kind of flying anyway! Where does he think he’s going?” Such is the difference between big and little.26 . , . , , , . , , , , , , , , . : ? , , , . ? .

This third retelling is a synthesis of the previous two. It integrates some of the additional information from the imaginary book into the storyteller fable, but it also integrates the quail’s reaction directly into the framing opening tale. From the fact that the questions of the mythical sage Emperor Tang to Qi are not rendered in dialogue but are paraphrased through the voice of the narrator, we get a sense that the third retelling bundles the various versions through the connecting awareness of the narrator. And in this new version of the narrator, the quail points towards the Peng bird with the derogatory connotation of the pointer bi , “that guy over there.” The quail commits the same error as Huizi in Chapter 2, who by “othering” (bi) another person or position shows a lack of broader understanding. In conclusion to our reading through parts of the first chapter, we should note that it is not vast travel per se that yields penetrating under-

————— 26. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 1 (“Xiaoyao you”), 15–16. Watson, 30–31.

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standing, but the awareness of multiple dimensions of space and the ability to empathize with both the quail and the Peng bird that is the hallmark of a sagely “middle position.” The quail is ignorant not only because of its limited horizon, but, more importantly, because it “others” the Peng bird even after hearing a tale about expanding horizons. In other words, the quail fails to believe a narrative that could remedy its narrowmindedness; it resists the storyteller’s offer to expand its horizon and is ignorant because it chooses to remain ignorant. The role of the Peng bird is much more intricate. The Peng bird is a protagonist of greatness because it inhabits space at its most vast. But it is also marked as superior, because its actions are unselfconscious—mindless in the best sense of the word. This greatness is primal, predating the awareness of difference, the awareness of anything else than the coinciding with itself. In contrast, the narrator—aware of all protagonists in the various stories—only gradually acquires greater understanding because he proves in the third synthesizing retelling of the bird story to achieve an all-pervasive awareness of the different experiences of space—both small and great, ignorant and wise. In this sense, the narrator’s ability to hover between these two positions describes the “middle ground” that does not reconcile two different positions, but transcends them with a comprehensive awareness. Only in the third retelling does this position finally emerge. And as in Chapter 2, where the move from the escape into space to the escape beyond space marks the wisdom of the sage, the narrative line proceeds from a spatial setting—the storyteller scene, with a responding audience—to the integrating consciousness of the narrator when he retells the gist of the two previous versions and explains superior understanding and its acquisition. Thus the repetition of the Peng bird story in the first chapter is a systematically deployed stylistic device that mimics the process of gaining deeper understanding rather than the random accretion of an oral performance repertoire. It is also a highly sophisticated and defamiliarized variation on the travel motif: the greatest, ideal traveler would be the “mindless” bird Peng, but the next best “spirit traveler” is the narrator who learns to integrate in his consciousness the whole spectrum of experiences of spatiality in a middle position.

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The Wrong Kind of Travel: Sir Knowledge Goes Astray Travel through vast space seems a propitious method of gaining superior understanding in Zhuangzi; yet, in rare variations of the travel motif, travel can also lead astray. Chapter 22 of Zhuangzi selects an extremely clever setting for imagining this quite exceptional counter-scenario. Knowledge wandered north to the banks of the Black Waters, climbed the Knoll of Hidden Heights, and there by chance came upon Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing. Knowledge said to Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing, “There are some things I’d like to ask you. What sort of pondering, what sort of cogitation does it take to know the Way? What sort of surroundings, what sort of practices does it take to find rest in the Way? What sort of path, what sort of way will get me to the Way?” Three questions he asked, but Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing didn’t answer. It wasn’t that he just didn’t answer—he didn’t know how to answer! Knowledge, failing to get any answer, returned to the White Waters of the South, climbed the summit of Dubiety Dismissed, and there caught sight of Wild-and-Witless. Knowledge put the same questions to Wild-and-Witless. “Ah—I know!” said Wild-and-Witless. “And I’m going to tell you.” But just as he was about to say something, he forgot what it was he was about to say. Knowledge, failing to get any answer, returned to the imperial palace, where he was received in audience by the Yellow Emperor, and posed his questions. The Yellow Emperor said, “Only when there is no pondering and no cogitation will you get to know the Way. Only when you have no surroundings and follow no practices will you find rest in the Way. Only when there is no path and no way can you get to the Way.”27 , , . : : ? ? ? , , . , , , . . : ! , , . , , . : , , .

All the protagonists involved and landscapes depicted in this episode are self-referential. Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing (Wuweiwei ) does

————— 27. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 805. Modified from Watson, 234–35.

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nothing and says nothing; therefore it lives concealed at the “Knoll of Hidden Heights” (Yinfen zhi qiu ). Wild-and-Witless (Kuangqu ) is irresponsibly forgetful and thus lives close to the Doubt-Dismissing Summit (Hukai zhi shang ). Sir Knowledge travels in pursuit of understanding and wisdom, as in the common version of the travel motif. Only the Yellow Emperor is not a self-referential figure, but acts as a double placeholder. First, he plays the role of the first degree negator of the ignorant Sir Knowledge. His answers Sir Knowledge’s triplet of questions merely by inserting negation particles into the words used in Sir Knowledge’s questions. By adding negation particles to Sir Knowledge’s phrases, he is already superior to Sir Knowledge. His second role is that of an impersonator of Laozi sayings. His long-winded exposition about the nature of the Way is a patchwork of phrases from Laozi about how true wisdom does not speak, how true practice of the Way cannot be put into practice, but leaves nothing undone.28 The Yellow Emperor closes on a self-deprecating gesture: Now that we’ve already become “things,” if we want to return again to the Root, I’m afraid we’ll have a hard time of it! The Great Man—he’s the only one who might find it easy.29 , , ! , !

Although the Yellow Emperor is superior to Sir Knowledge—on a first level as the first degree negator and on a higher level as the impersonator of Laozi wisdom—he is aware that he can never equal the two others. Sir Knowledge is puzzled at why the Yellow Emperor thinks so poorly of his own powers of understanding:

————— 28. Graham sees the treatment of knowledge in this chapter in sharp contrast to the treatment in chapters from the “Grand Scope School” that play on the conventional positive connotation of travel through the vastness of space. He even titles this chapter “Irrationalizing the Way.” See A. C. Graham, Chuang-tzu, 158. Graham reads the Yellow Emperor in this chapter as an “unenlightened wordmonger.” I agree, however, with Brian Hoffert, that the Yellow Emperor plays a more positive role and utters what are taken to be correct pronouncements about the Way, and that the chapter is later than, but continuous with, the “Great Scope school” lineage and shows a different way of talking about knowledge, not a different take on the nature of knowledge. See Hoffert, “Chuang tzu. The Evolution of a Taoist Classic,” 161–63. 29. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 806. Watson, 235.

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Knowledge said to the Yellow Emperor, “I asked Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing and he didn’t reply to me. It wasn’t that he merely didn’t reply to me—he didn’t know how to reply to me. I asked Wild-and-Witless and he was about to explain to me, though he didn’t explain anything. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t explain to me—but when he was about to explain, he forgot what it was. Now I have asked you and you know the answer. Why then do you say that you are nowhere near being right?” The Yellow Emperor said, “Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing is the one who is truly right—because he doesn’t know. Wild-and-Witless appears to be so—because he forgets. But you and I in the end are nowhere near it—because we know.” Wildand-Witless heard of the incident and concluded that the Yellow Emperor knew what he was talking about.30 : , , , . , , , . , , ? : , ; , ; , . , .

The Yellow Emperor puts himself on the same level as Sir Knowledge. Considering that he is superior anyway—not the least by being the Yellow Emperor—to Sir Knowledge, the gap between both of them on the one hand and “Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing” and “Wild-and-Witless” on the other hand increases dramatically. Still, the Yellow Emperor is sensible enough to appear reasonable to Wild-and-Witless. Even if he cannot measure up to Wild-and-Witless or Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing, he is good with words (zhi yan ) and, because he understands and can describe the gap between them and himself, is a better version of Sir Knowledge, namely a “Sir Knowledge with Words.” Looking back at the story as a whole, we have to ask ourselves: what is wrong with Sir Knowledge? Why does his spatial pursuit of understanding fail? First of all, symbolically, he sets out in the wrong direction, namely north and not south as the Peng bird does in Chapter 1.31 Second, unlike the self-referentiality of the other protagonists, his is detrimental

————— 30. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 809. Watson, 236. 31. Traveling south appears to be the right direction in major travelogues of the Chuci: in “Encountering Sorrow” Qu Yuan has to go south to seek enlightenment from Emperor Shun and Shaman Xian. The adept in “Far Roaming” is also heading south for his Daoist instruction.

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because it is blind to itself. As we just saw in the closure of the story, “knowing how to use words” (zhi yan) is a laudable quality; but “Sir Knowledge’s pursuit of knowledge” is ruinous. Knowledge has to stay away from a conscious pursuit of itself. Once it turns self-referential it will lose itself in conscious, artificial action. As it appears from this story, a major exception to the gaining of understanding and knowledge through travel is the travel of “Knowledge” itself. However, there are other things that can go awry with travel, not just the game of self-referentiality. Travel will be futile if one merely chases after transient things and stops at the wrong hostels along the way. In an anecdote in the same chapter, Yan Hui asks Confucius, Master, I have heard you say that there should be no going after anything, no welcoming anything. May I venture to ask how to travel in such realms?32 : : , . .

Yan Hui, Confucius’s favorite disciple, asks quite simply for travel advice, for how best to travel ( you ): Confucius said, “The men of old changed on the outside but not on the inside. The men of today change on the inside but not on the outside. The one who changes along with things is identical to the one who does not change. Where is there change? Where is there no change? Where is there any friction with others? Never will he treat others with arrogance. But Xiwei had his park, the Yellow Emperor his garden, Shun his palace, Tang and Wu their halls. And among gentlemen there were those like Confucians and Mohists who became “teachers.” As a result, people began using their “rights” and “wrongs” to push each other around. And how much worse are the men of today!33 : , , , . , . , , . , , , . , , , !

————— 32. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 847. Modified from Watson, 246. 33. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 847. Modified from Watson, 246.

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In a hilarious indulgence in anachronism, Confucius warns against those who became known as his followers, the “Confucians,” and their rivals, the Mohists. Confucius draws an analogy between the harm done by the palaces and gardens of early emperors and mythical figures and the harm inflicted by the emergence of rival masters. That the emergence of rival schools led to the development of competing truth claims is evidence enough that Confucius here disapproves of the settled way of life, the antithesis of travel and roaming. To sketch a counter vision, he raves about beautiful travel vistas: The mountains and forests, the hills and fields fill us with overflowing delight and we are joyful. Our joy has not ended when grief comes trailing it. We have no way to bar the arrival of grief and joy, no way to prevent them from departing. Alas, the men of this world are no more than travelers, stopping now at this inn, now at that, all of them run by “things.” They know the things they happen to encounter, but not those that they have never encountered. They know how to do the things they can do, but they can’t do the things they don’t know how to do. Not to know, not to be able to do—from these mankind can never escape. And yet there are those who struggle to escape from the inescapable—can you help but pity them? Perfect speech is the abandonment of speech; perfect action is the abandonment of action. To be limited to understanding only what is understood—this is shallow indeed!34 ! ! ! , . , , . , ! , . , . , ! , . , .

Right after Confucius evokes the type of charming travel scenery that delights the human heart, he allows grief to take over: people stay in the wrong hostels (lü )—they settle in things (wei wu ni lü ) along the way of life. Interestingly, the transience of life and fortune is described not so much through the image of travel as through the idea of “settling” along the way. If we ask how Confucius answers Yan Hui’s initial question about the right way of “traveling,” we may look to the closure to the entire “Knowl-

————— 34. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi bei you”), 847. Watson, 247.

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edge traveling north” chapter for resolution. “To be limited to understanding only what is understood—this is shallow indeed!” Confucius’s voice once more drives home the point about the ill-conceived notion of Sir Knowledge in pursuit of himself. Self-referential knowledge, knowledge that is confined to itself, is stifling. And even if the travel motif is evoked—both in Zhuangzi and in later Chinese literature—mostly to celebrate the synergy between space, roaming, and deeper cosmic understanding, Zhuangzi relishes in these thought experiments the opportunity to point to the limitations of the affirmative use of the motif.

Incarnation of “Shifting Pointers” in Language: the “Goblet Words” The Yellow Emperor scores points with Wild-and-Witless for his understanding of words and the art of speaking. In contrast to proclamations in Laozi, Zhuangzi often sets positive store by the use of language, at least provisionally. Thus it is not surprising that Chapter 27 contains a famous self-exegesis of Zhuangzi’s use of language. It describes three types of words: “Allegorical words” make up nine tenths of it; “repeated words” make up seven tenths of it; “goblet words” come forth day after day, harmonizing things in the Heavenly Equality.35 , , , .

From ensuing explanations of these three we can infer that “allegorical words” refers to narrative that uses parables, ventriloquizing various fictional or real speakers for one’s own message. “Repeated words”—or “weighty words”—refers to authoritative speech, quoting and citing books or the words of authoritative persons. The “goblet words” are much more difficult to grasp. Instead of asking what they mean, I will instead analyze how they are described: With these goblet words that come forth day after day, I harmonize all things in the Heavenly Equality, leave them to their endless changes, and so live out my years. As long as I do not say anything about them, they are equal. But if I equalize them through speaking they are not equal, if I speak of them to equalize them

————— 35. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 27 (“Yu yan”), 1089. Modified from Watson, 303.

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they are not equal. Therefore I say, we must have no-words! With words that are no-words, you may speak all your life long and you will never have said anything. Or you may go through your whole life without speaking them, in which case you will never have stopped speaking. [. . .] If there were no goblet words coming forth day after day to harmonize all by the Heavenly Equality, then how could I survive for long? The ten thousand things all come from the same seed, and with their different forms they give place to one another. Beginning and end are part of a single ring and no one can comprehend its principle. This is called Heaven the Equalizer, which is the same as the Heavenly Equality.36 , , , . , , , . , , ; , . , , ! , , , , . .

Because the zhi-goblet is a receptacle that tips when brimming over and adjusts automatically to a perfect water level, Graham translates the “goblet words” suggestively as “spillover sayings.” Quite visually, the “goblet words” constitute a device that naturally restores balance and inhabits the middle plumb line. Not surprisingly, the explanation of the “goblet words” resonates strongly with Chapter 2, “Discussion on Making Things Equal”: we may remember that Master Tallbeech advised Master Mynah, when talking about the Way, with exactly the same dictum of “harmonizing things in the Heavenly Equality” (he yi tianni ). Also, the precarious balance between words and equality of meaning, that is words that speak truly, is at the heart of Chapter 2. In that sense we may say that the middle part of Chapter 2 is a performance of, or a fine sample of, goblet words.37

————— 36. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 27 (“Yu yan”), 1089–90. Modified from Watson, 304–5. 37. Wai-yee Li also sees the “goblet words” as a “new style of philosophical language” that is experimented with in Chapter 2. See “On Making Noise in Qi wu lun,” 93. There are various textual clues that suggest a close relationship between Chapters 2 and 27. The quoted passage is followed by a paragraph that is almost identical to a part of “Discussion on Making Things Equal”: “There is that which makes things acceptable, there is that which makes things unacceptable; there is that which makes things so, there is that which makes things not so. What makes them so? Making them so makes them so. What makes them not so? Making them not so makes them not so. What makes them acceptable? Making them acceptable makes them acceptable. What makes them not acceptable? Making them not acceptable makes them not acceptable. Things all must have that which is

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Obviously, “goblet words” resonate most with Zhuangzi’s attempt to escape from logical pointers into a spatial continuum, where the sage can freely move back and forth like the zhi-goblet, which thanks to the force of gravity always swings back to the perfectly balanced middle position. Yet, in the description of Zhuangzi’s use of words in Chapter 33, “All Under Heaven” (tianxia ), which parades various thought schools and pre-Qin Masters, Master Zhuang is credited with all three abovementioned types of words: The ten thousand things ranged all around us, not one of them worthy to be singled out as our destination; there were those in ancient times who believed that the “art of the Way” lay in these things. Zhuang Zhou heard of their views and delighted in them. He expounded them in odd and outlandish terms, in brash and bombastic language, in unbound and unbordered phrases, abandoning himself to the times without partisanship, not looking at things from one angle only. He believed that the world was drowned in turbidness and that it was impossible to address it in sober language. So he used “goblet words” to pour out endless changes, “repeated words” to give a ring of truth, and “allegorical words” to impart greater breadth. He alone came and went with the pure spirit of Heaven and Earth, yet he did not view the ten thousand things with arrogant eyes. He did not scold over “right” and “wrong,” but lived with the age and its vulgarity.38 , , . , , , , , . , , , , . , , .

Zhuangzi’s use of “goblet words,” “weighty words” (in Watson’s translation “repeated words”), and “imputed words” is a response to a turbid, decadent world. These types of words ought to restore balance to a world

————— so; things all must have that which is acceptable. There is nothing that is not so, nothing that is not acceptable.”

Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 27 (“Yu yan”), 1089–90. Watson, 304. For the parallel passage see Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 2 (“Qi wu lun”), 61. Watson, 40. 38. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 33 (“Tianxia”), 1344. Modified from Watson, 373. The emphasis is mine.

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out of order, bringing back a body that roams freely, ears that perceive the ring of truth, and eyes that possess breadth of vision. The florid description of Zhuangzi’s teachings and use of language leads back to our previous point that resolution into a spatial dimension enables escape from irreconcilable contradictions. Zhuangzi recalls those people of higher antiquity who believe that there is room only for travel, not for “return to a single destination” ( gui ); Zhuangzi’s wording is “boundless” (wuduan ): he does not just judge things from one fixed spot in space (bu yi qi jian zhi ye ), his “allegorical words” restore breadth and his “goblet words” enable free movement along with change; he does not labor over the logical pointers of “so” and “not so” (shi fei), but instead comes and goes with the spirit of Heaven and Earth.39 Returning now to Chapter 27, it is significant that the first anecdote illustrating the use of goblet words—the liberation from fixed opinions and the self-adjustment to natural change—features Confucius as a master of “goblet words.” Zhuangzi explains to Huizi that Confucius possessed the skill of following along with the free flow of “goblet words”: Chuang tzu said to Hui Tzu, “Confucius has been going along for sixty years and he has changed sixty times. What at the beginning he used to call right he has ended up calling wrong. So now there’s no telling whether what he calls right at the moment is not in fact what he called wrong for fifty-nine years.” Hui Tzu said, “Confucius keeps working away at it, trying to make knowledge serve him.” “Oh, no—Confucius has given all that up,” said Chuang Tzu. “It’s just that he never talks about it. Confucius said, ‘We receive our talents from the Great Source and, with the spirit hidden within us, we live.’ (As for you, you) sing on key, you talk by the rules, you line up “profit” and “righteousness” before us, but your “likes” and “dislikes,” your “rights” and “wrongs” are merely something that command lip service from others, that’s all. If you could make men pay service with their minds and never dare stand up in defiance—this would settle things for the world so they would stay settled. But let it be, let it be! As for me, what hope have I of ever catching up with Confucius?”40

————— 39. Youru Wang has given a reading of “goblet words” as a method of indirect communication that consciously disrupts the settling of meaning and sees it as part of what Wang—inspired by Derridean terminology—calls Zhuangzi’s “liminology” of language, the constant play with the limits of linguistic expression. See Youru Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, 139–60. 40. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 27 (“Yu yan”), 1026. Watson, 305.

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Zhuangzi scolds Huizi’s ignorance and his misunderstanding of Confucius even more harshly by subordinating himself to Confucius’s presumably unattainable level of understanding. The crux of this passage is the contrast between the mouth (kou ) and the mind (xin ), between Huizi who fits his words to the positive rules, regulations, and opinions of society and, on the other hand, somebody like Confucius who speaks— only to constantly correct himself—in perfect tune with his mind. This is one of the truly flattering passages about Confucius that one occasionally encounters in Zhuangzi. In conclusion, it is striking how consistently and multifariously Zhuangzi spins out the theme it dwells on in Chapter 2: the projection of mutually contradictory claims on a spatial continuum that allows for movement back and forth. Other chapters of the Zhuangzi incarnate this solution to the problem of irreconcilable logical pointers in various actors, both real and imagined, and in various fictional settings. One such setting appears in the travel motif that links airborne roaming to cosmic understanding. Expressions that point to temporary moments of stopping along the way, the “Equality of Heaven” (tianni), the “Pivot of the Way” (daoshu) or “middle ground” ( yong), are only approximations of possible temporary locations within space, but are in another sense beyond space, described in the words of Master Tallbeech as the boundless (wujing). We saw that despite the overwhelmingly positive correlation between travel and understanding, Zhuangzi also features stories of travel gone astray. The story of Sir Knowledge traveling north, sending Sir Knowledge intentionally in pursuit of himself, shows a striking negative variation of the motif. Yet, on another level, this story saves the travel motif from being taken over for the voicing of one-sided claims. If the travel motif is a fictional visualization of the move from logical to spatial pointers, it only continues to work as such if the spatial is not contaminated again by the

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logical. In other words, only if the traveler stays unaware of distinctions, unaware of positive knowledge, does the move stay effective. “Knowledge” traveling in pursuit of “knowledge” kills the innocence, and Zhuangzi warns us of this possible contamination. The “goblet words” similarly move from logical to spatial pointers. Unlike other words, they do not have constant measure, but regulate themselves like the water in an overflowing goblet. Compared to the linearity of the travel itinerary, the “goblet words” introduce a third spatial dimension. The fluency of water pouring into a receptacle warrants that words and understanding are constantly in motion. As with Confucius, who in one anecdote is an even more perfect speaker of “goblet words” than Zhuangzi himself, this could manifest itself on the surface by an unpredictable and endless change between asserting and negating a certain viewpoint.

Breaking the Confucian Monopoly on “Scenes of Instruction” Zhuangzi is highly imaginative in giving a positive shape to Laozi’s polemic against Confucians’s convictions. Whereas Laozi had employed a radically different set of enunciatory strategies—such as the replacement of the “scene of instruction” with an anonymous gnomic voice of wisdom—Zhuangzi does not opt for a radical change in enunciatory strategies. Like Mozi, it contains unframed or scarcely framed prose monologues, but the bulk of the text features anecdotes, thus formally retaining the setting of a “scene of instruction,” or at least a dialogue. Zhuangzi does not leave the Confucian “scene” to establish a counteruniverse of different devices; instead, it takes up the challenge by breaking what appears to have been a Confucian monopoly on the “scene of instruction” and radically transforming that “scene” for its own purposes. Below I discuss two strategies of transforming the “scene of instruction.” First, I show through a series of anecdotes how Zhuangzi brings a totally new cast of protagonists, new masters and new disciples, onto the stage. Second, we see how Zhuangzi not only diversifies the involved players and their roles, but also represents new modes of “instruction.”

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New Model Masters: Inventing Laozi, Reinventing Confucius The most important new figure in the Zhuangzi cast is Laozi himself. A. C. Graham has convincingly argued that the invention of the figure of Laozi as a Daoist spokesman occurred with Zhuangzi. 41 In correlation with the Laozi figure, Zhuangzi polemically reinvents and twists previous images of Confucius. Among the various encounters between Confucius and Laozi, I discuss two particularly interesting episodes in which Laozi dethrones Confucius from his cultural status as the Master of Masters. Confucius said to Lao Dan, “Today you seem to have a moment of leisure—may I venture to ask about the Perfect Way?” Lao Dan said, “You must fast and practice austerities, cleanse and purge your mind, wash and purify your inner spirit, destroy and do away with your knowledge. The Way is abstruse and difficult to describe. But I will try to give you a rough outline of it.”42 : , . : , , , ! , ! .

Confucius assumes the role of the pupil who observes the master and eagerly awaits the propitious moment to humbly approach him. Laozi is eager to explain. After a complimentary statement of the ineffability of the Way, he goes off on a long-winded lesson—supposedly only a small outline (lüe )— spiced with terms resonant with Laozi. His unsolicited grand response closes quite pathetically, however: The formless moves to the realm of form; the formed moves back to the realm of formlessness, everybody understands that. But it is not something to be reached by striving. That’s what people discuss amongst each other. But those who have

————— 41. Graham’s meticulous tracing of five stages in the evolution of the Laozi figure from the fourth century bce through the Qin assumes a Confucian origin of the Laozi figure. According to Graham, the Confucian legend about Confucius’s encounter with Lao Dan (the archivist of Zhou) was an exemplary story about Confucius’s humility in seeking instruction from others. In Graham’s scheme, Zhuangzi’s appropriation of the Laozi figure as a spokesman for “Zhuangism” is the second step in the evolution of the Laozi legend, and the first one to recruit the figure of Laozi for anti-Confucian polemics. See Graham, “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan,” 23–40. 42. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi Bei you”), 818. Modified from Watson, 238.

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reached it do not discuss it, and those who discuss it have not reached it. Those who peer with bright eyes will never catch sight of it. Eloquence is not as good as silence. The Way cannot be heard; to listen for it is not as good as plugging up your ears. This is called the Great Acquisition. 43 , , , , . , . , . , . .

