Angus Graham suggested that, although Zhu Xi

"polished the system he inherited from his predecessors, bringing out its dualism by clarifying the relations between Principle and Ether [qi], and exploring the implications of the identification of Principle and the Supreme Ultimate, he added nothing significant of his own. The truly creative figure in the movement [i.e., Dao xue] is Ch`êng Yi-ch`uan [i.e., Cheng Yi]."¹

Chen Lai holds a very different view, arguing that "Zhu Xi's view that nature is principle is a bit more advanced when compared to the Chengs'." In particular, Chen Lai identifies several features that are characteristic of Zhu Xi's thought: everything "receives the qi of heaven and earth for physical form," everything receives "the principle of heaven and earth for innate nature," and "endowed heavenly principle is nature." Graham has passed away, but if he were still alive, he might point to the following comments from the Cheng brothers as evidence for his view that Zhu Xi's metaphysics is substantially present in the thought of the former philosophers:

"It would be incomplete to talk about the nature of man and things without including qi and unintelligible to talk about qi without including nature."² (Cheng Hao?)

"There is no nature that is not good. Evil is due to capacity. Man's nature is the same as principle, and principle is the same from the sage-emperors Yao and Shun to the common man in the street. Capacity is an endowment from qi. Qi may be clear or turbid. Men endowed with clear qi are wise, while those endowed with turbid qi are stupid."³ (Cheng Yi)

"Things and the self are governed by the same principle. If you understand one, you understand the other, for the truth within and the truth without are identical. In its magnitude it reaches the height of heaven and the depth of earth, but in its refinement it constitutes the reason of being in every single thing."⁴ (Cheng Yi)

Graham would, I think, acknowledge that there are differences in details and in emphasis between the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, but he would suggest that we can see Zhu Xi's substantive view already present in the teachings of the former.

Chen Lai also addresses the issue of whether non-human animals receive a complete endowment of li:

"As for the difference between humans and animals, aside from the turbid and partial bodies of animals blocking the nature-principle, the original nature-principle with which they are endowed is also partial and incomplete."

Chen Lai here takes a stand on an issue that vexed even Zhu Xi's own disciples. The disciples found that Zhu Xi says different things about this topic in different places. In some texts, Zhu Xi seems to suggest that non-human animals receive only partial endowments of principle. At other times, he suggests that every animal receives the same principle, but the clarity of a creature's qi determines how much of this principle is manifested. One of Zhu Xi's disciples composed a brief essay, outlining what he took to be Zhu Xi's views:

"[In your Collected Commentaries on the Mengzi] you say that man and things are similar in respect to qi but different in respect to principle, in order to show that man is higher and cannot be equaled by things. In your Questions and Answers on the Greater Learning, you say that man and things are similar in respect to principle but different in respect to qi, in order to show that the Great Ultimate is not deficient in anything and cannot be interfered with by any individual."⁵

Zhu Xi commends the student for explaining this point more clearly than Zhu Xi had himself. On another occasion, Zhu Xi answered a disciple's question about the endwoment of principle in things by saying, "You may consider it complete or you may consider it partial. From the point of view of principle, it is always complete, but from the point of view of material force, it cannot help being partial."⁶ This may seem like waffling, but I think Zhu Xi's view is actually quite careful, and depends upon distinguishing between principle in itself and principle as manifested in a particular thing's qi. Principle in itself is complete in each thing: each human, each cat, each dog, each plant, and each mote of dust possesses complete principle. However, the turbidity of a thing's qi determines the extent to which this complete principle manifests itself. Depending upon what our purpose is in speaking, and what we wish to stress, we may say that principle in a thing (that is, principle in itself) is complete, or we may say that the principle of a thing (that is, the manifested principle) is partial.

In the remainder of my comments, I want to discuss two issues that are suggested by Chen Lai's paper, although he does not directly address them. (1) Is the Dao xue interpretation of the development of Confucianism accurate? (2) Does Dao xue have anything to offer as a living philosophical position?

