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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2015
Dealing with China's oldest and second oldest intellectual documents (Lun-yü and the genuine parts of Mo-tzu), this paper views them as “laying” the intellectual foundations of China's axial civilization” and sharing a distinctive concept of knowledge, “epistemological optimism.” Epistemological optimism, in turn, was a necessary corollary of “this-worldliness,” the preoccupation, especially intense in the case of Lun-yü, with evaluating people and distributing sanctions in a morally perfect way during this life, as opposed to depending on a bar of judgment in the afterlife. The combination of “this-worldliness” with epistemological optimism has dominated Chinese thought to this day, in striking contrast to the major role of “epistemological pessimism” in the intellectual world of the modern West. Mo-tzu was more reflexive than Confucius. Yet instead of leading to “epistemological pessimism,” his reflexivity was combined with not only epistemological optimism but also his assumption that the development of doctrine can resolve all moral questions and bring about moral action. This paper also explores other ways in which Mo-tzu was a seminal thinker, one introducing words and ideas that are missing in Lun-yü, and that came to be commonplaces of Chinese thought. It also argues that the emphasis on evaluation found in the thought of Confucius and Mo-tzu must be considered when we describe how these two thinkers envisaged the relation between self and group, and its methodology differs somewhat from the approaches used in previous studies of Chou thought.
* This is a revised version of a paper written for the Third Axial Age Conference on Directions and Limits of Reflexivity in Axial Age Civilizations, Bad Homburg, Germany, 15-20 July 1985. For valuable criticisms I am indebted to Chang Hao, Ramon H. Myers, the members of this Conference, and an anonymous referee. I owe a special debt to the philosopher Paulo Mario Dau, who read over my philosophical discussion of epistemological optimism and epistemological pessimism (not incuded in this version) and gave me valuable guidance. I also owe one to David N. Keightly, whose illuminating criticisms enabled me to try to strengthen this article.
1. On these methodological issues, see my “Developmental Criteria and Indigenously Conceptualized Options: A Normative Approach to China's Modernization in Recent Times,” Issues and Studies 23, no. 2 (02, 1987): 19–81Google Scholar.
2. See Schwartz, Benjamin I., The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, and Metzger, Thomas A., “The Definition of the Self, the Group, the Cosmos, and Knowledge in Chou Thought: Some Comments on Professor Schwartz's Study,” The American Asian Review 4, no. 2 (Summer 1986):68–116Google Scholar. That key Confucian values remain basic to modern China's thought and culture is maintained in Ying-shih, Yü, Ts'ung chia-chih hsi-t'ung k'an Chung-kuo wen-hua-te hsien-tai i-i (Modernization and Chinese culture: a discussion from the standpoint of the traditional value system; Taipei: Shih-pao wen-hua ch'u-pan shih-yeh yu-hsien kung-ssu, 1984)Google Scholar.
3. A more holistic approach to Chinese civilization than mine can be found in David N. Keightley's richly documented article “Early Civilization in China: Reflections on How it Became Chinese” (unpublished draft).
4. On “claims” and “perceptions,” see Metzger, Thomas A., Escape from Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 49–51Google Scholar. I have tried to outline eight premises formed by Chou thinkers in my “Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih yen-chiu fang-fa-shang-te i-hsieh wen-t'i (Some methodological issues in the study of modern Chinese intellectual history),” Chin-tai Chung-kuo shih yen-chiu t'ung-hsun, vol. 2 (Taipei: Academia Sinlca, Institute of Modern History, 1986):38–52Google Scholar. Another formulation is in Thomas A. Metzger, “The C1rcuitous Connection” (unpublished manuscript).
5. For an overview of S. N. Eisenstadt's analysis of axial civilizations as a general type and a partial list of his writings in this context, see Metzger, Thomas A., “Eisenstadt's Analysis of the Relation between Modernization and Tradition in China,” Li-shih hsueh-pao, (National Taiwan Normal University) 12 (06 1984):13–21Google Scholar. Also in The American Asian Review 2, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 15–24Google Scholar. See also the follow-up discussion by Eisenstadt and Metzger, in Li-shih hsueh-pao 13 (06 1984):1–22Google Scholar, or The American Asian Review 3, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 1–31Google Scholar. On the shih, see Hsu, Choyun, Ancient China in Transition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.
