Welten Der Philosophie A

WELTEN DER PHILOSOPHIE A

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 About this book: This anthology looks at laughter through intercultural and interdisci- plinary perspectives. It focuses on humoristic aspects of East-Asian philosophies such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism as well as on the use of irony and wit by Western authors ranging from ancient Greece to contemporary Newfoundland.

The editors: Hans-Georg Moeller, born in 1964, is a Senior Lecturer at the Philoso- phy Department at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. His research focuses on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy and on the social theory of Niklas Luhmann. Among his book publications are: Daoism Explained. From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory. (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), The Philosophy of the Daode- jing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), Luhmann Ex- plained. From Souls to Systems (Chicago: Open Court. 2006), Daode- jing (Laozi). A Complete Translation and Commentary. (Chicago: Open Court, 2007) as well as a treatise in defence of amorality: The Moral Fool. A Case for Amorality. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

Guenter Wohlfart, born 1943 in Frankfurt /Germany, studied philosophy, German literature and psychoanalysis in Germany. As a young man he taught at different German universities specializing in German Idealism and ancient Greek philosophy. He published books on Kant (Ph.D. thesis), Hegel (Habilitation), Nietzsche, and Heraclitus. His main fields of research were aesthetics and philosophy of language. After his transcultural turn he dealt with Zen-Buddhism and philosophical Dao- ism. As a visiting professor he taught in Mainland China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. He published books on Zen, Laozi and Zhuangzi. His main fields of research are comparative philosophy and ancient Chinese thinking. Since his retirement, Wohlfart lives in his mountain cottage in Southern France.(www.guenter-wohlfart.de)

Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Claudia Bickmann, Rolf Elberfeld, Geert Hendrich, Heinz Kimmerle, Kai Kresse, Ram Adhar Mall, Hans-Georg Moeller, Ryôsuke Ohashi, Heiner Roetz, Ulrich Rudolph, Hans Rainer Sepp, Georg Stenger, Franz Martin Wimmer, Günter Wohlfart, Ichirô Yamaguchi

Laughter in Eastern and Western Philosophies

Proceedings of the Académie du Midi

Verlag Karl Alber Freiburg/München

Satz: SatzWeise, Föhren Druck und Bindung: AZ Druck und Datentechnik, Kempten

Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier (säurefrei) Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany

ISBN 978-3-495-48385-5 (Print) ISBN 978-3-495-86038-0 (E-Book)

Introduction (Hans-Georg Moeller) ...... 9

I. East

Anna Ghiglione: Laughter in Mohist Writings ...... 16

Robin R. Wang: Can Zhuangzi Make Confucians Laugh? Emotion, Propriety, and the Role of Laughter ...... 39

Paul D’Ambrosio: From Foolish Laughter to Foolish Laughter: Zhuangzi’s Perspectivism Leads to Laughter ...... 49

Richard John Lynn: The Modern Chinese Word for Humour (huaji) and its Antecedents in the Zhuangzi and Other Early Texts . 60

Franklin Perkins: The Ridiculousness of Attachment in the Journey to the West ...... 74

Robert E. Carter: »Why Do Birds Shit on Buddha’s Head?« Zen and Laughter ...... 89

Karl-Heinz Pohl: What Is There to Laugh About in Buddhism? .. 98

Robert Borgen: Comic Verse in the Classical Japanese Literary Tradition ...... 112

William R. LaFleur: Ludicrous Professionals: Physicians and Priests in Japanese Senryû ...... 128

Haijo Jan Westra: Irony, Ambiguity, and Laughter in Greek and Latin Texts ...... 140

Manfred Malzahn: »Great Laughter was in Heaven«: Roots and Repercussions of a Literary Motif ...... 152

Lorraine Markotic: Nietzsche’s Nascent Laughter ...... 162

Brendan Moran: Foolish Wisdom in Benjamin’s Kafka ...... 175

Stephen Crocker: Laughter as Truth Procedure: The Evolution of Comic Form in Newfoundland ...... 193

III. East-West

Alfredo P. Co: Siddhartha, Socrates, and Zhuangzi: Laughter across Ancient Civilizations ...... 206