Chen Lai cites the brilliant historian of Chinese philosophy, Qian Mu, who "has pointed out that Cheng Yichuan's discussion of nature essentially explains Mencius's ideas." Qian Mu's statement is ambiguous, though. Consider the following two statements: "Thomas Kuhn explains Kepler's laws of planetary motion" and "Newton's physics explains Kepler's laws of planetary motion." In the former sentence, the historian of science Thomas Kuhn is said to "explain" Kepler's laws by making clear to us the significance these laws had for Kepler and his contemporaries: what they meant for them, why they were regarded as plausible by them, etc. In the second sentence, Newton is said to "explain" Kepler's laws by giving an account in terms of Newton's own physics that explains why Kepler's laws are approximately correct. As Kuhn explains, Kepler was led to the discovery of his laws by "his frequently mystical Neoplatonic faith."⁷ Newton's theory of gravitation provides an alternative explanation of why, for example, the planets move (as predicted by Kepler's views) in ellipses. However, the terms of Newtonian dynamics (especially as related to the conception of inertial motion) are alien to Kepler's worldview.⁸ Consequently, Newton's "explanation" of Kepler's laws is not one that could have been acknowledged by Kepler.
The question I want to raise is this: what sort of explanation has Zhu Xi provided of the views of Mencius (and Confucius, and others) on human nature? I believe that Zhu Xi saw himself as explaining Mencius and Confucius in terms that the latter two could acknowledge as simply more elaborate and explicit versions of their own views. However, I want to argue that, in reality, Zhu Xi's relationship to Mencius was more like the relationship of Newton to Kepler. One of the key issues on this point is the meaning of the term "li ¾z." As we have seen, "li," for followers of Dao xue, is something like the structure of the cosmos, found complete in every concrete thing that exists. "Li" is a central and frequently recurring term in Dao xue. Furthermore, as Chen Lai makes clear, a variety of other terms are taken to ultimately refer to li. Let us contrast this with what we find in some early Confucian texts.

The term "li" occurs precisely zero times in the Analects of Confucius. It does show up repeatedly, though, in Zhu Xi's commentary on that text, beginning with his comments on the second passage in Book 1 of the Analects. "Li" occurs a grand total of seven times in all of the Mencius. These occurrences are in only three passages. In 5B1, "li" occurs four times in the compound expression "tiaoli," which simply means "orderly." In 7B19, "li" occurs in the expression "li yu kou," which means "to be fluent in speech" (literally, "orderly in regard to mouth"). Obviously, neither of these passages suggests the metaphysically loaded use of "li" found in the writings of the Dao xue philosophers. The only other occurrences of the term in the Mencius are in 6A7, where we find,

"What is it that hearts prefer in common? I say that it is fine patterns [li] and righteousness. The sages first discovered what our hearts prefer in common. Hence, fine patterns [li] and righteousness delight our hearts like meat delights our mouths."⁹

It is conceivable that Mencius has in mind here "li" in the same metaphysical sense that Dao xue uses. However, there is nothing in the passage to suggest that reading. And, as we have seen, the other uses of "li" in the text are completely distinct from Zhu Xi's use.

So what does "li" mean for early Chinese thinkers? I think we find a paradigmatic early use of "li" in the writings of the "Daoist" Zhuangzi, where he describes a cook who carves up an ox with amazing skill. Describing how his knife moves through the ox, the cook says,

"I rely on the Heavenly patterns [tianli], strike in the big gaps, am guided by the large fissures, and follow what is inherently so. I never touch a ligament or tendon, much less do any heavy wrenching! A good butcher changes his chopper every year because he chips it. An average butcher changes it every month because he breaks it. There are spaces between those joints, and the edge of the blade has no thickness. If you use what has no thickness to go where there is space --oh! there's plenty of extra room to play about in."¹⁰

Here "li" seems to refer to the natural structure or pattern of the ox carcass. Something like "structure" or "pattern" is the general sense this term has in early texts. This is a much less metaphysically "loaded" than the Dao xue conception of li.

My interpretation is not original. In the Qing Dynasty, the brilliant philosopher and philologist Dai Zhen provided essentially the same critique of the "Song Confucians" and their interpretation of earlier Confucianism.¹¹ He wrote that "In the doctrines of the Six Classics, Confucius, and Mencius, and even in the biographies and multitudinous documents [of ancient history], the word 'principle' is seldom seen."¹² Why, then, did the followers of Dao xue give the term such prominence? Dai Zhen argues, "The Song Confucians came and went with Daoists and Buddhists, and thus mixed in Daoist and Buddhist explanations when formulating their doctrines."¹³

In support of Dai Zhen's hypothesis, consider how the term "li" is used by some later Buddhists. The slogan of the Hua-yan Buddhists is "all is one, and one is all."¹⁴ One is all, because any one (seemingly) individual thing is connected to everything else through a net of causal interconnections. The Buddhists take this to imply that no thing has a genuine individual nature.¹⁵ And since no thing has an individual nature to distinguish it from other things, all is one. The Buddhists illustrate the causal interconnectedness of things using an image from Hindu myth: "Lord Indra's net." At the intersection of every two strands in Indra's net is a jewel so bright that it reflects every other jewel in the net. The jewels stand for (seemingly) individual things, and the strands of the net stand for the causal connections among them. Looking for a philosophical term to describe this net of interconnectedness, the Buddhists seized on "li." We can see both why this was an obvious term to pick (after all, the term did mean "pattern"), but also how the Buddhist use of the term is wedded to their particular metaphysics. This metaphysics, remember, developed in China long after the death of Confucius and Mencius.

