Returning to Primordially Creative Thinking PDF
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Shuren Wang Returning to Primordially Creative Thinking Chinese Wisdom on the Horizon of “Xiang thinking” Returning to Primordially Creative Thinking Shuren Wang Returning to Primordially Creative Thinking “ Chinese Wisdom on the Horizon of Xiang ” thinking 123 ShurenWang Institute of Philosophy ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences Beijing China Translated byDr. LinZhang Thisbookis sponsoredbyChineseFundfor the Humanities andSocial Sciences ISBN978-981-10-9046-2 ISBN978-981-10-9048-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-9048-6 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018938651 ©SpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd.2018 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd. partofSpringerNature Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:152BeachRoad,#21-01/04GatewayEast,Singapore189721, Singapore Preface “Returning to primordially creative thinking” qua the subject of this book is directedtowardthefactthat“primordiallycreativethinking”hasbeenobscuredand is, hence, lacking. Primordial creating demands the seeking of knowledge for reason but even more for eidetic understanding. The cultivation and improvement ofthenatureofeideticunderstandingprimarilyrestnotinrationallogic-conceptual thinkingbutratherin“Xiangthinking”.Myinvestigationsasto“Xiangthinking”in recentdecadesaimtocallpeopletoattachimportancetothecultivationofnatureas such and to the promotion of primordial creating. In this preface, I would like to address my train of thought on presenting the category of “Xiang thinking” and relevant issues. In the 1980s, I presented the category of “Xiang thinking” and performed investigations around it. Nevertheless, the topic did not draw the attention of academia until the 1990s. That is to say, not until after I published Re-find the TraditionalWisdom(PartA,B,TheWritersPublishingHouse,1997)withmylate wife Yu Bolin was the issue of “Xiang thinking” given increasing importance in academia. This book has been republished several times and appears in the list of best sellers, despite being an academic work, which also shows its popularity among the readers. It performs particular elucidations with respect to “Xiang thinking”,butitalsodisplaysincompletefashiontheperspectiveofthethinkingas such. Since writing it, I also published, successively, a series of articles pertaining to “Xiang thinking” in periodicals and journals. Gradually, discussions about “Xiang thinking” have begun to emerge in the academic works of other scholars, andparticulararticlesonithaveemerged.Allofthesepublicationsindicatethatthe category of “Xiang thinking” and relevant issues have obtained the universal acknowledgment and interest of Chinese academia. In what follows, I will review specifically the process of thought whence I presented the category of “Xiang thinking” and relevant issues. Albeit I broke through the limit of studying Western philosophy and focused more on Chinese philosophyandcultureearlyon,whenIfollowedthestyleofa“free-and-unfettered school” in the late “Cultural Revolution”, I still focused on Western philosophy until the mid-1980s. That which determined my turn to comparative studies v vi Preface between Western and Chinese philosophies is, in fact, accidental. In 1986–1988, when I performed academic visiting in Germany, I brought two articles there for communication. One of them was about Hegel’s philosophy, and the other was about Chinese philosophy. Responses to the former article were rather modest, whereas the latter aroused heated discussions. This result greatly stimulated me, evokingreflectionsandvariousassociations.IttoldmefirstthataChinesescholar, however focused on Western philosophy, must make efforts to cultivate his knowledgeofChinesephilosophyandcultureand,betterstill,thatheissupposedto breakthroughthebarrierbetweenWesternandChinesephilosophiesandseekfora fusion of them because the study of Western philosophies is ultimately aimed at developing our own philosophy and culture. I also thought therefrom that many famous scholars were profoundly cultivated concerning the philosophical thought andcultureoftheirownnationsandhadperformedexcellentstudies.Itwasonthis basis that they headed toward the world and promoted the development of their national philosophies, thought, and culture. In China, the masters appear in the periodoftheMayFourthMovementlikebrilliantstars.Forinstance,insofarasHu Shi is concerned, had he not found in America that it was “shameful” (Hu 1947: 703) to not know “much about the history and politics of one’s country” or “the literature of one’s nation” and hence industriously studied Chinese traditional classics, historical records, philosophical writings, and miscellaneous works at the same time when engaged in Western learnings, he