The logic of this “scene of instruction” is deceptively obvious. Confucius is the devout disciple, and Laozi preaches in the phraseology of the Laozi mode, venting pent-up desires for inverting conventional hierarchy for just a short while. It is a carnival scene, a simple inversion of previous power hierarchies that—since a carnival happens for only a very short time during the year—leaves those power hierarchies securely in place. Many encounters in Zhuangzi follow this uncomplicated logic, and it is obvious why the text of Laozi is much more interesting than the Laozi figure propped up here. The problem with an embodied Laozi figure is that his words can sound insipid once they are uttered by an actual person in framed dialogue. His gestures towards the difficulties of speaking about the Way come across as inauthentic. Put differently, the conversion of Confucius into the disciple of a preaching Laozi is simply too much driven by the desire to invert and therefore distracts from dealing in more delicate ways with the contradictions between the praise of silence and the practice of verbosity. Let us now look at scenes that dethrone Confucius in more subtle and interesting ways. Given the particularly close attachment of the Confucians to the values and institutions of the bygone Zhou dynasty, Zhuangzi joyfully attacks this soft spot in the following anecdote: Confucius went west to deposit his works with the royal house of Zhou. Zilu advised him, saying, “I have heard that the Keeper of the Royal Archives is one Lao Dan, now retired and living at home. If you wish to deposit your works, you might try going to see him about it.” “Excellent!” said Confucius, and went to see Lao Dan, but Lao Dan would not give permission. Thereupon Confucius unwrapped his Twelve Classics and began expounding them. Halfway through the

————— 43. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 22 (“Zhi Bei you”), 823. Modified from Watson, 240.

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exposition, Lao Dan said, “This will take forever! Just let me hear the gist of the thing!” “The gist of it,” said Confucius, “is benevolence and rightness.”44 . : , , , . : . , , . , : , . : .

In the same way that Laozi went west and reputedly left his works with the border guard Guan Yin, Confucius sets out from Lu to Zhou to deposit his works in the archives of the Zhou. The implicit vanity of this act of self-preservation through written works filed in official archives playfully contradicts the later standard narrative that Confucius did not care to write himself, and that it was his disciples who transmitted his words in written form. Yet, Laozi has control over the archives and is impatient with Confucius’s attempt to convince him of the value of these works by expounding them for him. Laozi silences him, but gives him a chance to defend himself with a concise summary of the essentials ( yao ) of his works. Predictably, Confucius counters with the Confucian stock phrase of “benevolence and rightness” (ren yi ). At this point, the dynamic of the conversation is temporarily inverted and Laozi—as a good pedagogue— takes on the role of the ignorant disciple who asks Confucius for further explanation on the precise significance of “benevolence and rightness.” As expected, Confucius comes up with explanations that do not satisfy Laozi: Heaven and earth hold fast to their constant ways, the sun and moon to their brightness, the stars and planets to their ranks, the birds and beasts to their flocks, and the trees and shrubs to their stands. You have only to go along with Virtue in your actions, to follow the Way in your journey, and you’re already there. Why are these flags of benevolence and rightness so bravely upraised, as though you were beating a drum and searching for a lost child? Ah, you will bring confusion to the nature of man!45 , , , , . , , ; , ? , !

————— 44. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 13 (“Tiandao”), 487. Modified from Watson, 149. 45. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 13 (“Tiandao”), 487. Modified from Watson, 150.

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Zhuangzi often relishes beating Confucius with his own weapons. Laozi accuses Confucius of obfuscating the notion that most concerns Confucius’s followers: “human nature” (xing ). We see below how this Confucian term, which is a central point of contention in writings such as Mencius and Xunzi (although Mencius might have taken it from Yang Zhu) but which does not even occur once in Laozi, gets suddenly hijacked by spokesmen of Zhuangzi. Also, Laozi ridicules Confucius’s flashy insistence upon “benevolence and rightness” and compares it, suggestively, to the “beating of drums while searching for a lost child” (ruo ji gu er qiu wangzi ). This image wraps up nicely the gist of the anecdote, because Laozi’s monopoly on the treasures to be transmitted in the Zhou archives suddenly prevents Confucius very physically from inserting himself into that lineage. Since the transmission of the lineage of Zhou is so dear to the Confucius depicted in the Analects, this deprivation turns Confucius into a “lost child” who has been forcefully separated from the ancestors of his own choice, the Zhou lineage. Generally speaking, in Zhuangzi the figure of Confucius is more interesting than the figure of Laozi, because Zhuangzi presents a broader spectrum of profiles, from portraying the master as an outright ignoramus to depicting him at his most enlightened, and even, as we saw with his expertise in “goblet words,” as superior to Zhuangzi himself. The figure of Laozi, in contrast, often appears as a cut and dried anti-master throwing around buzzwords from Laozi. Given that by the Late Warring States the figure of Laozi was still in the process of being shaped while Confucius had already become a nuanced figure with many complex faces, this asymmetry is not surprising.

Zhuangzi’s Companion Huizi as a New Master Double We are accustomed to seeing Huizi as a humbled foil against which Zhuangzi can prevail; this is especially apparent in the last anecdote in Chapter 17, “Autumn Floods” (Qiushui ), the famous scene over the Hao River where Zhuangzi and Huizi discuss the pleasure of the leaping fish. True, Zhuangzi often ridicules sophistic arguments and their propagators. Yet, it is equally true that there is a profound and ambivalent bond with the sophists that has led to considerable debate over just how close Zhuangzi stands to them. In “All Under Heaven,” the last chapter of

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Zhuangzi, Huizi rises in status as Huizi and Zhuangzi are the only individuals heading a scholastic lineage on their own; also, the chapter credits Huizi with a long list of logical paradoxes, which—though lacking any kind of explanatory annotation—is the most important source about Huizi that remains.46 Thus, if we assume with Liu and Hoffert that the compilers of the collection—probably the authors of this late chapter—belonged to a Zhuangzian school and did not just amass material indiscriminately, we have to recognize a profound bond between Zhuangzi and Huizi. This bond is best highlighted by a story from Chapter 24: Zhuangzi was accompanying a funeral when he passed by the grave of Huizi. Turning to his attendants, he said, “There was once a plasterer who, if he got a speck of mud on the tip of his nose no thicker than a fly’s wing, would get his friend Carpenter Shi to slice it off for him. Carpenter Shi, whirling his hatchet with a noise like the wind, would accept the assignment and proceed to slice, removing every bit of mud without injury to the nose, while the plasterer just stood there completely unperturbed. Lord Yuan of Song, hearing of this feat, summoned Carpenter Shi and said, ‘Could you try performing for me?’ But Carpenter Shi replied, ‘It’s true that I was once able to slice like that—but the material I worked on has been dead for many years.’ Since you died, Master Hui, I have had no material to work on. There’s no one I can talk to any more.”47 , , : , . , , , . , : . : . , . , , .

Zhuangzi’s lachrymose lament for his companion Huizi features both Zhuangzi and Huizi in favorite Zhuangzian roles of skilled craftsmen. The triviality of the mutual engagement between the plasterer and the carpenter contrasts strongly with the serious tone of the lament. The spot

————— 46. Analyzing various Warring States sources, Lisa Raphals suggests that Huizi is appreciated most in literature associated with the “persuaders” (Zonghengjia ). Han Feizi praises him as a skilful narrator of analogies; only Xunzi deems him to be a dangerous and heterodox philosopher. See Raphals, “On Hui Shi.” 47. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 24 (“Xu Wugui”), 948. Modified from Watson, 269.

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of plaster on Huizi’s nose is as little as a fly so that it is probably not necessary to remove it, and certainly absolutely exaggerated to take it away with a hatchet. But that is precisely the source of their amusement. This trivial act is the sign of consummate skill, because the carpenter would never slice the other’s nose off, just as Zhuangzi would never destroy Huizi’s arguments outright. The beauty of the act is that it is futile from the point of view of artisan production, but it is the most brilliant performance of artisanship, a gesture executed perfectly as craft for craft’s sake. The triviality of the occasion, the monstrous overreaction to the incident, the joy of performing the most perfect act of craftsmanship for the most useless purpose—all of this is a shared joke between the carpenter and the plasterer. Their intimate companionship makes this act possible, and therefore the act cannot easily be transformed into entertainment for the ruler of Song. Zhuangzi tells the anecdote to his attendants while passing by Huizi’s grave, but then turns around to address the dead Huizi at his grave site and also turns the anecdote onto his relationship to Huizi. This episode pays homage to a fellow artisan of words who has a different specialization, but who takes a similar joy in skillful craftsmanship. True, describing Huizi as “material” (zhi ) for his exercises turns his friend into a mindless object (wu ) acted upon, an unfavorable transformation for a human against which Zhuangzi repeatedly warns. But this is a minor dissonance in an otherwise harmonious portrayal of friendship. The whole anecdote is a touching confession that Zhuangzi joyfully indulged in futile acts of supreme argumentative skill as expressions of his friendship with Huizi. Zhuangzi is the only one among the Masters Texts that portrays and prizes a double of the central master figure, a companion who is certainly often pushed around as a mindless sophist, but who is also truly appreciated as a helping hand for Zhuangzi’s own intellectual enterprise. Among many other aspects, this was one of the features of Zhuangzi that made it attractive for the aesthetic of poetic creation and consumption: The synergy between the master and his companion who “knows the tone” (zhiyin ) of his heart would became an influential notion in the selfimagination of poets and poetry circles in the Six Dynasties Period (220– 589).

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A New Class of Masters: Cripples, Criminals, and Monsters While a rearrangement of known master figures—Confucius, Laozi, or Zhuangzi himself in his relationship to Huizi—changed the thrust of “the scene of instruction,” a host of new, generic figures also entered the scene as quite improbable, even repulsive, “teachers.” Similar to its use of linguistic strategies to incarnate negation discussed above, Zhuangzi delights narratively in imagining cripples and disfigured bodies in order to express worth. We could say that these creatures serve as a corporeal fleshing out of the negation of conventional values.48 Let us look at one of them: There’s Crippled Shu—chin stuck down in his navel, shoulders up above his head, pigtail pointing at the sky, his five organs on the top, his two thighs pressing his ribs. By sewing and washing, he gets enough to fill his mouth; by handling a winnow and sifting out the good grain, he makes enough to feed ten people. When the authorities call out the troops, he stands in the crowd waving good-bye; when they get up a big work party, they pass him over because he’s a chronic invalid. And when they are doling out grain to the ailing, he gets three big measures and ten bundles of firewood. With a crippled body, he’s still able to look after himself and finish out the years Heaven gave him. How much better, then, if he had crippled virtue!49 , , , , , . , ; , . , ; , ; , . , , , !

Crippled Shu profits from his malformations, which are of a sort that make it almost hard to believe that his body is still functional and able to

————— 48. Often, freaks and cripples in Zhuangzi are interpreted as metaphorical or allegorical. In Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation, Robert Allison suggests that Zhuangzi’s ultimate goal is to show the way to self-transformation. Considering these episodes in the context of transformation stories, he states: “[T]he monster is a rich metaphor, for it opens the mind for metaphorical understanding at the same time as it presents itself as a metaphor,” 39. In contrast to such a reading I emphasize the notion of freaks as a fictional device that originates in the desire to contradict Confucian values by giving them an inverted, negative physical embodiment. 49. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 4 (“Renjian shi”), 163. Watson, 66.

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gain him a decent livelihood. Against this background of marvelous benefit from ludicrous disfiguration, the crescendo-effect at the end of the passage is remarkable. We are promised even greater benefit if we translate bodily disfigurations onto a moral plane, thus producing a creature with “crippled virtue.” Not only is the oxymoronic character of this expression shocking, but now the reader is challenged to transform the visual impression of disfiguration into a non-visual imagination of malformed virtue, to ask the question: what would it look like? The closure of the anecdote shows clearly that Crippled Shu is a “thought creature” produced from the desire to flesh out the countervalue to virtue that is “crippled virtue.” Bodily disfiguration in Zhuangzi is disconcerting, because it cuts both ways. If it runs along the lines of Zhuangzi’s favorite trope of “uselessness’s usefulness” it is a blessing, almost a sign of heavenly favor. But it can equally be used as a signifier for heavenly punishment. Good examples are the stories revolving around bodily punishments for criminal offenses. Occasionally, intentional disfiguration like that resulting from the bodily punishment of criminals is hailed as a mark of special wisdom and virtue. There is for example the story of Shushan No-Toes (Shushan Wuzhi ) who had a foot cut off for some criminal offense and went to see Confucius for instruction. After being scolded by Confucius for his previous misdeed, he stumps over to Laozi, who agrees that Confucius, still shackled by the illusion of societal success and reputation, has not yet reached the stage of a sage. Laozi asks No-Toes to free Confucius from these shackles: Lao Dan said, “Why don’t you just make him see that life and death are the same story, that acceptable and unacceptable are on the same string? Wouldn’t it be well to free him from his handcuffs and fetters?” No-Toes said, “When Heaven has punished him, how can you set him free?” 50 : , , , ? : , !

Disfiguration works in two ways here: whereas No-Toes has committed only a minor offense for which he is punished by mortal—in other words, fallible and capricious—powers and can recover by repenting, Confucius,

————— 50. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 5 (“De chong fu”), 184. Modified from Watson, 71–72.

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according to No-Toes, has offended Heaven and is marked and damned forever. In chiasmatic fashion, the ignominy of “heavenly disfiguration” is at the opposite end of the blessings of “crippled virtue.” However, it is not only Heaven that inflicts disfiguration, but also the sage emperors of high antiquity who supposedly ruled according to Confucian values: Yi Erzi went to see Xu You. Xu You said, “What kind of assistance has Yao been giving you?” Yi Erzi said, “Yao told me, “You must learn to practice benevolence and rightness and to speak clearly about right and wrong!” “Then why come to see me?” said Xu You. “Yao has already tattooed you with benevolence and rightness and cut off your nose with right and wrong. Now how do you expect to go wandering in any far-away, carefree, and as-you-like-it paths?”51 . : ? : : . : ? , , ?

Xu You , supposedly a recluse in the times of the mythical Emperor Yao, enlightens Yi Erzi that what he believed to be beneficial instruction from Emperor Yao was actually bodily punishment. Yao “tattooed him with his teachings of benevolence and rightness” (qing yi renyi ) and “cut off his nose with ‘so’s’ and ‘not so’s’”( yi yi shifei ) and therefore he cannot become Xu You’s disciple. But Yi Erzi is unimpressed and believes that the disfiguration is only temporary and can be wiped out by the Creator (zaowu zhe ) himself: Yi Erzi said, “[. . .] Wuzhuang forgot her beauty, Juliang forgot his strength, and the Yellow Emperor forgot his wisdom—all were content to be recast and remolded. How do you know that the Creator will not wipe away my tattoo, stick my nose back on again, and let me ride on the process of completion and follow after you, Master?”52 : , , , . , ?

————— 51. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 6 (“Da zong shi”), 264. Modified from Watson, 89. 52. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 6 (“Da zong shi”), 264. Modified from Watson, 89–90.

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In the end, Xu You does not agree to take Yi Erzi on as a disciple and cosmic travel-companion. But Yi Erzi has clearly scored points with Xu You, because Xu You discloses to him a short outline of the marvelous teachings of his master, possibly the Creator himself. Nonetheless, Yi Erzi firmly believes that his inner punishment is reversible through heavenly powers themselves. He stakes a challenge to Yao’s authority by relying on even higher corrective powers. In the stories of deformation, we have seen that disfiguration could either be inborn and useful, as in the case of Crippled Shu, or could be acquired through corporal punishment and yet be a sign of higher wisdom as with Shushan No-Toes, or, in another scenario, could be acquired as a sign of deficiency through Confucian teachings. With the chapter “Webbed Toes” (Pianmu ) we reach a new configuration: people who have inborn disfiguration, but seem to have—paradoxically enough—acquired it through the harmful Confucian teachings of “benevolence” and “rightness.” Two toes webbed together, a sixth finger forking off—these come from the inborn nature but are excretions as far as Virtue is concerned. Swelling tumors and protruding wens—these come from the body but are unnecessary appendages to it. Men skillful in the ways of benevolence and rightness try to put these into practice, even to line them up with the five vital organs! This is not the right approach to the Way and its Virtue. Therefore he who has two toes webbed together has grown a flap of useless flesh; he who has a sixth finger forking out of his hand has sprouted a useless digit; and he who imposes overly skillful ways, and extraneous webs and forked fingers, upon the original form of the five vital organs will become deluded and perverse in the practice of benevolence and rightness and overly fastidious in the use of his powers of hearing and sight.53 , ! . , ! . , ! . , ; , ; , , .

In the chapter opening, the Confucians are accused of creeping into human nature and “genetically” manipulating it for their purposes.

————— 53. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 8 (“Pian mu”), 308. Modified from Watson, 98.

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The message is clear: Confucian values produce monsters. Their first crime is to misunderstand the difference between birth defects such as webbed toes and sixth fingers that stem from one’s nature (xing) and acquired deformations such as tumors and wens that become part of one’s bodily shape (xing ), but do not stem from one’s inborn nature. These two phenomena are only comparable in that they are superfluous, but the Confucians force them indiscriminately onto the normal anatomy of the body with its five organs, thereby engendering a monstrous creature with a pathological nature. In contrast to their treatment in the story of Crippled Shu, disfigurations are not considered useful here, but are supernumerary to an assumed “right” Way and anatomy. The manipulating Confucians are ironically credited with having “multiple skills” (duofang ), but this expression insinuates the notion of quack doctors using “various recipes” (duofang) to reshape the body with their theories of benevolence. Also, that they cannot distinguish between the inborn and acquired disqualifies them from speaking about “human nature” at all. It is significant that in this passage the notions of “inborn nature” (xing ), “bodily shape” (xing ), and “disposition” (qing ) are used interchangeably. The opening passage complains of the lack of any distinction between “inborn nature” and “bodily shape.” Given that the relation between “inborn nature” and “dispositions/feelings” (qing) especially was hotly debated in Late Warring States Confucian texts but not dealt with in the Laozi, this conflation seems to have a metapolemical thrust. It insinuates that the Confucian talk about the differences and interrelations between these terms had in fact amounted to nothing. Again, Zhuangzi fights its enemies with their own weapons and accuses the Confucians of corrupting one of their own most precious concepts. In the next step, the manipulated inborn nature is further disfigured: He who is fork-fingered with benevolence will tear out the Virtue given him and stifle his inborn nature in order to seize fame and reputation, leading the world on with pipe and drum in the service of an unattainable ideal—am I wrong? So we have Zeng and Shi.54 He who is web-toed in argumentation will pile up bricks, knot the plumb line, and apply the curve, letting his mind wander in the realm of “hard” and “white,” “likeness” and “difference,” huffing and puffing away, laud-

————— 54. This probably refers to Confucius’s disciple Zengzi and to Shi Yu torian (shi ) of the state of Wei.

, a court his-

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ing his useless words—am I wrong? So we have Yang [Zhu] and Mo[zi]. All these men walk in a way that is web-toed and fork-fingered, not [in a way that reflects] the ultimate right measure of All Under Heaven.55 , , ? . , , 56 , ? . , .

Those whose nature has been “engineered” through Confucian values will further obliterate their original nature that corresponds to the “true rightness of the world,” which Zhuangzi stresses. Those engineered to perform in the art of disputation are even further removed from their original natures by applying to them such carpenter tools as the plumbline (sheng ). Obviously, if the text imagines the Confucians as “engineers” of nature it has to outdo them by positing an even truer “human nature.” Returning again to the fact that the term “human nature” had been part of Confucian, not Laozian disourse, this passage means that ultimately, the Confucians’ vivid debates about “human nature” have denatured the subject. We should note that the disfigured nature in this passage is diametrically opposed to the wish for “crippled virtue” in the story of Crippled Shu. Why are the stories about cripples so varied? I would suggest that the variability in the formulation of the motif of outcasts points us to the source of these stories: the cripples, madmen, and freaks are not so different from such creatures as “Sir Knowledge,” but are similarly born from the inner logic of a thought experiment. The freaks do not follow the logic of cosmological omenology, but are tailored to the needs of the polemics—which are almost exclusively polemics against the Confucians. They are fictional iconoclasts rather than living symbols of cosmological irregularities.

————— 55. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 8 (“Pian mu”), 308. Modified from Watson, 98–99. 56. It is somewhat surprising not to find here a reference to logicians such as Gongsun Longzi, who discusses paradoxes of “hardness and whiteness.” See the section “Logical and Spatial Pointers in ‘Discussion on Making Things Equal’” above.

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New Methods of Instruction in Zhuangzi As the cast of characters featured in “scenes of instruction” changed, the methods of instruction also became more diverse. True, in many instances we may still find a master figure revealing some higher truth, but the more frequent and most authentically Zhuangzian pedagogical instruments are instruction through ominous silence, or even through the outright refusal to instruct, by imposing curses on the person daring to approach in the role of a disciple. These strategies could of course be combined for heightened effect. We will deal with only one particularly interesting example of a new pedagogics of instruction in Zhuangzi. In Chapter 7, “Responding to Emperors and Kings” ( ying diwang ), Liezi is impressed by a shaman who supposedly could predict people’s fortunes and life spans; he decides prematurely that his own master, Huzi (“Master Gourd Vessel”), is worthless compared to the shaman. Huzi, however, whose name like many fictitious master names in Zhuangzi refers to something empty inside, claims that he had only taught Liezi the surface (wen ) of things, not yet their substance (zhi ), and sets out to teach both Liezi and the shaman a memorable lesson. He says: “You take what you know of the Way and wave it in the face of the world, expecting to be believed! This is the reason men can easily read your face. Try bringing your shaman along next time and letting him get a look at me.” The next day Liezi brought the shaman to see Huzi. When they had left the room, the shaman said, “I’m so sorry—your master is dying! There’s no life left in him—he won’t last the week. I saw something very strange—something like wet ashes!” Liezi went back into the room, weeping and drenching the collar of his robe with tears, and reported this to Huzi. Hu Tzu said, “Just now I appeared to him with the Pattern of Earth—still and silent, nothing moving, nothing standing up. He probably saw in me the “Workings of Virtue Closed Off.” Try bringing him around again.”57 , , . , . , . : ! ! ! ! , . ,

————— 95.

57. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 7 (“Ying diwang”), 289. Modified from Watson,

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The shaman arrives proudly in the role of an expert master of physiognomy, and Huzi seems to submit himself to this procedure. He lets the shaman physiognomize him but manipulates the result—and this goes unnoticed by both Liezi and the shaman. He literally puts on a “face” for the shaman, but because he stays within the realm of the visible—the patterns of Earth and Heaven—the shaman does not become suspicious during the first two visits, although he is puzzled by the different outcome of his visits. First he predicts Huzi’s imminent death, but the next day he is convinced that Huzi will get better soon, proud of his apparently salubrious effect on Huzi. But once Huzi starts disguising himself in ever more abstruse poses— like “the Great Vastness Where Nothing Wins Out” (Taichong mo sheng )—the shaman gradually becomes frustrated and realizes that he is the one being “mastered” by Huzi. He confesses that he is incapable of physiognomizing him because of his changing faces: The shaman said to Liezi, “Your master is never the same! I have no way to physiognomize him! If he will try to steady himself, then I will come and examine him again.” [. . .] The next day the two came to see Huzi again, but before the shaman had even come to a halt before Huzi, his wits left him and he fled. “Run after him!” said Huzi, but though Liezi ran after him, he could not catch up. Returning, he reported to Huzi, “He’s vanished! He’s disappeared! I couldn’t catch up with him.” Huzi said, “Just now I appeared to him as ‘Not Yet Emerged from My Source.’ I came at him empty, wriggling and turning, not knowing anything about ‘who’ or ‘what,’ now dipping and bending, now flowing in waves—that’s why he ran away.” After this Liezi concluded that he had never really begun to learn anything. He went home and for three years did not go out. He took his wife’s place at the stove, fed the pigs as though he were feeding people, and took no interest in outside affairs. He got rid of the carving and polishing and returned to plainness, letting his body stand alone like a clod. In the midst of entanglement he remained sealed, and in this oneness he ended his life.58 : , . , . [. . .] , . , . :

————— 58. Wang Shumin, Zhuangzi jiaoquan 7 (“Ying diwang”), 294, 300. Modified from Watson, 96–97.