The Buddhists held that seeing that one is all and all is one helped a person to overcome attachment to particular people and things. The Dao xue Confucians did not want to go that far, since attachment to one's own family members has always been a central component of Confucian ethics. The genius of the Cheng brothers was to combine the Buddhist notion of "li" with the concept of "qi," a notion that was stressed by their relative, Zhang Zai, and their teacher, Zhou Dunyi. Qi, as the Chengs conceived it, was what individuated the universal li. As Chen Lai explains, this proved to be a remarkably fruitful combination of ideas, which answered a number of theoretical needs of the Dao xue Confucians.

So we can give a narrative that connects the teachings of Confucius and Mencius to the doctrines of the Dao xue Confucians, via the doctrines of the Hua-yan Buddhists. But the narrative suggests that the Dao xue view would be very unfamiliar to Confucius and Mencius.

My original analogy was that Zhu Xi is to Mencius as Newton is to Kepler. We commonly think that Newton's interpretation captured what was right about Kepler's views, but did it in a more encompassing and sophisticated form. Can the same be said about Zhu Xi's interpretation of Mencius? This depends on two things: how much of what is insightful in Mencius's view has Zhu Xi had to sacrifice, and how plausible is Zhu Xi's view on its own terms?

Regarding the first point, Dai Zhen charged that the Dao xue interpretation failed to do justice to several insights. In particular, Dai Zhen argued that Zhu Xi's conception of li led to a denigration of physical desire that was not characteristic of Mencius. I'm not going to focus on this issue, though. Instead, I want to say something about the second general issue: the plausibility of Zhu Xi's views on their own terms.

By what standards should we evaluate the Dao xue worldview? It would be a mistake, I think, to evaluate it only by the standards of modern science. The Dao xue worldview does not operate by the same standards of evaluation as modern science, and it does not have the same goals as modern science. For example, unlike modern science, Dao xue does not stress predicting and explaining empirical phenomena, nor does it stress testable results or mathematical models.¹⁶ When faced with a case such as this, Peter Winch has argued that we cannot judge the non-scientific view to be mistaken or non-rational.¹⁷ On Winch's view, to claim that Dao xue is inadequate or unwarranted as a scientific theory is a category mistake, like claiming that a quaterback was checkmated. Charles Taylor has made what I take to be a strong argument in response to Winch, though. Taylor would say that, while the Dao xue standards and goals do not correspond fully with modern science, they do overlap to some extent.¹⁸ Consider, for example, the prediction and explanation of empirical phenomena. Although this is not the primary focus of Dao xue, and although Dao xue appeals to justificational standards alien to modern science, it is also true that the doctrines of Dao xue were interconnected with claims and theories that did make empirical predictions and did offer explanations. Consequently, it is a challenge to Dao xue that modern science has had remarkable success in explaining and predicting (1) the natural phenomena to which Dao xue doctrines originally applied,¹⁹ and (2) a range of phenomena with which the Dao xue philosophers were unacquainted, and regarding which the explanatory power of Dao xue is, at best, unproven.²⁰

These facts do not, by themselves, render Dao xue obsolete. The situation is similar, in outline, to that of Aristotelianism. Aristotle's philosophy has many aspects. Some of his views are in conflict with modern physics, astronomy, and biology. Part of the scientific revolution involved the rejection of these Aristotelian ideas. For many thinkers, this led to a wholesale rejection. However, today, many philosophers believe that it is possible to isolate Aristotelian insights on ethics and metaphysics from his mistaken views on natural science. Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, for example, have tried to defend versions of Aristotelian ethics divorced from what the former called his "metaphysical biology."²¹ Likewise, there has been a revival of interest in Aristotelian metaphysical ideas on substance and essence. Perhaps something similar could be done with Dao xue. Consequently, I shall say a little about both the metaphysics and the ethics of a Dao xue that is purified of outmoded proto-scientific ideas.

