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Life Energies, Forces and the Shaping of Life: Vital, Existential pp 233–263Cite as

A Phenomenology of Proper Timing in Ancient China

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Part of the book series: Analecta Husserliana ((ANHU,volume 74))

Abstract

The problem of time (chronos) is well-known in the annals of philosophy and phenomenology.1 A related concern, though less abstract but far more relevant to the form of human life, is the problem of proper timing (kairos).2 This paper seeks to add to the growing interest concerning timing in Asian and comparative philosophy.3 One of the major themes of the Lüshi chunqiu (Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu or The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Lü) is “proper timing.”

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Notes

  1. Robert S. Brumbaugh, Unreality and Time (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984). Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). W.H. Newton-Smith, The Structure of Time (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980). Charles M. Sherover, The Human Experience of Time: The Development of its Philosophic Meaning (New York: New York University Press, 1975). Douglas K Wood, Men Against Time (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1982).

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  2. James L. Kinneavy, “Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric,” in Rhetoric and Praxis, ed. Jean Dietz Moss (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986). John E. Smith, “Time and Qualitative Time,” Review of Metaphysics 40 (September, 1986), and “Time, Times, and the ‘Right Time:’ Chronos and Kairos,” The Monist 53/1 (1969).

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  3. There is a growing interest in Zen Buddhist timing. Dōgen, “Shōbōgenzō Uji (Being Time),” trans. N.A. Waddel, Eastern Buddhist, Vol. XII, no. 1 (May, 1979). Claude Larre explicates a Chinese conception of time, see, “The Empirical Apperception of Time and the Conception of History in Chinese Thought,” in Cultures and Time, Introduction by P. Ricoeur (Paris: The UNESCO Press, 1976). Eliot Deutsch develops a creative articulation of time in Creative Being the Crafting of Person and World (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).

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  4. The Postscript or xuyi chapter tells us that the work was completed “in the eighth year of Qin …” There is a debate still unresolved as to what year that would be. Hu Shi (Hu Shih) and others use the year of King Zheng’s enthronement, that is 246 B.C.E. to begin the calculation and propose that “the eighth year” refers to 238 B.C.E. Hu Shi, “Du Lüshi chunqiu” in Hu Shi wencun, Vol. III, ed. Pu Jialin (Taibei: Far Eastern Book Co, 1961). Qian Mu’s argument is more convincing; he uses the year of Lü Buwei’s appointment, that is 249, to begin the calculation. So I follow his date of 241. See Qian Mu, “Lü Buwei zhushukao,” appended to the editor’s preface to Lüshi chunqiu jishi deng wushu, ed. Yang Jialuo (Taibei: Ding Wen Publishing Co., 1977), no page numbers. Qian Mu’s study is briefly discussed by Kung-chuan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, translated by F.W. Mote (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 557, n. 19. And see Michael Carson, and Michael Loewe, “Lüshih ch’un ch’iu,” in Early Chinese Texts A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Michael Loewe, Early China Monograph Series No. 2, The Society for the Study of Early China, and the Institute of East Asian Studies (Berkeley: University of California, 1993).

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  5. LSCQ, p. 56; cited in Ch. 1, n.77.

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  6. Michael Loewe, Ways to Paradise, pp. 1–2. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. I, pp. 683ff

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  7. LSCQ, pp. 1188-1189.

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  8. Kung-chuan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, trans. F. Mote (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). p. 568–69.

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  9. LSCQ, p. 569; cited above, Ch. 3, n 85.

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  10. John S. Major argues that in some cosmological contexts xing (conventionally rendered as “punishments”) must be interpreted as “recision” and de (conventionally “rewards”) should be “accretion.” See, “The Meaning of Hsing-te,” p. 286.

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  11. LSCQ, pp. 908-909.

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  12. LSCQ, pp. 1172, 1173-1174.

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  13. LSCQ, pp. 210-211.

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  14. LSCQ, p. 367.

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  15. Zhuangzi, 15/6/12. B. Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, translates this passage as “… he who looks for the right time is not a worthy man …”, p. 78.

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  16. Laozi, 4/8/2-3.

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  17. LSCQ, p. 77.

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  18. LSCQ, p. 119.

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  19. LSCQ, p. 791.

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  20. LSCQ, p. 816.

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  21. LSCQ, p. 503.

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  22. LSCQ, pp. 594-596.

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  23. Hall and Ames develop the concept of the “field focus” network in Thinking from the Han, pp. 39-77.

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  24. LSCQ, p. 792.

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  25. LSCQ, pp. 683-85; and see Zhuangzi, 78/28/31-35; A.C. Graham, The Book of Lieh Tzu, p. 162; and Liu Xiang, Xinxu jinzhu jinyi, ed. Lu Yuanjun, pp. 238-39. The Xinxu version varies the most in that it as interpolated part of LSCQ’s comment into Liezi’s closing words.

