Disputers of the TAO: philosophical argument in ancient China

515 Pages·2016·18.43 MB·English

by  A. C. Graham

Disputers of the
Philosophical Argument in Ancient China
A. C. Graham

Disputers of the
TAO
Philosophical Argument in Ancient China
A. C . G r a h am
OPEN * COURT
La Salle, Illinois 61301
Map on p. ii reproduced by permission from Yu-lan Fung's A History of
Chinese Philosophy, translated by Derk Bodde and published by Princeton
University Press.
OPEN COURT and the above logo are registered in the U.S. Patent and
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© 1989 by Open Court Publishing Company
First printing 1989
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graham, A. C. (Angus Charles)
Disputers of the Tao: philosophical argument in ancient China/A. C. Graham.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8126-9087-7. —ISBN 0-8126-9088-5 (pbk.)
1. Tao. 2. Philosophy, Chinese. I. Title.
B127.T3G69 1989
181'.11—dc20 89-32227
CIP
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
I. THE BREAKDOWN OF THE WORLD ORDER
DECREED BY HEAVEN 9
1. A Conservative Reaction: Confucius 9
Ceremony and music 10
Government as ceremony 13
Heaven and the spirits 15
The thread which unifies morality 18
Confucius and 20th-century Western
philosophy 22
The centrality of Confucianism in Chinese
civilization 31
2. A Radical Reaction: Mo-tzu 33
The three tests of argument 36
The criticism of traditional practice by the
utilitarian text 39
The unifying principle of morality 41
The centralisation and bureaucratisation of the state 45
Heaven, spirits and Destiny 47
Divisions in the Mohist school 51
3. Retreat to Private Life: The Yangists 53
The Yangist teachings 56
The supposed egoism of Yang Chu 59
vi CONTENTS
4. Idealisation of the Small Community:
The Utopia of Shen-nung 64
The Golden Age of Shen-nung 66
Hsu Hsing 70
The influence of the Shen-nung ideal 72
5. The Sharpening of Rational Debate:
The Sophists 75
Hui Shih 76
Kung-sun Lung 82
The 'White Horse' 85
'Pointings and Things' 90
Left and Right 94
6. The Discovery of Subjectivity: Sung Hsing 95
The Kuan-tzu chapter, 'Inward Training' 100
II. FROM SOCIAL TO METAPHYSICAL CRISIS:
HEAVEN PARTS FROM MAN 107
1. From Confucius to Mencius: Morality Grounded in
Man's Nature as Generated by Heaven 111
Government 113
The controversy with Kao-tzu over
human nature 117
The goodness of human nature 123
Two Confucian essays: the 'Great Learning'
and the 'Doctrine of the Mean' 132
2. From Mo-tzu to Later Mohism: Morality
Re-grounded in Rational Utility 137
Knowledge and naming 139
Change and necessity 141
The 'a priori' 143
The first discipline: discourse (knowledge
of how to connect names and objects) 147
The revised art of discourse in 'Names
and Objects' 150
The second discipline: ethics (knowledge
of how to act) 156
The third discipline: the sciences (knowledge
of objects) 160
The fourth discipline: argumentation
(knowledge of names) 167
3. From Yangism to Chuang-tzu's Taoism: Reconciliation
with Heaven by Return to Spontaneity 170
The name 'Taoism' 170
The book Chuang-tzu 172
Stories about Chuang-tzu 174
The assault on reason 176
The Later Mohist defence of reason 183
Spontaneity 186
The illumination of spontaneity 191
Waking and dream 194
Heaven and man 195
Language 199
Reconciliation with death 202
A 'School of Chuang-tzu' development:
the 'Great Man' metaphysic 204
III. HEAVEN AND MAN GO THEIR OWN WAYS 213
1. Lao-tzu's Taoism: The Art of Ruling by Spontaneity 215
Old Tan and the book Lao-tzu 215
The Way 219
Reversal 223
Doing nothing 232
The mystical and the practical 234
2. Hsun-tzu's Confucianism: Morality as Man's Invention
to Control His Nature 235
Heaven 238
Human nature 244
The heart 251
Ceremony and music 255
Theory of naming 261
(1) The purpose of having names 263
(2) The evidence for assimilating and differentiating 264
(3) The pivotal requirements for instituting names 265
3. Legalism: An Amoral Science of Statecraft 267
Adapting to change 270
Standards and laws 273
The debate over power, morality and law 278
Control of the bureaucracy 282
Legalism and Lao-tzu 285
4. Two Political Heresies 292
1. Criticism of hereditary monarchy 292
2. The question of Chinese anarchism 299
The Chuang-tzu 'Primitivist' 306
viii CONTENTS
IV. THE REUNIFICATION OF THE EMPIRE AND OF
HEAVEN AND MAN 313
1. The Cosmologists 315
Proto-science and modern science 315
Correlative thinking and correlative
cosmos-building 319
Cosmology before the Han 325
Pairs: Yin and Yang 330
Fours and fives: the Five Processes 340
A Kuan-tzu cosmology based on water 356
The Yi 358
2. Syncretism and the Victory of Confucianism 370
Appendix 1: A Classification of Chinese Moral