Metaphysics

We can think of each entity as having two aspects: a common aspect (corresponding to the li, a pattern common in all things) and a particular aspect (corresponding to the qi, the particular constitution of a thing).²² The common pattern only exists in particular things, is the same in each thing, and is present in each and every thing that exists. However, the way in which the pattern is manifested in a particular thing is determined by the particular constitution of that thing. We can apply the common aspect/particular aspect distinction to any thing, situation, or process that is a possible subject of thought or discussion. Consequently, there is no priviledged ontology, in the sense of one correct way of dividing up reality into kinds and entities. For instance, I can apply the common-particular distinction to myself, or to the relationship between my wife and me, or to a molecule in my body, or to any other thing I can think of.
The common pattern is normative, but in a way that has some explanatory power. For example, we can explain why a family is disfunctional by appealing to the stresses induced by failure to follow the normative structure supplied by the pattern. An analogy may help here. Imagine a manifestation of the pattern as being like the elasticity of a spring in a machine. The elasticity of the spring determines that it can function effectively through a certain range of movement. However, the elasticity also limits the spring in certain ways: if the spring is subject to certain kinds of stresses or contortions, it will be damaged or broken. Similarly, the li determines that a father has certain roles to perform: protector, nurturer, ethical guide, etc. If he fails to perform these roles, it introduces stresses into the family that will cause suffering, as well as making it more difficult for others to perform their roles (mother, son, etc.).

We can, to some extent, usefully discuss the structure of the pattern. The pattern manifests itself in sets of characteristics or processes that are isomorphic with certain paradigmatic sets of one, two, four, and five.²³ Yin and yang are perhaps the best-known set of two. These terms are now so well known in the West that they almost need no explanation. However, Westerners sometimes forget that yin and yang need to be present in the appropriate balance, and that one thing may have both yin and yang aspects. For example, in a parental relationship, a father should be yang and his child should be yin, but each of them must learn to blend yin and yang appropriately in their own behavior. A father who is excessively yang is too distant and severe; a daughter who is excessively yin lacks the independence that would make her a person in her own right.

The virtues of benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and propriety are one of the most important sets of four. Adherence to these virtues contributes to a flourishing life and successful relationships with others in a variety of contexts. However, what it means to be benevolent, for example, will vary depending upon the particularity of each relationship. For example, benevolence will demand different things of a mother, teacher, and wife.

The "five phases," wu xing, are the most important quintet: earth, metal, wood, fire, and water. The similarity to the "four elements" of the Aristotelian tradition is specious. As the translation suggests, the Chinese phrase refers to phases that something can be in. Those familiar with Chinese culture know that the applications of the five phases are almost limitless. They can be brought into correspondence with everything from bodily organs, to kinds of taste, to musical notes, and more.

The notion of "unity" seems to lack much content. However, the concept is important because the Dao xue philosophers are all, ultimately, monists. The only real division is over how extreme a monism they embrace. Each thing must be understood as, in some way, a part of a unified whole. Each part can only properly function in some whole, and it can only be fully understood through some whole.
As I observed earlier, there is no priviledged ontology. All the preceding patterns are only partially adequate abstractions from the totality of the li. Furthermore, any of them could be applied to any possible object of discussion. Since there is no priviledged ontology, there will be multiple, accurate ways of describing reality. Which way to use language should be determined by our purpose in speaking or writing.²⁴ For instance, since benevolence and righteousness are aspects of the common pattern, they will in fact manifest themselves, in some way, in each entity that exists.²⁵ It would not be inaccurate to apply that particular description of the pattern to, say, a rock, but it would almost certainly be unhelpful to do so. Furthermore, since the pattern only exists in particular things, and since the particularity of each thing determines the manner in which the pattern manifests itself, any linguistic account of the pattern runs the risk of being an abstraction that falsifies by ignoring the genuine particularity of a thing, situation, or activity. There are, therefore, limitations on the adequacy of language. (We shall see that this fact is related to the major division within Dao xue.)

The preceding metaphysical view is clearly very different from any of the major metaphysical alternatives in the West. It also seems to me that there is nothing incoherent or obviously mistaken in the modified Dao xue view I sketched. Whether it is worth adopting can only be determined by the effort to elaborate its details and compare it with other metaphysical options.