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The story follows a path of gradual involution. A shaman limited in his expertise to looking at people from the “surface” (wen) is step by step sucked into the inner topology of a master who is expert at manipulating his inner “substance” (zhi), taking on wondrous outside shapes. The shaman becomes so scared by this travel to Huzi’s center of gravity that he eventually flees. The involution is both spatial and temporal: it proceeds from the diagnosis of “surfaces” to the depth of “substance,” but Huzi is also at his most terrifying when he puts on the face of temporal depth as Master “Not Yet Emerged from My Source” (shi chu wu zong ). On a parallel course, Liezi, who observes and mediates the duel between these two experts, moves back in time before he ever started learning anything, concluding that he had never really “begun to learn anything” (zi yiwei wei shi xue ). Liezi’s process of healthy involution ends in the last sentence of the story: he ends his life in perfected involution that is in “oneness” with himself. The only person who is not eliminated from the scene by disappearing into air (the shaman) or into oneness (Liezi) is Huzi. Quite to the contrary, while facilitating Liezi’s sudden restoration to a simple life and oneness untrammeled by the onset of learning and cultivation, Huzi makes himself superfluous. If we take this into consideration, the story is twopronged. It transcends the conventional Confucian “scene of instruction,” because one pseudo-master is taught by a real but disguised master through the manipulation and progressive revelation of his inner face, while a disciple of both, who cannot decide on who the real master is, looks on.59 On a deeper level, the story transcends the conventional “scene of instruction” because it renders the instructor superfluous. Although we cannot know for sure, it appears that Liezi no longer needs any kind of instruction, because he has moved beyond any notion of or desire for learn-

————— 59. We should not forget, though, that the reader only understands this “silent” lesson because Huzi eloquently explains his intentions to us.

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ing. It is paradoxical yet enticing that the story so effectively starts out as a “scene of instruction”; it finishes, however, by eliminating the need for its own existence. This is another case in which Zhuangzi, like Laozi, radically expands or twists existing narrative strategies rather than inventing new ones.

Zhuangzi, from a Bird’s Perspective We should be in a better position now to further spell out the strange brand of skepticism in Zhuangzi that Graham has noticed. Zhuangzi proposes affirmative, incarnated solutions to paradoxical discourse. In that sense, even Graham’s analogy to Nietzsche holds, because the fictional creature of Nietzsche’s nihilism is, after all, the “Übermensch.” In Chapter 2 Zhuangzi suggests moving beyond logically contradictory claims to truth by leaping into space and finding one’s “middle position.” This was visually embodied in some quite particular formulations in Zhuangzi of the travel motif, known from the earliest parts of the Chuci and from Late Warring States ascension literature. This motif could play out as liberation through space, but also as a failure to gain knowledge through travel, as in the case of Sir Knowledge. The motif of disfigured individuals shows an equally broad variety of formulations, suggesting that they are thought creatures rather than allegories. To reformulate the overarching vision of Zhuangzi sketched in this chapter, Zhuangzi offers fictional solutions to philosophical problems. What does that mean? Are they mere illustrations or true illuminations? We could say that Zhuangzi proposes certain poses, performative moves by incarnated actors that help transcend logical paradox. Zhuangzi either cannot or does not want to endure the simple negation of Confucian and other conventional truths, such as we see in Laozi. It goes beyond the paradoxical mode and incarnates this negativity in fantastically creative ways, and since every incarnation is an affirmation of existence, Zhuangzi helps us imagine improbable and positive embodiments of negation. If we choose to see Zhuangzi as the beginning of fiction, we should trace that beginning back to a logic of negative thought experiments. Laozi had depopulated the scene in order to counter the Confucian challenge; Zhuangzi, to the contrary, chose to populate the scene with fictional thought experiments. If the truism about the origin of fiction in the West is that it emerged from “mimesis,” we could claim that in

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Zhuangzi fiction developed from “anti-mimesis,” the fleshed-out negation of Confucian truths. The most surprising feature of Zhuangzi is, however, that although its creatures are born from a desire for certain dénouements and thought experiments, they never appear only as receptacles of meaning, as mere vehicles for a higher meaning. They always represent the very flesh of narrative. That is why I believe that it would be wrong to talk only about “imagery,” “metaphors,” or “parables” in Zhuangzi. The “parables” are the very stuff of intellectual signification itself. There is no mediation through embellishing devices, no additional brushwork to a “Lao-Zhuang philosophy.” The flesh of Zhuangzi is at once fictional and philosophical. To think about this possibility is the greatest challenge in understanding Zhuangzi.

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EIGHT

The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi

Han Feizi is the neglected step-child in the family of Masters Texts. The most obvious reason for this is that the text happens to lie at the intersection of too many ends and dubious beginnings. Han Feizi (ca. 280–233 bce), to whom the text is attributed, belonged to the royal lineage of the state of Han. The Records of the Grand Historian tells us that Li Si, a fellow student of Han Feizi under Xunzi, drew the King of Qin’s attention to his writings. The king, who was to become the First Emperor of Qin, was so impressed that he summoned Han Feizi to Qin. It is unclear whether Li Si or another official at the Qin court was responsible for Han Feizi’s forced suicide, but apparently his loyalties towards his home state of Han were considered potentially dangerous to the expanding state of Qin, which completed the unification of China a good decade after Han Fei’s death.

The Tragedy of Han Feizi and the Qin Trauma Although for the purposes of monumental history, the Qin dynasty (221– 206 bce) constituted the beginning of imperial China, it was an ill-fated beginning. Despite whatever actually happened during the Qin years, the legacy of the dynasty survived mostly as a negative mirror image of the Han. Stories about the megalomaniacal, autocratic, and egotistical tendencies of the First Emperor, the horrors of the burning of books in 213

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and the execution of Confucian scholars in 212 bce, the Emperor’s search for immortality recipes—all of this was part of the story the Han elite came to tell about the Qin. Although many of these perceptions might actually reflect the truth, the Han account of the Qin was caught up in Han self-justifications designed to create a distance between the Qin legacy and the Han governing elite. Han Feizi became ironically stylized into the prophet for the ill-fated regime that had forced him into suicide, and his era survives prominently as the Qin trauma of the Han. Associated with the story of political unification after centuries of inter-state struggles, the Qin marks the end of the era that saw the emergence of intense intellectual disputes at contending local courts and the beginning of the new imperial age. During the Han, wandering masters and retainers became scholar-officials in the imperial bureaucracy; writers of Masters Texts became exegetes of a canon of classical texts. As with post-classical Hellenistic philosophy, which scholars until recently only reluctantly called “philosophy” but considered mere practical literature of life wisdom, Masters Literature of the Han is seen as vastly inferior to its great precursor during the formative pre-Qin period. The authors of Qin and Han Masters Texts count as officials and at best as writers, but not as thinkers. For Chad Hansen, Han Feizi is the watershed text in which Masters Literature looses its claim to original thought: “Han Feizi’s writings were erudite, rich in historical detail and examples. He had learned philosophy, but added little original philosophy of his own. His writings were almost purely practical.”1

For Hansen, Han Feizi embodies the apostate of philosophy, responsible for taking the realm of original intellect down to the practical level and eventually putting an end to philosophy altogether.2 Hansen’s residual sympathy derives from the rule that the enemies of your worst enemies are your friends:

————— 1. Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Thought, 345. 2. “[A]s Confucius showed the assumptions that generated philosophical controversy in China, so Han Feizi shows how the philosophical conclusions influenced the political institutions of imperial China that ended philosophy. Because of the nature of that influence, Han Feizi is the philosophical end of this journey through ideas.” Ibid., 345.

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Seeing clearly the philosophical background of Han Feizi means once again challenging the dominant Confucian image. The ruling theory casts the fa jia (Standardizers) as a massive evil, an oppressor of people. Confucian historians can then cast themselves as the valiant defenders of the people against this ruthless despotism. Their picture of Han Feizi is much more negative than that of Confucianism’s other foil, Daoism. In interesting formal ways, however, the traditional treatments of the two schools are parallel.3

Han Feizi was declared the guiding spirit of an intellectual lineage that the Han retrospectively came to call the “Legalist School” (Fajia , Hansen’s “Standardizers”) and associated with the rise and fall of Qin, and just for this reason Han Feizi has ever since been tucked away in an intellectual dead-end that begs moral propriety and good taste. The lineage of the “Legalists,” according to Han bibliographers, included figures like Shen Dao, Shen Buhai, and Shang Yang (ca. 390–338 bce). Traditionally, Han Feizi is considered the synthesizer of the agendas of Han Fei’s predecessors, of Shen Dao’s interest in the concept of “position” (shi ), with Shen Buhai’s preoccupation with “methods/strategies” (shu ), and Shang Yang’s emphasis on “laws/standards” ( fa ).4 If the “Legalists” reached a dead-end in the Chinese history of thought, they did so in very different ways from the Mohists. The Mohists, like the Confucians, built what probably came close to educational “school” institutions. Their polemics against the Confucians opened the floor to the intellectual debates reflected in Masters Literature, and Mohism was a palpable presence between the fourth and first century bce. In my discussion of Mozi (see Chapter 3) I offer several scenarios to explain the Mohists’ sudden disappearance in the early Han. In contrast, the “Legalist” label was bestowed not just retrospectively but posthumously on figures associated with the rise and fall of the autocratic State—and then Empire—of Qin. From a Han perspective these people had facilitated and helped legitimize the cruel Qin regime. The Masters Text Han Feizi marked an end intellectually, politically, and culturally to the intellectual virulence of the pre-Qin period and a beginning of the imperial age, and its publication coincided uncannily with

————— 3. Ibid., 345. 4. See Feng Youlan, “A Short History of Chinese Philosophy,” 365.

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its author’s own unfortunate end. As early as Sima Qian, writers were beginning to suggest a relationship between Han Feizi’s works and his forced suicide. In his Model Words (Fayan ), Yang Xiong forcefully drives this point home: Somebody asked, “Hanfei wrote the piece Difficulties of Persuasion and in the end died of difficulties in persuasion. May I ask what the problem was?” I said, “Wasn’t it precisely because of Difficulties of Persuasion that he died?” “But why?” I said, “The exemplary person moves in accordance with the rites and stops in accordance with rightness. If things are in agreement, he advances, otherwise he retreats. But he certainly does not worry if there’s no agreement. If persuaders worry about whether others will agree, they will resort to the [worst] extremes.” “But isn’t it troubling if others don’t agree?” “If the persuasion does not proceed from the Way, there will be trouble. If it does proceed from the Way, though others might disagree, there will be no trouble.”5 : , , ? : ? : ? : , , , , . , . : , ? : , ; , .

Yang Xiong blames Han Feizi’s death on Chapter 12 of Han Feizi, “Difficulties of Persuasion” (Shui nan ). The piece is a memorial to the throne, explaining why the art of persuasion is such a difficult trade and admonishing the ruler to be aware of these difficulties. I discuss this piece in detail below, but may it suffice at the moment to say that according to Yang Xiong, it was not confident conviction that proved deadly, but the lack of conviction; Han Feizi’s only worry was whether or not the ruler agreed or disagreed. Ever since Yang Xiong, the statement that Han Feizi wrote his own death warrant through his works—either due to his ideas on the practice of rhetoric or due to his strong stance for autocratic rule and draconic punishments—has been reiterated in numerous variations; Han Feizi and his work have become a master signifier of an all-too-just “end” on many accounts. The past century has seen cursory and timid reevaluations. Since Han Feizi has been the subject of disfavor for so long, our threshold of what

————— 5. Wang Rongbao and Chen Zhongfu, Fa yan yishu, 209.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 283 can be considered a gesture of “reevaluation” is low. In this light, Guo Moruo’s passing recognition of Han Feizi’s cleverness is quite remarkable: Han Feizi was an outstandingly intelligent person, with an extraordinarily sharp brain, sometimes so sharp and trenchant as to scare us. Just read pieces such as “Difficulties of Persuasion” or “Difficulties with Words”: how precise is his psychological analysis of the way of human affairs!!6 , , . < >< > , .

Han Feizi enjoyed a short grace period during the later part of the Cultural Revolution, when he was deemed the most progressive of traditional Chinese thinkers and declared a cure against the evil of Confucianism.7 This reevaluation of Han Feizi as a hero of modern progressivism also reverberates in A. C. Graham’s appraisal. Although Han Feizi does not play an important role in Disputers of the Tao, because he has little to offer for Graham’s main concern with the discourse of “rationality” and the cosmological relationship between Heaven and humankind, Graham recognizes Han Feizi as the “most Western” and “most modern” thinker and compares him to nineteenth-century social theorists. Besides granting the book credit for “modernity,” Graham considers Han Feizi to be a good antidote to tedious versions of Confucianism and Mohism.8 If Han Feizi needs to be disentangled from the Qin trauma, it also needs to be disentangled from the biography of its author. It is often assumed that Han Feizi started out as a disciple of Xunzi and changed from a presumably Confucian outlook to a Laozi-inspired vision, ultimately coming into his own as a “Legalist.” This clear-cut biography does not really work well for understanding Han Feizi. In some chapters, praises for Confucian benevolence coexist within one and the same paragraph with applications of Laozi’s paradoxical rhetoric as well as with violent and ostentatious misreadings of Laozi for the sake of envisioning the workings of an autocratic, Legalist state. Not only do these disparate elements coexist, but they function together.

————— 6. Guo Moruo, Xian Qin xueshuo shulin, 312. 7. On this see Wolfgang Bauer, Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie, 109. 8. Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 292.

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The first goal of this chapter is to trace the logic behind such an improbable intellectual blend. At the heart of this logic is the vision of a state that does not depend on the virtues and vices of any of its players, but functions by virtue of a self-regulating system. Han Feizi recruits the concept of “non-action” (wuwei ) from Laozi for this purpose, and imagines a ruler pretending to be aloof and non-acting but separated from his subjects through screens of systematic deception. The screens protect the mystique of rulership and make necessary a sophisticated system of indirect communication between the ruler and his subjects: the art of persuasion. Because almost a third of the chapters in Han Feizi are collections of anecdotes, and the issue of rhetoric is so prominent in these anecdotes, we should see Han Feizi among other things as a virtual rhetorical handbook of exempla. The second goal of the chapter is to explore why the art of persuasion is so crucial to Han Feizi’s project. When discussing the art of persuasion, Han Feizi sketches paranoid scenarios of dangers that the persuader exposes himself to when addressing a ruler. In some chapters Han Feizi seems indeed obsessively fearful and paranoid, while in others he seems to stage his paranoia to test and flatter the ruler’s intelligence. Whether Han Feizi betrays signs of paranoia or flaunts them, the remarkable accumulation of anecdotal material in Han Feizi renders it a thesaurus of ready-made ideas and exempla that could reassure paranoid speakers in the service of equally paranoid rulers separated from each other through screens of mutual deception. Thus, although Han Feizi’s vision of a selfregulating state could dispense with virtuous rulers and ministers, it required expert speakers and listeners with a sophisticated grasp of human psychology and its twists.

Han Feizi’s Vision of a Self-Regulating State Unlike other Masters Texts of its time, Han Feizi does not debate how to describe the nature of the human psychology to which the expert rhetorician has to tailor his words: it just assumes it. It assumes that humans are guided by their personal desires, which have to be held in check with a strict system of rewards (shang ) for publicly acceptable behavior, and punishments (xing ) for socially harmful acts. This concept of encouragement and deterrence pervades Han Feizi and is aptly captured in the image

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of the “two handles”—the title of Chapter 7—at the disposition of the ruler in his business of governance. Han Feizi builds almost exclusively on already available concepts. It sympathizes with the Mohist search for fixed standards and the emphasis on laws (fa) of architects of Qin absolutism such as Lord Shang Yang; it appropriates the charismatic notion of non-action (wuwei) from Laozi and builds on the notion of “favorable position” (shi) from strategy texts like Sunzi’s Art of War (Sunzi Bingfa , fifth through third centuries bce); it assumes with Xunzi a psychology of desires and a human disposition in need of cultivation towards the better and pushes for a notion of technical expertise (shu) that since the third century had been shared by thinkers of various colors. Surprisingly, Han Feizi eschews eclecticism and puts the most improbable concepts to work for its vision of an absolutist state. The bending it takes to weave such diverse concepts into the fabric of one argument is most stunning in the case of Han Fei’s coercive appropriation of the concept of non-action. This is what happens to the charismatic non-assertiveness from Laozi in Han Feizi’s Chapter 5, “Way of the Ruler” (Zhu dao ):9 The Way is the beginning of all things, the plumbline of right and wrong. Therefore the enlightened ruler preserves the beginning to know the source of all things, and controls the plumbline to know the germs of good and evil. He is therefore empty and still, waiting and letting names appoint themselves, letting affairs settle themselves. Empty, he knows the disposition of reality; still, he knows the correct course of movement. The ones who speak [his ministers] create names; the ones who act create results. If results and names match, the ruler has no business to attend to, because he leaves everything to its disposition.10 , . , . [ ], ,

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9. Unlike many Chinese scholars who consider this chapter to be too “Daoist” to have been written by Han Fei, Bertil Lundahl considers it authentic. Not only does he see parallels to the “Two Handles” chapter, but he also sees the chapter as an apt description of Han Feizi’s vision of a “Legalist” state. See Lundahl, Han Feizi. The Man and the Work, 198–202. Zheng Liangshu also considers the chapter authentic.To date, the most comprehensive Chinese study of Han Feizi is Zheng Liangshu’s Han Feizi zhi zhushu ji sixiang, which gives chapter-by-chapter assessments of issues of authenticity. For Zheng’s discussion of the “Way of the Ruler,” see pp. 26–37. 10. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 5 (“Zhu dao”), 67. All translations throughout this chapter have benefited from W. K. Liao, The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu.

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This passage forces into uneasy collaboration strategies of assertive control and laissez-faire. On the one hand, the ruler employs precise control mechanisms such as the “guidelines” (ji ) of right and wrong, presumably a product of the Way. He matches the words—“names” (ming )— against the “results” (xing ) produced by his subjects’ words and deeds—to check whether they keep the machinery of the state going and properly tend to their business.11 He observes the matching of “names” with “results” from his lofty position of non-action. On the other hand the enlightened ruler is “still,” “empty,”12 and ultimately superfluous if the state machine is working: names appoint themselves, business proceeds by itself. How can this really work? Therefore it is said that the ruler should not show his preferences. If the ruler reveals his preferences, his officials will polish themselves accordingly. The ruler should not reveal his intentions, because if he reveals his intentions, his officials will show themselves from a different side. Thus the saying: “Get rid of likes and dislikes, then the officials will show themselves as they are; discard precedent, discard wisdom, then the officials will raise their guard.” [. . .] Consequently, by discarding his wisdom, he will gain the transparency [of his officials’ actions]; by discarding his worth, he will gain their merit; by discarding his courage, he will gain their strength. Then, all officials will attend to their duties; the hundred offices will be constant and filled based on people’s abilities. This is called “Practicing the constant.”13 : , , ; , , . : , , , . [. . .] , , . , , , .

————— 11. As we saw above in the last chapter of Zhuangzi, the “Form-Name doctrine” referred to a theory of governance associated with Legalist thinkers such as Shen Buhai and Han Feizi. For an outline of that doctrine within the context of various conceptions of the relationship between names and the cosmos, see Makeham, Name and Actuality in Early Chinese Thought, 67–83. 12. Mozawa Michinao explores the use of the (empty) mirror as an image for the position of the ruler in Legalist writings. See his article on the use of the “mirror” analogy in pre-Qin political discourse: “Chūgoku kotai shisōshi jō no ‘kagami,’” 343–63. 13. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 5 (“Zhu dao”), 67.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 287 If the call in Laozi to eliminate desires and let go of wisdom seems to refer to a recipe for helping a single individual return to primordial simplicity, it works in a radically different way in Han Feizi. Han Feizi divides labor between the ruler and his officials. If the ruler feigns an absence of desires instead of preferences and feigns ignorance instead of wisdom, his officials will be more genuine and transparent in their reactions. This is not a process of inner transformation within one practitioner of the Way, but a unilateral game between the ruler and his officials that produces the illusion of balance and should ultimately bring about the working of a selfregulating state. Here is the vision of non-action within such a state: The enlightened ruler practices non-action above, while his officials tremble with fear below. The Way of the enlightened ruler causes the wise to exert their wits, while the ruler, relying on them for his decisions, does not exhaust his wisdom. He makes the worthies apply their talents, while the ruler, employing them on that basis, does not exhaust his own abilities. In the event of success, the ruler gains worth; in the event of failure, the ruler blames the crime on his officials, so that he never risks his reputation. Indeed, even if unworthy, he will be the master of the worthies; even if unwise, he will be the corrector of the wise subjects. The officials are put to hard work, while the ruler gains from their success. This is called the “Canon of the Worthy Ruler.”14 , . , , , ; , , ; , , . , . , , .

The key to the ruler’s leisure lies in his subjects’ toils. He draws on their forces so that he does not have to spend his own energies or carry ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of the court’s policies. In Han Feizi, non-action is devoid of the cosmological magic it radiates in Laozi, where it originates inside one person and is then projected outside. In the “Way of the Ruler” it is merely a question of the clever manipulation of labor. Moreover, non-action is the dynamo that keeps the self-regulating state running. Only if the ruler does not act will names appoint themselves and affairs settle themselves.

————— 14. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 5 (“Zhu dao”), 67.

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Han Feizi’s “Interpretations of Laozi” Attempts abound throughout Han Feizi to recruit Laozi terminology for the building of this self-regulating system. But no chapters are more revealing in this respect than Chapter 20, “Interpretations of Laozi ( Jie Lao ),” which features commentaries on specific passages from Laozi. This is probably one of the earliest sustained commentaries on a Masters Text.15 Chapter 20 comments on eleven chapters from Laozi.16 Like the “Way of the Ruler,” both chapters have often been considered too “Daoist” to have been written by Han Feizi. Luckily, the Mawangdui findings have contributed to the case for a Laozi influence on Han Feizi, enabling us to finally take seriously Sima Qian’s comment that Han Feizi based his doctrines on the Yellow Emperor and Laozi (HuangLao ). The apparent contradiction between what scholars have superficially labeled “Daoist” and “Legalist” is precisely the point of Han Feizi; only if one understands this can one begin to explore these chapters as truly ingenious exegetical endeavors.17 For our purposes we will discuss Han Feizi’s

————— 15. Guanzi contains a subchapter with the title “Explanation of ‘On Conditions and Circumstances’” (Xing shi jie ). In contrast to what happens in Han Feizi chapters, the text commented upon is a collection of apothegms ranging from the classics such as the Book of Poetry to Masters Texts such as Laozi and Zhuangzi. Rickett dates the subchapter to the first century bce and deems it important for providing “insight into Legalistic Confucian thinking during the Han.” Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, 60. Unless we discover more examples of a possible genre of “Explanations” ( jie ), it is hard to say whether Han Feizi picked up on an existing tradition or set the tone for a new commentarial genre. However, we should not forget that Han Feizi is famed as a repository for writing experiments that later took off as genres, such as the “Connected Pearls” (lianzhu ) genre or the “Criticism” (nan ) genre. Thus it is not impossible that Han Feizi indeed created this particular commentarial genre. For the former genres see Xu Hanchang, Han Fei de faxue yu wenxue, 193–204. 16. Chapter 20 comments on Laozi 1, 14, 38, 46, 50, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 67. Chapter 21, “Illustrating Laozi” (Yu Lao ), comments on twelve passages from Laozi (26, 27, 33, 36, 41, 46, 47, 52, 54, 63, 64, 71) by illustrating them with apposite anecdotes. For discussions on the authenticity of the two Laozi chapters in Han Feizi, see Lundahl, Han Feizi, 219–45. 17. Léon Vandermeersch makes this point clear: “We only need to free ourselves from the prejudice that the Daoist chapters of the Hanfeizi are later interpolations to discover their originality. Already in terms of form, these commentaries are not just ordinary commentaries. They are as little scholarly as possible. Instead of taking the Laozi text as the starting point to elaborate on its content, the author expounds his own thinking, and makes

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 289 interpretation of Laozi Chapter 38. This suggests itself as a good choice, because it is the first and also most extensive discussion of a single chapter of Laozi. Its prominent place in Han Feizi may stem from the fact that Laozi Chapter 38 opens the “Virtue” (de ) part of Laozi and actually opens the entire book in both Mawangdui versions, an arrangement that deviates from our transmitted texts. The Laozi passage opens on the well-known paradox that “non-action” will leave nothing undone and “non-virtue” is in fact the highest virtue.18 Later, it sketches the gradual decline of the Way, reaching from the “Way” and “virtue” to increasingly lower forms of their manifestation, namely “benevolence” (ren ) and “rightness” (yi ), finally hitting rock bottom with its supposedly most degenerate form, “ritual” (li ). The last third of the Laozi passage describes the preferences of the sagely person in positive terms—as dwelling in the abundant and not the thin— thus switching from a paradoxical to an affirmative mode of speech. Before looking at Han Feizi commentary, we should try to anticipate Han Feizi’s comments on this Laozi chapter. First, we are curious how Han

————— clear with each step the elements of the Daoist Way he has borrowed in the making of his own doctrine.” Vandermeersch, La formation du légisme: recherches sur la constitutions d’une philosophie politique caractéristique de la Chine ancienne, 269. Since Han Feizi chapters stand at the beginning of the development of “commentarial” traditions in China, I doubt that one can discuss them from the perspective of “what a normal commentary would do.” However, I agree with Vandermeersch’s point that these chapters not only make perfect sense as a work by Han Fei, but are truly original in their exegetical procedures. 18. I quote the Laozi passage for reference. (My translation has benefited from Robert G. Henricks, Te-Tao Ching: Lao-Tzu.)