Günter Wohlfart: Transcendental Laughter beyond Enlightenment 224

List of Contributors ...... 233

Unfortunately, to philosophize about laughter is usually quite unfunny. On the other hand, thinking back to previous topics discussed at the meetings of the Académie du Midi, it should also be considered that philosophizing about death is not lethal, and philosophizing about war is often rather peaceful. That one cannot expect too much congruency between the exercise of philosophy and its various subjects may therefore also have its blessings. In any case, laughter is not a typical theme in philosophy. There- fore it can be no surprise that many of the articles included in this volume deal with issues and sources that do not belong to the core canons (whatever these may be) of either Western or Eastern philosophical traditions. Some papers refer to works of literature—such as the Journey to the West and the Iliad, medieval Japanese and English poetry, or the writings of Hanshan and Kafka—and others even to contemporary comedians from Newfoundland. However, I think that in general the methodologies that are applied throughout the volume are to a certain extent, »traditionally« philosophical. The leading questions are: How to think (and write) with, through, or about humor? Some sort of preliminary typology of laughter and humor in philosophy (and literature) emerges when reading the various essays. First, as arguably the most radical type of a philosophy of laughter, it can be considered a philosophical practice or method itself. In Zen Buddhism the outburst of laughter as such is physically, emotionally, and socially applied philosophy. It is not an exaggeration to say that in Zen Bud- dhism laughter can be deemed a more appropriate philosophical practice than, for instance, writing or lecturing—or even thinking. Interestingly enough, one may also ascribe such an attitude to Friedrich Nietzsche. Second, there are philosophies that use humor, and, by extension, the laughter of the reader, as a mode of expression. The works of Zhuangzi, for instance, are renowned for their outstanding literary

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Hans-Georg Moeller wit. But one will probably be able to find examples for exquisite hilarity or subtle irony in most philosophical traditions around the globe. Phi- losophy and literature are, as Richard Rorty insisted, intrinsically simi- lar, and they thus can share humor as a major stylistic feature. Some philosophical works actually can make people smile and thereby pro- mote a humorous outlook on whatever they deal with. Third, there is a philosophy about humor. Kant, although on occasion even a somewhat funny writer, provided us with a fundamentally unfunny definition of laughter in the Critique of Judgment. Although he otherwise dealt with laughter mainly in his philosophical anthropol- ogy, and thus one of the minor and least important branches of his self- styled scientific philosophy, laughter still seemed to be a remarkable enough phenomenon to deserve at least some of his intellectual efforts. Fourth, there can be a philosophy against humor, a teaching that warns us about the perilous effects of having too much fun. »Laughter ethics,« so to speak, tend to describe the limits of decency with respect to enjoyment and wit, and to prescribe when and, in particular, when not to laugh. For some Confucians, for instance, laughter was morally much more suspicious than crying. But without doubt, the perception of laughter as a potential threat to morality is not a uniquely Confucian feature. Fifth, there is the rhetorical usage of humor and laughter in a derisive way. The ancient Chinese Mohists liked to portray their philosophical opponents as ridiculous fools. But again, this is by no means a specifically Mohist quality. I would dare to speculate that most philosophical and religious traditions contain a certain dosage of mockery of those who do not share their beliefs. But, after all, if one is not a propo- nent of a strict »laughter ethics,« one may find such uses of humor more delightful, and even more truthful, than a presumably emotion- less and unbiased critique of what one considers wrong. I chose once more and East-West order for structuring this volume. As it turned out, the structure then also became more or less chronological, at least within the three major sections on »East,« »West,« and »East-West.« No ideological commitment to cultural dif- ferentiations underlies such a division; it simply seemed to me that the three sections each include essays that are thematically, historically, and/or methodologically linked to one another. Anna Ghiglione provides us with an insight into one of the more neglected philosophical schools within the ancient Chinese tradition,

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Introduction namely the Mohists. In line with their advocacy of frugality and utility, the Mohists promoted an austere and thus not very funny way of life. They did not appreciate humor very much and hardly used wit as a literary device in their texts. Nevertheless, they did on occasion »mal- iciously« mock their main rivals, the Confucians. Thus, they did in fact produce some at least vaguely humorous polemics. Robin Wang takes a look at the different attitudes towards laughter in ancient Confucianism and Daoism. Figuratively speaking she says that »Zhuangzi is laughing while Confucians are crying.« In particular, she focuses on the more somatic aspects of laughter and points out that while the Confucians embraced singing and dancing as forms of emotional expression, they nevertheless did not encourage laughter. It may be, Wang suggests, that the Confucians abhorred the absurd aspects of humor that present a challenge to a worldview based on an ideal of harmonious social order. Laughter may thus pose a danger for civiliza- tion by giving way to some unobstructed natural or »uncultivated« im- pulses. Paul D’Ambrosio dissects the allegory of the »happy fish« and several related stories in the Zhuangzi in order to define the kind of philosophical humor employed in this work. He argues that the Zhuangzi’s laughter is foolish. Foolish laughter is laughter at others, but it is not derogatory. It is not supposed to express that the one who is laughing considers himself superior to or wiser than the one whom he laughs at. To the contrary, the foolish laughter of the Daoist sage expresses not only amusement about others, but, at the same time, amusement about oneself. He laughs about the foolishness of the other only to confirm his own foolishness. When a philosophical dialogue ends in laughter in Zhuangzi, the Daoist sage thereby expresses something like: »Look how ridiculously foolish all of us philosophers indeed are!« Richard John Lynn presents a most elaborate philological analysis of the history of the modern Chinese word for humor: huaji, or, in pre- modern pronunciation, guji. He looks specifically at the occurrence of this word in the Zhuangzi and in Guo Xiang’s commentary and Chen Xuanying’s sub-commentary to this text, and then compares these with passages from other sources such as the Shujing (Book of History) and the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian). In conclusion, he suggests that the term originally referred to what he translates as »slippery op- erators,« i.e. political or military advisors who used cunning and witty rhetorics to »undermine conventional assumptions about life and the