Ethics

However, my own view is that Dao xue has more to offer as an ethical view. In particular, we find in Dao xue a very rich literature on ethical cultivation. The issue of how one becomes a better person is touched on by some Western philosophers,²⁶ but it has not received nearly the level of sustained attention in the West that it has in China. Furthermore, the debate between the two major wings of Dao xue -- the School of Li and the School of Mind -- is a fascinating debate over the proper methods of cultivation. This debate was reflected in subtle metaphysical disagreements between the two schools over the precise relationship between li and qi. However, I submit that it is not necessary to accept anything like the metaphysics of Dao xue in order to engage with and learn from their debates over ethical cultivation.

The School of Li (of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi) and the School of Mind (of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming) agree about many things. Their conceptions of what a fully developed ethical individual would be like, and of how he would act, are almost identical. The two schools share an assumption that is uncommon in recent Western ethics, but is almost unchallenged in their own tradition: that practical reasoning about ethical matters is more like appreciating the taste of a fine wine, and less like being good at applied mathematics. Consequently, both schools agree that ethical cultivation is less like acquiring theoretical knowledge, and more like becoming an ethical connoisseur. Furthermore, both schools revere the same ancient sages: the sage kings, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, and Mencius. The followers of each school were intimately conversant with the same classic texts. And both schools agree that each and every person is born with complete ethical knowledge within oneself.²⁷ The crucial ethical disagreement is over the possibility of accessing that innate ethical knowledge. According to Zhu Xi, most of us, in our untutored states, have ethical natures that are so obscured by selfish desires and errant passions that we cannot trust our own spontaneous ethical reactions. Consequently, it is necessary for us to submit ourselves to a long-term process of ethical cultivation, under the guidance of wise mentors, so that we can calm ourselves and be helped to gradually see the ethical truth within us more clearly. This process includes what Zhu Xi calls "the lesser learning" and "the greater learning":

"At the age of eight all the male children, from the sons of kings and dukes to the sons of commoners, entered the schools of lesser learning; there they were instructed in the chores of cleaning and sweeping, in the formalities of polite conversation and good manners, and in the refinements of ritual, music, archery, charioteering, caligraphy, and mathematics.²⁸ At the age of fifteen the Son of Heaven's eldest son and other imperial sons on down to the eldest legitimate sons of dukes, ministers, high officials, and officers of the chief grade, together with the gifted among the populace, all entered the school of greater learning; there they were instructed in the Way of probing principle [li], setting the mind in the right, cultivating oneself, and governing others."²⁹

The activities that were part of the "lesser learning" imparted basic skills that would be needed by a "gentleman," as well as inculcating good habits (e.g., defference).³⁰ The educational techniques used to impart the "greater learning" were all designed to help the student to come to see the truth for himself (zi de zhi, ¶¤±o§ß, "to get it oneself," as the Dao xue philosophers say). Seated meditation helps to calm the desires and passions. Studying the classic texts helps the student to recognize the truth, because the sages saw the truth themselves, and managed to express it in formulations that were as close to being timeless as any could be.³¹ Reading commentaries and discussing the texts with fellow students and one's master helps avoid erroneous interpretations. (This was important since, after all, one's nature is so heavily obscured that, before undergoing cultivation, one cannot reliably interpret the classic texts without some assistance.³² )

In contrast, Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming thought that the educational program Zhu Xi advocated could, and usually did, produce dry pedants rather than active men of virtue. As Lu wrote,

"Nowadays when people read, they pay no attention to what is simple and easy, but devote their vigorous efforts to study what can arouse people's admiration. When did ancient sages aim to arouse people's admiration? It is because the Way has not prevailed that when people see something unusual, their admiration is aroused. … When I read, I merely look at ancient annotations, and the words of the sages are clear of themselves. Take the saying [from Analects 1.6], "A student should be filial toward his parents when at home and respectful toward his elders when abroad." This clearly means that when at home you are to be filial and when away from home you are to be respectful. What is the need for commentaries?"³³

Perhaps Lu had Zhu Xi in mind specifically when he made this observation. Zhu Xi comments on Analects 1.6 in his Collected Commentaries on the Analects, and we also know from the Zhuzi yulei that he discussed the passage with his students. In both cases, Zhu Xi's stresses the context of the line Lu cites. The entire passage from the Analects reads,

"A student should be filial toward his parents when at home and respectful toward his elders when abroad. Careful in action and truthful in speech, he should display an expansive care for the multitude and seek to draw near to those who are ren [humane]. If in the course of his duties he finds himself with energy to spare, he should devote it to study of the wen, 'cultural arts.' "³⁴

