I. Introduction
Taking Western philosophy as the frame of reference, some Western scholars have described traditional Chinese philosophy also as “rational” or even “rationalistic.” Hegel holds that, as the “followers of reason,” the Daoists “dedicate their lives to the study of reason, and maintain that he who knows reason in its source will possess universal science.”[2] Max Weber calls Chinese culture “practical rationalism” and is convinced that the name “Confucian rationalism” is appropriate.[3] Benjamin Schwartz speaks of “a kind of Chinese rationalism” to the extent that “the word ‘rationalism’ refers to the primacy of the idea of order.”[4]
This belief faces strong challenges now, as it is argued that Chinese philosophy lacks the Western concept of “reason,” “rationality,” or “rational principles.” Jacques Gernet remarks, “The Chinese had never believed in the existence of a sovereign and independent faculty of reason in man.”[5] Herbert Fingarette holds that the Western concept of rationality plays no role in Kongzi’s (Confucius’) philosophy.[6] David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames write, “It would be an error to suppose that order in Confucius’ thinking meant anything like the rational order.”[7] A question will arise, then: if not the “rational” ones, what kind of principles lays the foundations for Chinese philosophy?
Through a close analysis of some key ideas of Confucianism and Daoism,[8] this essay is arguing that the mainstream of Chinese philosophy is grounded on “emotional principles” or “emotionales (qingli情理).” Lin Yutang translates the Chinese term “qingli” as “reasonableness,” remarking,
The Chinese word for “reasonableness” is ch’ingli [qingli], which is composed of two elements, ch’ing (jench’ing) [renqing人情], or human nature, and li (t’ienli) [tianli天理], or eternal reason…. By the Chinese, reasonableness is placed on a higher level than reason…. The Chinese are willing to do anything against reason, but they will not accept anything that is not plausible in the light of human nature.[9]
This is a concise description of qingli, though I believe that it would be more fitting to understand li理as “principle” rather than as “eternal reason.” Originally, li means “veins in jade” as a noun or “dress jade” as a verb. As a philosophic concept, it has gradually had the meaning of “principle,” in virtue of which humans and other things come into being, behave, and change.[10] We may say in this sense that every philosophy attempts to find out some kind of li that governs human life as well as the world, while the “principles” identified by different philosophies are different from one another. For example, the basic principles stressed by the mainstream of Western philosophy are “rational” ones, since they are said to be primarily grounded on or grasped by “reason,” our distinctive ability to think, understand, and form judgments logically. Plato’s “eidos,” Kant’s “practical reason,” Hegel’s “absolute spirit,” or “logos” in general, can serve as examples of this kind of principles. We may call them “rationales” in this sense.
By contrast, the mainstream of Chinese philosophy tries to find the governing principles of human life and the world primarily from qing情 (emotion).[11] As shown by its hieroglyphic structure with a radical denoting the “heart (xin心),” this Chinese character usually refers to various emotional or sensual activities of human beings in broad sense, including corporal desires, sensory feelings, general moods, specific passions, and even moral affections such as filial piety (xiao孝) and humane love (ren仁).[12] In terms of Western rationales, most of them are irrational or disorderly and will interfere with our logical reasoning or obstruct our endeavor of moral reason, and therefore we should suppress them by our rational soul in order to know the principles of objective things in cognition and obey the principles of moral reason in practice. Even moral feelings cannot play any major role in our ethical life. For instance, Habermas remarks, “however indispensable the cognitive function of moral feelings…, they cannot be the final reference point for judging the phenomena they bring to light.”[13]
In comparison, the mainstream of Chinese philosophy claims that the dominant principles (li) of human life and the world lie in the emotional (qing). Using a coinage, we may call them “emotionales” in this sense by contrast to Western “rationales.” Like rationales, on the one hand, emotionales are also the principles that govern human life and the world. Unlike rationales, on the other, emotionales are not the rigid, fixed, abstract principles based on or known by logical thinking, but the dynamic, living, concrete principles rooted in and embodied by emotional activities.
II. Taking the Emotional as Principles
The long-standing tradition of Western rationales has originated in ancient Greek natural philosophy, which tries to discover the first principles (Arche) of the world through logical thinking. By contrast, pre-Qin Confucians and Daoists focus mainly on the issue of whether people ought to take action or not (youwei有为 or wuwei无为). It is from this focus that has originated the long-standing tradition of Chinese emotionales.