6. Tzu-shui, Mao, trans., Lun-yü chin-chu chin-i (The Analects, with modem annotations and a modern translation; Taipei: T'ai-wan shang-wu yln-shu-kuan, 1977)Google Scholar. Hereafter LY. An invaluable reference tool is Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinologica] Index Series: A Concordance to the Analects of Confucius (Taipei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, 1972)Google Scholar. Still useful is the James Legge transiation, variously publishedo See, e.g., Legge, J., trans., Confucius (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1971)Google Scholar. Hereafter “J.” The pagination in this edition is the same as that in Legge's, The Chinese Classics vol. 1Google Scholar.
7. Yü-shu, Li, trans., Mo-tzu chin-shu chin-i (Mo-tzu, with Modern Annotations and a Modern Translation; Taipei: T'ai-wan shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1984)Google Scholar. Hereafter M. I am following Li Yü-shu, who reflects a broad consensus, in regarding the following chapters as containing the views if not the words of Mo-tzu himself: 8-21, 25-28, 31-32, 35-37, 39, 46-50. These are also the chapters I have studied and quoted from. I have studied chapters 1-7, but they lack subtlety or theoretical force, and I agree with Li's feelings that they largely contain the words of some of Mo-tzu's followers. I have not studied chapters 40-45, which are the ones dealing with “logic,” and which are regarded as including material created by later Moists. Among the authentic chapters listed above, chapters 46-50 have a style similar to The Analects' and are of great value, especially in showing Mo-tzu's nimbler side, his awareness of some of his doctrines' vulnerabilties, and his emphasis on i (what is right), as opposed to his more “utilitarian” side. I have not studied chapters 52, 53, 56, 58, 61-63, 68, 69-71, which deal with military defenses, and which also seem to consist of material from his followers. Eighteen of the seventy-one chapters have been lost. Chapters 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, 19, 20, 25-27, 31, 32, 35, 39 are translated In Watson, Burton, trans., Mo Tzu-Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963)Google Scholar. Hereafter B. This translation is useful, but I sometimes disagree with it. Most of the Western 1iterature on Motzu can be found by using Chang, Wing-tsit, An Outline and Annotated Bibliography of Chi nese Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. Most enlightening for me has been the writing of T'ang Chün-i on Mo-tzu. See his essay on Mo-tzu's moral philosophy in Chün-i, T'ang, Chung-kuo che-hsueh yuan-lun--yuan-tao p'ien chüan-i (Studies on the foundations of Chinese philosophy-section on ideas about the nature of the Tao, pt. 1; Taipei: T'ai-wan hsueh-sheng shu-chü, 1966), pp. 150–209Google Scholar, and his essay on a part of the Moist writings on “logic” in his Chung-kuo che-hsueh yuan-lun--tao-lun-p'ien (Studies on the foundations of Chinese philosophy-Introduction; Kowloon: Hsin-ya shu-yuan yen-chiu-so, 1974), pp. 162–202Google Scholar. Invaluable for the study of this late Moist “logic” is Graham, A. C., Later Moist Logic, Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.
8. The issue of doctrinality overlaps issues discussed in Nivison, David S., “The Problem of ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Action’ Chinese Thought since Wang Yang-ming,” in Studies in Chinese Thought, Wright, Arthur F., ed. The American Anthropological Association 55, no. 5, pt. 2, Memoir no. 75 (12 1953), pp. 112–145Google Scholar.
9. Etzioni, Amitai, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961)Google Scholar.
10. Fingarette, Herbert, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972)Google Scholar.
11. Some of these issues are discussed in my review of Professor Schwartz's book mentioned in note 2 above. Recent work on Mo-tzu includes Elvin, Mark, “Was There a Transcendental Breakthrough in China?” in Axial Age Civilizations, Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985)Google Scholar, the book by Graham, A. C. mentioned in note 7 above, and Ssu-kuang, Lao, Chung kuo che-hsueh-shih (A history of Chinese philosophy; 3 vols.; Taipei: San-mi shu-chü, 1981–1983)Google Scholar. None of these deal s with the question of how Mo-tzu's concept of knowledge and forms of argumentation differed from those of Confucius, and neither does Schwartz's study. I have not yet read Garrett, Mary M., “The Motzu and the Lüshih ch'un-ch'iu: A Case Study of Classical Chinese Theory and Practice of Argument” (Ph.D. diss., Department of Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley, 1983)Google Scholar.