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  26. LSCQ, pp. 685-686.

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  27. The line of thought here appears to be that one’s fen (lot in life or one’s externally given and internally acquired designation) gives one zhi (duties or dispositions) which limit one’s realm of action. The fen chapter in the Shizi also links fen and zhi. See Xinyi Shizi duben, p. 48.

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  28. LSCQ, pp. 158-159.

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  29. LSCQ, pp. 159-160.

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  30. Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p. 254. Note “the Yaos” refers to the sage rulers.

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  31. LSCQ, p. 330.

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  32. Lunyu yinde (3/2/14). Ames and Rosemont render this passage: “Reviewing the old as a means of realizing the new — such a person can be considered a teacher.” The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, p. 78.

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  33. LSCQ, p. 664.

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  34. LSCQ, pp. 665-666.

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  35. LSCQ, pp. 667-668.

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  36. LSCQ, p. 670.

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  37. LSCQ, p. 665.

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  38. LSCQ, p. 668.

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  39. The concept “yin” (“according with the circumstances or requirements of a situation”) was a major contribution of Shen Dao. See P.M. Thompson, The Shen Tao Fragments. This concept is also used extensively in other chapters of LSCQ. For example, the guiyin (Venerating Being in Accord with Situational Factors) chapter, which precedes the chajin chapter, makes extensive use of the concept yin.

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  40. LSCQ, p. 669. The emphasis on proper timing (shi) and situational factors (shi) is a basic concern of both the fajia and bingjia writers. These were especially put into practice by Li Si in abolishing feudalism and burning the books. Hu Shi notes that the last line here is also paraphrased in Li’s memorial on burning the books. See “Du LSCQ,” p. 254.

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  41. Lüshi chunqiu jishi deng wushu, ed. Yang Jialuo (Taibei: Ding Wen Publishing Co., 1977), p. 586. Hereafter, this book will be cited as LSCQ in the notes.

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  42. LSCQ, p. 584.

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  43. LSCQ, pp. 592-593.

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  47. LSCQ, p. 588.

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  48. LSCQ, pp. 588-590.

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  49. LSCQ, p. 591.

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  50. LSCQ, p. 593.

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  51. LSCQ, p. 552.

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  52. LSCQ, p. 552.

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  53. LSCQ, p. 553.

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  54. LSCQ, pp. 553-556.

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  55. LSCQ, p. 556.

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  56. C.Y. Cheng, “On Timeliness (shih-chung) in the Analects and the I ching: An Inquiry into the Philosophical Relationship Between Confucius and the I ching,” unpublished manuscript prepared for the International Sinological Conference at Academica Sinica, Taibei, August 15-20, 1980.

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  57. LSCQ, pp. 556-557. This passage resounds the changgong chapter’s wording.

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  58. Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. I, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), pp. 371, 372, 391.

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  59. D.C. Lau, (trans), Mencius (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 79.

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  60. Concordance to Chuang Tzu, Harvard-Yenching Index Series No. 20 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), 80/28/84; and see Burton Watson (trans.), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 322.

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  61. Lunyu, in Shisanjing yinde (Taibei: San Min Publishing Co. 1941), 8/13. Modifying the translation in both D.C. Lau (trans), The Analects (Lun Yü) (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 94; and Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. (trans.), The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), p. 123.

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  62. LSCQ, pp. 557-558.

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  63. LSCQ, pp. 558-559.

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  64. LSCQ, p. 559.

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  65. LSCQ, p. 559.

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  66. LSCQ, p. 559-560. Here I follow Wang Niansun’s commentary which builds a case that the final character zhi (“this”) is a mistake and should be shi (time). Otherwise the sentence would read: “Completing affairs lies in according with this.” There is a cognate relations between shi and zhi.

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  67. Zhongyong, in Sishu guangjie, ed. Chen Jizheng (Tainan: Zonghe Publishers, 1981), Ch. 25, p. 46. Most translations render shi as an adverbial, temporal, particle “whenever” or “often” so that the last sentence reads: “Whenever he employs them, actions will be right.”

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  68. Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes (trans.), The I ching (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 359.

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  69. Wilhelm and Baynes (trans.), The I ching, p. 49.

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  70. Yijing yinde, in Shisanjing yinde (Taibei: Sanmin Publishing Co., 1941), 2/1/yan, and 3/1/yan. Wilhelm and Baynes (trans.), p. 381.

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  71. Yijing yinde, 5/4/tuan; Wilhelm and Baynes (trans.), p. 406.

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  1. University of Guam, Guam

    James D. Sellmann

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  1. The World Phenomenology Institute, USA

    Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

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Sellmann, J.D. (2002). A Phenomenology of Proper Timing in Ancient China. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Life Energies, Forces and the Shaping of Life: Vital, Existential. Analecta Husserliana, vol 74. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0417-6_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0417-6_18

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