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Mencius on Becoming Human a Dissertation Submitted To UNIVERSITY OF HAWNI LIBRARY MENCIUS ON BECOMING HUMAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY DECEMBER 2002 By James P. Behuniak Dissertation Committee: Roger Ames, Chairperson Eliot Deutsch James Tiles Edward Davis Steve Odin Joseph Grange 11 ©2002 by James Behuniak, Jr. iii For my Family. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With support from the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawai'i, the Harvard-Yenching Institute at Harvard University, and the Office of International Relations at Peking University, much of this work was completed as a Visiting Research Scholar at Peking Univeristy over the academic year 2001-2002. Peking University was an ideal place to work and I am very grateful for the support of these institutions. I thank Roger Ames for several years of instruction, encouragement, generosity, and friendship, as well as for many hours of conversation. I also thank the Ames family, Roger, Bonney, and Austin, for their hospitality in Beijing. I thank Geir Sigurdsson for being the best friend that a dissertation writer could ever hope for. Geir was also in Beijing and read and commented on the manuscript. I thank my committee members for comments and recommendations submitted over the course of this work. lowe a lot to Jim Tiles for prompting me to think through the subtler components of my argument. I take full responsibility for any remaining weaknesses that carry over into this draft. I thank my additional member, Joseph Grange, who has been a mentor and friend for many years. I am sure that if I had not taken Joe's Metaphysics course twelve years ago, this dissertation would never have been written. I thank my classmates and friends from Honolulu, the faculties of the Philosophy departments at the Universities of Hawai'i and Southern Maine, and all my friends in Portland. I also thank Connie Zhu for years of patience and encouragement. Finally, I thank my family. If Mencius teaches us anything, he teaches us the profound importance of family affection. I thank them for helping me realize concretely this Mencian teaching and for everything else that they have done for me. This work is dedicated to them. v ABSTRACT This dissertation reinterprets the notion commonly translated as "human nature" (renxingl in the Mencius by appealing to philosophical assumptions common to Warring States thought. Taking advantage of recently unearthed archeological finds from the Mencian school, the argument is made that renxing in the Mencius is most adequately understood as a dynamic disposition shaped by cultural and historical conditions, not as an a-historical "nature" common to all humans at all times. The notion of "becoming human" in the Mencius that results from this re-reading brings the text as a whole into focus. The central themes of the Mencius - the role of family, personal growth, moral development, and human advancement - are each understood within the framework of this alternative reading. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iv Abstract v Preface viii 1. The Cosmological Background Energy and Propensity 1 Shape and Spontaneity 6 Disposition and Spontaneity 11 Zhuangzi and Shape 16 Characteristics of Chinese Cosmology....... 19 2. The Role of Feeling Feeling, Doctrine, and Dao 28 Feeling as Transactional 31 Aspiration and Courage 37 InnerI Outer and the Growth Model 42 Desire, Coherence, and Integration 47 3. Family and Moral Development "Spontaneous" and "Technical" Approaches 61 The Mohist Challenge 64 Confucianism's Normative Measure 67 Family as the Root 74 Family and Extension 80 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS 4. The Human Disposition Relationships and Disposition 97 The Human Disposition as Good 105 The Four Sprouts and the Family.... 112 The Satisfaction of Becoming Human 115 The Value of the Person 120 5. Advancing the Human Way The Constraints on Aspiration 133 The Conditions for Political Legitimacy 141 The Conditions for Human Achievement 144 Human Virtue in the Sacrifices 146 Aspiration and the Human Way 154 References 171 Vlll PREFACE When peace disintegrates into war, it is not unusual for literary efforts to reflect the breakdown of values and institutions that once distinguished a properly human existence from that of the animal. Mencius thought and wrote during the "Warring States" period in China, a period in which no single authority or common purpose united a belligerent mosaic of states on China's eastern plains. Mencius lived in a time of great anxiety, violence, and appalling carnage. The literature of the period attests to these conditions. From the discourses on warfare circulated in popular military handbooks, to the songs of despair in the "Book of Songs" (Shijing:t to the pacifist reflections in the Daodejing: - thinkers in this period are coping with the realities of war and