Colin Sez...

This will probably be my last blog before we head back stateside for the Winter holiday. I figured I should do something profound for a change rather than just give my usual rant on how things are in Hong Kong (although we did just get back from an awesome barbecue, special thanks to our friend Dan for organizing and all the others who showed up!). I am a philosopher, right? That means I should have some words of wisdom, otherwise the money HKU is investing in me is probably going to waste. That being said, here's a little commentary on my current-totally-unofficial opinion of the dynamic in classical Chinese philosophy.

Traditionally, we have the great thinkers of the Warring States Era being divided up into different schools, the three we're most familiar with being the Confucians, Mohists, and hodge-podge Daoists. Traditionally, we hold that these three schools (and probably about one hundred others) all held different, competing doctrines about ideal government/ethical structure and were constantly at one another's throats. Traditionally, we hold that the philosopher's necessarily disagreed with one another on many issues of significance.

Traditionally, we're probably wrong on some of these counts.

I'm not saying that the three schools should have gotten along perfectly. They definitely did disagree on some key points. What's interesting, however, is how much they all seem to overlap and not conflict on what were probably the most pertinent philosophical matters, particularly the issue of harmony and particularly if we interpret the philosophies with the most charitable (coherent) readings possible. On points of seeming disagreement, you often get two sides talking past one another. On points of genuine disagreement, is frequently on an issue that is secondary or not pertinent to the philosophical discussion at hand.

Take the Confucian-Mohist debate: The Confucians are all about the importance of socio-ethical roles, what makes them distinct, and how they relate. Part of this is a hierarchy in which goods are divided according to station. The Mohists are more about the "little guy", wanting all humans to be treated the same in virtue of being human (that means no elaborate state funerals, King Wu). They aren't trying to rock the boat socio-politically, and they're totally in favor of meritocracy, but they just end up being extremely frugal in comparison and have a focus on material benefit. The thing here is that there's nothing really in Mohism that pushes it to extreme ethical or economic socialism, and there's nothing in Confucianism that really rejects it. The main difference is that the Confucians have a system of rituals supposedly established to take care of human needs and the Mohists have a general principle of utility. Their goals end up not conflicting and both sides can mostly accommodate one another. It's that bit about how you're grounding your ethics and how flexible you can be that might make all the difference, but then both sides seem pretty okay with this as well.

Then we add in the Daoists who, despite their love of aphorism, seem to have some substantive points about the nature of things: "A guide that can guide; inconstant guide" and "Names that can name; inconstant names". What does this mean? That the world is constantly shifting and constantly in flux? There's nothing in Mohism or Confucianism that seems to really reject this point. Similarly, with the Zhuangzi text, you get this long discussion about the trouble of establishing any single standard and expecting it to work at all time for all people. Sounds anti-Kantian, right? It is, and that begs the question: Why would Confucians or Mohists commit themselves to a view that developed many centuries later in Germany? The Daoists seem to (indirectly) heap a lot of criticisms on the Confucians and Mohists that don't necessarily apply to them. They make very good points, but is it anything the Confucians and Mohists have to reject? Probably not.

The fact of the matter is that direct engagement has probably never been a trend in Chinese culture. Discretion has always been the better part of valor, especially in matters of competition. The boastful often meet violent ends, while the cautious often reap the benefits of conquest. It seems a more likely tactic that a lot of these philosophies would not outright challenge one another, so much as indirectly criticize or even assimilate points to bolster their arguments. It wasn't about winning the debate so much as winning followers; let the people choose the victor. This is probably why there was so much apparent disagreement: the many sides needed to distinguish themselves from one another and, thus, clung dogmatically to the aspects of their systems that were most distinctive, holding them up as signs while holding more similar values below. In some ways this may have been beneficial, as it probably allowed for the rapid development of increasingly sophisticated philosophical form. On the other hand, it probably limited the extent to which philosophy itself could flourish in that the breadth of discussion would have been narrower, despite an impressive depth.

All right, I think that's enough of a philosophical aside for today. I hope you've all enjoyed keeping up with us for the Fall semester. We look forward to writing more later in December or early January.

Peace on Earth, good will toward men (in the gender neutral sense),

Colin