Confucianism holds that people must take action in moral-political life according to the principles of moral feelings such as filial piety and humane love. When Zai Wo complains that the three-year mourning for parents will result in the loss of propriety, Kongzi does not explain to him by logical reasoning why it is not a hindrance to the maintenance of propriety, but simply asks him a question about his mood: “If you were to eat good rice and wear embroidered clothes after the one-year mourning, would you feel at ease?” Then he remarks twice, “If you feel at ease (an安), do it (wei为),” though he really thinks that a filial son would not feel at ease in such circumstances and thus should not do it.[14] By connecting an with wei in this way, Kongzi sets forth an emotional principle of “justification by feeling at ease (xin an li de心安理得),” which is still prevalent among the Chinese people now: so long as an act can make you feel at ease in your heart, you have sufficient reason to do it.
In Kongzi’s view, moreover, the emotional is the main motivation for humans to take action. He argues repeatedly, “The filial piety of nowadays means supporting parents. But even dogs and horses can be supported in a similar way. If you do not revere your parents, what is the difference?” “If without humaneness (ren仁) in your heart, what have you to do with propriety?”[15] For Kongzi, thus, it will be meaningless to perform such moral actions as supporting parents and observing propriety without sincere moral sentiments. Chung-ying Cheng points out, “Confucian ethics stresses humanity much more than rationality due to Confucius’s singular insight into both capacity and the need for benevolence (ren仁).”[16]
Mengzi (Mencius) faithfully develops this Confucian kind of emotionales. On the one hand, he puts forward the idea of the “heart that cannot bear the suffering of other humans (bu ren ren zhi xin不忍人之心)” and views it as the fundamental motive for carrying out humane government. On the other, he justifies people’s duty to inter their parents by resorting to kinship love.[17] Accordingly, Mengzi holds that “moral principles (liyi理义)” are common to “all hearts,” and he even uses an analogy with sensory feelings: “Moral principles please my heart in the same way as meat pleases my mouth.”[18] When the “li (principle)” appeared the first time as an important philosophic concept in ancient texts,[19] then, it was understood as something emotional in the “heart.” In this sense, Confucianism may be called “moral emotionalism,” since it regards moral emotions as the first principles of human action.
Differing from Confucianism, Daoism is convinced that people must follow “wuwei zhi dao无为之道 (the Way of doing nothing yet nothing is left undone).” Meanwhile, it denies the positive value of wisdom, desire, filial piety, and humane love. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Daoism is “emotionless,” because what it really rejects is the psychological factors that encourage people to take action, not the ones that follow Dao in a spontaneous way. For example, while Laozi asserts that heaven, earth, and the sage are “inhumane (buren不仁),” he regards “affectionate love (ci慈)” as the “first treasure” that he firmly holds on to and preserves. Then he declares, “If you have affectionate love, you will be victorious in attack and be secure in defense. If heaven is to save you, it will protect you with affectionate love.”[20] To Laozi, this affectionate love is not an artificial emotion like humane love advocated by Confucianism, but a natural feeling by which people can achieve a spontaneous unity with heaven.
Similarly, when asked why humans can be without “feelings” if they are called “humans,” Zhuangzi replies, “What I mean by without feelings is that humans do not let likes and dislikes to hurt themselves inwardly, but they constantly follow the natural Way and do not artificially help life along.” Therefore, he demands that people follow the “feelings of the inborn nature (xingming zhi qing性命之情)” and “feel at ease” in them.[21] Daoism may be called “natural emotionalism” in this sense, for it takes natural feelings as the first principles of human life in harmony with the natural world. Not surprisingly, thus, a phrase in the Zhuangzi《庄子》—“the principle of heaven and earth, and the feeling of myriad things (tiandi zhi li天地之理, wanwu zhi qing万物之情)”[22]—construes qing (feeling) as the synonym of li (principle) on the one hand, and assigns the “emotionales” to myriad things on the other.
This conception that the natural world, like humans, also takes the emotional as the dominant principles seems not to be exclusive to Zhuangzi. As mentioned above, Laozi thinks that heaven protects people with affectionate love. More significantly, some Confucian thinkers also declare that “sincerity (cheng诚) is the Way of heaven,”[23] while they use cheng in the contexts to denote a special state of moral emotions whereby people can move others genuinely—for instance, to please their parents or to win the trust of their superiors or friends. There is even a paragraph in the Zhongyong 《中庸》as follows:
When delight, anger, sorrow, and pleasure do not yet emerge, it is called equilibrium; when these emotions emerge and all attain due measure, it is called harmony. Equilibrium is the great root of the world, and harmony is its universal Way. When they are realized to the highest degree, heaven and earth will attain their proper order and all things will flourish.