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Hans-Georg Moeller world, to reform harmful behavior, and reverse wrong strategies.« Even Zhuangzi himself, Lynn argues, may have conceived of himself as a »slippery operator« in philosophy. Robert Carter answers the question »Why do birds shit on Bud- dha’s head?« This is a reference to a Zen (or Chan) Buddhist Koan, and Carter’s answer explains the usage of humor in this tradition. He men- tions the »deconstructionist« function of humor in Zen that challenges ordinary thinking, values, and hierarchies. Existentially speaking, life is paradoxical, and so is laughter. More concretely, to point out that birds shit on the head of (a) Buddha (sculpture) indicates a rejection of any pretence of holiness, the overcoming of dualistic value distinctions between what is beautiful and what is disgusting, and an emphasis on the fact that there is no ontological »waste,« that all things are of equal reality. Karl-Heinz Pohl approaches laughter in Buddhism by focusing on its iconography. One of the founding figures of Chinese Buddhism, Huayan (334–416), is typically portrayed pictorially as having a laugh with his visitors Tao Yuanming (365–417) and Lu Xiujing (406–477). This presentation is not meant to depict an actual historical scene, but rather the harmonious unity of the three teachings Buddhism, Confu- cianism, and Daoism. Similarly, there are a number of paintings that show the famous poet Hanshan, who is often linked in one way or another with Buddhism, with a laughing face. Even more present in pic- torial art is the »Laughing Buddha,« the Bodhisattva Maitreya who can be seen in many Buddhist temples. The medieval Chinese Buddhist iconography of laughter is, as Pohl shows, continued even in contemporary postmodern American literature. The novel The Laughing Sutra by Mark Salzman plays with exactly this heritage. Franklin Perkins writes about the philosophy of laughter in the Chinese predecessor of The Laughing Sutra, namely the famous Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West. The plot of this quite fantastic novel revolves around the monk Xuanzang who travels to India in order to bring sacred Buddhist texts to China. According to Perkins, the novel as such »presents a profoundly pessimistic view on human life« which is quite in line with »orthodox« Buddhist beliefs. However, Perkins shows that the text is nevertheless full of irony and humour. While Xuanzang himself is a rather serious and unfunny character, his travel companion Monkey is a comic figure who constantly provokes the pious monk. Perkins interprets the comic tension between Xuanzang and Monkey

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Introduction as an illustration of a certain ambiguity in Buddhism. On the one hand it advocates »serious« compassion for all beings that suffer while, on the other hand, it promotes a much more light-hearted pursuit of non-attachment. Robert Borgen explores the historical roots of Japanese Haiku poetry. The term Haiku became widely used only in the nineteenth century. The genre essentially goes back to the older genre of haikai. Hai- kai was the title of a section in the Japanese poetic anthology Kokinshū (Collection of Japanese Poems, Ancient and Modern) which was com- piled around the year 905. While the term haikai can be literally trans- lated as »fun, a joke,« it is often very difficult to understand what about the poems in this section in the Kokinshū is actually supposed to be funny. As Borgen demonstrates on the basis of a detailed analysis of some of the poems, they do contain quite intriguing word plays. These could have been perceived as funny by an audience that was familiar with concrete allusions and cultural references which may totally escape contemporary readers. William R. LaFleur introduces a genre of Japanese poetry that evolved out of the haikai and Haiku tradition, a short and humorous mode of verse named senryū that became popular in the Edo period (1600–1867). LaFleur is particularly interested in the relation between humor and the human body. One of the main reasons for humans to laugh about themselves is, according to LaFleur, the fact that we both have and are bodies. This issue is dealt with in a number of senryū where human physicality becomes a laughing matter. In particular, the »intellectual« professions of priests and physicians are made fun of with respect to their bodily existence that they cannot deny; they also, for instance, sneeze or experience sexual arousal. The senryū mock these and other manifestations of our physical life, but they do so, as LaFleur points out, in a healthy way that does not intend to do harm to those it ridicules, but to make us share a refreshing and relaxing laugh. Haijo Jan Westra’s topic is humor and, in particular, irony in ancient Greek and Latin literature. He begins by pointing out, not unlike Robert Borgen in his analysis of Japanese poetry, that it is often difficult to detect a pun in a text when the reader is not familiar with its immedi- ate social context. This is particularly so in the case of irony which by itself is one of the more hidden forms of humor. In order to better indicate passages that are meant in a funny way, various textual signs (nota) where sometimes employed in writing, but this has not been a

