Abstract
This chapter explains how Xunzi’s text and views helped shape the thought of the Neo-Confucian philosophers, noting and explicating some areas of influence long overlooked in modern scholarship. It begins with a general overview of Xunzi’s changing position in the tradition (“Xunzi’s Status in Neo-Confucian Thought”), in which I discuss Xunzi’s status in three general periods of Neo-Confucian era: the early period, in which Neo-Confucian views of Xunzi were varied and somewhat ambiguous, the “mature” period, in which a broad consensus formed and then became orthodoxy for several centuries, and a late and often overlooked reassessment of Xunzi that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the second section (“Debating Human Nature on Xunzi’s Terms”), I discuss in greater detail Neo-Confucian criticisms of Xunzi’s views on human nature, noting that in key respects the Neo-Confucians accepted Xunzi’s somewhat uncharitable characterization of the doctrine that human nature is good, thereby taking on a considerably greater burden of proof than necessary. In the third section (“Virtue without Roots”), I attempt to explicate what is perhaps the most prominent but also the most laconic Neo-Confucian criticism of Xunzi, which is that Xunzi misunderstands the “great root” or “great foundation” of cosmic and social order, finding it in conventional human relationships rather than in the deeper, purer and more powerful inner workings of human nature. In the final section (“The Accretional Theory of Knowledge Acquisition”), I explain how the major differences between Xunzi and his Neo-Confucian critics can be cast as a dispute about how moral knowledge is acquired, where Xunzi’s critics assume that acquiring moral knowledge of any meaningful kind is impossible without a natural base or foundation of moral knowledge to begin with.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
“Pattern” is also a common and perhaps, in this case, more informative translation, but in the interest of using the terminology consistently across this volume, I will adopt the more familiar translation as “principle.” Another translation, “coherence,” usefully captures the idea that each manifestation of the li forms an intelligible and harmonious whole with the others, but this fact should not be seen as reason to downplay the robust metaphysical commitments implicit in the idea of a subtle, metaphysical pattern that underlies all phenomena. See Angle (2009: 31–50 and 2011) and Tiwald (2011a, b).
- 4.
See Zhou’s Tongshu 通書 (“Penetrating the Book of Changes”) (Zhou 1990: section 7, 19 and section 22, 30). For translations see Chan (1963: 468, 474). The one passage that scholars take as direct evidence that Zhou believed human nature to be good is his discussion of cheng 誠 (“sincerity” or “integrity”) in the same work (Zhou 1990: section 1, 12; Chan 1963: 465–66). A.C. Graham makes a compelling argument against this reading of the passage in Graham (1992: 60, n. 42).
- 5.
Mengzi 7B35, modified from Van Norden 2008 to reflect Zhou’s interpretation.
- 6.
See the opening section of Zhou’s Zazhu 雜著 (“Miscellaneous Writings”) in Zhou (1990: 52).
- 7.
- 8.
Tan mei zhi ci 歎美之辭.
- 9.
Zhu 1965: juan 42, 6a. Chen Lai’s 陳來 interpretation of the passage is typical. He infers that for Hu the character shan (good) is best suited to express admiration in matters of human ethics or the ethics of social and interpersonal relationships, which does not account for the greatness of nature as foundation and harmonizer of the cosmos (Chen 2010: 177–78).
- 10.
Cheng , following Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077 CE), called the ordinary kind “material nature ” or “psycho-physical nature” (qizhi zhi xing 氣質之性) and the more profound kind by various names, especially “original nature” (ben xing 本性 ) and “the nature of Heaven and Earth” (Tiandi zhi xing 天地之性).
- 11.
- 12.
Da ben 大本.
- 13.
Zhu (1986: 4.92/77–78, 59.55/1389, 137.12/3254, 137.70/3273). In this chapter, I cite sections of The Topically Arranged Conversations of Master Zhu (Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類) by juan and paragraph number, and then the page number in the Zhonghua shuju edition. For example, the first passage cited here—4.92/77–78—appears in juan 4, paragraph 92, pages 77–78.
- 14.
