Spiritual Foundations and Chinese Culture: a Philosophical Approach

Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series III, Asian Philosophical Studies, Volume 29 General Editor George F. McLean Spiritual Foundations and Chinese Culture: A Philosophical Approach Edited by Anthony J. Carroll Katia Lenehan The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2016 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Spiritual foundations and Chinese culture : a philosophical approach / edited by Anthony J. Carroll, Katia Lenehan. -- first [edition]. pages cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series II, Asian philosophical studies ; Volume 29) (Chinese philosophical studies ; 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. China--Religion--Congresses. 2. Religion and culture--China--Congresses. 3. Philosophy and religion--China--Congresses. I. Carroll, Anthony J., 1965- editor. BL1810.S65 2015 2014041776 200.951--dc23 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-297-4 (pbk.) Table of contents Introduction 1 Anthony J. Carroll and Katia Lenehan Part I. Spiritual Foundations in Chinese Culture 1. Spiritual Foundations and Chinese Culture 9 Robert Cummings Neville 2. Interpretation of Chinese Spirituality in 29 an Intercultural Context: Methodological Considerations Vincent Shen 3. The Daoist Sage in Modernity 47 Edward McDougall 4. Reflections on the Philosophical Foundations of Culture 63 Corazon T. Toralba Part II Spiritual Horizon in Western Culture 5. The Spiritual Horizon of Philosophy in a Global Age: 79 On the Intellectual Friendship between Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas Anthony J. Carroll 6. A Catholic Theology of Energies in Terms of 97 Bernard Lonergan’s Transcendental Method John Cheng Wai Leung iv Anthony J. Carroll and Katia Lenehan Part III. Comparative Study between East and West 7. People are Born Religious: Perspectives from the Concept of 117 Piety of John Calvin and the Sincerity of The Doctrine of the Mean Feng Chuantao and Zhao Weihua 8. Comparing Christian and Buddhist Doctrines of Ignorance: 137 Seng-Chao and Nicholas Cusanus Ding Jianhua 9. Similarities in “Sheng-Sheng,” Meet in “Love”: 151 Confucianism and Christianity Eum Jin Taik 10. Confucius’ Cosmology Integrates “The Way of Heaven” 163 and “The Will of God”: A Comparison with the Concept of Creation in the Bible Lam Yuet Ping Part IV Spiritual Manifestations in Aesthestics 11. On the Influence of Phenomenological Aesthetics in 197 Contemporary Chinese Aestheticians from the Mode of Thought: Taking Ye Lang, Zhu Liyuan and Zeng Fanren as Individual Cases Dong Huifang 12. Listening to Silence: John Cage and the Zen Buddhist Spirit 215 Wang Shang-Wen 13. Created Truth and Remade Reality in Painting: 225 From Jin Hao (833-917) To Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) Katia Lenehan Index 241 Introduction The various articles in this volume emerge out of an international conference held at the Fujen Catholic University in Taipei, Taiwan on 13-14 December 2013. Whilst the themes treated by these articles are quite diverse the conference at which they were presented shared a common purpose with the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. The Council aims to bring scholars from different cultural and religious traditions together in order to pursue the goal of mutual understanding oriented towards helping cultures and religious traditions to flourish. In the particular case of this conference, the relationship between spiritual foundations and Chinese culture as considered from a philosophical perspective was the focus. Using a variety of philosophical methods the articles attempt to investigate the various ways the spiritual dimension is present in Chinese and western cultures. Some of the contributors took a comparative methodological approach, comparing and contrasting a Chinese and a western thinker or system of thought. Others took a more intercultural approach seeing the interpenetration of systems of thought today as enabling and contrasting, and not merely as comparing between different cultures. Still others consider the analytical division between Chinese and western thought as in some ways inadequate. Whether because posing the Chinese and western binary immediately illicits the question what about the rest? The dynamics of globalisation seem unhappy with the singling out, perhaps artificially, of two particular cultures for comparison. Or, because in some ways the notion that thought happens in hermetically sealed cultural vacuums that can be compared or contrasted is itself problematic. As the canonical texts of world literature are now read in all cultures of the world there is a real sense in our present age that we have become a global culture sharing in a great