bloodshed. Amongst this period's literary efforts, the Mencius provides a philosophical vision of what the human experience might become - a vision that asserts itself over-against the reality of what the human experience had become. The Mencian prescription is one among several, advocated in an age that would not allow philosophy the luxury of being a leisure-time pursuit. Mencius is a Confucian thinker. He seeks to reinforce the teachings of Confucius and to some degree "naturalize" these teachings in a persuasive and communicable manner. His chosen metaphor is botanical. He speaks of the "four sprouts" (siduan) of human virtue, and likens the cultivation of the person to the growth of a tree. He speaks of "roots" ~, "nourishment" ~, "disposition" (xing:), "life span" (sheng:), "break­ ing through (the ground)" (gg), and "fruition" (shi). The growth metaphor is the vehicle by which Mencius wishes to convey his vision of what it means to "become human." For one hoping to understand the Mencius, it is important to follow the botanical metaphor; but the hermeneutic circle is not tightened until one pauses to think through it. What does the metaphor mean to Mencius? In using botanical imagery, does Mencius IX mean to suggest that becoming human is an end-driven process; simply a matter of "actualizing" a given, teleological potential? Does he mean to suggest that becoming human is a process like the pre-Darwinian way we as a tradition are given to think about the process of an acorn becoming an oak tree? Does he mean to say that humans possess a pre-<ietermined, "natural" end that is antecedently given and unaffected by historical circumstances? Many of the most qualified interpreters of classical Chinese thought have inclined towards such an understanding in treating what is commonly understood to be the notion of "human nature" (renxing) in the Mencius. Benjamin Schwartz understands xing to be "an innate tendency toward growth or development in a given, predetermined direction.'" Robert Eno considers "Heaven" (tian) itself a "teleological force" that engenders a good "nature" (xing) in human beings and thereby "indicates what man's purpose, or 'final cause,' is to be.'" In the same teleological/theological vein, P.I. Ivanhoe submits that for Mencius, "to (follow) one's nature (xing) is the way to both understand and fulfill heaven's plan.'" Tu Wei-ming leans towards a teleological reading when he considers "the Way" (dao) for the human being to be "nothing other than the actualization of true human nature (xing)...• A.C. Graham, at one point in his career, considers xing to be a notion developed "on lines rather suggestive of Aristotelian teleology.,,5 In any number of instances, it is "nature" with a predetermined end that serves as the default understanding of xing. Xing, however, does not necessarily or explicitly mean "end-driven teleology" in the Mencius. In other words, the botanical model that here describes the process of becoming human does not necessarily mean to Mencius what it means to an Aristotelian. By way of illustration, we might pay a visit to Mencius himself, Among the most remarkable botanical displays that I have ever seen lies within the walls of the sprawling Mencius Temple at Zouxian: Mencius' hometown in Shandong, China.· Mencius' body is interred not far from this complex. The sprawling grounds are an apt tribute to Mencius; x for the site is a botanical wonder. It is also designed to make a point. Temple caretakers still supplement with young saplings the ancient grove of trees that constitutes the heart of the temple. The layout highlights the contrast between the fairly uniform younger trees, strategically placed, and the magnificent formations that tower overhead. Mencius maintained that every person could become a sage; and for those who visit his temple, that doctrine is reinforced by the realization that anyone of these young, non-descript saplings can take on, or even surpass, the majesty of an elder. One of these gigantic trees, just southwest of the main hall devoted to Mencius, is particularly admirable. It is a towering tree whose thick, lumpy trunk rockets straight up some twenty-five meters before supporting a number of horizontal limbs. Each limb has smaller branches curling off on the most unusual trajectories. Each of these branches trails off into thickets of tendrils reaching proudly skyward. Most remarkably, at the center top of this tree, a yellowish, bulbous growth of heartwood emerges like a fantastic sculpture - high on a pedestal, never to be tuuched. It is a breathtaking sight. At the Mencius Temple, the uniqueness, the form, and the grandeur of each tree are the results of botanical growth. And each tree is absolutely one of a kind. Indeed, everything that grows is one of a kind: a singular expression of the drive of living things to flourish in their habitats by making the most out of their conditions.
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