“Highest virtue is not virtuous; therefore it truly has virtue; lower virtue never loses virtue, therefore it has not true virtue. Highest virtue does not act and has nothing to act out; lower virtue does not act, but has something to act out. Highest benevolence acts but has nothing to act out; highest rightness acts and has something to act out. Highest ritual acts and nothing responds, therefore it rolls up its sleeves and forces people to comply. Thus, after the Way is lost, there is ‘virtue’; after ‘Virtue’ is lost, there is ‘benevolence’; after ‘benevolence’ is lost, there is ‘rightness.’ After ‘rightness’ is lost, there is ‘ritual.’ As for ritual, it is the attenuation of loyalty and trust and the beginning of disorder. Prescience is the flower of the Way and the beginning of stupidity. Thus, the eminent person dwells in the abundant, not in the thin. That person dwells in the fruit, not the flower. Therefore, he rejects that and picks this.”

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Feizi, which stresses unambiguous positive written standards, deals with paradoxical linguistic modes in the first part of the Laozi passage. Second, we expect problems with the narrative of decline going along with increasing order and social distinctions: although values like “benevolence” are distinctly Confucian, the reinforcement of centralized order and social stratification is too important to Han Feizi for it to follow along with its discrediting in Laozi. Third, in accordance with the first point, it will be interesting to see how Han Feizi’s commentary manages the switch from paradoxical to affirmative modes in the last part of the Laozi passage. Han Feizi’s commentary on Laozi 38 thus begins: Virtue (de) is internal. Getting hold [of things] is external. That the highest virtue is not virtuous means that the mind does not indulge in external things. If the mind does not indulge in external things, the person will preserve his well-being, and preserving one’s well-being is called “virtue.” “Virtue” (de) means “getting hold of one’s body” (de shen ). In general virtue is accumulated through non-action, perfected through desirelessness, put to rest through non-thinking and solidified by uselessness. Through action and desires, virtue will have no place to settle,19 and if virtue does not settle, one cannot keep oneself whole. Through use and thoughts, [virtue] will not solidify, and if it does not solidify, it will not function properly. The lack of proper functioning will [consciously] bring about virtue, and [this kind of] virtue will be non-virtue. [Conversely], non-virtue will again have virtue. Thus [Laozi] says, “Highest virtue is not virtuous; therefore it truly has virtue.”20 , . , . , . , . , . , , , , . , , . , , . , . : , .

Han Feizi first discusses the snippet from Laozi and only in the end appends a direct quotation; this accords with Han commentarial convention. But it is also an advantageous postponement of the urtext to the end and thus to a point at which the commentator will have gradually consolidated his interpretation of the text. This is particularly important for Han Feizi’s

————— 19. Reading she according to Wang Xianshen’s gloss Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 326. 20. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 326.

,

. Chen Qiyou, Han

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take on Laozi because, as we will see, the text performs stunning moves of reinterpretation in order to fit it to Han Feizi’s purpose, namely to recruit a Laozian concept of “non-action” for the construction of a self-regulated autocratic system. From the perspective of Laozi’s attempt to best Confucian values and traditions of speaking, the paradox of the efficiency of “non-action” is a response to the Confucian “correction of names” (zhengming ). Negating the Confucian desire to give positive embodiment to the reference of words, Laozi claims that the linguistic negation gives access to a deeper notion of affirmation. For Han Feizi, in contrast, the positing of rules, rewards, and punishments is crucial. But this presupposes positive linguistic utterances that make it difficult to value negation. If the paradox that makes Laozi’s vision efficient makes Han Feizi’s thought system harmfully paradoxical and unfeasible, how then can “non-virtue” and “non-action” function within Han Feizi? In the case of “non-action,” the “Way of the Ruler” chapter explains paradox away by introducing a division of labor. Here, Han Feizi circumvents the problem by means of a semantic bifurcation and an interpretive emendation of the term “virtue” as “getting hold of things” (de ). The distinction between a “higher” and “lower” virtue is already present in the Laozi text. This allows for the separation into an “outer” and an “inner” virtue. Once-true virtue becomes coupled with inner preservation rather than acquisition of external things, as the first Laozi line reads “The highest virtue is not ‘getting hold of external things,’ that’s why it remains virtue.” Thus, the paradox that Laozi resolves into a promise of higher potency and efficiency is in Han Feizi explained away by the positing of two distinct types of virtues. Also, as if to prepare us for an affirmative use of “virtue,” Han Feizi uses solidifying rather than mobilizing and subverting formulations: “accumulating” ( ji ), “putting to rest (an ), “solidifying” (gu ), and “settling” (she ).21 Han Feizi apparently wants to make sure that the notion of “virtue” does not slip away too easily under the spell of Laozi’s elusive paradoxical scheme of things.

————— 21. Here I refer to the exceptional meaning of “settling,” different from the standard meaning of “setting aside.”

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The reason why people treasure non-action and non-thinking as [a form of] emptiness is that one’s intent is not controlled by anything. Those who lack skill consider non-action and non-thinking emptiness, but in doing so, their intent is constantly focused on not forgetting emptiness, thus being controlled by emptiness. But emptiness means that the intent is not controlled by anything. If now it is controlled by producing that emptiness, that’s not emptiness at all. The nonaction of [true] emptiness does not take non-action as constant. If it does not take non-action as constant, then it is empty. Being empty, virtue flourishes, and that’s what is called “highest virtue.” Thus [Laozi] says, “Higher virtue does not act and leaves nothing undone.”22 , . , . , , . , . , . , , , , , : .

Here Han Feizi introduces a new term into the equation: “emptiness” (xu ), a term that in “Way of the Ruler” described the way the ruler practices “non-action” and waits for names to appoint themselves and business to take care of itself. The commentary here goes a long way to accommodate Laozi’s concept of non-assertive action. But in the next step, Han Feizi twists Laozi considerably. This time, nothing less is at stake than the salvation of social distinctions after Laozi’s destruction of them: Benevolence means joyfully loving others from one’s innermost heart, rejoicing in their good fortune and hating it when they run into misfortune. It stems from the heart’s sense of necessity and does not demand any reward in turn. Thus [Laozi] says: ‘Highest benevolence acts, but has nothing to act out.’ Rightness (yi ) is a matter between ruler and subject, between superiors and inferiors. It is the difference between father and son, between the distinguished and the lowly, but also the intimate connection between acquaintances and con-

————— 22. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 328. Note that Han Feizi misquotes or quotes a different version of Laozi than the transmitted ones or the Mawangdui versions. They have [ . This gives a better parallel with the next colon, namely that “lower virtue does not act, but has something to act out.” While the point in Laozi emphasizes the difference between conscious, assertive action associated with lower virtue, and higher virtue’s non-assertive action, Han Feizi directs the Laozi quotation’s focus to the miraculous paradox that despite non-action, nothing will be left undone.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 293 tacts, friends and companions, and it is the separation between close and distant relations, the inner and the outer. It is proper (yi ) that a subject should serve the ruler; it is proper that an inferior should cherish the superior; it is proper that a son should serve his father, that the lowly respect the distinguished; it is proper that acquaintances and contacts, friends and companions should help each other; it is proper that close relations should be considered as “inner,” and distant relations as “outer.” [In short], rightness (yi ) means what is proper (yi ), that is: acting things out properly. Thus [Laozi] says, “Highest rightness acts and has something to act out.”23 , . , . , . : . , , , , . , , , , , . , , , : .

Considering that “benevolence” and “rightness” feed into Laozi’s narrative of decline towards the most degenerate form of the Way, namely “ritual,” Han Feizi is outrageously generous in its interpretation of these two terms. Instead of figuring as the non-assertive version of the even worse “rightness” as in Laozi, “benevolence” becomes philanthropy without the expectation of rewards. In return, Han Feizi’s take on “rightness” is even farther and more purposefully off the mark. This is understandable, because social distinctions and proper hierarchies are at the heart of Han Feizi’s vision of the state. The system can only work if everybody takes his allotted place in the hierarchy of power.24 The system can run itself through “non-action” only if hierarchies function and if layers of disguise that impede the subject’s awareness of the ruler’s desires are in place. Han Feizi’s commentary on Laozi here is desperately attached to social hierarchies governed by “propriety” and “rightness” and produces an affirmative, non-paradoxical reading of that Laozi line. Although Han Fei successfully deals with paradoxical negations by explaining them away, he throws himself with verve into the grammatical affirmative of the phrase “Highest rightness acts and has something to act

————— 23. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 330. 24. However, Han Feizi also mentions the coequal relation between friends, the exception to all the other hierarchically organized social relationships.

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out,” a phrase which in Laozi is still in a diametrically opposed paradoxical mode. But Han Feizi is not inclined to rehabilitate just any of the terms that make up Laozi’s line of decline of the Way. “Ritual” gets a less favorable treatment: It is through ritual that emotions are expressed; it is the ornate pattern of the various proprieties [mentioned above], such as the relationship between ruler and subject, father and son; it is that by which one can discriminate the distinguished from the lowly, the worthy from the unworthy. If one harbors strong feelings in one’s heart and cannot express them, then one rushes forward and humbly bows in order to bring [these feelings] to light. [Likewise], if one loves somebody from one’s most genuine heart and cannot make oneself understood, then one uses pleasing words and eloquent phrases to gain the other’s trust. Ritual is that with which outer appearance manifests the interior. Thus [Laozi] says, “Ritual is that wherewith emotions are expressed.”25 , , , , . , . , . , . : .

The Confucian term “ritual” (li )—in the usage the Laozi passage is pitting itself against—is problematic within Han Feizi’s vision of a selfregulating political system. If such Confucian terms as “rightness” resonate well with Han Feizi’s emphasis on social hierarchies and propriety, and “benevolence” can pass for some kind of philanthropy, the concept of “ritual” is potentially detrimental to Han Feizi’s vision. On some level, Confucian “ritual” is the rival term to Legalist “standards/laws” (fa). “Ritual” assumes the personal charisma of the actor, while the “law” is designed precisely to make that charisma superfluous. The Legalist system works because it does not require special, selfcultivated protagonists. Beginners and ignoramuses are sufficient. Consequently, although “ritual” is described here in terms very similar to “rightness,” namely as the guarantee for proper social distinctions, it is immediately associated with “ornate pattern” and “word flourish” as if to prepare us for the next step, an ejection of “ritual” from the row of terms which in Laozi descend to decadence, but which in Han Feizi are made

—————

25. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 331.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 295 into a row of equally worthy terms. As we see below, “ritual” will be made to bear a decadent thrust in Laozi, while Han Feizi will put off decline— not least to preserve cherished terms such as “rightness”—until further down the path towards degenerate “ritual.” In general, when people are moved by external things, they are not aware that rituals should serve their own well-being. When the populace performs rituals it is to give respect to other people, so sometimes they are emphasized and sometimes they are reduced. The exemplary person’s (junzi ) practice of ritual takes it for his own well-being. When he takes it for his own well-being, his spirit practices the highest [form of] ritual. This highest [form of] ritual is spirit-like, while the [ritual of the] populace is fickle and of two minds. In consequence, they do not correspond to each other. And since they do not correspond, [Laozi’s] saying applies: “Highest ritual acts and nothing resonates with it.” Whereas the popular [notion of ritual] is fickle, the Sage’s [form of] ritual is submitting, humble, and respectful and exhausts hands and feet, and does not decline. Hence [Laozi’s] saying, “[Because nothing responds, superior ritual] rolls up its sleeves and forces people to comply.”26 , . , , . , , , , , , , : . , , : .

Han Feizi extrapolates the “high” and “low” forms of ritual from Laozi’s mention of “highest ritual,” but Han Feizi puts this distinction to use in order to explain why “nothing responds to superior virtue” (mo zhi ying ). Within the logic of Laozi, the absence of resonance refers to the fact that ritual is a manifestation of the Way that has degenerated so far into the vices of assertive action that cosmic resonance (ying ), the force that assures action in non-action, drops out. This in turn, according to the line of thought in Laozi, generates even more assertive forms of action that force people to comply. Han Feizi now reads the assertive action of the “highest” form of ritual in non-paradoxical mode, celebrates ritual’s proactive nature and—in a most extreme act that comes close to interpretive rape—seems to hail the violence with which ritual forces its way, enforcing the rules and regulations necessary for a self-regulating state.

————— 26. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 331.

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In the next paragraph—nothing can surprise us any more at this point—Laozi’s narrative of decline is made into a celebration of the relations among virtue, supposedly the “merit of the Way,” benevolence envisioned as the “light of virtue,” rightness as the “service” to benevolence, and ritual as the “pattern of rightness.” Han Feizi shows an awareness that with this passage he is forcing Laozi text almost beyond the boundaries of the exegetically possible, and so he further refines his notions of good and bad types of “ritual.” In addition to the above distinction between a higher, intrinsic, and lower, extrinsic notion of ritual he adds the distinction between a superior—simple and plain—and an inferior—overly ornate—type of ritual: Ritual is the outer form of emotions; patterning is the adornment of substance. Thus the superior person goes for the emotions but downplays appearances; he likes substance and dislikes adornment. Whoever relies on demeanor to talk about emotions will diagnose bad emotions; whoever adduces adornment to discuss substance will only find degenerate substance. Why do I argue that? The jade of Bian He was not adorned with five colors, the pearl of the Marquis of Sui was not adorned with gold and silver. Their substance had perfect beauty, so that nothing would have been good enough to adorn them. Accordingly, everything that needs adornment in order to function lacks beauty of substance. Equally, in the relationship between father and son, ritual is plain and not flashy. Thus [Laozi] says, “Ritual is attenuated.”27 , . , . , ; , . ? , , , , , . , . , , : .

Here Han Feizi abridges the Laozi passage, which reads “Ritual is the attenuation of loyalty and trust” (li zhe zhong xin zhi bo ]. But quite apart from this divergence, we witness a diametrical switch of modes in Laozi and Han Feizi. The last part of Laozi switches to nonparadoxical language; it shows a rare appearance of affirmative language that means what it says. It takes the substance instead of adornment, chooses the “fruit” instead of the “flower,” and does not make the typical point that “real substance” is not “substance.” The “attenuation” of ritual

————— 27. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 334.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 297 is already part of Laozi’s switch to the affirmative mode, and thus in Laozi refers to the term in a derogatory sense. In diametrical opposition, Han Feizi distinguishes “richly adorned” from “thin” ritual and, in a switch to the paradoxical mode, finds the adorned version faulty and the thin version worthy. Comparable strategies can be found in Han Feizi’s commentary on the companion piece of Laozi Chapter 38: the famous first chapter of the “Way” part of Laozi:28 Generally speaking, it is by principles that the square is distinguished from the round, the short from the long, the coarse from the fine, the hard from the brittle. Thus, only after principles are fixed can one attain the Way; and fixed principles include existence and decline, death and life, thriving and waning. Anything that first exists, then declines, or suddenly dies and again revives, that first thrives and then wanes—none of these can be called constant. Only what is born along with the first splitting of Heaven and Earth, and what is immortal and imperishable until some [final] dispersal of Heaven and Earth, can be called constant. The constant does not change and has no fixed principle; being without fixed principle, it does not exist in a constant location. Thus it cannot be spoken of. The Sage observes its dark emptiness, uses its comprehensive course, and forces a word upon it by styling it the “Way,” so that it can be discussed. Thus [Laozi] says, “The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way.”29 , . . , , . , , , . , . , , , , . , , , , : , .

————— 28. I quote Laozi ch. 1 for reference:

The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; the name that can be named is not the constant name. The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, the named is the mother of the myriad things. Strip yourself of all desire, and you will observe its deep mystery. Succumb to desire, and you will only touch its surface. These two emerge together, but have a different name. Together they are called “darkness.” Where the dark is darker than darkness, that’s the Gateway of Subtleties.

29. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 20 (“Jie Lao”), 369.

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Predictably, it is a great challenge for Han Feizi to interpret the opening sentence of Laozi Chapter 1 within its own intellectual framework. Because of the importance of formulating positive rules and regulations for the functioning of the state, Han Feizi cannot afford to give in completely to inconstancy and ineffability. The solution to this problem is spelled out at the outset: a new guiding concept, “principle” (li ), is introduced as a term of at least intermediary constancy. True, says Han Feizi, the Way is ineffable; only an act of forcing an inappropriate name onto it (zi ) makes it possible to “discuss” (lun ) it. Also, “principles” such as life and death, or square and round, describe the inconstant, but by virtue of their being principles, some intermediary constancy is gained such that “if principles are fixed, one can attain the Way.” Although the second half of the commentary talks about the violence done to the Way by naming it, the first half makes it clear that the intermediary “principles” are good enough for Han Feizi’s purpose and allow him to not completely implode the Laozi text. Let us now summarize the variety of interpretive manipulations Han Feizi inflicts on the two Laozi passages discussed above, the respective opening passages of the “Way” and “Virtue” sections of Laozi. First, it uses phonetic puns to gloss key terms. In the case of “virtue” (de ) and “getting hold of” (de ), this strategy helps explain paradox away. In the case of “rightness” (yi ) and “propriety” (yi ) it brings out the desired meaning that “rightness” is proper societal behavior and should be taken out of the economy of decline towards order depicted in the corresponding Laozi passage. Second, Han Feizi constructs binary levels of the key terms by extrapolating them from Laozi. The assumption of a “higher” ritual allows the commentator to posit a “lower” form of ritual that then can explain the lack of response (ying ). Often, these extrapolations help explain paradox away and enable a literalized reading of Laozi, converting paradoxical into affirmative modes. A third commentarial strategy is the shift between paradoxical and non-paradoxical modes. Han Feizi is almost close to Laozi’s paradoxical mode when it comments on the “highest virtue that does not act, yet leaves nothing undone.” But after that moment, Han Feizi’s assumption of modes switches places to become diametrically opposed to that of the Laozi passage. With the trick of a mode shift, Han Feizi can elegantly ig-

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 299 nore the story of decline in Laozi and prop up “rightness” and—in a much more limited way—“ritual” as the warrantors of social hierarchies that guarantee the functioning of a self-regulating state. It is more than a truism that any commentary somehow twists its urtext. But we usually assume that the commentator—in his desire to manipulate cultural capital for his political goals, intellectual ambitions, or just personal pleasure—has to appropriate the urtext within the limits of the exegetically possible. The further the urtext stands from the commentator’s basic assumptions, the more difficult it will be to accomplish this appropriation successfully; also, the higher the canonical status of the urtext, the stronger the willingness to go to considerable lengths with one’s interpretive strains—even resorting to commentarial violence—to make that appropriation happen. We might ask why Han Feizi so desperately wanted to appropriate Laozi. Let me suggest one reason for this puzzling pressing of Laozi’s words into Han Feizi’s vision. Laozi’s desire to create a vacuum from other traditions afforded a most precious opportunity for Han Feizi to “clean up” the mess of diverging and burgeoning traditions, to start from scratch and discard—as Han Feizi often emphasizes—the “teachings of the Former Kings” (xian wang zhi jiao ). Moreover, the concept of “non-action” was instrumental in building Han Feizi’s vision of a self-regulating state, which only needed a minimal set of generic actors similar to those found in Laozi. If Han Feizi put Laozi on a pedestal by writing a commentary on certain passages, Laozi was a weapon to keep other masters traditions away. It was an instrument of liquidation. As we see below, Han Feizi places itself ostentatiously outside the spectrum of Masters Literature. Laozi certainly helped with that move. The choice of the commentary form in the case of Han Feizi was favorable to its deviation from Laozi’s intentions. The long exegetical passages that precede the small bits and pieces quoted from Laozi chapters gave the commentator ample leeway to divert meaning and have the reader accept its own sanctions of signification, before the reader would be reminded of Laozi’s formulations. Also, the breaking of the text into small pieces resulted in an advantageous loss of context, a weakening of the urtext and a reduction of the urtext to the—twisted as it might be— illustration of meanings established by the commentator. In this sense, the commentarial form was the most apt enunciatory strategy to appro-

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priate the text and its authority even as it reinvented the text. This means that Han Feizi’s commentary on Laozi functioned as an attractive form of self-expression for a strong-minded author and theorist of an autocratic state who knew he could pull off the impossible: to make Laozi legalistically his own.

Protagonists of “Non-Action” in Han Feizi’s Self-Regulating State The Ruler We have seen that Han Feizi’s notion of “non-action” was based on a vision of a division of labor between the ruler and his subjects and on the ruler’s ability to maintain order by keeping up pretenses and hiding his intentions from his subjects. Such a system has profound implications for the role of its participants. The various Masters Texts strongly disagreed about the specific methods of good government, but there was more or less a consensus that the ruler needs to be charismatic and officials should be chosen based on merit, however it came to be defined. This holds even for Laozi. Han Feizi created a radically new ruler figure. For the self-regulating system to work, the ruler needed to be clever rather than wise; he had to be good at striking poses of pretense rather than at radiating charisma; he was supposed to act in a way that was opaque and recondite, rather than appear too close to the people. It is hard to see how such a new physiognomy of rulership might have appealed to contemporary rulers, especially because the elevation of the system to omnipotence would automatically reduce the function of the ruler role.30 The ambiguity of the ruler’s role hinges on the coexistence in Han Feizi of an image of the ruler as rendered superfluous within the self-regulating system and as empowered by either Confucian or Laozian discourses of sagehood and charismatic virtue (variously called mingjun, mingzhu, shengren , , ). This tension is particularly obvious in the chapters that have traditionally been considered of “Daoist” influence.

————— 30. A. C. Graham makes this point: “There is in any case something equivocal in the place of the ruler in Han Fei’s scheme. The ruler himself is reduced to one component in the machinery of the state.” Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 291.

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The bureaucratic and charismatic ruler win out at different points in the text or in different chapters, but it is clear that the ambivalent position of the ruler must have been both appealing and appalling for rulers of the time. In addition, the image of a bureaucratic disempowered ruler coexisted with the image of an omnipotent autocratic head of state who could arbitrarily apply capital punishment and wreak havoc. As we will see below, the chapter “Difficulties of Persuasion” describes the ruler as a dragon with inverted scales on his throat, scales that will kill anybody who dares to touch them. The ruler, in one sense just a cog among many in the machine of the state, possessed at the same time the deadly powers to kill instantly. Why was the image of Han Feizi’s ruler so dangerously ambivalent? Could we reformulate Yang Xiong’s verdict on Han Feizi and argue that he was executed because he touched the inverted scales of the autocratic ruler figure precisely by envisioning a system in which the ruler was shrunk to the bureaucratic size of any other official in the system? Was there any advantage in exposing the role of the ruler to the constant risks of slippage from the charismatic, autocratic, and omnipotent to the bureaucratic, enslaved, and disempowered?

Other Masters To answer this question we have to survey the roles of other protagonists participating in the business of state—potential office holders, among which we find the voice of Han Feizi. Unlike any other Masters Text, Han Feizi not only joins the intertextual conversation with other masters, but also very consciously places itself beyond the discursive territory of Masters Literature. To be sure, according to our reading of Laozi, we could say that Laozi did that, too. Yet Laozi places itself at the outside in order to create a new inside, a rival tradition within the discursive space of Masters Literature. Han Feizi, in contrast, places himself outside of Masters Literature in order to leave the field entirely—or to have the whole field to himself. We see, in short, how Han Feizi distances itself from social groups to which most masters probably belonged: persuaders, retainers, or teachers who were experts in certain practices or texts. We also see that Han Feizi was particularly hostile to people who studied or produced texts. Texts by or transmitted through other masters were rivals to Han Feizi’s textual regime of “laws” (fa ).

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Let us retrace our steps and first sketch the place of other masters within the social panorama Han Feizi paints for us. Compared to previous Masters Texts, Han Feizi affords us a keen glance at social types in the Late Warring States. It not only features rulers and subjects, masters and disciples, but it also pictures itinerant knights, persuaders, merchants, and other suspicious types. It portrays social actors in terms of their usefulness for the state; it is from this perspective that the Han Feizi rejects rival masters, in particular Confucian “textual scholars,” as candidates for state office. Han Feizi’s sociological profiling is, not surprisingly, almost exclusively derogatory and negative. Let us look at the portrayal of six despicable character types in Chapter 46, “Six Offenders” (Liu fan ): Whoever fears death and difficulty is the type of surrendering coward, yet the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman who treasures life.” Who studies the Way and proposes strategies [of governance] is the type that deviates from the laws, but the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman of Textual Learning.” Who spends his time traveling around, generously supported [as a retainer], is the type that would beg for food, but the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman with Talent.” Whose words are crooked and feign understanding is the fraudulent and deceptive type, but the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman of Eloquence and Wisdom.” Who brandishes his sword to attack and kill is the violent and hot-tempered type, but the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman of Bravery and Valor.” Who gives livelihood to scoundrels and hides culprits is the type that deserves death, but the world honors him and calls him a “Gentleman of Responsibility and Reputation.” These six types of rabble are lauded by the present world.31 , , ; , , ; , , ; , , ; , , ; , , ; , .

