Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:38 — 35.4MB)
Following up on our previous discussion, we go further into the collected teachings of this early Confucian (aka Ruhist) from the late 4th century BCE. What's the best way to be a virtuous person and hence (on the ancient Chinese view, contra someone like Machiavelli) an effective leader?
Sponsor: Check out Continuing the Conversation by St. John's College at sjc.edu.
We review and elaborate Mengzi's moral psychology, which is based on humaneness that grows initially out of love of family but is then developed into civic responsibility. How easy is it to be virtuous on this view? Do we need a certain level of material comfort to avoid tending toward corruption? What other environmental factors or techniques are relevant to realizing our potential to be virtuous?
We talk about the difference between ancient Chinese and Greek/Western political philosophy: Among the Warring States philosophers, there's no question about what the best form of government is; they don't consider anything aside from having a single leader. Still, they differ a lot in terms of what the responsibilities, and so self-imposed restrictions, bear on the leader, and Mengzi (perhaps following Mozi) was revolutionary is explicitly stating that the point of the state is to serve the people.
Finally, we consider Mengzi's take on destiny, which we can read as his response to Mozi, who argued that the Confucians' embrace of destiny made them inactive.
Image by Chris Warr (aka Solomon Grundy). Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.
Greatly enjoyed your Chinese sojourn. When and if you return, you will have to try some Xunzi (sometimes Hsun Tzu), the foil to Mencius’ interpretation of Confucius and the more pessimistic of the two (his student, Han Fei, kept the pessimism while ditching the more subtle and interesting Confucian psychology and commitments, and so became the leading Legalist philosopher).
Following the Mohists, there are later Mohist writings. These were probably difficult to begin with, and the manuscript tradition has not been kind. However they do develop a more rigorous interest in logic and language, which leads into the debates and paradoxes of The School of Names, some of which survive (particularly Gongsun Long on why a white horse is not a horse).
Following the Daoists, there are a few more texts (such as the Liezi), however to follow the philosophical development of daoism one would have to study commentaries (which are often philosophical tracts in their own right, Guo Xiang’s on the Zhuangzi for instance, but these are often not easily accessible or unavailable in translation) or transition to the most Daoist inspired form of Buddhism, Chan (or Zen in Japan).
Central to medieval Chinese philosophy was the rivalry between the Neo-Confucian schools of Zhu Xi (sometimes Chu Hsi) and Wang Yangming. In the Twentieth century, the New-Confucian movement was began by Xiong Shili. In Japan the Kyoto School began with the publication of Nishida Kitarō’s ‘An Inquiry into the Good’, 1911 (influenced by Western philosophers such as Hegel, James and Bergson on the one hand and Zen practice and writings, particularly those of Dōgen, on the other). His student, Nishitani Keiji, also studied under Heidegger and is probably the most prominent figure of the school’s second generation.