Zhu Xi reads this passage in the light of some lines from the Greater Learning: "Things have their roots and their branches; affairs have their endings and their beginnings. If one appreciates what comes first and last, then one has come close to the Way."³⁵ Zhu Xi suggests that the virtues mentioned in Analects 1.6 -- being filial, respectful, careful, truthful, caring, and humane -- constitute "what comes first," the "root," while study is "what comes last," the "branches." In this way, Zhu Xi makes clear that he regards virtuous activity as more important than study. But he also stresses that study cannot be avoided: "If one energetically acts but does not study the cultural arts, then one will lack the wherewithall to investigate the established paradigms of the sages and worthies, and to understand how the principle of affairs ought to be. Thus, that which one does may come out of selfish intentions."³⁶ Academicians (like myself, or like most of my readers) will probably applaud Zhu Xi's sentiment here; we will also admire his ingenuity in finding so much internal structure in this brief Analects passage, and reading it in the light of another classic text. However, for Lu, this ingenuity is precisely the problem. It took me at least an hour to look up all the relevant passages from Zhu Xi, translate them, ponder them, and write the preceding paragraph. If Lu were alive today, he would probably ask, "Are you really a better person now after the scholarly spelunking you have engaged in? And couldn't you have spent that hour calling your aged father on the phone to brighten his day?" Lu has a point here.

According to Lu, "The li of the Way is right before our eyes."³⁷ Consequently, the arduous process of cultivation advocated by Zhu Xi is unnecessary: "Those who are 'misled by things' so as to pervert principle and deviate from righteousness 'simply do not concentrate upon them.' If they can sincerely examine themselves and concentrate upon it, their approval and disapproval, and their selecting and rejecting will all have subtle vigor, clear-cut intelligence, and decisive conviction."³⁸

Several centuries later, after Zhu Xi's interpretations of the classics had become state orthodoxy, Wang Yangming took up the cause of Lu Xiangshan. Wang's distinctive teaching was "the unity of knowledge and action." For Wang, if one knows principle, one will act appropriately, and if one acts appropriately, one must know principle.³⁹ One of Wang's disciples is puzzled by this claim, observing, "… there are people who know that parents should be served with filial piety and elder brothers with respect but cannot put these things into practice. This shows that knowledge and action are clearly two different things." Wang confidently responds,

"The knowledge and action you refer to are already separated by selfish desires and are no longer knowledge and action in their original substance. There have never been people who know but do not act. Those who are supposed to know but do not act simply do not yet know. … Therefore the Greater Learning points to true knowledge and action for people to see, saying, they are "like loving lovely sights and hating hateful odors." Seeing lovely sights appertains to knowledge, while loving lovely sights appertains to action. However, as soon as one sees that lovely sight, one has already loved it. It is not that one sees it first and then makes up one's mind to love it. Smelling a hateful odor appertains to knowledge, while hating a hateful odor appertains to action. However, as soon as one smells a hateful odor, one has already hated it. It is not that one smells it first and then makes up one's mind to hate it. A person with a stuffed-up nose does not smell the hateful odor even if he sees a malodorous object before him, and so he does not hate it. This amounts to not knowing the bad odor. … Or take one's knowledge of pain. Only after one has experienced pain can one know pain. The same is true of cold or hunger."⁴⁰

Wang's argument, whether we agree with it or not, is lucid and challenging. Imagine smelling raw sewage. Revulsion seems to go automatically with the perception of the smell. If someone claimed to be smelling raw sewage but showed no aversion, we would typically suspect that, at the least, she had a very poor sense of smell. Similarly, imagine seeing a sight that you regard as sexually attractive.⁴¹ Your motivations are engaged as soon as you realize what you are looking at. If your motivations are not engaged, then you are not perceiving it as a sexy sight.

Wang accuses scholars like Zhu Xi of failing to appreciate that knowledge and action go together, and of dividing ethical cultivation into a two-step process: coming to know principle, and then acting on that knowledge. The result, Wang thinks, will be disastrous:

"… people today distinguish knowledge and action and pursue them separately, believing that one must know before he can act. They will discuss and learn the business of knowledge first, they say, and wait till they truly know before they put their knowledge into practice. Consequently, to the last day of life, they will never act and also will never know. This doctrine of knowledge first and action later is not a minor disease and it did not come about only yesterday. My present advocacy of the unity of knowledge and action is precisely the medicine for that disease."⁴²