Min in this context does not refer to the “people” in Mencius who thirst for a wise, paternal king, but to what Han Feizi considers the scum of contemporary society. Descriptions of unwanted elements and scan-

————— 31. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 46 (“Liu fan”), 948.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 303 dalous subjects abound in Han Feizi.32 The sketches of scoundrels are intended to serve as profiles of criminals against whom the ruler should protect himself. True, one could probably roughly surmise the sociological groups beneath the descriptions—experts in self-cultivation techniques, Confucians, high officials, persuaders, knight errants, and powerful elite lineages; but the degree of spite that pervades the portrayals and the obsessive repetition of such spiteful generic portrayals throughout Han Feizi make it clear that the speaker feels haunted by such images of evil. He fears both for his ruler and for his own position with the ruler, which was in danger of being obscured particularly by one class of people: the “Scholars of Textual Learning” (wenxue zhi shi ). They are at least as bad as all other itinerant folk.33 But, far worse, their texts threaten to overturn the social order:

————— 32. Other chapters that line up groups of detestable subjects are Chapter 47, “Eight Persuasions” (Ba shuo ), and Chapter 49, “Five Vermin” (Wu du ). It would be interesting to compare Han Feizi’s portrayals of despicable social elements to the laments of the rejected official over the favor his slanderers enjoy at court in the Chuci. It is revealing that Han Feizi often combines the description of undesirable social elements with an appeal to the ruler to repress these groups instead of—so goes Han Feizi’s complaint— employing them at court. Certainly the targeted groups are different, because the Chuci focuses on psychological, not sociological types, but the sense of rejection by the ruler who supports the incompetent and evil is a motif that, strangely enough, the Chuci and Han Feizi share. 33. In “Five Vermin,” textual scholars are lumped together with merchants, artisans, persuaders, and swordsmen. All five groups are considered dangerous to the state, because they are itinerant and thus not easily controllable. Although I generally do not favor biographical interpretations—particularly when sources are so scarce—it is not impossible that the unique conflation of masters with other itinerant folk that we see in Han Feizi is an expression of the contempt of a nobleman. The anxiety of mobility and of the rise of classes who made their fortunes by money and merit rather than by birth and lineage was triggered by one of the major sociological changes in the Late Warring States. And one cannot easily dismiss the feeling that Han Feizi’s desire to downgrade these rising social groups was fueled by the aristocratic origins of its author. Here is some advice about how to deal with them (Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 49 [“Wu du”], 1075):

An enlightened ruler will govern his state so that the number of merchants, artisans, and other men who make their living by wandering from place to place decreases and will make sure that they have a low reputation. He thus lessens the number of people who abandon primary pursuits (i.e., agriculture) to take up secondary occupations. .

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The Confucians throw the laws into confusion with their literary learning; the knights violate prohibitions with their military prowess; yet the ruler treats both groups with polite respect, that’s the reason for disorder. People who deviate from the law should be indicted for their crime, but the scholars are selected [for posts in the government] based on their literary learning. People who violate the prohibitions ought to be punished, but bands of knights make a living by fighting with their swords for private causes. Hence, the ruler selects [for office] those whom the law condemns and the higher officials patronize those whom magistrates seek to punish. Thus law and private interest, high officials and lowly magistrates are all at odds with each other, and there are no fixed [standards] to adhere to. Under such circumstances even ten Yellow Emperors could not bring orderly government to the state! Those who practice benevolence and rightness should not be praised, for praising them will harm the functioning [of the government]; men with literary learning should not be employed in the government, for employing them means throwing the laws into confusion.34 , , , . , ; , . , ; , . , , . , ; , .

Again, Confucian scholars figure in conjunction with other “itinerant people,” but the thrust is directed most strongly against the scholars. Han Feizi criticizes the ruler for employing the scholars at court. With their textual expertise and literary learning they bring “confusion to the laws” (yi wen luan fa ). The conflict burns down to a culture clash between the textual erudition (wen ) of the Confucians and the codified laws Han Feizi would like the ideal servant of the state to propagate instead. What is at stake in this culture clash? What are the dangers of Confucian attachments to texts? When writings are too sketchy, disciples will start debating; when laws are too abridged, the mob will easily come up with litigation. Therefore, the writings of the sages have to illuminate debates, and the laws of the enlightened ruler have to spell out affairs in detail. Exerting one’s thinking or fathoming gains and losses is difficult even for the wise. In contrast to this, practicing non-thought and nonreflection, grasping the word that precedes the subsequent successful result, is easy even for idiots. The enlightened ruler should reflect on what is easy for idiots

————— 34. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 49 (“Wu du”), 1057.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 305 and he should reprimand what is difficult for the wise. Then, there is no need for wisdom or reflection, for physical force and labor, and the state will nevertheless be well-governed.35 , . , . , , ; , , . , , .

The strongest argument against the masters and their quarrelling disciples is that their words are too sketchy and too complicated to comprehend. Government is supposed to be a government of the “people,” of the benighted masses, who are graced with political visibility but also labeled stupid. But the passage does not want to discard textuality altogether. It imagines a “sage” (shengren) who writes so transparently that debates will not arise. Han Feizi imagines codified laws to be of this type, examples of a perfectly transparent textuality. We have to ask once again: what exactly is the problem with the textuality of letters and literature (wen) as opposed to this utopian transparent textuality of the laws ( fa)? First of all, books are only read, but their principles are not enforced: Now the people of the state all discuss good government and everyone has a copy of the works on law by Shang Yang and Kuan Chung in his house, and yet the state gets poorer and poorer, for though many people talk about farming, very few put their hands to a plow. The people of the state all discuss military affairs, and everyone has a copy of the works of Sun Wu and Wu Ch’i in his house, and yet the armies grow weaker and weaker, for though many people talk about war, very few buckle on armor. Therefore an enlightened ruler will make use of men’s strength but will not heed their words, will reward their accomplishments but will prohibit useless activities. Then the people will be willing to exert themselves to the point of death in the service of their sovereign.36 , , , , ; , , , , . , ; , ; .

————— 35. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 47 (“Ba shuo”), 976. 36. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 49 (“Wu du”), 1066–67. Watson, Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün tzu and Han Fei tzu, 110.

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Book knowledge in itself is useless. Even if one possesses the right kind of books—works such as the Book of Lord Shang (Shangjunshu ) attributed to Shang Yang or the Guanzi that presumably belong to Han Feizi’s intellectual lineage—they will only trigger debate, and their principles will not be into practice. This is not just deplorable in itself, but a preoccupation with such books will weaken the productive and defensive forces of the state. We can understand Han Feizi’s reservations against books and book learning much better if we look at how Han Feizi imagines the role of textuality in an ideal state: Therefore, in the state of an enlightened ruler there are no books written on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers. There are no fierce feuds of private swordsmen; cutting off the heads of the enemy is the only deed of valor. Hence, when the people of such a state make a speech, they say nothing that is in contradiction to the law; when they act, it is in some way that will bring useful results; and when they do brave deeds, they do them in the army. Therefore, in times of peace the state is rich, and in times of trouble its armies are strong. These are what are called the resources of the ruler. The ruler must store them up, and then wait for an opening to strike at his enemy. He who would surpass the Five Emperors of antiquity and rival the Three Kings must proceed by this method [with the help of laws].37 , , ; , ; , . , , , . , , . , , , .

The passage proposes a method of “strengthening (qiang ) the state” and “enriching” ( fu ) it—a promise characteristic of persuader literature. It proposes a large-scale operation of substitutions. Books and writings are to be replaced with law codes ( fa); oral instructions of the Former Kings transmitted in texts are to be replaced with state officials as instructors; disputations are to be measured against the written codes. This

————— 37. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 49 (“Wu du”), 1097. Watson, Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün tzu and Han Fei tzu, 111.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 307 method ( fa ) of using laws ( fa ) will make the state rich and strong so that it will even surpass the golden age of high antiquity. This is obviously a call for radical change. Let us try to take it literally for a moment. The proposed substitutions aim at eliminating the Confucians and their books—the witnesses of bygone ages. They aim at establishing a realm that transcends the conditions of any given point in time.38 This ideal of a timeless textuality is supposedly embodied in “laws.” “Laws” are imagined sub specie aeternitatis as a sort of written present. They never become history, because they are constantly being adapted to the needs of the present. They constitute an (outrageously utopian) semantic space of a timeless, self-regulating textuality. It is very hard to concretely imagine how Han Feizi’s new notion of textuality, which would supersede the conventional book in the same way as his “new sages” (xinsheng )39 make the Former Kings unnecessary, would be textuality at all. The imagined self-adjusting fluidity is hardly compatible with a notion of written discourse. What facilitates such an improbable notion of a new type of textuality is the semantic floating of “fa” between the fixed and written (such as “law codes”), and the procedural and non-written (such as “method/procedure” of governance). This floating enables Han Feizi to present a vision of a new type of absolute textuality that binds people’s behavior in an imagined written text but never outdates itself because it is lodged in a universal “method.” If we consider this new vision of textuality in a larger context and think back to Han Feizi’s commentary on Laozi, it becomes obvious why Han Feizi would “gloss” Laozi rather than any other Masters Text. Of all the Masters Texts, Laozi came closest to Han Feizi’s notion of a new absolute textuality. The tabula rasa it pits against the Confucian historical outlook and its absence of specifics as to time, place, or actors suited Han Feizi’s desire to make textuality trans-temporal—written and fixed enough to control people’s behavior, but oral, fluid, and transient enough to assure a perfect fit between prescriptive laws and needs of the present.

————— 38. For Han Feizi’s radical argument in favor of innovation to accommodate historical change, see Puett, The Ambivalence of Creation, 77–78. 39. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 49 (“Wu du”), 1040.

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Let us conclude our account of Han Feizi’s hostility against the masters in general and the Confucians in particular with an anecdote that indulges in fantasies of a happy world without books and gives concrete instructions for how and why to get rid of them: 40 Wang Shou was traveling around carrying books on his back and encountered Xu Feng on the roads of Zhou.41 Feng said, ‘Deeds are actions. Actions arise from specific moments in time. And the understanding of these specific moments is not without change. Books are words. Words arise from understanding, but the one who understands words doesn’t need to keep books. So why on earth are you traveling around with [books] on your back?’ Thereupon Wang Shou burnt his books and joyously danced around. Thus the knowledgeable do not discuss [former] teachings in their speeches, and the wise do not keep bookcases; this is what the present world objects to, but Wang Shou reverted to [these teachings]. That is learning not to learn. Thus [Laozi] says, “[The sage] learns not to learn, returning to what the masses pass by.”42 , , : , . , 43 44 [ ] . , . , [ ] . ? . , . , , . : , .

This is startling and goes further than the famous denigration of books and book knowledge by Wheelwright Pian in “The Way of Heaven” (Tian dao ) in Zhuangzi. The Wheelwright derides books only as an inappropriate medium for transmitting skill; his witty defense against Duke Huan of Qi points to the gap between non-verbal skill and its verbal transmission. His denigration of books also serves to illustrate his high degree of skill and the long process of experience that produced it.

————— 40. The anecdote is from “Illustrating Laozi” (Yu Lao ), a companion chapter to Han Feizi’s commentary chapter discussed above. This chapter does not gloss lines from Laozi, but illustrates them through apposite anecdotes. This anecdote is meant as an illustration of a phrase from Laozi 64, “[The sage] learns not to learn, thus returning to what the masses pass by. [ ] , .” 41. Reading as . See Chen Qiyou in Han Feizi jishi, 405. 42. Han Feizi jishi 21 (“Yu Lao”), 405. 43. Based on Chen Qiyou’s emendation. 44. Based on Chen Qiyou’s emendation.

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The Self-Regulating State, Paranoia, and Rhetoric in Han Feizi 309 By contrast, in Han Feizi, Xu Feng pits written books against oral discourse, and then both against the passing of time. The change in circumstances makes written discourse of the past useless for application to present circumstances. But more importantly, as a next step Xu Feng conflates oral and written discourse, claiming that whoever knows how to use words does not need books any more. This gives Wang Shou the reason he needs to burn his books. His joyful dancing around the fire is a sign of liberation: from carrying superfluous pounds on the roads of Zhou and from the burdening awareness of history and time. His happiness stems from moments of pure being-in-the-present.

The Figure of Han Feizi As we saw, Han Feizi eliminates—if in ambivalent ways—the charismatic ruler, the practice of selecting officials based on their talent, and the usefulness for the state of written texts and their defenders. The last chapter of Zhuangzi had credited all masters with a partial contribution to the art of governance, but had kept out of the picture the matching of “form and name” (xingming ) on which Han Feizi bases the state, qualifying them as “bureaucratic practices” instead. In return, Han Feizi distances itself from other masters and considers the form-name vision the only feasible practice of government. Where does the voice that speaks to us through Han Feizi locate itself? If it despises the discursive space of Masters Literature, from where can it speak? To give a preliminary simple answer: most often it speaks from within the discursive space of Masters Literature. Han Feizi only imagines itself outside of that space, but it does not succeed in leaving that space. Let us sketch the background of this wishful thinking about leaving the space of Masters Literature entirely: the Confucian tradition, especially, had worked from a marginal position that pitted ethical worth against political power. What may have been a historical coincidence—namely that Confucius never held an important official post—could profitably be used as a proof that marginality was a sign of virtue, because it enabled aloofness from the degenerate customs of the time. As we saw in the Analects, the master with his disciples embodied the vision of an alternative community independent from the state and other constraints. Mencius was much more successful in his political career; he appears both as a suc-

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cessful advisor of the powerful and as a charismatic master figure with an entourage of disciples. The voice in Han Feizi defies this double role of minister and master. It is the voice of somebody who seems to only want to be an official advising the ruler. He is almost never depicted in dialogue—most of the chapters are prose essays or collections of anecdotes featuring a host of historical figures and generic actors, but not the master himself. It is surprising that in the rare cases when Han Feizi does appear on the scene and has to defend himself, he argues quite strictly within the parameters of Confucian self-justification: Tangqi Gong said to Han Feizi, “I have heard that obedience to ritual and abiding by humility are strategies to preserve one’s life, and that cultivating one’s conduct and retreating in wisdom are the way to advancement. But you, my master, posit rules and strategies, set up measures and numerical methods, so that I dare to consider it dangerous to your life and wellbeing. How can I explain this? I have heard You in Your [teachings on] strategies say: ‘Chu did not use Wu Qi and so was stripped and thrown into disorder. Qin threw Lord Shang [Yang’s policies] into disorder and so became rich and strong. The words of these two Gentlemen were apposite, yet Wu Qi was dismembered and Lord Shang was broken on the wheel; the problem was that neither did they meet the right times, nor the right ruler.’ One cannot force the right encounters and matches and cannot drive away problems and calamities, but to discard the way of life-preservation and advancement and indulge in dangerous and perilous pursuits: [Frankly,] I would not choose that, if I were in your place.” 45 : , ; , . , , . ? : , , , , . , , , .

It is suggestive that Han Feizi contains an anecdote prophesying that Han Feizi will die a violent death because of his ideas and writings.46 His inter-

————— 45. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 42 (“Wen Tian”), 903–4. 46. Based on the dates of Tangqi Gong, it has been debated whether “Hanzi” here refers to Han Feizi or a certain Han Zhaohou. However, Chen Qiyou maintains that Han Feizi merely met with a fairly old Tangqi Gong. For our purposes it does not matter so much whether the passage refers to the historical Han Feizi or not. What matters is that

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locutor warns him of the threatening precedent of Lord Shang’s horrific end. Tangqi Gong quotes Han Feizi’s own judgment about Shang Yang’s demise, so there is no doubt that Han Feizi is aware of the danger. Han Feizi prepares for a dramatic retort: I understand Your words of advice. Indeed, the way to govern All Under Heaven and to balance measurements for the populace is truly no easy affair. The reason why I threw out the teachings of the Former Kings and did what I chose to do is that I consider the positing of rules and strategies, the establishment of measures and numerical methods, the best way to benefit the people and put the masses at ease. Therefore, it is an act of benevolence and wisdom to not be afraid of problems with chaotic rulers and benighted superiors, but to attend to the allocation of resources among the people. [In contrast] it is an act of greed and vileness to avoid the calamity of death out of fear of problems with chaotic rulers and benighted superiors, and to clearly understand one’s own [advantage] and yet neglect the allocation of resources among the people. I for one cannot endure any tendencies of vile and greedy behavior. I would never dare to offend against acts of benevolence and wisdom. The Former Kings were intent upon making the ministers happy, but they would greatly harm my [inner] substance.47 . , , . , , , , . , , . , , , . , . , .

It is striking that Han Feizi not only defends his rejection of the “teachings of the Former Kings”—those favored by Confucians such as the presumed teacher Xunzi—but sees himself motivated to do so by precisely such values as “benevolence” and “wisdom” that belong to these teachings. How can we make sense of this hodgepodge of an argument? Han Feizi

————— the Hanzi in this passage promotes an intellectual program that is similar to Han Feizi’s. Thus, this could be Han Fei, but if it does not refer to him personally, it depicts somebody who defends himself from the position of Han Fei. That the story is a Han dynasty proConfucian interpolation is rather improbable if we consider that Han Feizi otherwise does not contain indications of the Qin reunification, let alone the Han. See Lundahl, Han Feizi, 126. 47. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 42 (“Wen Tian”), 904.

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here speaks a Mencian language of a benevolent ruler’s selfless sacrifice for the people, but it is cast in the more utilitarian Mohist idiom of economic “benefit” and balancing of resources. Han Feizi in his self-defense unmistakably recalls the Former Kings but closes, again, with accusations against them: it is they who harm (shang ) Han Fei’s “substance” (shi ), going against his innermost convictions. What should surprise us is not so much the apparent contradiction that Han Feizi both propagates and rejects the values taught by the Former Kings—and suggestions by commentators to emend to , that is to a polite addressing of the interlocutor Tanqi Gong in the closing phrase, do not really solve the contradiction; such a maneuver would not erase the tension between Han Feizi’s pompous invocation of “benevolence and wisdom” and Tanqi Gong’s observation that Han Feizi does not follow the path of “rituals” and “wisdom” but of “laws” and “measurements.” But what is much more surprising here is Han Feizi’s bold conviction.48 Compared to the incessantly self-deconstructing voice from the essayistic chapters, the figure of Han Feizi in this dialogue truly stands by his word and appears almost simplistic. A far more complex, and characteristic, Han Feizi emerges if we turn from his figure to his voice.

Speaking and Paranoia in Han Feizi There are of course multiple voices in this huge compilation, voices which vary depending on the enunciatory strategies used, the thrust of the arguments, and so forth. But we can say one thing for sure: Han Feizi is spoken by a voice who speaks a lot—this text is one of the longest in the history of Masters Literature. But this voice is terribly self-conscious about, and terrified of, speaking. We will bring out this point in a discussion of two chapters that speak to the heart of the issue: Chapter 3, “Difficulty Speaking” (Nan yan ), and Chapter 12, “Difficulties of Persuasion” (Shui nan ). Chapter 3 is a memorial addressed to a king49 and opens as follows:

————— 48. Lundahl considers the figure of a staged Han Feizi in dialogue so strange and untypical of Han Feizi that he believes that the chapter was written by Han Fei’s disciples and not Han Feizi himself. See Lundahl, Han Feizi: The Man and the Work, 208. 49. Scholars have debated whether it was addressed to the King of Han or the King of Qin. For various opinions see Lundahl, Han Feizi, 163–64.

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Your servant [Han] Fei is not somebody who has difficulties with words. But there are good reasons for one who might have difficulties with words: If words are compliant and smooth, grand and well-formulated, then the speaker will be regarded as too ornate and lacking in genuineness. If his words are plain and respectful, solid and circumspect, then he will be considered awkward and wanting in proper categories. If, on the other hand, his words are eloquent and spiced with quotations, and if his words draw analogies and compare issues, then he will be considered an empty talker who is good for nothing. If his words are comprehensive and concise, parsimonious and unadorned, he will be considered simplistic and indiscriminate. [. . .] If his words are perceptive, persuasive, and abounding in literary flourishes, he will be considered verbose; but if he minutely discards all literary pretensions and instead bases his speech on reliable evidence, he will be considered a country bumpkin. If from time to time he quotes from the Book of Poetry and the Book of Documents, and relies on the Way and the Laws as discussed by former ages, he will appear a book-chanter. These are the reasons why Your Servant [Han] Fei has difficulties with words and is increasingly worried.50 , : , , . , , . , , . , , . [. . .] , , . , , . , , . .

Han Feizi, the author of this memorial, immediately takes back his claim that he does not have difficulty speaking and gives a long list of reasons why he actually considers speaking difficult. The long list—only half of it is quoted here—repeats twelve times one and the same phenomenon: that speakers will be misunderstood whatever they say. Some of the examples are vaguely antithetical; if a speaker shows himself eloquent and erudite he will be considered insincere, but if he presents himself as plain and simple, he will be considered simplistic and stupid. All twelve cases are sensitive depictions of speaker types and the ways they can be misunderstood. The memorial then paints a dark picture of the relations between rulers and advising officials, claiming that misunderstandings can even happen between the sagest rulers and the wisest advisors. In a list that gives a face to

————— 50. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 3 (“Nan yan”), 48–49.

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the previously evoked twelve types of speakers and the ways they can be misunderstood, Han Feizi enumerates historical examples of worthy and misunderstood officials. He does not spare us details about their terrible endings: in jail, broiled, stoned, dismembered, pickled, with their corpses exposed on the marketplace or dried after execution, or their hearts cut open and their intestines chopped up while they were still alive. This cabinet of horrors does not bode well for the closure of the memorial. These dozens of people were all benevolent, worthy, loyal, truly good and skillful public figures in their times. Alas, unfortunately, they met with confused, benighted, and troubled rulers and lost their lives. So why then could they, despite their worth and sageliness, not escape death and avoid the shame of dismemberment? The reason is, quite simply, that it is difficult to persuade fools. Therefore, the superior person does not [readily] come forward. When it comes to words that displease the ear and upset the heart, only the worthies and sages listen [with appreciation]. I would like Your Majesty to give thorough consideration to this [memorial].51 , , , ? 52 , . , , .

The end of the memorial is truly disturbing. He opens a cabinet of horrors to illustrate the effects of a ruler’s misunderstanding of his advisors. Until the penultimate sentence, Han Feizi seems to address fellow officials, other “exemplary persons” (junzi ), warning them that only wise rulers can truly understand their advisors and that, as a consequence, the superior person—in very Confucian manner—should retreat in the face of outrageous, chaotic, benighted and disturbed rulers. Yet the conclusion, which in other contexts would just be the standard closing formula for memorials, suddenly redirects our attention to the presence of the ruler and makes us aware that, right from the beginning, this text was addressed to the ruler, not to Han Feizi’s fellow officials. If Han Feizi seems at first to be addressing fellow advisors in a secret note of warning, but ultimately makes the ruler the target of his memorial, what is he really up to? What is the function of what we might call the

————— 51. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 3 (“Nan yan”), 49–50. 52. This should be read as according to Chen Qiyou.

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“addressive dissonance” that pervades Chapter 3? The warning to fellow advisors is prefaced by long lists of examples, by the speaker’s tendency to talk himself into believing that misunderstanding is inevitable and that meeting with a horrific end is almost certain. This paranoia dissipates quite peacefully in the end, with a warning to fellow officials and a call to the ruler to carefully consider Han Feizi’s words. The sudden dissipation gives the impression of a calculated paranoia, an attempt to give the ruler a good show of paranoia. In an act of intimacy, Han Feizi incites the ruler’s desire to measure Han Feizi’s words against Han Feizi’s paranoia; he invites the ruler to categorize Han Feizi as somebody resembling one of the generic speaker types. Han Feizi appeals to the ruler’s desire to be as clever as he is. The addressive dissonance opens a window from which the ruler can observe his advisors talking (or pretending to talk) amongst themselves about the dangers of the ruler’s stupidity. It is a theater act that, through the apparent disregard of the ruler’s presence, incites desire in the ruler to be wise and recognize worth. The staged paranoia is in itself a compliment to the ruler, because the fact that Han Feizi warns fellow advisors against coming forward during the rule of an incompetent ruler (but then steps forward himself and talks) implicitly honors the ruler. Staged paranoia, addressive dissonance, cabinets of horror—all these effects reveal an-all-too clever speaker who merges compliments with humiliation and shifts frames of references in vertiginous ways. This cleverness is taken to new lengths and dimensions in Chapter 12, “Difficulties of Persuasion” (Shui nan ): On the whole, the difficult thing about persuading others is not that one lacks the knowledge needed to state his case [nor that one lacks the clarity in applying distinctions]53 nor the audacity to exercise his abilities to the full. On the whole, the difficult thing about persuasion is to know the mind of the person one is trying to persuade and to be able to fit one’s words to it. If the person you are trying to persuade is out to establish a reputation for virtue, and you talk to him about making a fat profit, then he will regard you as low-bred, accord you a shabby and contemptuous reception, and undoubtedly send you packing. If the person you are trying to persuade is on the contrary interested in a fat profit, and you talk to him about a virtuous reputation, he will regard you as witless and out of touch

————— 53. Watson leaves this phrase untranslated.