Zhu (1986: 35.109/932), referencing the first chapter of the Xunzi (“An Exhortation to Learning”). In this chapter, I will cite specific passages from the Xunzi by the numbering in Lau and Chen 1996, labeled here as “HKCS”), and then page number in Hutton’s translation (2014), labeled here as “H.” For example, the passage cited appears in chapter 1, page 3, and line 20 in Lau and Chen 1996, and page 6 in Hutton 2014. As such, it is abbreviated as “HKCS 1/3/20, H 6.” For another passage praising Xunzi on the concrete details of moral cultivation see Zhu (1986: 10.61/169), referencing Xunzi, HKCS 1/4/16-17, H 8. The second of these remarks by Zhu is translated in Gardner (1990: 136). See also Zhu (1986: 95.127/2447 and 137.10/3253), where Zhu approves of Xunzi’s discussion of the characteristic attitudes of great- and small-hearted gentlemen (da xin 大心 and xiao xin 小心) (Xunzi, HKCS 3/10/6, H 18).
- 15.
Zhu (1986: 137.67/3272). Eric Hutton has pointed out that this may be a play on Xunzi’s own language likening our initial reaction to the Way to a person’s reaction to meats and fine rice after a lifetime of eating rice dregs (Xunzi, HKCS 4/15/17-21, H 28). The Neo-Confucians’ fascination with complex metaphysical and cosmological worldviews seems to have few parallels in Xunzi. One scholar who nevertheless thinks the Neo-Confucians might have been inspired by some of the Xunzi’s passing cosmological claims is Dai Junren 戴君仁 , who finds parallels between the Neo-Confucians cosmology and some quasi-Daoist remarks in chapter 31 (“Duke Ai”). However, Dai also doubts that this chapter was written by Xunzi himself (1980: vol. II, 1335).
- 16.
However, one specialist in Confucianism argues that two of the Four Books—the Great Learning (Daxue 大學) and the Doctrine of the Mean ( Zhongyong 中庸)—came from a scholarly lineage substantially influenced by Xunzi. See Dai Junren 戴君仁 (1980: 833–48, 1021–30).
- 17.
Cai gao 才高.
- 18.
Guo duo 過多
- 19.
- 20.
A striking example comes from a thoughtful exchange between Cheng Yi and a student (Cheng and Cheng 1981: juan 18, 191). There, the student asks Cheng about a respected interpretation of the Doctrine of the Mean ( Zhongyong 中庸), which holds that people can “gradually attain” (xun zhi 馴致) an imperceptible Dao through inward vigilance and caution. In Cheng’s response to the student, he glosses the phrase “gradually attain” (xun zhi) as “gradually advance” or “draw near [to the good] by soaking oneself [in its presence]” (jian jin 漸進), a play on words and artful reference to Xunzi’s “Encouraging Learning” (HKCS 1/1/20 – 1/2/1, H 2–3). The ensuing discussion assumes that the student (and readers of the dialogue) will know much about the specific program of self-cultivation that Xunzi recommends in that chapter.
- 21.
See Zhu (1986: 78.136/2002).
- 22.
Although the Neo-Confucians correctly saw Xunzi as holding that highly virtuous officials contribute tremendously to successful governance, they did not have a clear consensus about whether Xunzi thought the ruler himself needed to be highly virtuous. In part, this was because they were not sure what to make of Xunzi’s proposal that some hegemons (ba 霸) could substitute for a true king when the latter was out of reach. In this respect their uncertainty closely approximates the uncertainty that Eirik L. Harris finds in contemporary literature on Xunzi and the hegemons (see Harris’ essay in this volume).
- 23.
You zhi ren wu zhi fa 有治人無治法. Xunzi, HKCS 12/57/3, H 117. For example, see Hu (1987: 8.18).
- 24.