Evidently, these “cosmological” remarks describe the two specific states of feelings respectively as the great root and the universal Way of heaven, earth, and all things. From this viewpoint, we can easily understand a seemingly astonishing statement in the Xing Zi Ming Chu〈性自命出〉: “Dao begins in qing.” As many scholars argue, this long-lost text as well as other ones in the bamboo manuscripts discovered in 1993 at Guodian 郭店shows a clear disposition to stress the importance of emotion for human life.[24] What may be further emphasized is that this disposition is just a typical exemplification of the emotionales in pre-Qin philosophy, since we can discern a similar disposition in those earlier and well-known classics such as the Laozi 《老子》and the Lunyu《论语》. Indeed, the Confucian Dao may be said to begin precisely in the emotional, as You Ruo, whose words have been regarded to resemble those of Kongzi, makes it manifest, “The superior man is devoted to te root. When the root is established, Dao will grow therefrom. Filial piety and brotherly respect are just the root of humaneness.”[25]
The later development of Chinese philosophy has not given up this disposition. Neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty, which is usually called “lixue理学 (the school of principle),” still explains li from the angle of emotionales. In its view, “li is at once natural and ethical, and it is apparently assumed that a plant by flowering in spring and fading in autumn is following principle in the same way as a father by being compassionate and a son by being filial.”[26] Thus, Zhu Xi comments that Kongzi’s idea of the mutual concealment between father and son is “the perfect expression of the heavenly principles and human feelings (tianli renqing天理人情).”[27] For the Neo-Confucian school of “heart” (xinxue心学) in the Ming dynasty, the principles are not separable from the emotional, either. Wang Yangming declares, “Wherever there is the ‘heart’ of filial piety, there will be the ‘principle’ of filial piety.”[28] Thus, we have no reason to define these principles stressed by Song-Ming Confucians as “moral reason” or “rationalistic” in a “Westernized” way.
Therefore, Confucianism and Daoism neither hold that the governing principles or order behind the things must be logical or rational, nor regard the emotional as something disorderly in essence. On their conception, the emotional needs no restraints imposed externally by the rational on it; rather, it can regulate itself and then put the whole world in order by its own principles, namely, by “emotionales.” Then, something is orderly or “reasonable” if and only if it is first and foremost in accord with “emotionales,” no matter whether it is in accord with “rationales.” Actually, this is what is meant by a common Chinese verse “heqing heli合情合理.”
III. Taking the Emotional as the Nature
From Socrates on,[29] human being has often been defined as a rational animal according to Western rationales. By contrast, human being is viewed first and foremost as emotional being according to Chinese emotionales. Like “qingli,” consequently, “qingxing情性 (emotional nature)” and “xingqing性情 (emotional disposition)” have also become basic philosophic notions to describe human nature since the pre-Qin period.
When Mengzi puts forward a systematic theory about human nature the first time in pre-Qin philosophy, he already shows a clear tendency to connect it with the emotional, especially with moral feelings.[30] On the one hand, he highlights the decisive role of filial piety to parents and loyalty to ruler in the differentiation between human and beast through his criticisms on some Daoist and Moist thinkers. On the other, he considers the “hearts” of commiseration, shame, modesty, and right and wrong to be the essential constituents of human nature, insisting that whoever is devoid of these “hearts” is no longer the human proper.[31] It is in this sense that Mengzi says, “What belongs by his nature to the superior man, that is, humaneness, rightness, propriety, and wisdom, are rooted in his heart.”[32] As a result, human nature (xing性) is related not only to the emotional (qing情) but also to the heart (xin心), though he does not yet use the term “qingxing” or “xinxing心性 (heart-nature).”