And, indeed, Zhu Xi does say things that suggest the "two step" view:

"Knowledge and action are normally mutually dependent. It's like this: if a person has eyes but no legs, he cannot walk; if he has legs but no eyes, he cannot see. As for their order, knowledge comes first. As for their importance, action is more significant."⁴³

The Intersection of Metaphysics and Ethics

One of the most intriguing aspects of the disagreement between the School of Li and the School of Mind is the manner in which their ethical disagreements are reflected in metaphysical disagreements. As with ethics, the two schools of Dao xue share many basic metaphysical views. However, Zhu Xi hints at an important disagreement in some puzzling comments he makes to some of his students:

Someone asked whether li comes first and qi comes after. Zhu Xi responded, "Fundamentally, one cannot speak of li and qi coming first or coming after. But if you reason about it, it is like li comes first and qi comes after." He then asked, "How does li manifest itself in the qi?" Zhu Xi answered, "When it comes to yin and yang and the five phases mixing together yet not losing their sequence, that is due to li. But if the qi did not congeal, the li would have nothing to adhere to. …"⁴⁴

It seems to be a basic consequence of the Dao xue view that one cannot have qi without li or li without qi. Li without qi would be structure without anything that it is the structure of, which seems incoherent. Equally incoherent seems to be the notion of qi without li, since that would be something like matter without any structure. So what does Zhu Xi mean when he suggests that there is some sense, albeit an abstract one, of talking about the li being prior to the qi? I believe that Zhu Xi's point is that one can, to a certain extent, conceptualize the li in itself, independently of its specific, concrete embodiments in the qi. This is an important point, because if it were not true, the educational program that Zhu Xi advocates would be unworkable. Zhu Xi wants us to learn to see the li in itself. The way to learn the li is through the guided study of the words of the sages: "Read books to observe the intentions of the sages and worthies. Follow the intentions of the sages and worthies to observe natural principle."⁴⁵ We are able to see the li in itself, and the words of the sages can give us an insight into the li in itself, only because the li can be, to some extent, abstracted from its particular embodiments in the qi. If the li could not be abstracted from its particular embodiments in the qi, then we could only see and respond to the li as it is embodied in particular concrete entities and situations. Furthermore, if the li could not be abstracted from its particular embodiments in the qi, then the words of the sages could only express what was appropriate in the particular contexts that the sages themselves were in; their words, in that case, would not be intrinsically applicable to our own situations.

Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming denied that the li were prior to the qi conceptually, and drew the specific consequences of that denial that I just sketched. This is part of what is at issue in Lu's criticisms of Zhu Xi's views on the "Supreme Ultimate." "Supreme Ultimate" tai ji, is a phrase that occurs in the Yi jing, or Classic of Changes. The use of the phrase there is intriguing, but enigmatic. The later philosopher Zhou Dunyi, whom Zhu Xi credited with reviving the true philosophy of Confucianism, used the phrase in a famous work of his own, "Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate," which begins, Wuji er taiji, "The ultimate of not-having and the Supreme Ultimate!" The Chinese text here is ambiguous. We could read it as expressing a temporal sequence between two distinct entities. However, Zhu Xi regarded it as a pair of expressions used to described two aspects of one thing. Specifically, Zhu Xi thought that "Supreme Ultimate" is a name for the li in itself. He also believed that Zhou Dunyi, by referring to it as "the ultimate of not-having," was making the same point that Zhu Xi had made by suggesting that li is prior to the qi. In other words, the "Supreme Ultimate," the li in itself, may be described as the "ultimate of not-having" in the sense that it lacks any specific, concrete qualities.⁴⁶ Lu strenuously disagrees. In a letter he wrote to Zhu Xi, Lu suggests that the phrase "ultimate of not-having" may have been misattributed to Zhou Dunyi, and that (if he did use that phrase) it may have been a youthful error that he abandoned in his more sophisticated work. Lu also argues that the concept is essentially Daoist in its implications. This gives us insight into what bothers Lu about the notion, because his criticism of the Daoists and Buddhists is that they (allegedly) seek to escape from this world. We see, then, that Lu objects to Zhu Xi's interpretation of "the Supreme Ultimate" because he regards it as leading people to focus their attention on an illusory "other-worldly" realm (i.e., the realm of li in itself). There is no such realm, Lu insists, not even conceptually: "Li exists in the universe from the very beginning. How can it be said to be not-having?"⁴⁷ It now becomes clear how deeply significant is a seemingly innocuous comment attributed to Lu Xiangshan: "Outside of the Way there are no events; outside of events there is no Way."⁴⁸ The Way is the li, and the li does not exist outside of its concrete embodiment in the things and affairs of this world. Thus, the li cannot be understood independently of those embodiments. Consequently, Zhu Xi's educational program, Lu thinks, is doomed from the start. The words of the sages cannot give us insight into the li outside of any particular context; their words are only expressions of what was appropriate for them in their own particular situations. Thus, "If in our study we know the fundamentals, then all the Six Classics are our footnotes."⁴⁹