You zhi fa er hou you zhi ren 有治法而後有治人. See Huang (1965: 6). For a translation, see de Bary (1993: 99) or Tiwald and Van Norden (2014: 318). Although many Neo-Confucians held Xunzi’s political thought in high regard, most also took it to be contaminated by ideas that had come to him (inadvertently) from early Legalist philosophers like Shen Buhai 申不害 (d. 337 BCE) and Shang Yang 商鞅 (390–338 BCE). According to Zhu Xi, this came about because Xunzi advocated for modeling government policies not just on the remote practices of the most ancient sage kings like Yao and Shun, but also on the Houwang 後王 (“Later Kings,” likely the Western Zhou rulers). Xunzi found the accounts of the later kings both reliable and more expedient for historical investigation (Xunzi HKCS 5/18/18-22, H 35–36), but Zhu apparently believed the accounts were corrupted by (and hard to extricate from) Legalist theories popular at the time. See Zhu’s preface to the poem “Chengxiang” 成相, no. 1, in his Chuci jizhu 楚辭集注 (“Collected Commentaries on the Chuci”) (2010: 223–24).
- 25.
This period witnessed tremendous advances in philological techniques and resources, which the most accomplished Confucian scholars frequently used to overturn longstanding Neo-Confucian readings of the classics (Elman 2001: 93–122).
- 26.
These two figures joined at least a dozen of the major philologists and commentators of this prolific period. The best reconstruction of Xunzi’s revival among these scholars is in Makeham (2003: 287–95).
- 27.
Ji 積.
- 28.
See Dai’s Evidential Analysis of the Meaning of Terms in the Mengzi 孟子字義疏證 (1996: section 25) and Tiwald (2010: 401–6). All citations of specific pages of Dai’s Evidential Analysis will begin with the section number and then page numbers in four standard editions or translations: The Collected Works of Dai Zhen (Dai Zhen ji 戴震集) (Dai 2009), Hu Shi’s 胡適 edition (Dai: 1996), the translation by Ann-ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman (1990), and the translation by John W. Ewell (1990). These will be abbreviated as “Ji,” “Hu,” “Chin,” and “Ewell,” respectively.
- 29.
Dai (1996: section 25, Ji 299, Hu 291, Chin 125, Ewell 169).
- 30.
Zuo wei 作為. The best-known refrain in Xunzi’s discussion of human nature might be translated conventionally as “the goodness [of human beings] is a matter [or product] of artificial activity” (qi shan zhe wei ye 其善者偽也; my emphasis). These nineteenth-century defenders of Xunzi suggested that it should be read instead as saying that human goodness is a matter or product of action, without any implication that the action is artificial or non-natural. For the refrain see Xunzi, HKCS 23/113/3, H 248.
- 31.
- 32.
This was the view of Liu Baonan 劉寶楠 (1791–1855). See Makeham 2003: 291 and 298–99.
- 33.
Philip J. Ivanhoe makes excellent use of analogies between moral development and language development to illuminate Xunzi’s and Mengzi’s doctrines of human nature. See Ivanhoe (2000b).
- 34.
- 35.
Slightly modified from Van Norden (2008).
- 36.
Xunzi HKCS 23/113/19 – 23/114/2, H 249–50; Hutton’s translation.
- 37.
“Those things in people that cannot be learned and cannot be worked at are called their ‘nature’” (Xunzi, HKCS 23/113/18, H 249); Hutton’s translation.
- 38.
Xing ben shan 性本善, my emphasis.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
Si 私.
- 42.
Shun 2010: 186–87.
- 43.
Zhu 1986: 4.40/64–65, 59.52/1388.
- 44.
Zhu routinely quotes the following remark by Cheng , reading Cheng’s “nature” as a reference to original nature: “To discuss the nature without discussing qi is incomplete. To discuss qi without discussing the nature is unclear” (論性不論氣, 不備; 論氣不論性, 不明. Cheng and Cheng 1981: juan 6, 81).
- 45.
- 46.
- 47.
- 48.
Zhu 1986: 59.4/1375, 118.89/2863–64.
- 49.
Jin 近.
- 50.
Xunzi, HKCS 9/39/1–7, H 75–76 (lines 286–315) and HKCS 16/79/7–9, H 173 (lines 381–89).
- 51.