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Hans-Georg Moeller common practice. Westra then uncovers a number of ironical scenes and statements in the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as in Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Finally, he comments on the religious use of irony by the early Christian poet Prudentius. Manfred Malzahn quotes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost in the title of his article: »Great laughter was in Heaven.« This line introduces a survey of occurrences of humor and laughter in European English language literature ranging from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. He begins with a look at grim humor in Beowulf and then turns to sardonic and sombre humor in the works of Shakespeare, Andrew Mar- vell, and John Donne. Further evidence for laughter in this literary tradition is given by reference to Milton and Alexander Pope. A well- known representative of satirical literature in the eighteenth century is Jonathan Swift, while Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is an example for absurd dimensions of humor in more recent times. Lorraine Markotic deals with laughter in the works of Nietzsche. Her attention is devoted not so much to the witty or funny aspects of Nietzsche’s writing, but more to the pronouncements and aphorisms that actually talk about laughter and its »philosophical« role. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, laughter can be linked to a break with traditional thought and values. Nevertheless, according to Markotic, in other works by Nietzsche, laughter appears not at all as a sign of liberation, but rather as one of restraint and limitation. It indicates a merely »temporary upsetting that functions to fortify existing structures.« An example she cites for laughter as an act of constraint is the ridicule that is met by »The Madmen« who announces the death of God in the Gay Science. But there is also another function of laughter for Nietzsche: In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for instance, laughter opens up the possibility of the transformation of the human into das Übermenschliche. Brendan Moran discusses Walter Benjamin’s detection of occasions for laughter in the works of Franz Kafka. Just as D’Ambrosio with respect to Zhuangzi, Moran classifies this laughter as foolish, but as a kind of foolishness that is connected with wisdom. Interestingly enough, Benjamin conceives of this connection explicitly as Daoist. Not so different from what D’Ambrosio says about laughter in the Zhuang- zi, Moran says that for Benjamin, »Kafka enables us to laugh at the fools only insofar as this becomes laughter at us, laughter that passes into thinking about the mythic production of ourselves.« Moran how-

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Introduction ever also states that humor in Kafka is »often inextricable from horror.« This is, I would say, hardly the case in the Zhuangzi. Stephen Crocker reports on the humoristic productions by a group of comedians from Newfoundland called Codco and their former mem- ber Andy Jones. Crocker highlights the postcolonial aspects of their satirical works which often focus on the problematic identity of New- foundlanders as inhabitants of a once autonomous entity that then decided to join the Canadian state. The solo performances by Andy Jones, according to Crocker, transcend the socio-political dimensions of humor, and connect with religious and philosophical practices. Jones looks at comedy as a »truth procedure« that culminates in an act of »desubjectification« of the comedian—which leads Jones to claim in somewhat Buddhist fashion: »To know me is to remove me.« Alfredo P. Co compares different types of laughter and humor in three of the main figures of the »axial age«: Siddhartha, Socrates, and Zhuangzi. Socrates’ kind of laughter, as depicted in the Symposium,is characterized as »laughter in erotic innuendos.« Zhuangzi’s laughter, according to Co, can be classified as a »practico-cynical« laughter that »brings us face to face with the absurdity of existence and the way we look at reality.« Siddhartha provides us with a third type of laughter, the »spiritual-intuitive humor« of Buddhist enlightenment. Co concludes with a plea for cross-cultural understanding through humor and joy. One can »intuit the essence of truth« in laughter, and thus it may serve as a foundation for a harmonious new universal culture. Günter Wohlfart leads us »beyond enlightenment.« Commenting on Kant’s definition of laughter as »an emotion resulting from the sud- den transformation of eager expectation into nothing,« Wohlfart suggests a slight amendment: The »nothing« should be spelled with capital »N«—and the laughter with capital »L.« If so, one could actually arrive at an understanding of laughter that can be found in Zen Buddhism: Enlightenment is an act of bursting into laughter while paradoxically experiencing that the search for enlightenment ends with the realiza- tion of its »emptiness.« Here, we are facing the most »radical« type of a philosophy of laughter that I listed above, a philosophy in which laughter is a most philosophical activity.