An Evaluation in Lieu of an Argument

Who is right in this debate? This is a controversy that began hundreds of years ago and continues to rage among Confucians today. Obviously, I cannot hope to say anything substantive about it in these brief comments. But allow me to express, as Zhu Xi would put it, the opinion of "ignorant me." It seems to me that Lu and Wang offer penetrating and insightful correctives to the sort of pedantic overintellectualization that some of us are prone to. Think of the academic philosophers whom you know. How many of them do you regard as highly virtuous? If you are like me, your experience will be that most academics are bright intellectually, and some are genuinely brilliant. However, most are fairly middling as ethical agents, and some are genuinely heinous An intimate dinner at my home would allow plenty of room for all the academics whom I really admire as human beings. Lu and Wang give us a salutary warning that being a good person is not the same as being clever or learned, and that most of us make little if any effort at being more virtuous than we are.

Nonetheless, my own experience -- as a teacher, friend, armchair psychologist, and highly fallible ethical agent myself -- is that most of us cannot trust our ethical inclinations until these have been subject to extensive training and discipline. I think that Lu and Wang lived in cultures (or at least subcultures) in which most people whom they encountered as adults had already been subjected to intense (perhaps even excessive) socialization and literary education. Their views on ethical cultivation might have been different had they met many people who (like me) grew up with little respect for authority of any kind, and were fed a steady diet of escapist consumerism and mind-numbing television. (Anyone's qi would be turbid after that!) Consequently, I think Zhu Xi is right about the need for an initial process of cultivation. As Joel J. Kupperman has argued, in an account inspired by the sayings of Confucius,

Unless the student is unusually gifted, at the beginning of the learning process the "natural" mode of production is loose and sloppy. An essential part of education requires going against the grain of what is natural. At the same time the student must not only learn to create a different style, but must also force herself or himself to assimilate this style, to the point at which it is "what comes naturally." This requires, especially in the early stages, extreme self-restraint and inhibition. It is no wonder that graduate school training seems to many students to involve the intellectual counterpart of having one's feet bound.⁵⁰

Cultivation begins in youth with habituation in good habits and learning basic skills, followed by exposure to great works of literature, history, and philosophy, under the guidance of teachers who see these texts as sources of wisdom, rather than mere opportunities for theatrical "deconstruction." Of course, there are many aspect of Zhu Xi's thought that I think need to be modified. Like Aquinas, Zhu Xi was a radical innovator and canon-transformer whose work became ossified in the hands of his epigones.⁵¹ We should be true to the spirit, rather than the letter, of Zhu Xi's thought, and open up the list of texts recognized as potentially ethically transformative. As different as they are in so many ways, Thucydides should be side-by-side with the Documents, the Odyssey should be read as well as the Odes, and even other genres ignored by Zhu Xi should be added. It is a platitude to point out that the plays of Shakespeare have much to teach those who will listen, as do great novels -- The Scholars, Invisible Man, take you pick.⁵² The list should be open-ended: a university may settle on a particular list of texts for its own internal curricular purposes, but different great works, even within the same genre, each teach in their own inimitable way. And the canon will be "essentially disputed." Aquinas had to fight to get Aristotle re-admitted to the Western canon. Cicero's writings were prized for centuries after his death, but I think it would be difficult to make the case now that one misses anything important by not reading them. And Mencius was for centuries a much less important figure in Confucianism; it was the Dao xue philosophers who dubbed him "the second sage," behind only Confucius himself.

We owe a great debt to scholars like Chen Lai who are reviving knowledge of Zhu Xi and other Dao xue philosophers in China, and passing that knowledge on to future generations. Having been a recipient of his kindness during a visit to China, I can also vouch for his commitment to Confucian generosity and propriety. I hope that there will be more philosophers like Chen Lai in the West too. Our own society is hungry for knowledge of Chinese culture and also -- I think -- for new ethical insights. Dao xue is a rich, and still largely untapped, source of wisdom.