To be sure, Mengzi defines “thinking (si思)” as the “greater part (dati大体)” of xin心 (heart) in contrast to the senses of hearing and seeing, which are said to be its “smaller part (xiaoti小体).”[33] To him, yet, thinking will also be the “smaller part” of xin if in contrast to moral feelings such as filial piety and humane love, since it is not logical thinking or rational knowledge proper but these moral feelings as well as the awareness about them that can eventually make a person truly human. This is why he calls children’s innate knowledge of loving their parents and respecting their elder brothers without the exercise of thought the “intuitive knowledge (liangzhi良知).”[34] This idea has such strong influence on Chinese culture that, as Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan) declares, “Chinese philosophers for the most part have not regarded knowledge as something valuable in itself…. If a man is a Sage, he remains a Sage even if he is completely lacking in intellectual knowledge; if he is an evil man, he remains evil even though he may have boundless knowledge.”[35]
In the Daoist text Zhuangzi, the concepts “qingxing” and “xingqing” appear several times, referring to the “feelings of the inborn nature” whereby the human can be in the natural harmony with heaven.[36] They have impacted strongly upon the later development of Daoism. Interestingly, the Confucian thinker Xunzi also explains human nature in terms of natural feelings and regards qingxing as the “basic motivational structure” of human action.[37] He argues,
The like and dislike, delight and anger, sorrow and pleasure of the nature (xing) are called “emotions (qing).”... When there are emotions and the heart makes choices on their behalf, this is called “deliberation.” When the heart deliberates and one’s abilities act on it, this is called “action (wei).”[38]
To be sure, merely following the natural emotions will result in the evil. However, the goodness of human nature realized by taking action (wei) still lies in “propriety and rightness (liyi礼义),” which are set up by the sage kings according to moral feelings such as filial piety and loyalty.[39] Xunzi touches on the distinctions between human and beast thereby: “Though beasts have father and son, they have no love between father and son; though beasts have male and female, they have no proper separation between man and woman”; “Beasts have awareness but no sense of rightness. Humans have vital breath, life, awareness, and, more importantly, a sense of rightness.”[40] No matter whether in respect of its evil or goodness, then, Xunzi consistently construes “human nature” as a kind of “emotional nature.” While there are indeed some rational ideas in his theory, therefore, Xunzi as a Confucian is first and foremost a philosopher of “moral emotionalism,” not of “rationalism.”
From Xunzi on, the relationship between natural and moral feelings in human nature has often become a controversial issue for many philosophers, including Dong Zhongshu, Yang Xiong, Han Yu, and Li Ao.[41] In their discussions about xing (nature) and qing (emotion), such Neo-Confucians as Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and Zhu Xi try to disconnect them, insisting that xing is good and yet qing is evil. At first glance this position goes against the preceding tradition of Chinese philosophy to take the emotional as the nature. However, it is rather a continuation of this tradition. On the one hand, these thinkers usually use the term qing to denote natural feelings, which are viewed by Xunzi as the nature with a disposition to be evil. On the other, they often use the term xing to denote humaneness and rightness, which are valued by Mengzi as the goodness of human nature that is inseparable from moral feelings.[42] Although these Neo-Confucians attempt to disconnect human nature from natural feelings that are regarded as evil, thus, they still connect it with moral emotions that are regarded as good. When identifying “humaneness” with the “nature,” Cheng Yi remarks: “The controlling factor of humaneness is love.”[43] Zhu Xi also defines “humaneness” as “the character of the heart and the principle of love.”[44] Meanwhile, their theories often introduce difficulty and confusion in the issue of the relationship between xing and qing because they sometimes also call moral emotions as “qing.”[45]
In Chinese culture, therefore, the emotional side of human nature is emphasized much more than its rational side.[46] This tendency is in perfect accord with its stress on emotionales: since the emotional forms the governing principles of human action, certainly it can constitute the controlling elements of human nature, and vice versa. It is in this sense that we can understand “qingli情理” as “qingxing情性.” Indeed, Zhu Xi declares, “The nature is the principle on which humans and things depend for living.”[47] As a result, “xingli性理” (nature-principle) has become another significant concept in Chinese philosophy since the Song dynasty, though it has often been misunderstood as the “rational” (lixing理性) nature of human being nowadays. In daily life, moreover, a person will be also described as “xingqing zhong ren性情中人” (a person of emotional disposition) if he or she behaves primarily according to “emotionales” and yet sharply against “rationales.”
In terms of Chinese emotionales, furthermore, heaven, earth, and myriad things contain the “emotional” as something essential to them, too. The first exemplification is Laozi who ascribes affectionate love to heaven. As stated above, Both Mengzi and the Zhongyong view “sincerity” as “the Way of heaven.” At least from Dong Zhongshu on, the Confucian tradition has held that heaven shows humane love (ren仁) for everything in the world.[48] Zhu Xi even calls tiger, wolf, bee, and ant “humane beasts (ren shou仁兽)” because they also have kinship love between father and son or loyal affection between ruler and subject.[49] The famous Neo-Confucian maxim, “The humane regards heaven and earth and myriad things as one body,”[50] is just rooted in the belief that humaneness is a common feature of them. Therefore, the unity between heaven and human (tian ren heyi天人合一) endorsed by the mainstream of Chinese philosophy is first of all an emotional unity, since they are said to keep in harmony primarily through emotional communication.