diversity of classical texts. If this is indeed the case, then the reading of these canonical texts in different cultural contexts raises various hermeneutical questions, originating in ancient thought and developed in modern times that several scholars in this volume consider. Perhaps it is precisely because of globalisation that the question of the nature, scope, and place of the ‘spiritual’ has become so widespread today. There is now a clear sense that all particular 2 Anthony J. Carroll and Katia Lenehan cultures and religious traditions are in one way or another limited. The mutual interaction between these itself points to a certain transcendence beyond any one culture or religious tradition. Whether this aspect of transcendence is seen as simply a regulative ideal of thought, an awareness of the limitation of one’s own horizons, or as the realisation that a certain global consciousness is emerging there is certainly a significant change happening in this respect. Previously tried formulas of ‘inclusivism’, ‘exclusivism’, and ‘pluralism’ seem inadequate to capture this new awareness. Rather, it seems as if in order for each tradition and culture to move forward a certain deeper dialogue is required. Such a dialogue is by no means easy to foster. The tendency of rather polite and often ineffective encounters has been to leave many dissatisfied with dialogues that seemed more about affirming what one already believed rather than about venturing into the unknown. But in considering the question of the ‘spiritual’ in the context of Chinese culture, a new opening seems to be emerging as China itself struggles to find its own pathway to modernity. As the evident economic progress of China is there for all to see so also is a quest to find a way in which this progress can remain in harmony with traditional values. But tradition and modernity are often difficult bedfellows. In the western world the story is not dissimilar. Nor, for that matter, is it much different in the Islamic world as it faces the same challenges of how to modernise and to remain faithful to its core values. It appears as if each part of the world is faced with the dialectical adventure of attuning itself to an emerging relation between tradition and modernity in this global age. This is why the ‘spiritual’ as a problematic has taken its central place in global reflection. As horizons enlarge, parameters increase, and our capacity for information strorage and manipulation expands exponentially, we need a new compass with which we can direct ourselves. This new orientation, this desire for some way of discerning the better way forward at both personal and civilizational levels, is the spiritual question of our time. Whether the metaphor of “foundation” is the most appropriate for this is a matter for the reader to decide. One might also consider the metaphor of “horizon” as a way to describe the place, scope, and nature of the spiritual. The spiritual also provides a way of charting a direction in which the movement of progress should be heading and of generating a yardstick to assess, Introduction 3 and hence to criticise, wrong turns and cul-de-sacs in the dynamics of modernisation. This is a way to think of the role of the ‘spiritual’ in Chinese culture and indeed in all global cultures today. The hope of this set of essays is that from the various perspectives of the authors, something of this role of the ‘spiritual’ may be discerned. Partial, fragmentary, and no doubt in need of futher revision, the contributions presented here are honest and engaged explorations which earnestly seek to foster mutual enrichment and mutual understanding: themselves core values of the ‘spiritual’ in our days. Part I. Spiritual Foundation in Chinese Culture Chapter I, “Spiritual Foundations and Chinese Culture” by Robert Cummings Neville, proposes an ecological mode to explain the dynamic spiritual development of a culture. This article argues that the biological model of an evolving ecosystem better articulates how any given eco-harmony, such as of a spiritual sort, which is dependent on some conditions and independent of others, adapts in order to flourish. Chapter II, “Interpretation of Chinese Spirituality in an Intercultural Context—Methodological Considerations” by Vincent Shen, focuses on the methodology of interpreting Chinese philosophical and religious texts, especially those with spiritual implications, in the context of interculturalism. Proposing three levels of a dynamic contextualism, he argues for a hermeneutic approach as a better way for mutual understanding and mutual enrichment among different spiritual traditions. Chapter III, “The Daoist Sage in Modernity” by Edward McDougall, provides a middle way between complete

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