Introduction

The Mozi is a composite corpus of fifteen books (juan) subdivided into seventy-one sections (bian), eighteen of which are lost. Most of it dates approximately from the Warring States period (481–221 B.C.E.). Mozi (ca. 480–390) and his followers, whose sayings are collected in the Mozi, developed a number of ethical, political, and economic doctrines, which emphasize the importance of social order and utility, frugality, mutual aid and universal care (jian ai) for all human beings, meritoc- racy and work, submission to the superiors, conformism (tong) and acceptance of popular beliefs in ghosts and demons. On the whole, the Mozi is an overtly anti-Confucian text; it rejects several values cher- ished by the Literati (the Ru or Ruists), such as elaborated rituality, lengthy mourning, music, cultural refinement, and the priority of kin- ship over public obligations. Mozi’s vision of the world is well-known for its sternness and gravity: the Mohists systematically condemned all forms of pleasure and superfluous practices. Their utilitarian positions are grounded on a rigidly moralistic view in which usefulness and goodness appear as in- terchangeable principles. Despite the heterogeneous character of the corpus and the diversity of its contents,1 all along its fifteen books, little place is left for laughter, smile or irony. As Christoph Harbsmeier ob- served, »One never suspects the Later Mohist thinkers of any sense of humor whatsoever. Indeed, the whole book of Mo Zi shows a pedestrian style of earnestness, both linguistically and stylistically, that is quite inconsistent with light-hearted jocularity.«2

1 In addition to their ethical, political and economical reflections, the Mohists showed interest in language and logic, physics and military strategy. 2 Christoph Harbsmeier, »Humor in Ancient Chinese Philosophy,« Philosophy East and West 39/3, 1989, p. 303.

My first objective in this paper will be to try and find out whether the Mohists never betrayed themselves in their writings. Is it really impossible to detect a break in their austere outlook on life? Were they always at the height of their moral principles? My second objective is to explain, through textual analysis, that their rejection of humour does not necessarily entail a complete refusal of laughter. I provisionally pro- vide a simple definition of humour as the capacity to cause laughter or one to smile (as a less intense somatic reaction) within a shared experience of enjoyment. In these terms, the phenomenon of humour is more restrictive than laughter, the semantic of which is complex and multi- faceted. My exegetical study will confirm the overall impression that the Mohists’ sense of humour was limited. A careful reading of the text will nevertheless show that it is not completely absent from the text, whilst the use of laughter as an argumentative device reveals the Moh- ists’ critical attitude of superiority towards their adversaries. From the methodological viewpoint, I will evoke some of the existing theories about humour and laughter as complementary and compa- tible tools that will enable me to interpret a number of Mohist reflections in a coherent way. I will not advocate the universal validity of these theories, but only their contingent usefulness for casting new light on a relatively well-known Classic. In this exploratory investiga- tion, textual evidence will be drawn from different sections of the Mozi, independent of the branch of the movement they spring from.3

Terminological analysis

It is reasonable to start our analysis by focusing on the lexicon at issue. Among the graphs belonging to the semantic field of laughter in Clas- sical Chinese, we can point out xiao meaning »to laugh, to smile« (as somatic reactions), and »to ridicule«. In the dictionary of glosses Erya (3rd-2nd century B.C.E.), xiao appears within a verse of the Classic of

3 It might be useful to remind the reader that the core of the Mozi (chap. 8–37) expounds ten doctrines »each in three versions which are presumably the records of a common oral tradition preserved by three sects.« See A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, [1978] 2003, p. 3. By the 3rd century B. C. E., the movement, in addition, »split into three branches which called each other ›heretical Mohists‹.« (ibid.)

Odes (Maoshi 30/14/5, »Zhong feng«), where it indicates a malevolent attitude of scorn: Ridiculing (nüe)4 recklessly, laughing at [somebody, xiao] with arro- gance means: amusing oneself to ridicule (nüe).(Erya 1.16/5/9)5 From the graphical point of view, the script xiao consists of two compo- nents, namely zhu »bamboo« and yao »fresh looking, young.« The semantic implications of the latter seem to suggest that laughter somehow corresponds to a juvenile and youthful behaviour. Actually, in Chi- nese ritualistic tradition, weeping and crying went through a process of social codification according to precise rules. Mourners were even supposed to deliberately intensify their somatic expression of sorrow dur- ing funerary rites.6 Laughter as a spontaneous manifestation of hilarity and sensuality, on the other hand, simply had to be controlled.7 The standard character xiao has three graphic variants.8 Xu Shen (ca. 58–147 C.E.), the author of the etymological dictionary Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters (Shuowen jiezi, 100 C.E.), will only concisely take into account the script written with the quan »dog« component as an alternative to yao: Laughing means getting pleased (xi). From »bamboo« (zhu) and from (quan) »dog.« The second component of this graphic variant – »dog« – is probably a semantic hint indicating that laughter, as a somatic expression of pleasure, has to do with spontaneity, which is an animal feature, rather than with ritualised, socially codified behaviours.9