IV. Taking the Emotional as the True
According to Western rationales, emotional activities are essentially something subjective or untrue, because they can interfere with our endeavor to acquire the rational and universal truth about the objective world by logical thinking. Therefore, Western scholars might feel strange when they learn that the word qing can mean zhen真 (the “true”) or shi实 (“real facts” or “essence”) in the Chinese language.[51] A. C. Graham even argues that this word never means “passions” but only “the facts” or “genuine” in pre-Han literature.[52] Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden also remark, “The qing of something is what it genuinely is, as opposed to what it might appear to be…. Toward the end of the Warring States Period, qing came to refer to human emotions or dispositions (perhaps because some thinkers regarded these as essential to human beings).”[53] The trouble for these plausible interpretations is: why and how has the Chinese language used this word, which plainly refers to certain psychological states of human beings in terms of its hieroglyphic structure, first to denote the “true” or “real facts” and then to denote “emotions”?
A more persuasive explanation seems to be that qing means both the emotional activities of human beings and the real state of external things in Chinese, because Chinese thinking considers the emotional to be the dominant principles and genuine nature of both human beings and the natural world. In other words, since the emotional is viewed as the governing principles of both human action and the world, the word qing can be also used to denote both the actual state of human action as well as its results and the real state of external things, just as it can be also used to denote the genuine nature of both human beings and external things for the same reason. Generally speaking, whatever is regarded as the principles and nature of humans and the world must be valued as true or real, for only something true or real in itself can become such principles and nature. For example, Dao would not have been true if qing in which it begins were not true. Therefore, Chinese thinking never deems it absurd that qing can mean both the emotional and the true or real at the same time. On the contrary, its two meanings, which seem to contradict each other in terms of Western rationales, are fully compatible with each other according to Chinese emotionales.
Indeed, the word qing in pre-Han philosophical literature can be reasonably understood as having these two meanings in most cases. For example, Mengzi says, “If you let humans follow their qing, they will be able to do good. This is what I mean in saying that human nature is good.”[54] Undoubtedly, here qing does mean “what humans genuinely are.” Nonetheless, this does not exclude the possibility that it means the emotional in the human heart at the same time, since Mengzi holds that the “hearts” of commiseration, shame, modesty, and right and wrong are “what humans genuinely are.”[55] On two other occasions, thus, he also talks about the qing of things and humans in the sense of “what they genuinely are.”[56] We can even interpret in a similar way an very old statement “It may be expressed by the qing of the people (minqing da ke xian民情大可见)”:[57] since the people act according to emotionales, their real situations can form the genuine expression of their emotions—and therefore can be denoted by the word qing. In fact, this classical text of the early Zhou dynasty already puts particular stress on xin心 (heart) as well as such moral feelings as filial piety and brotherly love—an interesting phenomenon suggesting that we may trace the “emotionales” of Chinese philosophy back to an earlier, pre-philosophical cultural atmosphere full of emotional content.
Another significant event is that Chinese philosophy often understands the notions of “zhen真 (the true or genuine),” “cheng诚 (the sincere or true),” and “xin信 (the trustworthy or truthful)” in terms of its emotionales and highlights their emotional implications. For instance, we read a definition of “zhen” in the Zhuangzi as follows:
Zhen means purity and sincerity in their perfect degree. Without purity and sincerity, you cannot move others. Thus forced weeping, however sad, shows no grief; forced anger, however fierce, arouses no awe; forced affection, however cordial, creates no harmony. True sadness shows grief without cry, true anger arouses awe without rising to the surface, and true affection creates harmony without cordiality.[58]
Plainly, here zhen has nothing to do with the rational truths about objective things acquired by logical thinking, but simply refers to some specific states of human emotions: purity and sincerity. To be sure, Zhuangzi also stresses “true knowledge”: “There must first be a true human before there can be true knowledge.”[59] However, here “true knowledge” is unlikely to mean rational truth proper; rather, it must be inseparable from the emotional experience of Dao in the sentimental unity of heaven and human, for it takes the “true human,” that is, a person with the true “feelings of the inborn nature,” as its prerequisite.