Xunzi, HKCS 9/39/2–6, H 75 (lines 291–306); slightly modified from Hutton’s translation.
- 52.
Cheng and Cheng (1981: juan 19, 262).
- 53.
- 54.
The Chinese for these phrases are wu wei 無為 and wu qiang 無彊, respectively.
- 55.
Xunzi, HKCS 21/105/18 – 21/106/1, H 232; Hutton’s translation.
- 56.
See Xunzi HKCS 21/106/3–4, H 232; Hutton’s translation. Kwong-loi Shun highlights a number of shared ocular metaphors in Shun (2010: 180–81).
- 57.
Stalnaker (2003).
- 58.
See Xunzi, HKCS 21/104/3–4, H 228 and Adler (2008).
- 59.
Cai Renhou 蔡仁厚 makes the interesting point that both Xunzi and Zhu Xi see the heart/mind as playing a largely managerial role over the other parts, regulating them in the name of standards that are not of its own making (like a household manager following orders from the head of the household). But there is a stronger sense of the heart/mind’s mastery where it actually serves as both enforcer and source of the regulations it issues (like heads of household themselves). Cai finds this more robust sort of self-mastery not in Zhu’s conception of heart/mind but in his account of our original or moral nature (1987: 10–11, 49).
- 60.
See Xunzi, HKCS 21/105/5-8, H 231. It is likely that Zhu Xi was also struck by the fact that Xunzi cites a passage from the Documents (although slightly altered and attributed to a lost text), which, on Zhu’s reading (but probably not Xunzi’s), suggests that one develops a superior heart/mind through a state of mental equilibrium (zhong 中). See Xunzi, HKCS 21/105/4, H 231, Legge (1970: 60) and Zhu’s preface to the Doctrine of the Mean ( Zhongyong 中庸) in Zhu (1983: 14). Thanks to Eric Hutton for drawing this passage to my attention.
- 61.
Again, see Xunzi’s mirror metaphor for the heart/mind at Xunzi, HKCS 21/105/5–8, H 231.
- 62.
To cite a famous scenario described in Mengzi 2A6.
- 63.
Zhu (1986: 16.86/330–31).
- 64.
Xunzi HKCS 21/104/3–4, H 228; Hutton’s translation.
- 65.
Zhu (1986: 16.86/330–31).
- 66.
Bu cheng 不誠.
- 67.
“Even if one’s behavior is correct one’s thoughts may still conceal some hidden fetters of miserliness. . . . This is how insincere thoughts originate in what Xunzi calls ‘relaxing so that [the heart/mind] can go about on its own’” Zhu (1986: 72.114/1838).
- 68.
Zhu (1986: 72.113/1837).
- 69.
- 70.
- 71.
Zhu’s point is not that we have to maintain the stillness of the heart/mind even as we go about our regular activities, but that the power we access in stillness has to be accessed in active states as well (Zhu and Lü 2008: 4.53, 218–19; translation available in Chan 1967: 4.53, 145–48). This gives Zhu another potential criticism of Xunzi: Xunzi cannot explain how the power inherent in stillness transfers over to one’s judgment in the midst of one’s encounters with external things and events.
- 72.
- 73.
Wei ji 為己 and wei ren 為人. Zhu takes these phrases from Analects 14.24.
- 74.
- 75.
Suo guo zhe hua, suo cun zhe shen 所過者化, 所存者神 (Zhu 1986: 60.105/1441). The passage alluded to here appears in Xunzi’s chapter 15, “A Debate on Military Affairs” (HKCS 15/71/24, H 155). Zhu suggests that this was a common expression whose deeper significance Xunzi himself was not alert to. His unmentioned evidence that it was a common expression probably included Mengzi 7A13.
- 76.
Xunzi, HKCS 1/4/16-19, H 8; Hutton’s translation.
- 77.
This is another and perhaps mutually compatible way of reading the passage quoted above. See also Xunzi, HKCS 22/111/14-18, H 244.
- 78.