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with reality, and will never heed your arguments. If the person you are trying to persuade is secretly out for a big gain but ostensibly claims to be interested in a virtuous name alone, and you talk to him about a reputation for virtue, then he will pretend to welcome and heed you, but in fact will shunt you aside; if you talk to him about making a big gain, he will secretly follow your advice but ostensibly reject you. These are facts that you must not fail to consider carefully.54 : , ; , ; , . , , . , , , . , , , . , , , , . .

As in the previous chapter about difficulties with speaking, the passage opens with a gesture of denying those difficulties. Knowledge, proper distinctions, audacity, and persistence of presentation—all of that is not a problem; the real problem lies in the apprehension of the heart and mind of the person to be persuaded and in the ability to match (dang ) one’s words to the listener’s psychology. This sounds like a transcription of the theory of matching between “forms and names” (xingming )— allowing for a check on evidential truths—into a psychology of persuasion, a theory of matching “words and hearts.” But the art of persuasion is no longer the noble act of communicating with wise rulers who will understand one’s good counsels and intentions. The art of persuasion in this chapter is the skill of clever dissimulation and manipulation through an anticipated inversion of expectations. First and foremost, the goal of this sort of persuasion is to avoid suspicion and build trust through deceptively soothing words. Persuasion serves as a preparation for itself, a preparatio rhetorica55 that will help gain the ruler’s trust so that the persuader will ultimately be able to fully deploy his rhetorical skills:

————— 54. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 12 (“Shui nan”), 221. Watson, Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün tzu and Han Fei tzu, 73. 55. I use this term in parallel to “preparatio evangelica,” a preliminary introduction of non-Christians to the subject of Christian faith that enables, in a next step, a true initiation into Christian dogma and catechism. A good example of such a “preevangelical introduction” is Matteo Ricci’s True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven.

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Make sure that there is nothing in your ideas as a whole that will vex your listener, and nothing about your words that will rub him the wrong way, and then you may exercise your powers of rhetoric to the fullest. This is the way to gain the confidence and intimacy of the person you are addressing and to make sure that you are able to say all you have to say without incurring his suspicion.56 , , , .

The persuader will only be able to go ahead with his persuasion and “say all he has to say” ( jin ci ) if he has been clever and cautious enough in his preparation for a true scene of persuasion. Thus, the most important task of rhetoric and persuasion is to clear the way for the full use of one’s rhetorical capacities. The best way to prepare the ground for this is to appeal to the ruler’s vanity: If he is anxious to make a show of wisdom and ability, mention several proposals which are different from the one you have in mind but of the same general nature in order to supply him with ideas; then let him build on your words, but pretend that you are unaware that he is doing so, and in this way abet his wisdom.57 , , , , .

In new ways, the wisdom and abilities of the persuader-advisor should be a resource (zi ) for the ruler, though not in the conventional sense that the ruler could securely build on them. Rather, the persuader should treat the ruler like a child whom one lets win a game to make the child happy. This game is not played for the purpose of understanding, but to cater to the ruler’s vanity. This is the key to successful persuasion, which in the end comes down to a seamless cohabitation with the ruler’s nervous psyche that then allows for a limited forthrightness and honesty: If you are able to fulfill long years of service with the ruler, enjoy his fullest favor and confidence, lay long-range plans for him without ever arousing suspicion, and when necessary oppose him in argument without incurring blame; then you may achieve merit by making clear to him what is profitable and what is harmful, and bring glory to yourself by your forthright judgments of right and wrong.

————— 56. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 12 (“Shui nan”), 222. Watson, 76. 57. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 12 (“Shui nan”), 222. Watson, 75.

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When ruler and minister aid and sustain each other in this way, persuasion may be said to have reached its fulfillment.58 , , , , , , , .

The pinnacle of persuasion is to be able to frankly state one’s opinions about “benefit and harm” (li hai ) and “right and wrong” (shi fei ) and receive merit and recognition for doing so. This is the ultimate goal of rhetorical practice. But so far, it appears that from the perspective of this chapter, rhetoric is nothing more than techniques that serve the preparatio rhetorica. Han Feizi does not talk about the art of persuasion that becomes possible after reaching this point of supportive intimacy with the ruler, but lectures and laments on the process of getting there. And once one has passed beyond that preparatory stage, there are constant dangers ahead, as pictured suggestively in the conclusion to the chapter: If you gain the ruler’s love, your wisdom will be appreciated and you will enjoy his favor as well; but if he hates you, not only will your wisdom be rejected, but you will be regarded as a criminal and thrust aside. Hence men who wish to present their remonstrances and expound their ideas must not fail to ascertain the ruler’s loves and hates before launching into their speeches. The beast called the dragon can be tamed and trained to the point where you may ride on its back. But on the underside of its throat there are scales a foot in diameter that curl back from the body, and anyone who chances to brush against them is sure to die. The ruler of men too has his bristling scales. Only if a persuader can avoid brushing against them will he have any hope of success.59 , . , . , , , . , .

One should not provoke the temper of dangerous creatures, concludes Han Feizi. The incisive image of inverted scales on the throat of a dragon confirms the worst suspicions about what degree of autocratic ire and inflammability a persuader might expect from his ruler, and so this chapter, in contrast to “Difficulty Speaking,” seems to address fellow advisors in their persuasive activities. On one level this chapter shows traces of a

————— 58. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 12 (“Shui nan”), 222–23. Watson, 77. 59. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 12 (“Shui nan”), 223–24. Watson, 79.

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genuine paranoia, an anxiety about meeting with calamity from the ruler due to inappropriate attempts at persuasion. It is a survival handbook for fellow advisors. The chapter lacks a framework that suggests the presence of the ruler; accordingly there are no clear signs of the addressive dissonance we found in Chapter 3. There is no way to ascertain whether we can extrapolate from this passage a deeper level, an ultimate advantage in exposing bouts of paranoia in writing. But considering the vertiginous cleverness of Chapter 3 and other chapters of Han Feizi, I would suggest that the assumption of a meta-level in this case would not be unreasonable. In Chapter 3, worthy and sage advisors were pitted against incompetent, mediocre rulers. The meta-level that exposed the paranoia as a staged paranoia for rhetorical effect flattered the ruler by appealing equally to his cleverness and perspicacity. If we assumed a deeper level to the paranoia of this chapter it would flatter the ruler in very different ways, because Han Feizi advises the persuader to reduce himself to a slick and transparent mediator of the ruler’s wishes, and this advice certainly caters to autocratic fancies of rulers as potential readers. This chapter would have been the perfect compensation for the parts of Han Feizi that diminished the ruler to a cog in the machine of a self-regulating state. On the other hand, seemingly paradoxically, the chapter also demonstrates how a self-regulated system can work: nothing more than the pliability of the persuader is needed to avoid interference with the system. The advisor, most respectful of the absolutist authority of the ruler, would at the same time be the most transparent, invisible, and unobtrusive servant of the system. This is of course contradictory, because the system should be shielded against any kind of intrusions, be they from the side of the ruler or of the officials; in the end, the ruler should unquestionably submit to the rules of the system. But throughout this chapter, the ambivalent suggestion of a potential reconciliation between the ruler’s unique authority and his reduction to a pliable element on a par with others would be highly attractive, at least to a sufficiently clever ruler. Assuming a deeper level in this chapter seems to reset the balance on vital issues that are merely insinuated or left dangling dangerously in the air in other parts of Han Feizi.

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Healing Paranoia through Rhetorical Sourcebooks Within the corpus of Masters Literature, Han Feizi has one unique feature: Nine out of its twenty-eight volumes are collections of short anecdotes. Thus, almost a third of the entire text is a conglomeration of stories and exampla. The chapters that contain this material frame their anecdotal material differently. The two “Forest of Persuasion” (Shuolin ) chapters have virtually no framing, but simply relate one anecdote after the other.60 In the six “Repository of Persuasions”61 (Chushuo ) chapters, the anecdotes figure as “annotations” (shuo ) to a limited number of “canons” ( jing ) that tersely list moral aphorisms containing allusions to the anecdotes appended in the “annotations.” Often, different versions of certain anecdotes are also included, and sometimes both positive and negative evidence is adduced. The five “criticism” (Nan ) chapters62 proceed roughly in the reverse sense. They start out from anecdotes and then present a critique of the protagonists’ behavior. Thus we see both inductive and deductive framing of anecdotal material. It is beyond my purpose here to explore the arrangement and treatment of the anecdotal material in Han Feizi. 63 Because it is an unequalled rich repository, Han Feizi is fascinating material for the student of early narrative. From the mid-third century bce onward, anecdotes became an increasingly popular medium for illustrating one’s opinions and arguing one’s case. Both Lüshi Chunqiu and Xunzi would be interesting cases for comparative study with Han Feizi in this respect. But neither of the two contains such a wealth of material that is so obviously framed as a repertory for rhetorical performance. Features such as the connection of doctrinal points with illustrating anecdotes and the alignment of pro and contra sto-

————— 60. Chapters 22 and 23. 61. Chapters 30–35. The six “Repository of Persuasions” chapters alone make up about a fourth of the entire Han Feizi. There is much debate whether the “annotations” are genuinely by Han Feizi or were added later, possibly even as late as the rise of the “Connected pearls” (lian zhu ) genre in the Six Dynasties period. For the debates see Lundahl, Han Feizi, 146–53. Lundahl adds more convincing reasons for considering these chapters authentic to the fact that they are mentioned by Sima Qian in Han Fei’s biography. 62. Chapters 36–40, devoted specifically to the “critique of the concept of ‘position’” (Nan shi ). 63. A pioneering effort in that direction is Reeve, “Demonstrating the World.”

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ries made the anecdotes easy and ready for people to use in real-life persuasion. One can only imagine how the memorization of these anecdotal bits with their aphoristic punch lines would have helped nervous advisors to face the potentially deadly challenge of speaking in front of the ruler. It is not the innocent pleasure of telling stories for their own sake that is responsible for Han Feizi’s indulgence in anecdotal material. That the anecdotes—except for the “Forest of Persuasion” chapters—come with prefabricated arguments speaks to the strong desire of the compiler to make these anecdotes controllable, applicable, and handy. From a broader perspective, Han Feizi’s wavering between eagerly collecting pieces of a rhetorical repertoire and dreading, even despising, the art of rhetoric itself demonstrates its productively pathological relationship to the art of speaking: Somebody asked, “How did the art of disputation arise?” The answer was, “It arose from the superiors’ lack of enlightenment.” The inquirer asked again, “Why does disputation emerge when the superiors lack enlightenment?” The answer was, “In the state of an enlightened ruler his orders are the most precious of words and laws the most apposite of affairs. Two different words cannot be equally precious and two different laws cannot be equally apposite. Therefore if words or behavior do not fit with the laws his orders must prohibit them. If anybody not in accord with rules and orders is able to cope with intrigues, respond to rebellions, produce benefits or attend to government business, the superiors have to collect his words and check them against solid facts. If the words match, he should receive a great profit; if they don’t, the speaker should get double punishment. In such a way, stupid people will be afraid of punishments and will not dare to speak out, and intelligent people will not have anything to argue about. That’s why there are no disputations. In a chaotic age, however, this is not so. Despite the orders of the ruler, the populace will use their textual learning to contradict them and despite the laws issued by the offices, the populace will curb them according to their selfish conduct. Although the ruler of humanity cares about the violation64 of his laws and orders, he honors the wise conduct of the scholars. That’s why in such an age there are so many textual scholars.”65 : ? : . : ? : , , . , ,

————— 64. Reading as with Gao Heng. 65. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 41 (“Wen bian”), 898.

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Rhetoric and disputation are symptoms of deterioration. In the initial ideal state, as long as “words” match “facts” and the orders from the superiors are heeded, disagreement is absent, and disputation remains unknown and unnecessary. The fall from grace happens with the opinionated nature of the people once they have received textual education, which they abuse in contradicting the ruler’s orders and laws. But Han Feizi makes it clear that it is not so much textual erudition as the ruler’s respect that poses the problem; he should simply not employ textual scholars as officials. To further discredit them, they are again thrown in the same basket with itinerant knights as in the “Five Vermin” Chapter: Thus in a disordered age people listening to speeches mistake unintelligibility for perspicacity and broad learning for eloquence. When observing behavior, they mistake the outcasts as worthies, and regard those who offend their superiors as high-minded. The ruler of mankind enjoys sophisticated and scrutinizing words and honors worthy and high-minded conduct. As a consequence, although the people who make laws and [establish] procedures define acceptable and unacceptable behavior; although they distinguish between discussions of submission and aggression, they do not rectify anything thereby. Thus, those in Confucian garb and those sword-bearers are legion, but those people tilling the fields and fighting wars are too few. Talk of “hard and white” and “the ungenerous” is prominent, but the laws from decrees and orders are put on ice. Thus I say, “If the superiors lack enlightenment, disputation will arise.”66 , , ; , , . , , , , , . , ; , . : , .

The lawmakers and creators of bureaucratic procedures (shu ) compete for the ruler’s favor against the Confucians and other masters such as the hairsplitting logicians belaboring paradoxes about the separateness of the

————— 66. Chen Qiyou, Han Feizi jishi 41 (“Wen bian”), 899.

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“hard stone” and the “white stone” in a single hard white stone. The dark outlook on the origin of rhetoric—in a combination of the psychological and historical origin that is blurred in characteristic Han Feizi fashion— explains why Han Feizi more than any other Masters Text devoted so much attention to rhetoric. Rhetoric is the outcome of decline and a constant threat, but it is also one of the greatest tools for success in office if handled properly. In the end we may say that Han Feizi is a schoolbook for disputers more than an outline of governance.

Outlook Han Feizi is one of the most complex among the Masters Texts; all the more deplorable, then, that it is probably the one text in the Masters Literature corpus that has been given the least nuanced reading. True, it presents a shockingly simplistic and repetitive vision of a bureaucratic state that controls human behavior through encouragement by rewards and deterrence by punishments. Complexity lies not in the way this vision is elucidated but in the way, for example, that concepts such as Laozi’s “nonaction” are mobilized to spell out more concretely the mechanism of selfregulation. These moves can take the most intricate turns, as we saw in our close reading of Han Feizi’s commentary on Laozi. Han Feizi both embodies and surpasses Masters Literature. It is a panorama of the thematic and rhetorical repertoire that Masters Literature had developed by the time of Han Feizi. At the same time it puts itself beyond Masters Literature, calling for new sages who can respond properly to the current age, imagining a new class of government assistants trained in laws, not transmitted texts, and polemically proposing a new type of textuality, which—like the state—is believed to miraculously self-adjust to the present. The propositions for the new are as astonishing as the detachment from the supposedly old. The sociological profiles of unwanted elements of the old society are precise and unreal at the same time. The rise of private militia or the class of merchants certainly somewhat reflects social changes during the Late Warring States.67 But the re-

————— 67. Léon Vandermeersch considers what he calls the “mentalité légiste” a product of these social changes in the Late Warring States. See Vandermeersch, La formation du légisme, 73–167. He sees these developments as very general patterns of evolution in early

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pudiation of these types in several chapters is obsessive. Also, the almost exclusive fixation of Han Feizi’s hostility on Confucian “textual scholars”—out of the large spectrum of Masters Literature like that presented by the slightly later last chapter of Zhuangzi—is erratic; it seems like a prolepsis of the Confucians’ rise to eminence at the Han imperial court. At the same time, from the perspective of Han Feizi’s paranoia, the Confucians’ attachments to transmitted texts—a rival textuality to the laws— made them perhaps the most threatening opponents with respect to Han Feizi’s new notion of textuality. An understanding of Han Feizi as paranoid (of course in a broad, not clinical sense) helps explain a variety of phenomena in Han Feizi. It helps account for the persecution complex towards other masters, particularly the Confucians, it helps us understand the spiraling of a self-deconstructive voice that constantly fears deceit and potential misunderstanding, and it helps us diagnose—as coping mechanisms for this paranoid disposition— some of the most salient features of Han Feizi. First, there is Han Feizi’s introduction of the commentary form into Masters Literature. The commentary form helps handle paranoia about slippages of meaning found in the Laozi text. The commentary chapter shows an obsessive impatience to “fix” the Laozi text, to “spell it out right” within Han Feizi’s vision of a selfregulating state. The commentary form is designed to stop the text and the potential proliferation of meaning within it. The commentary form is intricately related to the use of anecdotal material, as we see in Chapter 21, “Illustrating Laozi” (Yu Lao ). This brings us to the second prominent coping mechanism in Han Feizi: the massive accumulation of anecdotal material with various degrees of framing that can also be explained, as we saw, as a mechanism for coping with paranoia by availing oneself of a large repertoire of prefabricated arguments and illustrations. The most difficult issue that emerges with Han Feizi is that—more often than with seemingly elusive texts like Zhuangzi—we have to fathom ex silentio some ultimate stance of the speaker. At times we are convinced that this voice is really in the grip of paranoia, but at other times the voice

————— China: “Legalism is the expression of a perfection of government techniques and the art of governance, which accords with the development of ancient Chinese civilization as a whole” (166).

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seems to sound paranoid for the sake of enjoying a good performance or putting on a show of cleverness that might enchant the ruler. Put differently, we have little way of determining whether it is the terrified Derridean victim speaking or a terrifyingly clever Derridean overlord enjoying the game. This uncertainty makes Han Feizi one of the most challenging of Masters Literature texts.

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EPILOGUE

A Future for Masters Literature and Chinese Philosophy

Let us return to the questions that have motivated this project: What happens if we scrape away as much as possible of the disciplinary and conceptual overlay that has accrued on the surface of the Masters Texts, the interpretive barnacles of the last half millennium since the Jesuit mission? Which neglected parts, problems, particular moves, concepts, and strategies of the Masters Texts will come to light? Five aspects emerge as particularly characteristic of the textual genre as it evolved in the pre-Qin period. The first and most fundamental characteristic of Masters Literature is, true to its name, the centrality of the master figure. The master figure can be at the center of an alternative imagined community like Confucius in parts of the Analects; he can be presented as the disciple to an original master as Mencius is to Confucius; he can set himself up as a first-person author as in parts of Xunzi; his presence can be displaced and erased like in Laozi; it can be revived, deformed, and turned on its head as in the parables of Zhuangzi; or he can defy the label of “master” altogether, as Han Feizi does. These differences are not random variations or literary flourishes: the shape that the master figure gives to the narrative is not a form waiting to be infused with content, but is an intellectual statement in and of itself. Laozi’s rejection of the shape of a Confucian master figure, with its specificity in time and space and its concrete cultural and social identity, is as powerful an intellectual statement as Laozi’s verbal, grammatical negations of “the Way that can be

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spoken of is not the constant Way.” Form is content and form twists literal meaning into an inseparable intellectual statement. A second and related characteristic of Masters Literature is a function of the centrality of the master figure: the crucial importance of the background players who set off the master figure. Gifted or stupid disciples, enlightened or weak rulers, historical figures as paragons of virtue and vice in past and present, passers-by or border guards, cripples, creatures, false prophets, and friends people the social canvas into which a master is placed. This setting is not simply a rhetorical device, much less a depiction of the actual social circumstances under which the historical master lived (consider the Mohists, one of the few “schools of thought” for which scholars argue that it existed as an organized educational community, in contrast to Mozi, a highly depersonalized Masters Text that argues for absolute standards and is not interested in particular social agents). As with the central master figure, the design of the background protagonists that give depth to the master is in itself an intellectual statement, not just a narrative device. In relation to the image of the social cosmos around them, masters could appear as actual advisors to the powerful (as in Han Feizi), as desiring to be advisors (as in parts of Analects and Mencius), or as refusing to be advisors (as in Zhuangzi). But the narrative logic of the advisor figure, certainly distinct from but inspired by professional advisors serving at the various courts of the Zhou kingdom, was formative to concerns discussed in Warring States Masters Texts. One could even argue that one of the reasons early Chinese thought revolves so much around concerns of political philosophy and ethics was the fact that master figures/advisors and their “supporting actors” were at the heart of the genre of Masters Literature and constituted the intellectual idiom for early Chinese thinkers. Even Masters Texts such as Zhuangzi that try to rebel against this framing of intellectual discourse end up engaging the same question in inverse direction, arguing why one should not serve as an advisor. They apparently cannot escape from the question. Third, like the master figure and its framing background players, a text’s narrative format and style make intellectual claims. Mozi’s argumentation in systematic circles and rounds exorcises Confucian teaching through repetition. Mencius and Xunzi compete not just over the nature of human nature but also over the status of the true disciple and follower of Confucius. Mencius makes this argument in part by its opposition to

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Mohist expository prose and by its return to the scene of instruction associated with Confucius’s authority. Xunzi exploits Mohist expository prose for its own purpose and tries to establish his authority by creating a first-person author figure who tells us that we ourselves, with our “conscious activity,” are “authors” of our nature’s potential goodness. Laozi’s use of verse, of grammatical negation and paradox, and its erasing of the master figure’s immediate presence reveal the most striking synergy of argument by literal surface, style, narrative form, and meta-message through a play on generic conventions of the “scene of instruction” associated with the Confucian tradition. Zhuangzi then rediscovers the power of the scene of instruction and gives new narrative, carnal shape to Laozi’s subtle meta-negations by calling deformed figures and improbable creatures to the stage in order to threaten the previous economy of virtuous and wellformed master figures. A fourth characteristic of Masters Literature that has emerged from our reading of individual texts is the prominence of gestures of affiliation and resistance in the development of the genre. Early Chinese Masters Literature is “philosophical” in the sense that its authors make claims in ways that have led to the creation of affiliations and “schools of thought.” As we saw in the Introduction, this was an important factor in debates over “Chinese philosophy” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were partly inspired by comparisons with Greek and Indian philosophical schools. Whatever their particular mode of consternation—whether the Mohists launched attacks on Confucius’s followers or Mencius developed notions of interiority related to his claim to be the direct disciple of Confucius, whether Xunzi created a typology of “good” and “bad” Confucians and masters or whether Laozi and Han Feizi used the intellectual concepts and instruments of Masters Literature but rejected the label of Masters discourse—arguments in all of the Masters texts are palpably shaped by tropes of affiliation and resistance that, again, are not external to their intellectual thrust, but constitute its power. Finally, tropes of affiliation and resistance belong to what we might call a “deep structure” of the genre of Masters Literature, one that emerges from the connection between seemingly unrelated concerns, as when I argued that the “trope of interiority” in Mencius is related to Mencius’s claim as the first disciple of a Confucian lineage. We could call Han Feizi’s obsession with using, collecting, and commenting on historical an-

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ecdotes and proverbs a “trope of exemplification” underlying his long text, and it relates to Han Feizi’s anxieties over success in persuasion, providing the safest antidote to having nothing or the wrong thing to say when in the presence of the ruler. It can be a vertiginous enterprise to search for intersections between local ideas in the text and deeper structures of the argumentative thrust of the text within the framework of the genre’s basic rules, but such analysis can clarify why these texts mattered to those who wrote and compiled them and why and how they might matter to us today. ! This brings us back to the second set of questions from the Introduction. How can our study of the dynamics of the genre of Masters Literature help us decide into which academic discipline to fruitfully translate their study today? Could they help us see the history of Greek philosophy and its progeny in different light? Could they move us into a new cosmopolitan future for philosophy and intellectual inquiry? Is there room for early Chinese Masters Texts in the present? It is impossible to reconstruct the origins of the genre of Masters Literature, because, as is often the case with genres, its earliest definition was already anachronistic. The genre is defined bibliographically, as a “call number” in the Han imperial library, giving pedigree to the variety of technical specialists at the Han court. More importantly, these texts can only live if we create our own anachronisms, new translations of the genre into current venues or disciplines of intellectual pursuit. To reflect on what kinds of anachronistic reading are available and of particular interest in this historical moment, let us quickly review some of the most important “translations” that the Masters Texts have undergone while being read and interpreted for more than two millennia. A proper reception history of Masters Literature would necessitate more than another book-length study, but let us only list the major paradigms for the use and significance of the Masters Texts we touched upon in this study. The Han dynasty saw the emergence of a political and technical paradigm in which “masters” were advisor figures and the ancestors of contemporary court specialists; it considered Masters Texts as a bibliographical entity and textual genre that stood side by side with the Classics, the Histories, and the Literary Collections. Until the end of the Han dynasty, the Masters Texts were connected to the paradigm of sagely writing.