Similarly, while both having a component of “yan言 (speaking)” in their etymologic structures, the concepts of cheng (the sincere) and xin (the trustworthy) in Chinese philosophy, especially in Confucianism, refer primarily to the statements or acts out of sincere emotions in the heart, not to the ones out of true knowledge in the mind. For example, both Kongzi and Mengzi regard the utterances that do not correspond to objective facts and yet can express one’s sincere feelings as zhi直 (uprightness) or chengxin诚信 (the sincere-trustworthy).[60] They also argue that the great man does not insist that his words be necessarily trustworthy or his acts resolute, since he speaks and acts only according to “rightness (yi义)” or the “moral principles (liyi理义)” that can please one’s heart in the same way as meat pleases one’s mouth.[61] Mengzi even holds that the historical descriptions of some bloody events are not trustworthy because they go against his sincere belief in “humane war.”[62]
Consequently, the notion of chengxin (the sincere-trustworthy) endorsed by Confucianism is first and foremost an emotional one. Under its profound influence, quite a few Chinese people often replace in their utterances the rational kind of honesty-truthfulness with the emotional kind of sincerity-trustworthiness according to emotionales. By the same token, sometimes they do not regard historical descriptions that “seriously hurt their feelings” as trustworthy, even if these descriptions are themselves truthful.
This semantic connection between qing, on the one hand, and zhen, cheng, and xin信 (the trustworthy), on the other hand, may help us understand a difficult Daoist proposition: “Dao (the Way) has qing and xin信.”[63] Indeed, here qing means “the real” or even “essence” in large measure. However, this does not exclude its original meaning “the emotional,” either. According to Chinese emotionales, rather, the former meaning is grounded on the latter meaning: the real or true Way can be trusted (xin信) because it has the emotional as its essence. For the same reason, this explanation can also apply to Kongzi’s saying: “When the superior cherishes xin信 (the trustworthy), the common people will not dare not to apply their qing.”[64]
Up to today, interestingly, there have been some popular puns in the Chinese language like zhenqing真情, which means both sincere feeling and the truth of the matter, or qingjing情景, which means both scenes blending with sentiments and natural scenes. While surely denoting “truth,” “real facts” or “actual state of affairs,” moreover, the word qing in such modern expressions as guoqing国情 (national conditions), junqing军情 (military situation), zaiqing灾情 (the conditions of a disaster), and bingqing病情 (patient’s condition) still implies “the emotional” at the same time, since these conditions or situations can spontaneously arouse people’s strong emotions and concerns. Viewed from this perspective, the word qing may serve as an excellent example of how the cultural context of the philosophical discourse may affect the usage of words in a language.[65]
V. Concluding Remarks
Significantly, we can discern similar “emotionales” from other important schools of Chinese philosophy. For instance, Moism spotlights the decisive role of universal impartial love (jianai兼爱) in human action, claiming that only being motivated by this moral emotion can people really benefit one another. Besides, it not only stresses “the genuine qing of heaven and earth (zhen tianrang zhi qing真天壤之情),” but is also convinced that heaven loves all the people in an impartial way.[66] Partially under the influence of Xunzi, the Legalist Hanfeizi holds that the governance of the empire must be in accordance with people’s natural feelings of loving rewards and hating punishments, though he flatly denies the positive function of such moral emotions as filial piety and humane love.[67] Chan, a Buddhist school with the most evident Chinese characteristics, takes “pointing directly to the human heart (zhi zhi renxin直指人心)” as its basic tenet.[68] Its founder Huineng declares, “There is no the seed of Buddhahood if without feelings.”[69] Moreover, Chinese Buddhism as a whole highlights the notion of cibei慈悲 (compassion) in a characteristic way and assigns Guanyin, a Bodhisattva valued as the incarnation of this notion, an extremely important position. Therefore, we may claim that emotionales also provide the foundations for these important schools of Chinese philosophy to varying degrees.
Undeniably, many traditional Chinese philosophers also present rational inferences, arguments, and dialogues in their works, since they surely have the faculty of reason like Western philosophers.[70] Some famous sinologists, including Joseph Needham, Angus Graham, and Benjamin Schwartz point out, there were many logical, rational, and proto-scientific sprouts that are in evidence in writings of the thinkers in the fourth and third centuries B.C.E. Meanwhile, one question they have puzzled over is: Why did these sprouts disappear in the later development?[71] In terms of the above arguments, a persuasive explanation may be that these sprouts have been suppressed in Chinese philosophy by its dominant emotionales and thus withered away, not becoming its governing principles. Chad Hansen also mentions in an essay three questions: 1). Is Chinese philosophy rational? 2). Does Chinese philosophy have a concept of reason? 3). Do Chinese philosophers give reasons for their views? [72] Now we can reply them in this way: although Chinese philosophers do give “reasons” for their views (sometimes according to rationales, yet more than often according to emotionales), the mainstream of Chinese philosophy does not have a Western concept of “reason” and is not “rational” in the strict sense of this Western term.