would not later have been a master of Chinese culture. That Hu Shi is capable offusing Qianjia Sinology with experimentalism and of making pioneering creations in many areas, such as phi- losophy, history, and literature, is never completely due to his Western studies; rather,thegenuinerootisChinesetraditionalphilosophy,thought,andculture.His awakening occurred during the course of comparison, and he thus wrote in his diariesofstudyinginAmerica,“OfthestudentsImet,betheyforexampleGerman, French, Russian, or Balkan, they know soundly the history and politics of their countriesandknowthoroughlytheirliteratures.Onlythestudentsoftwocountries know little about their civilization history and politics. They are Chinese and American students… How many of our students can tell something about the poems of Li Bai and Du Fu, the history of Zuo Qiuming and Sima Qian, or the proses of Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu and Su Dongpo? It is actually a shameful thing (ibid.).” We put aside the value judgment of “shameful” made by Hu Shi here; nevertheless, the problem he noted at the beginning of the past century,namely“knowlittleabouttheircivilizationhistoryandpolitics,”stillexists in today’s education sphere and academia of China and still deserves particular attention and reflections. This need exists because in today’s China, not merely common educated people but many members of the advanced intelligentsia have forgotten their origin and ancestors and are “collectively losing memory” of the civilization history of their homeland. After I began Sino-Western comparative studies, the deeper I delved into Chinesetraditionalthoughtandculture,themoreprofoundlyitsinsideinformation was shown to me—the characteristic of being rich in and, more importantly, of inspiringprimordial creativeness.Itisexciting thatintoday’sChina, peopleatlast Preface vii are beginning to focus more on their own traditional culture and to reflect on the lessons learned from their breaking from it. During my reflections in recent years, an important question lingering in my mind has been, in what type of thinking mode have Chinese traditional classics, be they of the origin of Confucianism, Daoism, or Zen, been created or generated? Since Chinese education was Westernized, interpretations concerning Chinese traditional classics have been relying on this thinking mode. Nonetheless, can such interpretations return to or genuinelygraspthetruenatureoftheseclassics?Itisthesequestionsthatpromoted me to study Western and Chinese thinking modes, particularly the eidetic conno- tations and fundamental characteristics of the Chinese traditional thinking mode. The category of “Xiang thinking” and relevant issues were presented during these studies.“Xiangthinking”is,sotospeak,mygeneralizationoftheconnotationsand fundamental characteristics as such. Duringthecourseofmystudyof“Xiangthinking”,Heidegger’scriticismsandhis original ideas with respect to Western traditional thinking mode have also offered me more than a few inspirations at the same time I intensively studied and eidetically understoodChinesetraditionalclassics.Theexplicationsinthisrespectcanbeseenin the Introduction, Preface, and every Chapter. That which merits the most attention, presumably,aremyelucidationsorexpressionsinmycomparativestudieswithrespect to the “xiang” of “Xiang thinking” and other topmost ideas of Chinese traditional thought and culture in terms of their being “non-substantial-ness”. It is the “non-substantial-ness” of “xiang” or other topmost ideas qua a dynamic whole that determines their characteristics of being “non-objective”, “non-ready-made”, and “primordiallycreative”.Thiscanbeseeninthe“Wujiandhencetaiji无极而太极”of Yidao 易道, the “Dao” of “Being comes from Nothing” of Daoism, the “Ren仁 (benevolence)”of“internallysaint”ofConfucianism,the“self-nature”ofthe“knowing themindbeforeseeingthenature”ofZen,andsoonandsoforth.Differentfromthis, inWesterntraditionalthinkingmode,betheythe“concepts”of“logic-centrism”orthe “languages” of “language-centrism”, they show external “substantial-ness”, that of ultimate regulations, insofar as they are the ontological or original top ideas. The “substantial-ness” as such determines their characteristics of being “objective”, “ready-made”,andnon-generatively“constitutive”.ThiscanbeseeninPlato’s“idea”, Aristotle’s “four causes”, and Hegel’s “category”, “concept”, “idea”, or the like. The greatest inspiration I obtained when reading Heidegger derives from the fact thatheemployed,inhiscriticismsconcerningsubstantialismmetaphysics,themethod of turning words into a dynamic state so as to break the ossified regulations of the concepts or categories in the sense of metaphysics, namely, turning the substantial concepts or categories into “non-substantial”. His parlance that over the past two millennia,peoplehaveforgottenthe“Being”(einai,Sein)intheoriginalsensemeans, in