4 Nüe without the radical yan »word, speech« means »to be cruel, to humiliate«. 5 In the main, references to the Chinese Classics are based on the The ICS Ancient Chinese Texts Concordance Series, ed. by D. C. Lau and Cheng Fong Ching, Hong Kong: The Commercial Press. 6 In chapter 25 »Moderation in funerals« (Jie zang), the Mohists criticize all these rules on the ground that they are unproductive and that they drive people to idleness (see especially Mozi 6.6/39/14). 7 In the Book of Rites (Liji 1.29/4/23), for instance, young men whose parents have fallen ill are requested not to laugh by showing their teeth (shen). In another section of the same text (Liji 13.5/5/21), it is also recommended not to laugh while mourning or when close to a dead body (lin sang bu xiao). 8 For the most ancient graph, see character 4231, in Grand dictionnaire Ricci de la lan- gue chinoise, Paris; Taibei: Desclée de Brouwer, 2001. 9 See Shuowen jiezi, Taibei: Tiangong shuju, 1987, p. 198. Other editors of the Shuowen

Only four occurrences of xiao appear in the Mozi. Their meaning can be interpreted in light of the definition provided by the Erya. In the first, laughter, in the sense of derision, is directed against the Confu- cians and it provokes a reaction of anger on their behalf: When the gentlemen laugh (xiao) at them [the Ru, the Confucians], they become angry and say: »What do you wrecks know about brilliant (liang) Confucians?« (Mozi, 9.7/64/24, chap. 39: »Criticizing the Confu- cians, III,« »Fei Ru xia«)10 The object of laughter, in this paragraph, is described with a particularly straight and insulting imagery. The Literati are said to behave like beg- gars, hamsters, he-goats, wild boars or castrated pigs.11 We are defi- nitely confronted with a kind of contemptuous laughter expressing an attitude of derision. Differently from the Analects (Lunyu), where Con- fucius’s replies to criticism are generally moderated and sometimes even betray a subtle irony,12 the Ruist response, here is emotional and shows no capacity for self-control, temperance or wit. In the remark that the Mohists forged, the word liang »brilliant, good, excellent« amplifies the derisive intention and sounds somehow sardonic, even if it is pro- nounced by Mozi’s adversaries themselves. Two occurrences of xiao are found in chapter 47 (»Gong Meng«), where they have an analogous meaning: »to ridicule, to scorn«. The context, however, invites the reader to smile: A man visited Master Mozi’s school. He was physically well built and brilliant. Desiring to have him as a disciple and to convince him to study, jiezi just emend this graphic variant of xiao, but then the etymological analysis of the character becomes unsound. 10 My translations are partly borrowed from Mei Yi-pao, The Ethical and Political Works of Mo Tzu, London: Probsthain, 1929, reprinted as The Works of Motze, Taibei: Confucius Publishing Co., 1976; when they are available, from Burton Watson’s shorter work: Mo Tzu: Basic Writings, New York: Columbia University Press, 1963; and from the more recent translation by Wang Rongpei & Wang Hong, Mozi, 2 vols. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 2006. My modifications mainly concern the lexicon and the key-words. Methodologically, I opted for a certain literalism in order to preserve the imagery as well as a number of significant repetitions that I find important to render the prosody of the text. 11 See respectively Mei, op.cit., p. 404, Watson, op.cit. p. 127, Wang & Wang, op.cit., p. 301. 12 See, for instance, Lunyu 9.2/20/7, where Master Kong, accused of not deserving his good reputation, formulates this ironic concession: »What shall I undertake, archery or chariot driving? I will undertake chariot driving.«

Master Mozi told him: »For the moment you study, and then I will make you an official (shi)«. Persuaded by such an attractive promise, he came to study. In a year, he demanded [a position of] official from Mozi. Mas- ter Mozi replied: »I do not make you an official. But have you not heard the story of Lu? There were five brothers in Lu whose father passed away. The eldest son had a weakness for wine and would not conduct the funeral. The four younger brothers said to him: »You conduct the funeral for us, and we shall buy wine for you.« Persuaded by such an attractive promise, he buried [his father]. After the burial, he demanded wine from the four brothers. The four brothers told him: »We will not give you any wine. You are to bury your father and we, ours. Or is it only our father? If you do not bury him, people will laugh at you (ze ren xiao zi). Therefore we persuaded you to bury him.« Now, you have to practice righteousness (wei yi), and I have to practice righteousness too. Or am I the only one who has to practice righteousness? If you do not study, people will laugh at (xiao) you. Therefore I persuaded you to study. (Mozi, chap. 48 »Gong Meng«, 12.2/110/5)13 Despite the moralistic aim of this anecdote, where the importance of burying one’s father is compared to the necessity of studying, the effect it produces is permeated with a humorous touch. The contrast between the spontaneous desire for debauchery on behalf of the eldest son and the funerary conventions he was supposed to respect could even be ascribed to the category of black humour. This clash gives partly reason to the usually called »incongruity theory,« which defines humour as »the enjoyment of experiencing something which clashes with our con- ceptual schemes.«14 In his pioneering work on Traditional Chinese Humor, Henry W. Wells also adheres to the incongruity theory in order to explain the main source of humour in Chinese art and literature: »Humor, then, is

13 Mei, op.cit., p. 476–478; Wang & Wang, op.cit. p. 457, where xue is interpreted in the sense of »to follow« (Mozi’s school). I rather adopt Mei’s reading as stating that scorning somebody who has not reached a certain cultural level is more understandable, for classical China, than laughing at somebody who would refuse to become Mozi’s follower.