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The Ur-Master Confucius collected and transmitted the writings of the sages of high antiquity, and masters like Xunzi created an educational curriculum based on these texts; he thereby laid the foundations for a “double canon” of sagely texts, which consisted of the older Classics connected to high antiquity and to the Ur-Master Confucius and the younger, less authoritative Masters Texts. Wang Chong, arguably one of the last intellectual figures in whose work the desire for sagely writing became a driving force, claimed the Masters as a model for sagely writing in an age where a culture of scholarship had taken the—not equally inspired—role of genuine sagely writing. Since the Six Dynasties Period and the rise of classical poetry and prose, the Masters remained important as cosmological and pedagogical models: Liu Xie in his Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons describes them as part of heavenly and human pattern, wen, rooted in the cosmic Dao. Although this stance might look similar to Wang Chong’s claim to the Masters for Ersatz-sagely inspiration, continuation of the Masters tradition becomes more and more impossible, as their function to express what is on the writer’s mind is taken over by the rise of other more properly literary genres. Thus, it was not continuation of the enterprise, but imitation of the left-over traces for rhetorical and literary training, that became an important paradigm for the remainder of the premodern period. Starting in the sixteenth century in Europe and the nineteenth century in Japan and China, the Masters Texts have come to be read through a philosophical paradigm. As the discipline royale of Western cultural history was grafted onto Chinese thought traditions and in particular the early Masters Texts, they came to be measured by Aristotelian criteria of logic and the conventions of post-Kantian and analytic philosophy, which both allowed ancient Chinese masters into the purview of Western philosophy and found them failing on the same grounds. A paradigm of “intellectual history/history of thought” (sixiangshi , a particularly loosely defined enterprise with strong differences between national traditions) and the history of “scholarship” (xueshu ) developed in parallel to and competition with the “history of philosophy” paradigm, but the claim to a “Chinese philosophy” was certainly the most attractive and the riskiest move to enforce the value of Chinese thought traditions vis-à-vis the military, economic, and technological dominance of Western imperial powers in the late nineteenth century. Reclaiming the Masters as part of

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China’s literary history is one of the most recent paradigms in the reception history of the Masters. It does recapture something of the notion of Masters Texts as pedagogical literary models, fine examples of wen, since the Six Dynasties Period. However, just as “philosophy” was imposed on the premodern Chinese world of thought, so is the modern Chinese concept of “literature” (wenxue ) shaped by modern Western notions of belles lettres, and thus alien and far too narrow to capture the cosmological potency and aesthetic power of Chinese wen.1 The political, technical, bibliographical, sagely, and cosmologicalpedagogical paradigms or “translations” of the Masters Texts into later ages are no longer available to us: We are not living in an age of sages (not even in an age of desire for such sages). Since the early twentieth century, Chinese vernacular has displaced classical Chinese as the vehicle of Daogrounded practice of wen, and nobody gets a better position or gets ahead in the world by writing with the imaginative stylus of Xunzi, practicing the analogical reasoning of Mencius, or letting fly the colorful and transformative pencil of Zhuangzi. The later paradigms of “philosophy,” “intellectual history,” and “belles letters” are the main current disciplinary translations for Masters Literature, this time not just into later ages of Chinese history but also to faraway places and a new China, which has been fundamentally altered by these faraway places over the last century and a half. A strong proponent for the paradigm of “intellectual history/history of thought” is Ge Zhaoguang . In his expansive two-volume survey of Chinese intellectual history (Zhongguo sixiang shi ) published between 1998 and 2000, he draws together the development of everyday knowledge, thought, and religious beliefs, which expands a narrower conception of intellectual history broadly into history of science, sociology of knowledge, anthropology of religion, and other areas. Although Ge Zhaoguang endows “intellectual history” with a much broader scope than intellectual historians of Europe or America would be tempted to (there are always “cultural historians” for this job), the notion of a

————— 1. For a thought-provoking recent study of the creation of the concept of “literature” under Western influence in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Japan and more broadly East Asia see Suzuki Sadami, “Nihon bungaku” no seiritsu.

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“Chinese philosophy” is revealingly absent from the project.2 A few years after the publication of his History of Chinese Thought, Ge Zhaoguang published an article with the title “Why it is intellectual history.”3 He felt inspired to clarify his stance by Carine Defoort’s thoughts on the lack of recognition of “Chinese philosophy” by Western philosophers and its consequences: the rejection on the part of Chinese scholars of the notion of “Chinese philosophy.” Although the title of his essay does call for completing the sentence with the tag “and why it is not history of philosophy,” Ge Zhaoguang emphasizes that he does not oppose the study of “Chinese philosophy.” He does indeed criticize historians of Chinese philosophy for forcing Chinese phenomena into the Procrustean bed of Western concepts of “philosophy” and for focusing too narrowly on elite thought and mainstream intellectual movements. But he emphasizes that there should be scholars of “Chinese philosophy” who, however, should belong to philosophy departments, unlike intellectual historians who are first and foremost historians. Putting weight on historical context and on a sociology of “knowledge” and “thought” of societies as a whole are strong points in Ge Zhaoguang’s vision for an intellectual history. First, if anything unites the current Byzantine plurality of the field of intellectual history, it is a basic commitment to a historical approach. This promises a higher degree of context-sensitivity, specificity, and sophistication. This is how Donald Kelley explains the confusion over a historical and a philosophical understanding of “ideas”: Both philosophers and intellectual historians take ‘ideas’ as their common currency, but they look at the question in wholly different ways. For philosophers [. . .] ideas are in some sense mental phenomena that are adequately represented and communicated in the philosopher’s oral or written discourse and argument. For historians, however, ideas are in the first place social and cultural constructions, and the product of a complex process of inference, judgment, and criticism

————— 2. Carine Defoort presents and contextualizes Ge Zhaoguang’s History of Chinese Thought in English in Contemporary Chinese Thought vol. 33, 3 and 4 (Spring and Summer 2002). 3. Ge Zhaoguang, Gudai Zhongguo de lishi, sixiang yu zongjiao, 6–11.

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on the part of the scholar. The history of ideas has long been situated in the midst of this semantic confusion. . .4

It is not just Chinese scholars like Ge Zhaoguang who sense a lack of compatibility between scholars of philosophy and intellectual historians, even though they deal with much of the same materials. Scholars working in the European tradition, where neither “philosophy” nor “intellectual history” could be ostracized as foreign and elitist, also feel that gap between historical and philosophical approaches. Intellectual history has two other advantages, apart from its historical specificity: First, it is much younger than philosophy, a child of the enlightenment and of modern academic culture, and thus works with considerably lighter historical and conceptual baggage. It can for example stay aloof from the age-old struggle between “philosophy” and “rhetoric” that Cicero inherited from Plato and attempted to translate into Roman culture by inverting the Platonic prejudiced hierarchy and making philosophy into a handmaid to rhetoric. Intellectual history can perfectly exist without the ultimate drive towards universal truths and values and practices relativism with natural grace. The second advantage of intellectual history is its profile as an inherently self-reflexive field. If understood as a historical inquiry into the human intellectual enterprise, and into the individuals, issues, and institutions involved in it, intellectual history is the meta-discipline devoted to the “history” of “intellectuals.” Intellectual history is closely related to the sociology of knowledge and history of education and thus quite uniquely equipped with an inbuilt mechanism of constant self-examination. In this sense it is not just a highly interdisciplinary field, but inevitably transdisciplinary; it persistently moves along with the changing self-definitions of the scholarly enterprise. Its potentially objectifying historical gaze should always be held in check by the introspection (and also self-umbilication) of the practicing intellectual historian who understands himself as the last link in the chain of his subject of inquiry.5 This programmatic ability to examine one’s own genealogy, to be always

————— 4. Kelley, The Descent of Ideas, 105–6. 5. Thus the prominent status for intellectual historians of the genre of the book-review that is not just a critical service to the profession but an implementation of the research mission itself. Both Chartier, Au bord de la falaise and, more explicitly, Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History, are good examples.

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forced to a historically contextualized reading of intellectual debates and a self-conscious gaze back at one’s own enterprise, enables intellectual history to be a discipline that by profession sets itself up for selfenlightenment. Despite these obvious advantages of the “intellectual history” paradigm as Ge Zhaoguang defends it, it would be a pity if scholars working on the same material were hiding behind the separate bulwarks of history and philosophy departments without taking the chance to engage. Although the historical specificity treasured by intellectual historians does protect the Chinese tradition from being forced into the framework of Western cultural history, it also cages Chinese tradition within these all too safe historical barriers with which Ge Zhaoguang defends his paradigm. Put differently, although there has not been a “Chinese philosophy” until recently, I believe it is desirable that there be philosophical engagement with texts from the Chinese tradition. Through such engagement, there should arise a “Chinese philosophy” for the future that can mobilize Western concepts—especially pre-conceptions—of philosophy and allow the treasure house of the Chinese tradition to become virulent in our present cosmopolitan world. This process has of course been ongoing since the late nineteenth century, when Chinese intellectuals started to feverishly pursue the dream or doom of “Chinese philosophy.” The arguably most vocal proponents in the twentieth century for making Chinese philosophy relevant to the world have been “New Confucians” (dangdai xinrujia or xiandai xinrujia ), a term used to describe thinkers like Tang Junyi (1909–1978) and Mo Zongsan (1909–1995) in Taiwan and Hong Kong and William de Bary, Tu Weiming, and Robert Neville in the United States. The one basic conviction that “New Confucians” of different guises and generations share is that Confucian values can remedy the ills symptomatic of industrial and post-industrial societies and that they are China’s contribution to an ethics of benevolence and personal exemplarity for a globalized world.6 Their notion of the Confu-

————— 6. There is a vast body of literature written by and about New Confucians. For some perspectives on the earlier phases of the movement, see Makeham, New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. For a broader exploration of the uses and abuses of Confucianism in the last few decades in China, see Makeham, Lost Soul.

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cian tradition relies strongly on Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism and its further development during the Ming and Qing dynasties, a version of Confucianism infused with Buddhist metaphysics, and with the more systematic search for definition of central concepts, for speculative intellectual inquiry, and sophisticated textual analysis. In its focus on the Confucian tradition, in particular in its most “philosophically” presentable version, “New Confucianism” brings of course only a small portion of the early Chinese intellectual heritage into play; and it focuses on ethics, a traditional forte of Chinese thought, on whose ground it is much easier to engage philosophers working in the Western tradition. Kuang-Ming Wu’s extensive work is a very different, suggestive attempt to make Chinese thought productive for contemporary ethics, but is not likely to engage analytic philosophers.7 Engaging analytical philosophers has been much more difficult. Indeed, the most damaging effect of an equivalent mapping of Western philosophy onto Chinese cultural history would be the fateful birth of a phantom body of “Chinese philosophy” based on traditional branches of Western philosophy such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and political philosophy. The anatomy of this phantom body could boast of a strong heart—namely an obvious predilection for ethics—and a strong hand—which is reflective of its high performance in political philosophy. But its analytical cortex would seem atrophied in this coerced comparison—the lack of interest in questions of logic and epistemology in the Chinese tradition has been a particularly painful point for the advocates of a “Chinese philosophy.” It has incited historians of Chinese thought to unearth buried or neglected traditions that could mend the gap and “epistemologize” Chinese thought. These efforts are certainly justifiable from the Chinese sources and have resulted in new and original scholarship.8 But we should be aware that it is in part motivated by the desire to give an analytical facelift to the body of Chinese philosophy; and thus, even when accompanied

————— 7. See his project of a “cultural hermeneutic” in the trilogy On Chinese Body Thinking; On the “Logic” of Togetherness; and On Metaphoring. 8. See A. C. Graham’s work on the Mohist canons (Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science), and Lisa Raphals’ thoughtful and inspiring case for the importance of “metic,” that is, practical episteme in the Chinese tradition (Raphals, Knowing Words).

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by attempts to argue against it, conditioned by the search for a Chinese philosophy inspired by Western categories. Recently, philosophers among the scholars of Chinese thought such as Bo Mou, who are interested in bringing Chinese thought traditions to the attention of colleagues who are trained in Western philosophy, have for the same reason sought to engage the bulwark of AngloAmerican philosophy, analytic philosophers. Bo Mou is the director of a recently founded “Center for Comparative Philosophy” at San Jose State University that has made “constructive engagement” between contemporary philosophers and experts of Chinese philosophical traditions its intellectual goal and method. Bo Mou has edited a volume of papers from a conference devoted to John Searle, prominent philosopher of language and of the mind most known for his formulation of “speech act” theory; it posits that beyond the “locutionary act” of making a plain statement with a well-formed sentence, sentences also have “illocutionary force” (e.g., wedding vows) and are “perlocutionary acts” with effects in social life (e.g., result in the binding contract of marriage). The volume Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy itself reproduces the act of “constructive engagement” by printing the papers by the conference participants alongside Searle’s oral responses to their presentations. It is laudable that Bo Mou fixes “constructive engagement” in print and apparently does not just understand it as the incidental framework for intellectual negotiation but one intellectual goal of the project of “comparative philosophy.” Chinese Studies in the early twenty-first century is a complex creature of undetermined shape: Chinese, non-Chinese, and diaspora Chinese coming from and working in various parts of China, East Asia, North America, or Europe are currently engaged in this multifarious enterprise of “Sinology” or “Chinese Studies,” and despite all recent globalization in the academic world they all work in different academic environments and traditions, often inhabiting several of them permanently or seasonally. Our publications, teaching offerings, and social decorum in professional contexts like conferences bear the imprints of the professional requirements, the demographic make-up, and the interest the governments which we happen to be living and teaching under have in China (this holds for China and the rest). These micro-events of cultural encounters and negotiation processes between different scholars or their own multi-

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ple professional personas are rarely brought out on a professional stage.9 Their potential to create intellectual insight that helps us locate ourselves better in a shifting globalizing world is rarely recognized. In this sense Bo Mou’s enterprise of “constructive engagement” is indeed full of promise. Put in Searle’s terms, it holds all the illocutionary force of the sentence “Chinese philosophy contributes to contemporary thought,” while the perlocutionary effect remains to be seen as the project of “constructive engagement” unfolds further. A review of Bo Mou’s recently published History of Chinese Philosophy (Routledge, 2009) criticizes the volume precisely for failing to constructively engage Western philosophy: Given the admirable aim of “engaging Chinese philosophy with its Western counterpart constructively for the common philosophical enterprise,” readers cannot help but ask: where is the contribution of Chinese philosophy to “the common philosophical enterprise” in this volume? Indeed, its readers are most likely to be those more familiar with Western philosophy, as the editor notes, and this raises the concern: to what extent would such readers be able to identify the relevance of the resources provided by the Chinese philosophy it presents? What is the evidence that we might fix a Western philosophical problem by appealing to a Chinese philosophical view? Which concept is required from Chinese philosophy to shed light on a Western philosophical perspective? And where is the clue to improve a Western philosophical theory by drawing on Chinese resources? As excellent a philosophical editor as Bo Mou is, we hope that he will emphasize and implement a genuinely two-way reflection methodology in his future work.10

This passage points to many of the difficulties we face today if we want to appreciate Chinese thought traditions and let them do creative work: the training in Western philosophy (and lack of training in Chinese thought traditions) that informs the judgment of students and scholars, even in China, to such a degree that they cannot see the relevance of Chinese traditional thought, let alone introduce it creatively into their own work; the

————— 9. This is why Haun Saussy’s Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China is such an exceptional book, because it lights up the quicksand under our feet rather than waiting for it to go away. For a delightful exception that introduces us to the marvels of the academic culture of comparative literature, see David Damrosch, Meetings of the Mind. 10. Review by Ruiping Fan and Erika Yu in Notre-Dame Philosophical Reviews 06.23.2009. http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16335

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continued dream of a Chinese philosophy that could “fix” a Western philosophical problem by relying on Chinese resources or even “improve” on Western philosophy—a vision that has been with us for not quite one and a half centuries; and the guiding hope for a “genuinely two-way reflection methodology.” Not only will we do violence to early Chinese thought if we use it to “fix” Western philosophy, but we will certainly fail in this endeavor, and in the process risk a complete rejection of the concept of a “Chinese philosophy,” losing the grand opportunity to make early Chinese thought fruitful for future philosophy and thought. We must not miss that chance by believing that our questions set us up for failure, or that it is easier to hide behind the reconstruction of what “Early Chinese thought” was in purely historical terms. Under the circumstances I propose we stick to a concept of “Chinese philosophy” as heuristic purpose, not as ontological claim. I consider “Chinese philosophy” just one among many past and current disciplinary translations brought to bear on early Chinese Masters Texts and would not endorse its existence beyond that role. But I believe claiming the label of “Chinese philosophy” can do terrific work for us. For the Masters Texts in particular, which represent the foundational moment of a “Chinese philosophy,” is it not best to foster and entertain as many translations as possible—as intellectual history, as history of ideas or comparative philosophy, as part of history of religions, science, and medicine, as wisdom literature, or, indeed, as “Masters Literature,” as I have undertaken to do in this study? It is beneficial to use these various lenses while temporarily holding on to the claim of a “Chinese philosophy,” because this is the strongest claim in the Western hierarchy of traditional academic disciplines: only a claim of “philosophic” proportions might help in the questioning of cherished misconceptions about the Western philosophical tradition, in particular lingering ideas that Greek philosophy alone is the cradle of humanism and democracy, science, and individualism.11

————— 11. Add to this list the capitalist revolution, rationality, the notion of a foundational “antiquity,” and, not to forget these days, freedom. For a forceful plea against the monopolization of fundamental historical categories for the history of Western Europe, see Goody, The Theft of History. Note in particular ch. 10, “Stolen Love: European Claims to the Emotions.”

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In this way we would open a more exciting, less ethnically polarized stage for “constructive engagement” between contemporary academic philosophers, classicists studying Greek philosophy, sinologists, intellectual historians, and comparative philosophers. A prominent Chinese intellectual historian with whom I enjoyed discussing this project through the years has repeatedly teased me by saying with some degree of—possibly—feigned resentment that my project constituted a dangerous move towards the “literary colonization of intellectual history.” I prefer to point out that it will hopefully also contribute to the “intellectual colonization of literary studies” or the “historical colonization of philosophy” or, indeed, the “intellectual decolonization of Western philosophy.” This sounds like a feast of grammatical and academic contamination, but there is much challenging work ahead if we are to reach these goals. I conclude with a few thoughts on what kinds of inquiries this study of the dynamics of the textual genre of early Chinese Masters Literature hopes to encourage. First, it hopes to inspire classicists to further explore questions about the history of the “textual genres” of Greek philosophy and reach out to those academic philosophers who derive their professional self-understanding from foundation myths about the Western discipline of philosophy. I have tried to show how the shape of the master figure, the fashioning of his interlocutors and disciples, tropes of affiliation and rejection, and various narrative formats developed in the course of Masters Literature are all arguments in themselves, not just props on a stage of another play. Scholars of ancient Greece have produced fascinating scholarship that scrutinizes Greek philosophy from angles that seem germane to the genre of Chinese Masters Literature. With regard to master figures and their audiences, the anthropologist Marcel Detienne asks in his The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, a study of Mediterranean “masters” of sorts, What place do the Sophist and the philosopher have in the lineage of the ‘Masters of Truth’? How does their speech differ from the efficacious speech of the diviner, the poet, and the king of justice, speech that conveys reality? How does the transition occur between one type of thought where ambiguity is a central feature of both its mode of expression and its logic to another kind of thought

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where argumentation, the principle of non-contradiction, and dialogue, with its distinctions between the sense and the reference of propositions, apparently announce the advent of a new intellectual regime?12

Detienne explores the role of the philosopher within the spectrum and lineage of a whole range of masters who claim truth by virtue of efficacious speech, divination, poetry, or kingliness. Andrea Nightingale’s fascinating work has made us understand much better how Plato constructed “philosophy” out of his polemics against such rival groups, which had traditionally laid claim to wisdom, and how the birth of theoria, which puts the philosopher in the role of the spectator, has much to do with Athenian practices of spectatorship such as in theaters and courts, and less with the discovery of absolute ontological truth.13 And scholars like Jaap Mansfeld have debunked the pre-Platonic foundation myth of philosophy, of the triumph of Greek scientific philosophical reason (over slavish Oriental wisdom) in seventh-century Miletus, Thales’ hometown on the modern-day Turkish coast of Asia minor. He emphasizes that Aristotle in his Metaphysics invented the idea of Thales as first philosopher, an idea that is still probably the most persistent staple of survey histories of ancient philosophy, and says that it was apparently “new enough to warrant proof or argument.”14 Aristotle’s main argument in the relevant passage, so says Mansfeld, is to distinguish Thales from the so-called “theologians” who use allegorical interpretation of the poets to understand nature, and for example who see water as the allegorical embodiment of the deities Okeanos or Tethys. The “theologians” were considered close to the “poets” such as Hippias or later the Stoics who were interpreting the Homeric hymns and their divine protagonists in allegorical fashion. Also Catherine Osborne claims that the pre-Socratic philosophers were “physicized” by Aristotle, which means they were presented as a school of cos-

————— 12. Detienne, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, 17. The book was originally published in French in 1967. 13. As examples see her Genres in Dialogue. 14. Mansfeld, Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy, 114. Keimpe Algra takes a somewhat intermediate position on this. He interprets Thales’s statement about water as cosmogonical (“all things come from water”) rather than cosmological (“all things consist of water”). According to Algra, Thales did not necessarily make a metaphysical statement, because he did not completely reject the notion of “divinity,” but merely “physicalized” it. See Long, Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, 60.

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mological speculation rather than a religious movement.15 The most monumental deconstruction of Aristotle’s invention of the “philosophical” school of Miletus is Antonio Capizzi’s The Cosmic Republic. Notes for a Non-Peripatetic History of the Birth of Philosophy in Greece. In a sequence of the gradual demolition of Aristotelian truths (starting from the Organon in the fourteenth century, the Rhetoric in the fifteenth century, the Physics in the sixteenth century, the zoological treatises in the seventeenth century, the Politics in the eighteenth century, and the Law of Contradiction in Metaphysics Book Gamma in the nineteenth century) Capizzi sees the debunking of Aristotle’s rallying of the Ionian figures for the cause of philosophy as the last piece of Aristotelian lore that needs to be demystified.16 The philosophical pedigree of the Milesian school ultimately comes down to a question of honor for the discipline of philosophy: if we define philosophy, in enlightenment fashion, as the discipline that disentangles myth, poetry, and fiction thanks to the superior faculty of human reason, we may now be disappointed to find that Thales was probably closer to the dubious “theologians.” In short, it is not a question of mere existence—nobody doubts that there probably was a figure with the name Thales who did at least some of the miraculous things described in later biographies. Instead it is a question of the meaning—allegorical, physical, or metaphysical—of his claim that water is the “first element.” To phrase it differently, was Thales, as one of the famous Early Greek “Seven Sages,” a Western magus trained by priests in Egypt in Oriental wisdom? Was he a prosaic poet and believer in allegorical interpretations of Homer? Or was he already a “lover of Wisdom,” that is a Greek philosopher who is not just “wise,” “primitive,” and “Oriental” but “philosophical,” “scientific,” and “Greek”?17 The answer to the first two questions is much more likely to be yes, and this is what needs to make it into standard accounts of the history of Western philosophy and into the consciousness of practicing academic philosophers who still believe in the Greek triumph of reason as their professional foundation myth.

————— 15. Osborne, Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy. 16. Capizzi, The Cosmic Republic, 1–2. 17. For recent emphasis on connecting Greek philosophy to Eastern wisdom traditions, see Burkert, “Prehistory of Presocratic Philosophy in an Orientalizing Context.”

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With regard to genres of early Greek philosophical texts, Glenn Most encourages us to further explore the “poetics of Early Greek philosophy.” Returning to Thales and the Milesian school, Most emphasizes that the gap between the “physicists” (philosophers) and the “theologers” (mythtellers and poets) was artificially created. Most instead situates the early Greek thinkers in the matrix of the early poets: In all [. . .] ways the early Greek philosophers continued to work within the discursive framework that they had inherited from the earliest Greek poets, and transformed it into a set of expectations that could continue to apply not only to poetry but also to serious prose.18

In this light, claims to truth, metaphysical essence, and comprehensive inquiry were not necessarily features of a transition to a “philosophical” mindset, but features the prose of the Milesian school inherited from epic poetry. Most sees the use of the form of poetry in Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles both as a conscious return to the representation of epic orality—against the rise of the Milesian prose treatise—and also as a conscious use of the language of the divine, the idiom of the gods who speak in the dactylic hexameters of the epos.19 Although some of this work dates back to the 1970s or 1980s the shattering of the triumphant foundation myth of philosophy as a rational, scientific discipline by scholars of Ancient Greece has had less effect than expected on the concerns and the self-definition of most academic philosophers today. Thus the promotion of an early “Chinese philosophy” could ideally help spur the radical reinterpretations of Greek philosophy, in particular its origins, put forward by classicists to reach a broader audience of contemporary philosophers: myths of origins can never be extracted easily without the complete destabilization of an entire system, which makes them longlived. If, however, an early “Chinese philosophy” resonates more with revisionist depictions of early Greek philosophy than early Greek philosophy with its own image in surveys of Western philosophy, open-minded scholars of Western philosophy might rediscover their “Greek philoso-

————— 18. Long, Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, “The poetics of early Greek philosophy,” p. 350. 19. Ibid., p. 353.

