The Great Harmony : The Paradigm of Harmony in Zhang Zai’s Philosophical System Filippo Costantini TESI DOCTORAL UPF / 2016 DIRECTOR DE LA TESI Dr. Manel Ollé Rodriguez DEPARTAMENT D’HUMANITATS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the people who helped to make the completion of this work possible. I am grateful to my academic advisor, Professor Manel Ollé generously offered guidance and direction allowing the completion of this work. I am also grateful to my former advisor Albert Galvany who helped at the beigninning of this journey, and unfortunately could not guide me to the end of this work. I am grateful to Professor José Antonio Cervera who gave me the opportunity to experience a period of this investigation in Mexico, and helped me in the publication of my first academic article. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Gianluca Magi who has been a constant source of inspiration over the course of my undergraduate studies. I am thankful to my former Professors Alessandra Brezzi and Claudia Pozzana for their teachings and encouragement all along these years of my academic studies. I would also like to thank my fellow Roberto Figliulo who always helped me and encouraged me over these years. My dear friend Amorini Katjuscia who patiently helped me work through the editing process of this dissertation. Finally, I must thank Noemi Pucci and my family for their kind assistance and support throughout the years. iii iv Abstract Harmony is one of the most important concepts of the Confucian tradition. Along Confucianism, harmony represented most of the time the ultimate ideal that man needs to pursue. Confucians employed the concept and paradigm of harmony in several fields from politics to ethical, aesthetics and so on. We can affirm that harmony is thus one of the most Confucian comprehensive concept, and without a proper understanding of harmony, it is not possible to entirely grasp Confucianism. This dissertation analyzes the philosophical system of the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1020-1077) employing the concept of harmony and harmonization as the coherent and comprehensive paradigm of his entire philosophical system. I argue that both the concept and the paradigm of harmony represent the coherence behind all Zhang Zai’s system from metaphysics to ethics, epistemology and the program of self- cultivation. This adherence to harmony roots the Neo-Confucian philosopher directly to Confucian orthodoxy giving him an important tool against heterodox doctrines. Riassunto Il concetto di armonia costituisce una delle idee centrali dell’intera tradizione filosofica confuciana rappresentando l’ideale per eccellenza a cui l’uomo deve necessariamente aspirare. I confuciani sembrano inoltre impiegare il concetto e il paradigma di armonia a diverse discipline che vanno dalla politica all’etica, all’estetica e altre ancora. Quello di armonia è così un concetto onnicomprensivo, e solo attraverso una sua completa comprensione possiamo cogliere il fondamento del sistema di pensiero confuciano. Questa dissertazione si propone di analizzare il sistema di pensiero del filosofo neo- confuciano Zhang Zai’s 張載 (1020-1077) utilizzando il concetto e il paradigma di armonia come chiave interpretativa del suo intero apparato filosofico. In questo studio mostrerò come la maggior parte dei concetti chiave che Zhang Zai utilizza nelle teorie metafisiche, etiche, epistemologiche e di auto-coltivazione, si riferiscono direttamente e indirettamente all’idea e al paradigma di armonia. Questo riferimento permette al filosofo sia un legame di continuità nei confronti dell’ortodossia confuciana, sia l’acquisizione di uno strumento funzionale nella critica contro le dottrine rivali. v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Pag. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................... iii ABSTRACTS.......................................................................................... v I.METHODOLOGY................................................................................ 1 I.1 Primary Sources.................................................................................. 1 I.2 Review of Secondary scholarships on Zhang Zai’s philosopy........... 1 I.3 The method adopted in this study....................................................... 11 II.INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 15 II.1 The issues.......................................................................................... 15 II.2 Historical Context............................................................................. 18 II.2.1 Zhang Zai’s biographical notes...................................................... 18 II.2.2 Searching for the “Unique Way”................................................... 20 II.2.3 Buddhists threat.............................................................................. 23 II.3 Zhang Zai’s works............................................................................. 31 II.3.1 The Zhengmeng.............................................................................. 31 II.3.2 Other works employed in this investigation................................... 37 III.OBJECTIVES..................................................................................... 41 1. THE CONCEPT OF HARMONY....................................................... 45 1.1 The Confucian idea of Harmony....................................................... 45 1.2 The Paradigm of Harmony……........................................................ 56 1.3 Chapter Conclusions…………....................................................... 64 2. THE HARMONY OF THE COSMOS................................................ 67 2.1 Introduction……………………........................................................ 67 2.2 Zhang Zai’s paradigm of the Great Harmony.…............................... 70 2.3 Unity of opposites as the paradigm of reality.………....................... 76 2.4 Qi as unity of opposites..................................................................... 80 2.5 Zhang Zai’s concept of void and the critique against heterodoxies.. 83 2.6 The spiritual dimension…………………......………....................... 92 2.7 Chapter Conclusions ……………………......………....................... 94 3. ZHANG ZAI’S THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE........................... 97 3.1 Introduction……………………........................................................ 97 3.2 Previous understanding of Zhang Zai’s theory of human nature…... 97 3.3 What is not the “true nature”………………..………....................... 105 3.4 What is (human) nature...................................................................... 112 3.5 Chapter Conclusions .…………………………………………….... 120 4. ZHANG ZAI’S MORAL HARMONY............................................... 121 4.1 Introduction……………………........................................................ 121 4.2 Morality and Harmony.….................................................................. 122 vii 4.3 The Supreme Goodness.……………………………........................ 125 4.4 Zhang Zai’s moral understanding of forming one……..................... 133 4.4.1 The Western Inscription.................................................................. 133 4.4.2 In the Zhengmeng............................................................................ 138 4.4.2.1 Cheng: The Way of Harmony...................................................... 140 4.4.2.2 De 德: the unifying power of Virtue............................................ 147 4.4.2.3 The virtue of humanenss (ren 仁) and its several implications... 153 5. ZHANG ZAI’S MORAL CULTIVATION......................................... 163 5.1 Introduction……………………........................................................ 163 5.2 Zhang Zai’s theory of heart-mind…….............................................. 164 5.2.1 Empirical and moral knowledge..................................................... 171 5.2.1.1 Empirical knowledge .....……..................................................... 172 5.2.1.2 Moral knowledge…………………............................................. 174 5.3 The path of self-cultivation……………………...……..................... 183 5.3.1 Confucian path of self-cultivation….............................................. 183 5.3.2 Zhang Zai’s program of self-cultivation......................................... 187 5.3.2.1 Nurturing the qi and the rectification of the heart-mind.............. 188 5.3.3 Self-cultivation and moral motivation............................................ 197 5.3.4 Zhang Zai’s idea of self-cultivation as moral motivation............... 199 5.4 Chapter Conclusions .…………….……………………………....... 206 6. FINAL CONCLUSIONS………....………………............................. 209 6.1 Zhang Zai and the Confucian tradition.............................................. 209 6.2 Against heterodoxies and indolent people......................................... 214 6.3 Harmony and self-cultivation…........................................................ 216 BIBLIOGRAPHY...…………………………………............................. 219 viii I. METHODOLOGY I.1 Primary Sources The most complete collection of Zhang Zai’s works is the Zhang Zai’s Complete Collection (Zhang Zai ji 《張載集》) that was published in the 1978 in Beijing. The text include all the extant Zhang Zai’s writing. I have thus employed this source for all Zhang Zai’s quote. All translations from this text are usually mine unless otherwise noted. Besides this text, I have consulted the two most important commentaries of