12. For instance, the ways in which Legalism may have had roots in Mo-tzu's thought have been discussed in Professor Schwartz's study and in my review of it (see note 2 above).
13. See Popkin's, Richard H. article on “Skepticism” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 8 vols. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1972), 7: 449–461Google Scholar, and his “The Sceptical Origins of the Modern Problem of Knowledge,” in Perception and Personal Identity, ed. Care, Norman S. and Grim, Robert H. (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969), pp. 3–24Google Scholar. I am quoting from the latter, pp. 16, 21. For an example of the view that Hume's account of the is-ought relation is definitive, see Smart's, J. J. C. article on “Utilitarianism” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 8:207–208Google Scholar.
14. MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), p. 38Google Scholar.
15. Ibid., pp. 18, 12.
16. Ibid., p. 112.
17. Ibid., pp. 18, 245.
18. Tsung-san, Mou, Cheng-tao yü chih-tao (The philosophy of political authority; Taipei: T'ai-wan hsueh-sheng shu-chü, 1980), p. 158Google Scholar.
19. Chün-i, T'ang, Che-hsueh kai-lun, 2 vols. (An outline of philosophy; Taipei: T'ai-wan hsueh-sheng shu-chil, 1974), 2:1041–1254, 1177–1178Google Scholar.
20. Ibid., p. 1048.
21. Ibid., pp. 1050, 934-960.
22. Ibid., pp. 1046-1047.
23. Ibid., pp. 1147-1181.
24. Ibid., p. 1107.
25. Metzger, T. A., “T'ang Chün-i and the Conditions of Transformative Thinking in Contemporary China,” The American Asian Review 3, no. 1 (Spring 1985):1–47Google Scholar.
26. Yü Ying-shih, pp. 36, 38-39, 42.
27. Wan-li, Ch'ü, Shang-shu shih-i (The book of history with explanations; Taipei: Chung-kuo wen-hua hsueh-yuan, 1980), p. 240Google Scholar. Also see Nivison's article listed above in note 8.
28. I suspect hsiung-yen illustrates metaphorical thinking, an aspect of reflexivity. See Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Jessica R. Metzger for bringing this book to my attention.
29. See Graham, pp. 6-7, for an excellent discussion of the relation between Moism and craftsmen.
30. Goodrich, Anne Swann, Chinese Hells (St. Augustin: Monumenta Serica, 1981), pp. 68–69Google Scholar. She holds that the idea of hell or purgatory entered China only in 148 A.D. with the Buddhist An Shih-kao. Eventually, Taoist popular thought adopted the idea of ten hells, Buddhist, eighteen (ibid., p. 76). As she notes, however, the wicked did not stay in these “hells” for eternity. After punishment, they returned to this world or went on to paradise (ibid., p. 67). Strictly speaking, therefore, China has entirely lacked the concept of hell, except for the influence of Christianity and other secondary religious trends.
31. Some might suppose that some of these passages were inserted into Lun-yü in later times by Taoists. I would, however, completely agree with those who feel that, on the contrary, the beginnings of the Taoist view partly go back to the thought of Confucius. See e.g., Schwartz, pp. 188-189. T'ang Chün-i's view is similar. See T'ang, , Yuan-lun, tao-lun-p'ien, pp. 207–208Google Scholar. The “Taoist” strain in Confucius is illustrated especially by his exchange with his disciple Tseng Tien (Tseng Hsi) in LY 179, J 153. For the significance of this exchange in relation to Taoist ideas, see Tu, Wei-ming, Neo-Confucian Thought in Action (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 74–75Google Scholar. The idea that Confucius had a “Taoist” strain makes sense in terms of his undeniable emphasis on lack of “anxiety” as basic to virtue and on moral will as something that cannot be reduced to verbalized learning, as in LY 109, L 91.