fact, that the original “Being” is “non-substantial”, but people “turned it into sub- stantial” later when they confused “Being” with “beings”. That he explored and returnedtothetruenatureof“Being”frommantheparticular“being”(Dasein)isdue to the fact that man is a dynamic whole “being toward death” at the moment he was born. That which is shown by the sein of Dasein is dynamic “presence” or “to be” (zu-sein) rather than static regulations. Mr. Zhang Xianglong translated Dasein into viii Preface “yuanzai 缘在 (being by fate)”, which inherits Mr. Xiong Wei’s understanding when hetranslateditinto“qinzai亲在(beingbyperson)”inearlytimes.ThesetwoChinese versions are trying, so to speak, to display the dynamic nature of Dasein or the “tension” of “zu-sein”. Albeit the translations of the two scholars may evoke misun- derstandings in the context of Chinese and hence cannot be said ideal (presumably, therehasneverbeenanidealtranslation),comparedwiththeliteraltranslationof“cizai 此在(beinghere)”,theyaremorepreferabletome.Thissortofcriticismofpromoting the “turning-to-non-substantial” of Heidegger is notably manifested in his later eluci- dations pertaining to poetries and language. Plainly, the criticisms of Heidegger as regards promoting the “turning-to- non-substantial” deconstruct Western traditional metaphysics and its thinking mode of logic-centrism on the one hand and are manifested in his approaching Eastern thought, particularly the thought of Chinese Daoism on the other hand. That which deserves notice as to the relationship between poetry and language is Heidegger’s insight that the former is of more originality than is the latter. This is an important finding of his. Starting from this, Heidegger placed particular stress on the philo- sophicalstudiesofpoetriesandonpoemsofsuchgreatpoetssuchasHölderlin,Stefan Gorgias, Rainer Maria Rilke, and others. His revealing of the natures of man and languagealsostartedfromtheanalysespertainingtothepoeticlinessinceHeideggeris, infact,ofthepropensitytoattributetherevealingofnaturesassuchto“poeticsense”. For instance, in the article entitled “…man dwell poetically” having reference to Höderlin’s poem, Heidegger ruminated once and again “dwelling poetically” in the context of the whole poem. He stated that poetic language is capable of “first and ultimatelyguidingustowardtheessenceofthething.”Nevertheless,healsonotedthat the difference between poetic and common speaking: “The more poetic a poet is, the freer his speaking is, that is, the opener he is to the unrevealed things, and hence the more expectant he is (Heidegger1999: 466).” However, “Writing poetries is not overflying and rising over, hence abandoning and drifting over the earth. Rather, writingpoetriesisfirstofallbringingpeopletotheearthandmakingthemapartofit soastorealizetheirdwellingpoeticallytherein(ibid.:468).”Moreover,dwellingonthe earthisdwellingunderheavenoverthisearth,whichmeansthatmandwellsbetween heavenandearthandisintegratedwiththem.Astothis,Heideggersaid,“Mandoesnot perform this integration occasionally but has become what he is in essential fashion duringtheintegrationassuch(ibid.:471).”Here,Heideggerviewsthe“integration”of heaven,earthandmanasthe“essence”withwhichmaniswhatheis,whichshowshis new thought of surpassing the Western metaphysical tradition and meeting with Chinese Daoism. ThatIhavemorethanoncecitedZhuangzi’sversesof“Heavenandearthcoexist with me, and things in the life-world are of the same kind with me” (Zhuangzi(cid:129)Qiwulun 庄子(cid:129)齐物论) can be considered ruminating repeatedly on thesetwolines.ThisisbecauseZhuangzihasactuallyrevealedinfinitemeaningsby virtue of “setting context via xiang” and “highlighting spirit via context.” ComparedwithHöderlin’sversesasinterpretedbyHeidegger,Zhuangzi’saremore concise and are of more profound and far-reaching state and contemplation. The state and contemplation of Höderlin’s verses contain implications through the Preface ix rumination and reconstructions performed by Heidegger. In Zhuangzi’s verses, conversely, they are self-contained and simultaneously self-shown. The version “Heaven and earth … with me” definitely contains “the three talents”, whereas “coexist” shows and contains something. The implication of the xiang of “co (exist)” is the integration of the three, and that of “(co)exist” indicates that the “integration” as such is dynamic. The “Shengsheng 生生 (generate and create) is calledYi”of“Yidao”andisoftheflavorof“exist”here.