14 John Morreall, »The Rejection of Humor in Western Thought,« Philosophy East and West 39/3, 1989, p. 244; see also Victor Raskin, Semantic Mechanisms of Humor, Dor- drecht; Boston; Lancaster: D. Reidel, [1944] 1984, p. 31; this account of humour was formulated, with different arguments, by Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, Part I, div. 1, 54; and by Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 1, § 13; see John Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987, p. 45–64.

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Laughter in Mohist Writings the quality of thought that imagines a pleasing incongruity,«15 he claims. This is probably not the only key to interpret hilarity and jokes in Chinese tradition, but it is certainly a useful and an easy one to handle in several contexts. In the above anecdote, the parallelism between the four brothers and Mozi himself sounds like a joke: a moral doctrine (the obligation to bury one’s father and the necessity of studying) is enforced through a trick. The pragmatic principle according to which the end justifies the means implicitly justifies cunning behaviour. Humour is actually linked to cheating and deception, namely to the disruption of ordinary codes of communication, including gregarious morality. The Mohists generally condemned trickery and hypocrisy (zha, qi); their moral imperatives certainly do not encourage the use of »metic intelligence« or wisdom based on cunning.16 But it seems that, in order to develop their movement, they could allow themselves some exceptions, as Mozi himself does not keep his word to his pupil. The message of this episode is at any rate ambiguous. Expenses in funerals as well as sumptuous rituality are thoroughly criticized in the Mozi.17 The choice of the significant element of the analogy (the analogon) is therefore not an innocent one. It rather reveals the conscious will of ridiculing funeral rites by stressing the conflict between formal obligations on the one hand, and authentic feelings on the other. In addition, the whole argument presents a certain dialectical interest: in both cases (the story of the brothers from Lu and the demand set up by Mozi’s disciple), the ethical delib- eration remains undetermined since, from one’s particular viewpoint, everybody is right (yi) in one’s claim: the drunkard and the disciple defend their position on the ground of reliability and trustworthiness; the four filial brothers and Mozi respectively advocate the necessity of burying one’s father and of studying. Mozi finally claims that he has the right to deceive his pupil because of the justness of his goal. His

15 Henry W. Wells, Traditional Chinese Humour: A Study in Art and Literature, Bloo- mington; London: Indiana University Press, 1971, p. 4. 16 About the importance of mētis »cunning« in Chinese tradition, see Lisa Raphals, Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece, Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1992, chap. 3 in particular. On the Mohist condemnation of trickery and cheating, see Mozi 7.1/43/26, 7.2/46/19, 7.3/48/24, 8.4/ 56/9. 17 See chapter 25 »Moderation in funerals, III« (Jie zang).

© Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2014 Anna Ghiglione argument is grounded on a puzzling language game that does not make any logical sense, but that intends to cut short with all objections. The last occurrence of the graph xiao appears in one of the so- called »strategic chapters« (52–71, book fifteen) of the Mozi. Qing Hua- li, one of Mozi’s servants, consults his Master on the art of defending a city. Mozi starts his teaching by presenting a negative example. The context is highly tragic and refers to a situation of total defeat: the country is ruined, the people are lost, and a certain incompetent ruler of antiquity is the object of everybody’s posthumous derision: Master Mozi said: »For the moment, forget about this, forget about this! In ancient times, there was somebody18 who followed this method: within, he did not cherish his people; outside, he did not reach any agreement to maintain order. Despite disposing of few [forces], he inconsiderably fought against multiple ones; despite being weak, he light-heartedly fought against the strong. He lost his life, his country was ruined, and the whole world laughed at him (wei tian xia xiao).[…]« (Mozi, 14.3/ 125/5, chap. 56: »Preparation against scaling ladders,« Bei ti). The above description displays another case of laughter that does not arouse any benevolent feeling of common enjoyment. Amusement and sensuality are thoroughly condemned in the Mozi. Yet, the Mohists tolerated a certain degree of pleasure and gratification in order to justify their policy of reward and punishment, as well as their insistence on beneficial (li) action. The graph xi »to enjoy, to be satisfied,« that Xu Shen will employ later to define his graphic variant of xiao, comes forth as a vox media in the Mozi. Its fifteen occurrences do not all have a pejorative connotation. Xi indicates, for instance, a legitimate sense of satisfaction one is entitled to feel if conveniently rewarded.19 In the so- called »dialectical chapters« (40–45) of the Mozi, the key concept of »profit, benefit, advantage« (li) is also defined by introducing the notion of xi in a positive light:

18 Wang & Wang, op.cit., p. 521, interpret these lines as referring to a whole commu- nity: »In ancient times, we had people who knew how to defend the city, but they neither loved their own people …« I do not find it convincing to speak of »people who did not love their own people,« and I rather read the sentence as a reference to a wicked ruler of antiquity. 19 In chapter 5 »The seven types of calamities« (Qi huan), the fact of receiving unsatis- factory (bu neng xi) rewards (shang ci) is listed among the adversities that a country risks enduring (Mozi 1.5/5/14).