Philosophies in Terms of the Quasi-syllogism 383
Appendix 2: The Relation of Chinese Thought to
Chinese Language 389
Notes 429
Romanisation Conversion Table: Wade-Giles/Pinyin 441
Abbreviations 445
Bibliography 447
Name Index 469
Subject Index 475
PREFACE
This is a general history of Chinese philosophy in the classical age
(500-200 B.C.) which takes advantage of the progress of textual, grammati
cal and exegetical studies over the last few decades. Its theme is as much
how the sages thought as what they thought, with the focus on debate
between rival schools. We now know that there is much more rational
discourse in the literature than used to be supposed, especially since
scholars ceased to be deterred by textual problems from taking full
account of the Later Mohist corpus. But just as much attention will be
given to the analysis of modes of thinking at the opposite extreme from
Western rationality, to the aphorisms of Lao-tzu, the correlations of Yin-
Yang cosmology and the divinatory system of the Yi. Direct quotation will
sometimes exceed exposition, to avoid that dangerous detachment of
'thoughts' from thinking and saying which leaves little behind but labels
and slogans, 'universal love' (Mo-tzu), 'Human nature is good' (Mencius),
'Human nature is bad' (Hsun-tzu).
The major histories of Chinese philosophy available in English earlier
in this century came from Chinese stimulated to re-examine their tradition
by influences from the West, by Pragmatism (Hu Shih) and Neo-Realism
(Fung Yu-lan). In recent years the most original proposals have come from
the borders between Western sinology and professional philosophy, for
example from the philosopher Herbert Fingarette in Confucius: The Secular
as Sacred, and the sinologist Roger Ames and philosopher David Hall in
Thinking Through Confucius. We, like the Chinese, fully engage with the
thought only when we relate it to our own problems. I shall not scruple to
ride a couple of hobby-horses of my own: the impossibility of fully
disengaging analytic from correlative thinking, and a 'quasi-syllogism'
useful for interpreting Chinese thought which has also altered my
perspective on Western moral philosophy—not because I suppose that
the understanding of Chinese philosophy depends on swallowing my
own, but because it does depend on philosophising for oneself. Taking
Chinese thought seriously is not simply a matter of acknowledging the
rationality of some of it (and perhaps denying the name 'philosophy' to
the rest), nor of discovering something valuable to oneself in the poetry of
Lao-tzu or the diagrams of the Yi. Its study constantly involves one in
important contemporary issues in moral philosophy the philosophy and
history of science, the deconstruction of established conceptual schemes,
the problems of relating thought to linguistic structure, and correlative
thinking to logic.
References are supplied to existing versions of the texts, but all quoted
passages are newly translated. This is necessary to ensure consistent
equivalents to the key words. In any case available translations inevitably
represent all stages in the progress of sinology over the last century; the
reader searching for a quoted passage in an older version may sometimes
find it hard to recognise. Romanisation follows the Wade-Giles system. I
have occasionally supplied tone marks to distinguish words pronounced
in different tones which would otherwise be confusable (for example the
Emperor Chou overthrown by the Chou).
Since the book is designed for the general reader interested in
philosophy, works of scholarship available only in Chinese or Japanese are
mentioned only when depending on evidence unpublished in Western
languages. I apologise if this does less than justice to the importance of
Far-Eastern scholarship. For full acknowledgement of aid from others I
would have to mention everyone with whom I have discussed the issues
fruitfully over the 30 years or more that I have worked in this field. Many
will find their names in the body of the work; I select for explicit thanks
only some who have read and criticised substantial parts of the manu
script, Christoph Harbsmeier, Roger Ames, Henry Rosemont, Hal Roth,
Robert Henricks.
I wish to thank also the institutions in which I have worked on this
book; the Institute of East Asian Philosophies, Singapore; the Department
of Linguistics, Tsing Hua University, Taiwan; the Department of Religious
Studies, Brown University; the Department of Philosophy, University of
Hawaii; and also the School of Oriental and African Studies, London,
where I did my earlier researches into Chinese language and philosophy.