Chinese Philosophy I. Cosmology and worldview

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Chinese PhilosophyI. Cosmology and world-view

• Geir Sigurðsson
• Icelandic Centre for Asian Studies, University of
  Akureyri
• 11.12.2006

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The power of cosmology

• The cosmos may not be so distant

• Our understanding of the world informs
• Meaning
• Goals
• Values
• Actions/responses
• Thus, quotidian behaviour

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...lest be bombarded with rotten tomatoes

• On generalizations
• Limited and often questionable
• But inescapable
• And the exception proves the rule
• Philosophy schools both in China and the West are
  many and variable
• But have common (cultural) characteristics
• Philosophy as truth or deepest structural layer
  of culture

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Filosofia vs. ??

• Filo-sofia love of (theoretical) wisdom
  (Socrates)
• Contra practical use Wisdom for the sake of
  wisdom (Aristotle)
• Emphasis on reason distrust of
  sense-experience. (Plato, Descartes)
• Metaphysics intelligible nature of the world,
  accessible only to philosophers (Plato)

• ? rather indicates practical and communicable
  knowledge
• ? mouth, ? hand, ? tool
• The value of wisdom consists in its usefulness
  for everyday life
• Know how rather than know what
• Wisdom is gained here and now, in mundane life

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Doesnt time pass by just like this, never
ceasing day or night!

• How do we, Westerners, understand
  world-operations?
• Chinese starting point is not cause, creation
  or cosmos, but that which exists now ??,??
• Tang Junyi (1909-1978) ????
• General assumption of the ceaseless movement of
  the world
• Book of Changes (Yijing ??)

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More on changes

• The world is self-engendering, no prime mover
  ?? (self-so) instead of ?? (made-so) a web
  without a weaver
• Recurring (but not identical) elements, such as
  day and night, seasons, tide Returning is the
  movement of the dao (DDJ 40) time as a spiral
• The five phases (wu xing ??) water, fire,
  metal, wood, earth

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Dual harmony but no dualism

• Harmony of opposing powers/dimensions
• yin and yang ??, in and out ??, heaven and earth
  ??
• Tang Junyi inseparability of the one and the
  many ?????
• Harmony of the whole rather than logical
  hierarchy
• Rejection of dilemmas
• Appearance is reality
• mind (xin ?) and body (shen ?)
• Matter and spirit qi ?
• No reductionism
• All things are interrelated
• Essence of thing is constituted by relations
• No substances nothing is in-itself

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More characteristics

• No determinism, but dispositions Tang Junyi
  non-fixed destiny ????
• Focus on taking advantage of the chances opening
  up in the flow of things, ?, ??
• Way ? instead of truth
• Right thinking instead of the right to think
• Strong (holy?) social awareness
• ren ?, renjia ??, shehui ??, xiao ?, li ?

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Some potential consequences

• More flexibility less exactitute (e.g. Lin
  Yutang)?
• Scientific holism negligence of natural laws?
• Focus on circumstances rather than rules and
  principles can rules be broken if no one finds
  out?
• Focus on the present/serenity carelessness/lack
  of responsibility?
• Focus on skill opportunism?
• Social holism individual sacrificed for the
  whole?
• Family orientation corruption/lack of care for
  strangers?

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Philosophy or religion?

• Again rejection of dilemmas
• The question is Confucianism a religion? is a
  question that Westerners could never answer and
  the Chinese could never ask Wilfred Cantwell
  Smith

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Some characteristics of Chinese religion (and
philosophy?)

• No (or vague) transcendence
• inseparability of heaven and earth ??
• Gods are not omnipotent shang di ??
  first/supreme?
• Gods are not chronologically prior to world no
  creation myth, cf. Daodejing 25
• Focus on interhuman relations rather than
  relations with gods Analects, 11.12.
• Distant respect for gods, not love for them
  Analects, 6.22

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Harmony of heaven (nature) and human being ????

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Ancient philosophy schools

• Confucianism (rujia ??) 6th c. BCE
• Daoism (daojia ??) 6th c. BCE
• Legalism (fajia ??) 5th c. BCE
• Mohism (mojia ??) 5th c. BCE
• Logicians (mingjia ??) 5th c. BCE
• Buddhism (fojiao ??) 1st c. CE

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Later schools

• Neo-Confucianism (songming rujia ????) 10th-19th
  century

• New Confucianism (xin rujia ???) 19th-21st
  century