A relative lack of “rationales” in classical Chinese philosophy has had profound impacts on Chinese culture. For example, as Max Weber, who describes Chinese culture as “practical rationalism,” remarks, “There was no rational science, no rational practice of art, no rational theology, jurisprudence, medicine, natural science or technology,” since “The power of logos, of defining and reasoning, has not been accessible to the Chinese.”[73] We may extend this list as follows: a comparative want of rational consciousness of honesty-truthfulness, of rule by law, of democracy, liberty, and human rights, and so on. We should be soberly and critically aware of these defects of Chinese philosophy with its characteristic emotionales.
Viewed from a comparative perspective, however, Chinese philosophy with its foundations of emotionales also raises inspiring challenges to Western rationales: are there some emotionales that govern human conduct as rationales do? If yes, in what way, to what extent, and at what spheres do they play an indispensable role even more important than rationales? How do they interact with rationales and any other possible kinds of principles of human action? Similarly, are there some emotional elements in human nature so that the human may be also called emotional being? If yes, what a function do these emotional elements perform in human existence? Is there something both emotional and true that people may seek in their life as the human? In short, besides rational principles, elements, and truths, are there emotional principles, elements, and truths in human life, too? Would human being become automatons if without emotionales? Chinese philosophy with its characteristic emotionales can contribute much toward humankind in replying to these significant questions about human life and remedying the defects of Western philosophy with its characteristic rationales. In the final analysis, the mission of the philosophy is dealing with the issue of “living better,” not merely with the issue of “thinking better” or “knowing better.”[74]
FUDAN UNIVERSITY
Shanghai, China
ENDNOTES
I wish to express my thanks to the anonymous reviewer for this journal for her or his detailed, helpful, and critical comments and suggestions. I also gratefully acknowledge the valuable comments and instructions from Prof. Chung-ying Cheng, the Editor-in-chief, and Dr. Linyu Gu, the Managing Editor.
[1] Qingping Liu, Research Fellow, Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences; Professor of philosophy, Fudan University. Specialties: Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, moral and political philosophy. E-mail: liu_qp@yahoo.com.cn.
[2] Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane, Vol.1, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1892), 124.
[3] Max Weber, The Religion of China, trans. Hans H. Gerth (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), 151-52, 226.
[4] Benjamin Schwartz, “Transcendence in Ancient China,” Daedalus 104, no. 2 (1975): 59.
[5] Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 147.
[6] See Herbert Fingarette, “The Music of Humanity in the Conversations of Confucius,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10, no.4 (1983): 331, 351.
[7] David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: State Uinversity of New York Press, 1987), 16.
[8] I thank Prof. Chung-ying Cheng for suggesting a change of this article’s title to “Emotionales in Confucian Philosophy.” While its advantage is to make the discussion more concentrated, I still take Daoism into consideration in order to show how emotionales provide the foundations for Chinese philosophy as a whole.
[9] Lin Yutang, My Country and My People (Hong Kong: Heinemann, 1977), 85-86.
[10] See A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers: The Metaphysics of the Brothers Cheng (La Salle: Open Court, 1992; first published in 1958), 8. In his later work, however, he prefers to translate li by “pattern” rather than by “principle.” See A. C. Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 433.
[11] I use the word “emotion” in the following sense: “The typical human emotions include love, grief, fear, anger, joy. Each indicates a state of some kind of arousal, a state that can prompt some activities and interfere with others. These states are associated with characteristic feelings, and they have characteristic bodily expressions.” (Simon Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996], 117.) Interestingly, chapter 9 of the Liji《礼记》gives a similar explanation: “What is meant by renqing? Delight, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire.”
[12] See Zhang Dainian, Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Edmund Ryden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 383-87.
[13] Jürgen Habermas, Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993), 174-75.
[14] See Lunyu, 17:21.
[15] Lunyu, 2:7, 3:3.
[16] Chung-ying Cheng, “On Comparative Origins of Classical Chinese Ethics and Greek Ethics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29, no.3 (2002): 311.
[17] See Mengzi《孟子》, 2A6, 3A5.
[18] Mengzi, 6A7.
[19] The word li had appeared quite a few times in the Mozi 《墨子》, especially in chapter 3. However, they seemed to want for philosophic implications within the contexts.
[20] See Laozi, 5, 67.
[21] See Zhuangzi, 5, 8, 11, 14.
[22] See Zhuangzi, 17.
[23] See Mengzi, 4A12; Zhongyong, 20.
[24] See, inter alia, Tang Yijie, “Emotion in Pre-Qin Ruist Moral Theory: An Explanation of ‘Dao Begins in Qing’,” Philosophy East & West 53, no.2 (2003): 271-81.
