Xunzian
August 20, 2008, 3:40am
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Another one from Manyul Im’s blog:
Here are some comparative philosophy theses we could discuss, from Sarah Allan’s (1997) book, The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue:
“There is no Classical Chinese word equivalent in meaning to the English word time. In the Analects (IX.17), we are told that Confucius, standing by a river, said, ‘What passes is perhaps like this: day and night it never lets up.’ In this passage, the imagery of the river suggests time passing, just as it did for his contemporary Heraclitus when he said that you cannot step into the same river twice. However, a specific term for ‘what passes’ or ‘passes by’–what we call time–is noticeably absent. Nevertheless, a Chinese word, sometimes translated as ‘time,’ shi 時, is a key term in early Chinese philosophy. The original meaning of shi is “season.” By extension, it also means seasonality or timeliness and refers to doing something at the appropriate time, the time or season at which an action can succeed. Shi is meaningful in the context of a natural order to which people, as other living things including plants, must correspond in their actions if they are to flourish and achieve success in life. However, it is not equivalent to our idea of ‘time’ and it cannot be used to discuss the phenomenon of time passing for which Confucius used the metaphor of a river.” (p. 11-12)
Following up on the Analects IX.17 passage, in which the idea of time “passing” is expressed with the (different) character shi 逝, Allan makes the following analysis:
“…in the absence of a word that specifically means time passing, Confucius simply compares the passing stream with ‘passing away.’ What ‘passes’ is both that which we call time and life itself. In another passage from the Analects, shi 逝 is used explicitly with reference to the passage of time: ‘The days and months pass by (shi 逝), but the harvest is not given to me’ (XVII.1). In Classical Chinese, days and months were also literally ’suns’ and ‘moons’ and so they could also be said to pass by in a literal sense. In later texts, shi 逝 is used as a conventional euphemism for death or dying, just as we speak of someone ‘passing away.’ … Shi 逝 is not, however, ‘passing on’ which carries the implication of another world where one goes after death.” (p. 37)
Allan makes two suggestions based on this. First, that this is reflective of a way of thinking in which individual human lives, though “bounded by birth and death” (p. 12), are also regarded as links within the continuum of the ancestral heritage. Second, that it is reflective of a trend in the “metaphoric structures” through which the early Chinese think, according to which radical distinctions between things are not nearly as much the norm but that continuity among them is. So, an example of that is the significant use of the classification wu 物 “things,” in which humans, animals and plants are all classified together–not trivially, but for important purposes. Based on these sorts of considerations and examinations of textual passages, Allan argues in the book for a set of “root metaphors” that inform the early Chinese conceptual scheme in certain ways.
There are lots of interesting things in this book, including Allan’s discussion of the water and plant metaphors, but I’d be interested in what you think about her observations about early Chinese ways to talk about time: timeliness and passing (away). I’m not as sure as Allan is that large conceptual differences arise from this.
Now, myself and a lot of other people tend to interpret this in a decidedly Whiteheadian fashion – thinking that there is no core metaphor for substance/substantiality in early China and that all the Hundred Schools have dynamism as a fundamental tenet. In this view, the metaphysical assumption rests around “becoming” as opposed to “being”. In addition to the linguistic position (which opens the door for the lexical fallacy for opponents of this view, though I don’t recognize any such fallacy), and various cherry-picked quotes from major texts, thinkers of this persuasion point to the Yijing/I Ching – the Classic of Changes. This text presents a view of the world where everything is constantly in change and in motion. Just when a thing seems at its most firm, it becomes its opposite. The Taijitu/yin-yang is a common representation of this idea. Likewise the transitional/elemental theory of wu-xing supports this approach, whereby every phase of which a thing can be said to be comprised is transitioning into another and exists in relation to all other phases.
The problem with this position is that it relies on the most immature of texts and theories and often ignores later developments. For example, the Daodejing/Tao Te Ching, still a very early text, constantly harps on the stillness of the Dao and Confucius uses the unmoving Pole Star as a metaphor for virtue and the foundation of his philosophy.
So what do people think of the whole dynamism/stillness debate with respect to early Chinese philosophy?
Or, if that is a touch too esoteric for you, how does the above influence your thinking on this small tidbit by Mary Evelyn Tucker:
Naturalistic Cosmology
This sense of naturalism and holism is distinguished by the view that there is no Creator God; rather, the universe is considered to be a self-generating, organismic process.1 Confucians are traditionally concerned less with theories of origin or with concepts of a personal God than with what they perceive to be the ongoing reality of this self-generating, interrelated universe. This interconnected quality has been described by Tu Weiming as a “continuity of being.” This implies a great chain of being, which is in continual process and transformation, linking inorganic, organic, and human life-forms. For the Confucians this linkage is a reality because all life is constituted of ch’i, the material force or psycho-physical element of the universe. This is the unifying element of the cosmos and creates the basis for a profound reciprocity between humans and the natural world.
This brings us to a second important characteristic of Confucian cosmology, namely, its quality of dynamic vitalism inherent in ch’i. It is material force as the substance of life that is the basis for the continuing process of change and transformation in the universe. The term, sheng sheng (production and reproduction), is used in Confucian and Neo-Confucian texts to illustrate the ongoing creativity and renewal of nature. Furthermore, it constitutes a sophisticated awarenessthat change is the basis for the interaction and continuation of the web of life systems—mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. And finally, it celebrates transformation as the clearest expression of the creative processes of life with which humans should harmonize their own actions. In essence, human beings are urged to “model themselves on the ceaseless vitality of the cosmic processes.” This approach is an important key to Confucian thought in general, for a sense of holism, vitalism, and harmonizing with change provides the metaphysical basis on which an integrated morality can be developed. The extended discussions of the relationship of li (principle) to ch’i (material force) in Neo-Confucianism can be seen as part of the effort to articulate continuity and order in the midst of change. Li is the pattern amidst flux which provides a means of establishing harmony.
Do you think Prof. Tucker is justified in her claims given the preceding section?