C. »Li (benefit) is what one is pleased to get. E. If you are pleased [xi] to get this one, this is the beneficial one, and the harmful [hai] one is not this one. (Graham, op. cit, A 26, p. 282) In chapter 47 »Esteem for righteousness,« (Gui yi), instead, xi is defi- nitely condemned as one of the six major vices (pi). In the name of righteousness (yi), the moralist thinker recommends the elimination of pleasure (bi qu xi), jointly with anger (nu), lust (le), sorrow (bei), and love (ai).20 Thus, on the whole, emotions, including love (ai) as a personal feeling, are viewed as negative factors of confusion and turmoil in the Mozi, whilst righteousness is constantly characterized as the leading principle, the highest rule (zheng) by means of which order is maintained.21 We find no open attack on the phenomenon of laughter in the text, but no reference to laughter as a legitimate sign of pleasure either. To sum up, the four occurrences of xiao one finds in the Mozi do not refer to characters who laugh out of hilarity but to situations of contemptuous laughter where one, having lost social dignity (in one case even one’s country and life) is hit by public derision. These examples, that further evidence will support, suggest that laughter, in the Mozi, tends to be connected with the sense of shame rather than with the sense of humour.

Contemptuous laughter and its ethical background

This terminological analysis is far from being exhaustive, but it offers us a few hints in order to proceed to a more extensive exegesis of the doctrinal contents of the Mohist writings. By quoting Ernest Dupréel, Marcel Gutwirth reminds us of an articulation that proves to be useful for understanding the phenomen- ology of laughter: »Laughter falls into two types, in the main: laughter of welcome (le rire d’accueil), laughter of rejection (le rire d’exclusion). The former cements union, seals a tacit compact, creates and celebrates the kind of unison on which group life thrives. The latter sets up a border, erects the wall of

20 See Mozi 12.1/104/25. 21 About the importance of righteousness, see for instance Mozi 7.1/42/27; 7.2/44/10; 7.3/47/23.

exclusion that defines the group by the counterexample of who does not belong.«22 Thus, Mohist laughter undoubtedly belongs to the latter category: it is profoundly exclusive, derisive, and critical – in the etymological sense of the word – and contemptuous in nature. I have already explained that the Confucians are the main target of Mozi’s scorn. As we could observe for the above excerpt, several reflections from the Mozi present a por- trait of the Literati in offending, disrespectful tones. In chapter 39 »Cri- ticizing the Confucians, III« (Fei Ru xia), this kind of contemptuous laughter is widely attested. In some passages, the denigration of the Literati is even expressed with a touch of black humour, as in the fol- lowing considerations, where the Mohists make fun of some curious funerary practices: When a parent dies, [the Confucians] lay out the corpse for a long time before dressing it for burial. They climb up onto the roof, peer down the well, poke in the rat holes, and search in the washing basins to look for their man (er qiu qi ren yi). If they believe he is really there, then their procedure is idiotic indeed. If they are aware he has disappeared, but they insist to look for him, then it is a completely false performance (wei)! (Mozi 9.7/64/7)23 Confucians’ behaviour before death is again pictured in pitiless, vigor- ous, and offensive tones. The Literati are accused of conducting themselves awkwardly, inspecting unusual places, looking for »the man« (ren). The description actually makes no reference to anything like the souls or the ghost of the deceased. It is this astute idea that contributes to making fun of the Confucians, who seemed to be unaware of the difference between the living person and its vital essence or spirit. It is also a doctrinally coherent but logically weak argumentative choice, since the Mohists approved of beliefs in ghosts and demons (shen gui), and they deliberately promoted them because of their deterrent function.24 Thus, if they had scorned their rivals for believing in occult forces, they would have fallen into self-contradiction.

22 Marcel Gutwirth, Laughing Matter: An Essay on the Comic, Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1993, p. 37. Ernst Dupréel, »Le problème sociologique du rire,« Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger 106, 1928, p. 213–260. 23 Mei, op.cit., p. 401; Watson, op.cit., p. 125; Wang & Wang, op.cit., p. 299. 24 See chap. 31 on »Making it clear about ghosts« (Ming gui), where beliefs in occult forces are characterized as positive factors of order as they would lead people to behave