[25] Lunyu, 1:2. I thank the anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to my attention.
[26] A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers, 29.
[27] Zhu Xi: Lunyu Jizhu《论语集注》, 13:18.
[28] Wang Yangming: Da Gu Dongqiao Shu《答顾东桥书》.
[29] See Xenophon, Memorabilia and Oeconomicus, trans. E. C. Marchant (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), 61, 303.
[30] See Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 183-86.
[31] See Mengzi, 3B9, 2A6.
[32] Mengzi, 7A21.
[33] See Mengzi, 6A15.
[34] See Mengzi, 7A15.
[35] Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), Vol.1, 2.
[36] See Zhuangzi, 9, 16, 23, 29.
[37] See Antonio Cua, Human Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and Chinese Philosophy (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 14.
[38] Xunzi《荀子》, 22.
[39] See Xunzi, 23.
[40] See Xunzi, 5, 9.
[41] See Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 271-79, 289-96, 450-59.
[42] See D. C. Lau, Mencius (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 19-22.
[43] Ercheng Yishu《二程遗书》, 18.
[44] Zhu Xi: Lunyu Jizhu, 1:2.
[45] See A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers, 50-54, 61-65. Also see On-cho Ng’s analysis of this issue in his article, “Is Emotion (Qing) the Source of a Confucian Antinomy?”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 25, no.2 (1998): 169-90. I thank Dr. Linyu Gu for recommending to me this important article, which presents a detailed discussion about the evolution of the conception of qing-qua-emotion in Confucianism.
[46] Some scholars suggest that, in contrast to the maleness of Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy often shows a feature of femininity (see Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, 76-80; David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking from the Han [Albany: State Uinversity of New York Press, 1998], 79-85). This feature might be traced back to its stress on the emotional side, rather on the rational side, of human nature in large measure.
[47] Zhu Xi: Mengzi Jizhu《孟子集注》, 4B26.
[48] See Dong Zhongshu, Chunqiu Fanlu《春秋繁露》, 44; Zhu Xi, Ren Shuo《仁说》.
[49] Zhu Xi: Zhuzi Yulei《朱子语类》, 4.
[50] Ercheng Yishu, 15.
[51] See Chad Hansen, “Qing (Emotions) in Pre Buddhist Chinese Thought,” in Emotions in Asian Thought, eds. Joel Marks and Roger T. Ames (Albany: State Uinversity of New York Press, 1995), 182-83.
[52] A. C. Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature, 59-65.
[53] Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001), 359.
[54] Mengzi, 6A6.
[55] See Mengzi, 2A6.
[56] See Mengzi, 3A4, 6A8.
[57] Shangshu Kanggao《尚书·康诰》.
[58] Zhuangzi, 31.
[59] Zhuangzi, 6.
[60] See Lunyu, 13:18; Mengzi, 5A2.
[61] See Lunyu, 13:20; Mengzi, 4B11.
[62] See Mengzi, 7B3.
[63] Zhuangzi, 6.
[64] Lunyu, 13:4.
[65] Another interesting example is that the word wei (human action) in the Chinese language often plays a role similar to the copula “to be” in English (see A. C. Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature, 326-29; Disputers of the Tao [La Salle: Open Court, 1989], 409-10), as if, in terms of Chinese culture, a thing can be brought into “being” by human “action.” Indeed, there is a common verse in Chinese: shi zai renwei事在人为, which literally means that a thing exists in or depends on human effort.
[66] See Mozi, 6, 16, 26.
[67] See Hanfeizi 《韩非子》, 14, 37, 48.
[68] See Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 357-95, 425-49.
[69] Tanjing 《坛经》, 10.42.
[70] In comparison, some Western philosophers also stress the important role of emotion in human life and the world from different perspectives. For instance, Alfred North Whitehead holds that our primitive experience of time is the emotional harmony between physical and mental worlds. Linyu Gu compares his view of time and emotion with the view of time and moralization in the Yi Jing易经 philosophy in an insightful article. See Linyu Gu, “Time as Emotion versus Time as Moralization: Whitehead and the Yi Jing,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 25, no.2 (1998): 209-36.
[71] See David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Anticipating China (Albany: State Uinversity of New York Press, 1995), 203-204.
[72] See Chad Hansen, “Should the Ancient Masters Value Reason?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts, ed. Henry Rosemont, Jr. (La Salle: Open Court, 1991), 179.
[73] Max Weber, The Religion of China, 125, 151.
[74] I especially thank the anonymous reviewer for bringing this important insight to my attention.
（作者刘清平，复旦大学社会科学高等研究院教授）