As Eric Hutton has pointed out to me, this opens Xunzi to another line of criticism from Zhu Xi. Presumably, at some point in a would-be virtuous agent’s moral development, he will cease seeing his behavior (and reasons for that behavior) in non-moral terms and take up a moral point of view. But what accounts for that transition? If there is a story to be told in the Xunzi it is not forthcoming. By contrast, the “great root” helps to explain how the moral point of view is eventually discovered and then adopted as a way of framing one’s thoughts and inclinations.
- 79.
Ming yu xin 明於心.
- 80.
Zide 自得.
- 81.
Dai 1996: section 41, Ji 325–26, Hu 330–31, Chin 169–70, Ewell 396–98.
- 82.
Mengzi’s adversary here is a Mohist who wants to split the difference between impartial care and graded love, allowing that people can form special attachments to family in the early stages but should eventually come to care about all people equally. For more on this (admittedly controversial) reading of the “two roots” passage see Nivison (1996) and Van Norden (2007: 305–12).
- 83.
Biran 必然.
- 84.
Ziran 自然 .
- 85.
Dai 1996: section 15, Ji 285, Hu 270, Chin 100, Ewell 199–200.
- 86.
To this we might add moral requirements more familiar to contemporary moral philosophers, such as the requirement that we forcibly harvest one innocent and healthy person’s organs in order to save the lives of three sick people, or save the life of a stranger’s child in lieu of saving the life of our own. Both of these are moral requirements that seem to follow from a theory that (to put it somewhat crudely) requires us to bring as much good to as many people as possible, which is a rough description of what contemporary philosophers call “consequentialism .” For most of the human species, it would be impossible to so transform ourselves that we could feel at home in systems of moral norms that require such things of us, in large part because they go so strongly against the life-based dispositions that are natural for our species. And insofar as we think these life-based dispositions should set limits to our moral norms, we share common cause with Dai Zhen. For more on contemporary responses to overly demanding moral requirements see Williams (1981) and (1985).
- 87.
Jiao 教.
- 88.
Dai 1996: section 15, Ji 285, Hu 271, Chin 100–101, Ewell 200–201.
- 89.
“[Xunzi] thought ritual propriety and righteousness issue only from the heart/mind of the sage, so that ordinary people must [first] engage in learning and only then can understand ritual propriety and righteousness” (Dai 1996: section 25, Ji 299, Hu 291, Chin 125, Ewell 269).
- 90.
Dai (1996: section 26, Ji 300, Hu 292–93, Chin 126, Ewell 274).
- 91.
Zhu 1986: 49.27/1203.
- 92.
- 93.
For a succinct review of various Neo-Confucian accounts of “getting it oneself,” see de Bary 1991: 43–69.
- 94.
See Dai (1996: section 41) and Tiwald (2010: 411). For the Neo-Confucians, the dispute about whether zide is forced or unforced turns on the Neo-Confucians’ interpretation of Mengzi 4B14, where Mengzi says, “The gentleman immerses himself in the Way, wanting to get it himself [zi de zhi 自得之]. Getting it himself, he is at ease with it. Being at ease with it, he relies upon it deeply. Relying upon it deeply, he comes across its source wherever he turns.” The balance of the evidence favors the view that getting it oneself can be forced. The “unforced” interpretation assumes that the reflexive character zi (“self,” “oneself”) is also being used in the sense of “natural” or “spontaneous.” But in the language of Mengzi’s era, it was extremely rare to see zi in this latter sense when located in front of verb-object phrases, as is the case here (de zhi) (Harbsmeier 1981: 197–99).
- 95.
Zhao 召.
- 96.
“Reverence for one’s elders” is jing zhang 敬長. See Zhu (1983: comments on Mengzi 7A15).
- 97.
“Love of life” is huai sheng 懷生.
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Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Eric Hutton, Philip J. Ivanhoe, <Emphasis Type=”SmallCaps”>Xie</Emphasis> Xiaodong 謝曉東 and a generous anonymous reviewer for extensive and stimulating comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
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Tiwald, J. (2016). Xunzi Among the Chinese Neo-Confucians. In: Hutton, E. (eds) Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7745-2_15
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