“Things…withme”isthe further externalizationof“heaven andearth …with me.”Thesun,themoon, stars and wind, rain, frost, and snow in the sky on the one hand and birds, brutes, flowers,plants,insects,andfishontheearthontheotherhandallhaveinextricable relationshipstoman,whichisthexiangof“areofthesamekind.”Thatistosay,in Zhuangzi’s poem, the poet’s free mind and state having surpassed the mundane world are rather far reaching and grand, but the contemplations conceived therein are also rather profound. Poetic meaning and contemplations are integrated in Zhuangzi’s verses. The depth as such is, it seems, far beyond the poems of Hölderlin and other Western poets. Heidegger also ruminated once and again on Gorgias’sverses:“I…Nothingis(sein).”Inparticular,whenrevealingtheessence of language by means of Gorgias’s poem, he presented a viewpoint meriting great attention,namely,thatitiswrongthatthinkingbelongsmerelytoreason.Henoted, “Thereisabiashavingbeenformedinthepastmillenniums,namely,thatthinking is the business of reason (ratio) or calculation (Rechnen) in the broad sense—this bias has always puzzled people. That is why people have doubt about the discus- sions with respect to the close relationship between thinking and poetry (Heidegger1996: 1070).” According to Heidegger, howbeit people use language, theyfailtoobtainthetrueexperiencesoflanguagethatareattainedbythepoetfrom nowhere else but the poems. What is the “abandon” in Gorgias’s poem? It is to abandon formalism and mechanism, which interpret language merely as a sign, aiming at surpassing secular views and going deep into meditations to grasp the essence of language. That is to say, “words” is that which determines the appear- ance or “presence” of “things” and that which is of the original sense. This is the true meaning of “Nothing is where words crash.” After the interpretations of the meaning of eidetic understanding with respect to poetries, Heidegger reached a conclusion:thinkingandpoetryareina“closerelationship”that,ratherthanbeing anexternalrelationshipinthecustomarysense,referstothestateof“Youareinme andIaminyou”whenthinkingorpoetically“speaking”.Astothis,Heideggerhas also shown his inclination toward the thinking of Chinese Daoism. Nonetheless, from the aforementioned poem of Zhuangzi, viz., “Heaven and earth coexist with me, and things in the life-world are of the same kind with me,” it can be seen that thinking and poetry (or performing thinking and writing poems) are integral with eachother,beingintherelationshipofoneandthesameratherthanthe“Youarein meandIaminyou”ofthe“closerelationship”.Whyisthereadifference?Thatis, traditional Chinese thinking is “Xiang-thinking” or “thorough sense is manifested via xiang (xiangyijinyi 象以尽意),” whereas Western thinking is “language- thinking” or “thorough sense is manifested via language.” Albeit Heidegger has tried to turn substantial metaphysical words into “non-substantial”, he remains x Preface restricted to language and contends, “Language is the home of Being.” It can thus be seen that Heidegger remains to enter the train of thought and state of Chinese “Xiang thinking”. Now it seems that we can give the answer to the questions raised afore. If Heidegger, who tries to approach the thought of Chinese Daoism, remains outside Chinese “Xiang thinking”, those who are wedded to rational logic-conceptual thinking when interpreting Chinese traditional classics will surely fail to grasp the true nature of them. This is because Chinese traditional classics were primarily created by previous sages via “Xiang thinking”. Presumably, it is virtually impossible to demand that modern Chinese scholars completely return to “Xiang thinking” and create with corresponding expressions (e.g., poetries and fables). Notwithstanding that, it is plainly necessary to demand that Chinese scholars cul- tivate “Xiang thinking” more during their education and academic studies to understand the classics of the ancient sages and perform conversations or com- municatewiththem.Inthemeanwhile,thecultivationof“Xiangthinking”issurely greatlybeneficialtotheimprovementoftheawarenessoftheoriginalityofmodern Chinese scholars. In addition to many external causes, in modern times and pre- viously, the lagging behind and lack of primordial creativity in China lies in that insofarasculturalinternalityisconcerned,thelossofthesuperiorityofbeinggood at“Xiangthinking”duringtheprocessofbeingseparatedfromtraditionalcultureis the fundamental cause. In terms of the direction or aim of my writing this book, it is,sotospeak,tocallfor“Xiangthinking”anditsprimordiallycreativereturn.This is also why I adopt Returning to Primordially Creative Thinking as the title. HowbeitIdidnotwritethisbookbasedonimpulsebutonyearsofaccumulations, since the issues are weighty and concern rather vast areas, there must be defi- ciencies, even faults. Consequently, criticisms from academic colleagues and readers are welcome. Beijing, China Shuren Wang References Shi, Hu.(1947).DiariesofStudiesOverseas,Vol.3.Beijing:TheCommercialPress,p.703. Heidegger, M. (1996). Collections of Heidegger’s Works, Part B. Shanghai: Shanghai Joint PublishingHouse,p.1070. Heidegger, M. (1999). Collections of Heidegger’s Works, Part A. Shanghai: Shanghai Joint PublishingHouse,pp.466.468.471.
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