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phy” as “Greek Masters Literature” with the help of the heuristic concept of a “Chinese philosophy.” Second, this study hopes to galvanize comparative efforts that are out of disciplinary synch. Comparative studies have had quite different trajectories depending on their disciplinary affiliation. This hampers in particular the study of the ancient and medieval worlds. “Comparative literature,” if not anthropology, has been the vibrant venue for creative comparative work since the nineteenth century. Yet, its origin in the study of European national literatures has given it, even in its least historical and most theoretical moments, a strong early modern and modern bent and has led to an interest in the more properly literary, which does not easily map onto the spectrum of cultural and intellectual production in ancient and medieval cultures. “Comparative history,” by contrast, is a younger enterprise that has gained palpable ground under the increasing pressures of globalization discourse since the 1990s.20 The introduction to an excellent volume by Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor, Comparison and History. Europe in Cross-national Perspective (2004), is a good example of the extreme caution with which historians in the early twentyfirst century still need to defend themselves for engaging in “comparative history” (even if, as is the case with this volume, the comparison is not at all global but narrowly limited to Europe): What are the disadvantages of comparative history? That comparison takes longer, offers more room for mistakes, may be poorly received by specialists in the field: all are . . . uncontentious. However, even beyond these perils . . . lurk others.21

“Comparative philosophy,” in turn, contrasts with “comparative literature” and “comparative history” in origin, goal, and institutional setting. The comparison of Chinese and European traditions goes back to the initial attempts of sixteenth-century Jesuit missionaries to both understand and deploy indigenous thought traditions for their propagation of

————— 20. A delightfully polemical contrasting of the comparative spirit in anthropology with the lack of it in history is Detienne, Comparer l’incomparable. 21. Cohen and O’Connor, Comparison and History, xvi.

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Christian faith. This debate has survived in secularized form in the worldethical mission of some contemporary directions of comparative philosophy that deploy “Chinese values” to propagate personal moral selfcultivation, and a humanism that strives for the ecumenical inclusion of the philosophical and religious traditions of the world for a better future for humankind. This form of comparative philosophy has an equally strong mission to promote ethnic plurality, as comparative literature has since the classical canon of European and North American authors been enriched by non-Western and minority authors under the pressures of the “canon wars” in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it is crucial that the debate over a “comparative philosophy” has not taken place in the midst of traditional philosophy departments. For the most part, the debate was conducted among area studies and religious studies faculty who might have a rather tenuous relationship to their colleagues in philosophy departments (or a suspiciously disproportionate pride if they are part of philosophy departments or in close dialogue with their colleagues in philosophy). It seems that, rather than a discipline, this form of “comparative philosophy” is a banner under which scholars of nonWestern thought traditions have assembled to reflect on how to garner the attention of the Eurocentric core of philosophy departments. The current asymmetries, at times even asymptotes, among comparative enterprises and their widely diverging methodological or institutional affiliations are just becoming clearer. One might even claim that the metacomparison of divergent comparative approaches in various humanistic and social science disciplines will be one of the most important, if not the most important, fostering ground for the reshaping and transformation of the humanities in the twenty-first century. To return to my modest purpose here, the “literary colonization of intellectual history,” as my approach to the Masters Texts has been cursed, is comfortable juggling, for the time being, philosophy, history, and literature, thereby hoping to contribute to galvanizing efforts in the vastly asymmetrical, multiple comparative projects connected with each of these disciplines. Third, although my study has focused on the intellectual dialogue within a particular corpus of ancient Chinese texts, it looks with great hope towards how these texts might impact future philosophy and philosophical studies. “Chinese philosophy” should not be a toolbox of

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concepts and values that could give Western philosophy a fix. Instead, it is the translation process of Masters Texts, both on the level of words and on the level of disciplines, that has the greatest potential to become productive in the future. In Le droit à la philosophie d’un point de vue cosmopolitique—a call for a universal “right to philosophy”—Derrida sees the future of philosophy in its liberation from the languages that have produced it, such as Greek and Latin, as well as Germanic and Arabic languages.22 Derrida makes a prophetic point when urging us to situate not just comparative philosophy but the future of philosophy tout court in the generative power of non-Western languages, rather than in a harvestable crop of concepts with universal ring or appeal expropriated from other thought traditions. Somebody like Ian Hacking, a philosopher of science who has a longstanding interest in language and how it constitutes philosophical and scientific discourses, might be perfect to constructively engage with the language and rhetoric of the Chinese Masters Texts and the ways they could further reflect on philosophical problems. He has developed a notion of “styles of reasoning” that makes “style” into a philosophical (not simply literary or historical) category. He imagines a “philosophical technology” that studies the techniques with which certain styles of reasoning—be they alternative ways of mathematical proofs or Renaissance “reasoning by similitude” as represented by Paracelsus—stabilize their claims to truth and “self-authenticate” their objectivity. “Styles of reasoning” come and go: the once broadly practiced and self-evident Renaissance “reasoning by similitude” has died out and seems unconvincing today; some “styles of reasoning” disappear as soon as they are born, while “a few styles of reasoning become autonomous of their origins and their originators. That is a pressing philosophical issue in the study of styles of reasoning.”23 Some ways of reasoning—in particular Masters Texts or passages—clearly qualify as peculiar “styles of reasoning.” When considering the Masters Texts as a treasure trove of “styles of reasoning” with philosophically productive potential we would be far removed from imposing judgmental equivalences of Western concepts onto Chinese thought traditions and the way

————— 22. Jacques Derrida, Le droit à la philosophie d’un point de vue cosmopolitique, 38. 23. Hacking, “‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers.”

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“Chinese philosophy” was created a century ago. There is then a future for a “Chinese philosophy.” And the Masters Texts will contribute to translating “Western philosophy,” both in its historical incarnations and future shapes, under the inevitable, irreversible confluence with other thought traditions of the world that we have the privilege to witness in our lifetime.

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.

Index

Agronomists (Nongjia), 36, 54 Aleni, Giulio, 13 Arcade Huang, 8 Aristotle, 18, 20, 340–41 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 24–25 Ban Gu, 34, 78, 82, 91, 194 Bouvet, Joachim, 10, 19–20 Brucker, Johann Jakob, 7, 8, 10–11 Chen Xiang, 36–39 Chong Yu, 163 Chuci (Songs of the South): 190, 209, 221–22, 229, 237, 245, 253, 277, 303; “Lisao” (“Encountering Sorrow”) 185, 189–92, 195, 222–23, 245, 249, 253 Chuci houyu (Later Works from the Chu Tradition), 192 Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), 60, 63–64, 76, 83–84, 90, 92, 127, 158–62, 183–84, 205 Chunyu Kun, 85 Cicero, 2, 202, 333 Confucian texts, 1, 8, 50, 214, 232, 272

Confucians (Rujia or Ruzhe): 54, 93, 97, 99, 117, 127, 130, 281; in Zhuangzi 238–39, 254–55, 261, 263, 271–73; in Han Feizi 281, 303–304, 307–308, 311, 322, 324, 328; in Xunzi 42, 45–46, 52, 195, 206, 238; in Sima Qian’s biographies 65–66, 89; in Mozi 34–35, 41, 44; in Mencius 39, 41; in Laozi 208, 221; and Wang Chong 82, 89; as Han dynasty school label 23, 53, 58, 77 Confucius (Kongzi): and the development of Masters Literature, 1, 33–38 passim, 45–46, 56, 59–76 passim, 83–86 passim, 330; and the translation of disciplines, 1–11 passim, 14, 21, 25–30 passim; and Mozi, 128, 130, 135–37, 141, 150; and Mencius, 145, 153, 156–67, 174–75, 177– 79, 206, 327–28; and Xunzi, 190, 198, 205–6, 226–29 passim, 327–28; and Laozi, 207–8, 218, 224, 328; and Zhuangzi, 254–56, 259–65 passim, 268–69, 328; and Han Feizi, 280, 309, 328; and alternative

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366

Index

communities, 99–103; and scenes of instruction, 90–99; body of, 113– 26; and authorship, 183–84 Confucius, Sinarum Philosophus sive Scientia Sinica latine exposita (Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher or: Chinese Science Explained in Latin), 5 Corpus Hermeticum, 10 Daodejing (Classic of the Way and Virtue), 207, 209 Daoists (Daojia), 53–54, 58, 72, 77, 138, 229, 233, 262, 288, 300 Daoshu (“Pivot of the Way”), 48, 240, 244, 260 de Guignes Joseph, 8–10 De oratore (On the Orator), 2 de Prémare, Joseph, 8, 10, 19, 20 Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing (Wuweiwei), 251, 253 Duke Huan of Qi, 159, 308 Duke of Zhou, 38, 82–83, 114, 162, 195 Duke Wen of Jin, 159 Emperor Jing of the Han dynasty, 208 Emperor Tang, 142, 155, 227, 249, 254 Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, 78, 90–91, 129 Emperor Yao, 38, 114, 118, 160, 164–65, 197, 270–71 Erya, 15 Fabulists. See Storytellers Fingarette, Herbert, 95–96, 124–25 Former Kings (xianwang), 42, 99, 168, 172, 299, 306–7, 311–12 Four Books, 4–5, 145, 153 Fourmont, Etienne, 8 Fu Xi, 10–11, 86–87

Gaozi, 154, 175–78, 224 Gongsun Longzi, 42, 241–42, 273; “Baima lun” (“Discussion on the White Horse”), 241; “Zhi wu lun” (“Discussion on Pointers and Things”), 241; “Tong bian lun” (“Discussion on Continuity and Change”), 241; “Jian bai lun” (“Discussion on Hard and White”), 241; “Ming shi lun” (“Discussion on Names and Realities”), 241 Gongxi Hua, 101–2, 110 Guan Yin, 50, 70, 264 Guanzi, 228, 245, 288, 306; “Neiye” (“Inner workings”), 228, 245; “Xing shi jie” (“Explanation of ‘On Conditions and Circumstances’”), 288 Guo Moruo, 129, 283 Guwen (old-style prose), 33 Han Feizi (and Han Feizi): 3, 18, 21, 28–30, 33, 62, 70–76, 84–85, 89, 116, 128–29, 173, 180, 185, 214, 266, 279–329; “Shui nan” (“Difficulties of Persuasion”), 71, 282–83, 301, 312, 315; “Zhu dao” (“The Way of the Ruler”), 285, 287, 288, 291–92; “Jie Lao” (“Interpretations of Laozi”), 288–310; “Liu fan” (“Six Offenders”), 302; “Ba shuo” (“Eight Persuasions”), 303; “Wu du” (“Five Vermin”), 303, 322; “Nan yan” (“Difficulty Speaking”), 312–14; “Shuolin” (Forest of Persuasion), 320–21; “Chushuo” (“Repository of Persuasions”), 320; “Yu Lao” (“Illustrating Laozi”) 288, 308, 324

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Index Han Yu, 153 Hanshu (Book of Han): 53, 57–61 passim, 78, 97, 183–84, 192–94 passim; “Yiwenzhi” (“Bibliographical Treatise”), 45, 53, 57–61 passim, 78–79, 91, 97, 183, 192 Heaven, 27, 83, 182–83, 224, 233, 283, 297, 330; in Zhuangzi 238–49 passim, 254–60, 264, 268–75 passim, 308; in Mozi 134–36, 145–49, 181; in Mencius 163–65, 172, 187; and Confucius 62, 98–99, 112–13; “All Under Heaven” (Zhuangzi) 47– 53, 58, 88, 265, 311; Son of Heaven 75, 122, 145–46, 214 Historia critica philosophiae (Critical History of Philosophy), 7, 11 Hu Shi, 15–16, 129 Huainanzi, 22, 74, 116, 182, 190 Huang Lao, 233, 288 Intorcetta, Prosper, 6 Jaspers, Karl, 25–26 Jixia Academy, 45, 50, 53, 73–77 passim King Hui of Liang, 74, 75, 169 King Xuan of Qi, 73–74, 167, 170 Kong Fu, 113, 118 Kongcongzi (Collected Works of the Kong Family), 90, 113–17 passim Kongzi jiayu (Family Conversations of Confucius), 90, 114–17 Laolaizi, 70 Laozi (figure of ), 3, 9, 14, 30, 33, 48, 50, 62, 113, 233, 268, 260–65 Laozi: 19, 27, 30–31, 67, 89, 124, 131, 173, 180, 207–30, 301, 323, 326, 328;

367

in Sima Qian, 70–77; in Zhuangzi, 231–34 passim, 238, 247, 252, 256, 261–65, 272–73, 277; in Han Feizi, 283–300 passim, 307–8, 324 Legalists (Fajia), 18, 23, 27, 54, 58–59, 72–74, 77, 281, 283, 288, 294 Li Dan, 70 Li Si, 71–72, 84–85, 201, 279 Liang Qichao, 14–15, 129 Liji (Record of Rites), 90, 102, 115–16, 145, 226 Liu An, 74, 266 Liu Xiang, 23, 53–54, 77–78, 188, 190 Liu Xie, 12, 132, 330 Liu Xizai, 12–14, 21–22 Logicians (Mingjia), 23, 51, 58, 77, 203, 238, 241, 273, 322 Lü Buwei, 182–85 passim Lu Jia, 83, 132, 192, 194 Lunheng (Balanced Discourses), 80, 84, 86–87; “Countering [Allegations Regarding] Literary Creation” (“Dui zuo”), 86 Lüshi chunqiu (The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mister Lü), 21, 150, 182, 185, 320 Malebranche, Nicolas, 6 Master Mynah (Ququezi), 243–44, 257 Master Tallbeech, 243–44, 257, 260 Masters Literature. See Masters Texts Masters Texts (zishu, zhuzi baijia), 3, 12–15, 19, 21–38 passim, 56–57, 59, 71, 76–77, 85, 88–89, 326–31, 338– 39, 343–46 Matching of form and name (xingming), 48, 54, 77, 309 Matsumoto Bunzaburō, 12–15 Matteo Ricci, 4, 6, 8, 316

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368

Index

Mencius (and Mengzi): 3, 5, 14, 19, 21, 27, 30, 33, 36, 42, 97, 114, 117, 127, 130, 153–79, 224, 234, 265, 302, 309, 327–28, 331; and the development of Masters Literature, 36–45 passim, 52, 62, 64, 66, 84, 87, 89, 92; and Xunzi, 186–87, 200, 202, 205– 6; biography by Sima Qian, 73–76 Michele Ruggieri, 4 Miscellaneous School. See Syncretists Mo Di. See Mozi Mohists (Mojia or Mozhe): 128–33 passim, 151, 327–28; as a Han dynasty school label, 23, 54, 58, 77, 238; in opposition to Confucius, 34–36; 118, 160; and Mencius, 39–41, 160, 162, 177, 206; and Xunzi, 41, 46, 50, 191; and Laozi 219, 221; and Zhuangzi, 239, 254–55; and Han Feizi, 21, 23, 30, 34–36, 39–41, 45–47, 50, 54, 58, 77, 118, 128–33 passim, 135, 139, 140–46, 149, 151, 160, 162, 179, 186, 191, 202–6, 219, 221, 229, 233, 238–39, 254–5, 281, 285, 312, 327–28 Mozi (and Mozi), 3, 21, 27, 30, 41–45 passim, 49–52 passim, 73–74, 89, 116, 127–52, 155, 181, 186, 203– 205, 219, 227, 237, 261, 281, 327; “Fei Ru” (“Against Confucians”), 34–36; “Fei gong” (“Against Offensive War”), 34; “Fei yue” (“Against Music”), 34, 49; “Fei ming” (“Against Fatalism”), 34; “Ci guo” (“Renouncing Excess”), 131; “Tianzhi shang” (“Will of Heaven Part I”), 135–36, 181; “Jiezang xia” (“On Reducing Funeral Expenditures Part III”), 143;

“Shang tong” (“Agreeing With Superiors”), 147–48; “Suo ran” (“On Dyeing”), 149 Names School. See Logicians Neoconfucianism (Song), 33 Neoplatonism, 18 New Confucians, 334 Peng Xian, 190 Persuaders (Zonghengjia), 54, 65–69, 76, 137, 160, 168, 199, 200, 238, 266, 282, 284, 301–3, 306, 316–19 Plato, 1–2, 14, 154, 333, 340 Qian Mu, 77 Qu Yuan, 185, 189–94 passim, 222–23, 245, 253 Ran You, 101–2 Roman Republic, 2 Ruists. See Confucians Sage Kings, 132–35 passim, 141–42, 161, 187–88, 199 Schweitzer, Albert, 27–28 Shang Yang, 281, 285, 305, 306, 311 Shangjunshu (Book of Lord Shang), 306 Shen Buhai, 70, 72, 281, 286 Shen Dao, 42, 50, 73–74, 281 Shi Yu, 272 Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian): 15, 29, 33–34, 42, 61–67 passim, 73– 77 passim, 84–88 passim, 158, 184, 279; “Hereditary Houses” (shijia), 62, 65 Shijing (Book of Poetry, also Classic of Poetry), 60, 74, 87, 90, 108, 115, 118,

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Index 150, 156, 158, 164–67, 173, 184–85, 199, 209, 222, 226, 247, 288, 313 Shina tetsugaku shi (History of Chinese Philosophy), 12–15 Shujing (Book of Documents), 10, 15, 39, 90, 92, 142, 156, 164, 199, 313 Shun 38, 45, 114, 118, 150, 160, 164–66, 191, 253–54 Shuoyuan (Garden of Stories), 90–91 Shushan No-Toes, 269–71 Sima Qian: 29, 33, 47, 56–57, 61– 78 passim, 83–86 passim, 114, 118, 158–59, 184–85, 208, 282, 288, 320; Letter to Ren An, 62, 184 Sima Tan, 26–27, 45, 49, 54, 58, 61–62, 72, 76–77, 88 Sir Knowledge, 251–56 Six Schools or Six Experts (Liujia), 26–27, 33, 45, 54, 58, 61, 72, 75–76 Socrates 2, 15 sophists, 1, 42, 52, 238, 242–43, 265 Spinoza, 6 Storytellers (Xiaoshuojia), 54, 60, 238, 248–50 Su Qin, 67–70 Syncretists (Zajia), 23, 54, 234

369

Wenxin diaolong (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), 12, 132 Wenxuan (Literary Selections), 132 Wild-and-Witless (Kuangqu), 251–53, 256 Windelband, Wilhelm, 16 Wu Zixu, 190

Tangqi Gong, 310–11 Tian Pian, 42, 50, 73–74 Tugh Temür, Emperor Wenzong of the Yuan Dynasty, 153 Tuo Xiao, 42–45 passim

Xiao Tong, 132 Xiaojing (Classic of Filial Piety), 65, 91, 106, 158 Xie Wuliang, 15 Xing zi ming chu (“human nature stems from heavenly decree”), 224–29 Xinyu (“New Words”), 132 Xu Xing, 36–37 Xu You, 270–71 Xunzi (and Xunzi): 3, 18, 21, 28, 30, 33, 41–49 passim, 52–53, 57–58, 62, 71, 81, 88–89, 99, 114, 154, 180–206, 265–66, 326–31 passim; biography by Sima Qian, 73–76; and Mozi 133, 137–38; and Laozi, 213, 215, 224–29 passim; and Han Feizi 279, 283, 285, 311, 320; “Fu” (“Rhapsodies”), 18, 185, 188–95; “Chengxiang” (“Working Songs”), 18, 185, 188–92, 195; “ Feixiang“ (“Contra Physiognomy”), 18, 185, 188–92, 195; “Xing e” (“Human Nature Is Evil”), 154, 185–88, 195, 205

Wang Chong, 29, 33–34, 78–89, 129, 182, 330 Wang Su, 114, 116 Way (Dao), 10, 12, 16, 48, 76, 88–89, 223–8 passim, 285, 308, 330–1 Wei Mou, 42–45 passim

Yan Hui, 94, 102–103, 111, 254–55 Yang Xiong, 83, 86, 192, 282, 301; “Jie chao” (“Resolving Ridicule”), 86 Yang Zhu, 36, 41, 155, 160–61, 234, 265 Yellow Emperor, 16, 19, 182–83, 251– 56 passim, 270, 288, 304

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370

Index

Yi Erzi, 270–71 Yigai (Outline of Art): 12; “Wengai” (“Outline of Prose”) 12–14 Yijing (Book of Changes, also Classic of Changes), 10, 19, 59, 60, 72, 86, 90, 184 Yinyang school (Yinyangjia) 23, 53–54, 58, 233 You Ruo, 67, 105 Yu, Emperor, 162 Zeng Xi, 101–3, 106 Zengzi, 65, 79–81, 106, 158, 272 Zhang Yi, 67 Zhanguoce (Schemes of the Warring States), 69, 199–200 Zhongguo zhexue shi dagang (Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy), 15–16 Zhu Xi, 4, 145, 153, 192 Zhuang Bao, 167–68 Zhuangzi (and Zhuangzi): 3, 13–14, 27, 30, 45–53 passim, 57–58, 66, 70–73,

88–89, 116, 131, 136, 145, 173, 200, 203, 208–9, 217, 227, 231–79, 286, 288, 308–9, 324–28 passim, 331; “Tianxia” (“All Under Heaven”), 45, 47–53, 58, 88, 98, 136, 172, 258, 265, 273, 311; “Xiaoyao you” (“Free and Easy Wandering”), 246–50; “Qi wu lun” (“Discussion on Making Things Equal”), 238–44, 257, 273; “Qiushui” (“Autumn Floods”), 265; “Pianmu” (“Webbed Toes”), 271–72; “Ying diwang” (“Responding to Emperors and Kings”), 274–75; “Tian dao” (“The Way of Heaven”), 264, 308 Zigong, 62–66 passim, 111, 115–17, 124–25 Zilu, 65, 100–3, 112–13, 263 Zisi, 42–43, 52, 66, 74, 113–14 Zixia, 45, 107–8, 158 Zizhang, 45, 65 Zou Yan, 42–43, 73, 75

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Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series (titles now in print)

11. 21. 22. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Han Shi Wai Chuan: Han Ying’s Illustrations of the Didactic Application of the Classic of Songs, translated and annotated by James Robert Hightower The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition, by Patrick Hanan Songs of Flying Dragons: A Critical Reading, by Peter H. Lee Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan, 645–900, by William Wayne Farris Shikitei Sanba and the Comic Tradition in Edo Fiction, by Robert W. Leutner Washing Silk: The Life and Selected Poetry of Wei Chuang (834?–910), by Robin D. S. Yates National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China, by Min Tu-ki Tang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China, by Victor H. Mair Mongolian Rule in China: Local Administration in the Yuan Dynasty, by Elizabeth Endicott-West Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, by Stephen Owen Rememhering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan, by Peter Nosco Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224, by Paul J. Smith Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo, by Susan Jolliffe Napier Inside a Service Trade: Studies in Contemporary Chinese Prose, by Rudolf G. Wagner The Willow in Autumn: Ryutei Tanehiko, 1783–1842, by Andrew Lawrence Markus The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology, by Martina Deuchler The Korean Singer of Tales, by Marshall R. Pihl

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38. Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China, by Timothy Brook 39. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, by Ronald C. Egan 40. The Chinese Virago: A Literary Theme, by Yenna Wu 41. Studies in the Comic Spirit in Modern Japanese Fiction, by Joel R. Cohn 42. Wind Against the Mountain: The Crisis of Politics and Culture in Thirteenth-Century China, by Richard L. Davis 43. Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China (960–1279), by Beverly Bossler 44. Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters, by Qian Zhongshu; selected and translated by Ronald Egan 45. Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology, and the World Market, by Sucheta Mazumdar 46. Chinese History: A Manual, by Endymion Wilkinson 47. Studies in Chinese Poetry, by James R. Hightower and Florence Chia-Ying Yeh 48. Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature, by Meir Shahar 49. Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Daniel L. Overmyer 50. Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent, by Alfreda Murck 51. Evil and/or/as the Good: Omnicentrism, Intersubjectivity, and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought, by Brook Ziporyn 52. Chinese History: A Manual, Revised and Enlarged Edition, by Endymion Wilkinson 53. Articulated Ladies: Gender and the Male Community in Early Chinese Texts, by Paul Rouzer 54. Politics and Prayer: Shrines to Local Former Worthies in Sung China, by Ellen Neskar 55. Allegories of Desire: Esoteric Literary Commentaries of Medieval Japan, by Susan Blakeley Klein 56. Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (11th-17th Centuries), by Lucille Chia 57. To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China, by Michael J. Puett 58. Writing and Materiality in China: Essays in Honor of Patrick Hanan, edited by Judith T. Zeitlin and Lydia H. Liu 59. Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China, by Shang Wei 60. Words Well Put: Visions of Poetic Competence in the Chinese Tradition, by Graham Sanders 61. Householders: The Reizei Family in Japanese History, by Steven D. Carter 62. The Divine Nature of Power: Chinese Ritual Architecture at the Sacred Site of Jinci, by Tracy Miller 63. Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (502–557), by Xiaofei Tian 64. Lost Soul: “Confucianism” in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse, by John Makeham

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65. The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms, by Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick, and Tu Weiming 66. Through a Forest of Chancellors: Fugitive Histories in Liu Yuan’s Lingyan ge, an Illustrated Book from Seventeenth-Century Suzhou, by Anne Burkus-Chasson 67. Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature, by Karen Laura Thornber 68. Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols, by David M. Robinson 69. Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial China, by Eugenio Menegon 70. Manifest in Words, Written on Paper: Producing and Circulating Poetry in Tang Dynasty China, by Christopher M. B. Nugent 71. The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, by Jack W. Chen 72. Ancestral Memory in Early China, by K. E. Brashier 73. ‘Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern’: The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960– 1276 CE), by Ruth Mostern 74. The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi, by Wiebke Denecke

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