Furthermore, marks serve as marks for each other. That there are no marks in the world means that things cannot be said to be without marks. That things cannot be said to be without marks means that there are none which are not marks. As there are none which are not marks, then all things are marks. Marks are different from what are not marks. Marks and things combined are different from marks. If there were no marks of things in the world, who could say that [x] are not marks? If there were nothing in the world, who could say that [x] are marks? If there were marks in the world but no marks of things, who could say that [x] are not marks, or that all things are not marks? Furthermore, marks are in themselves not marks. Why do they have to be combined with a thing in order to be marks? (sppy, 5b-6b)
Comment. The word chih has so many meanings that scholars have found it easy and even tempting to read their own philosophies into Kung-sun Lung. Those who affirm universal would interpret chih to mean universal concepts, while nominalists would insist on its common meaning or finger or designation. Equally ready opportunities are open to others. But the text is simply too corrupt to enable anyone to be absolutely sure.
3. On the Explanation of Change (ch. 4)
A. “Is one contained in two?”
B. “One is not in two.”
A. “Is right contained in two?”
B. “Right is not in two.”
A. “Is left contained in two?”
B. “Left is not contained in two.”
A. “Can right be called two?”
B. “No.”
A. “Can left be called two?”
B. “No.”
A. “Can left and right together be called two?”
B. “Yes.”
A. “Is it correct to say that what changes is not what does not change?”
B. “Yes.”
A. “If right is combined [with something], is it correct to say that it has changed?”
B. “Yes.”
A. “What has it changed to be?”19
B. “Right.”
A. “If right has changed, how can it still be called right? And, if it has not changed, how can you say that it has changed?”
B. “If two has no left it will also have no right. Left and right together are two. How is it? A ram and an ox together are not a horse. An ox and a ram together are not a fowl.”
A. “Why?”
B. “A ram is definitely different from an ox. A ram has upper front-teeth and an ox has none. Yet it is incorrect to say that an ox is not a ram or that a ram is not an ox. For they might not both have [those particular teeth] and yet belong to the same species. A ram has horns and an ox also has horns. Yet it is incorrect to say that an ox is a ram or that a ram is an ox. For they might both have [horns] and yet belong to different species. Both a ram and an ox have horns, but a horse none. A horse has a mane but both a ram and an ox have none. Therefore I say that a ram and an ox together are not a horse. By that I mean that there is no horse [in this case]. As there is no horse, neither a ram nor an ox is two, but a ram and an ox are two. Consequently it is correct to say that a ram and an ox together are not a horse. If such a case were presented as correct, it would be like putting different things in the same species. The cases of left and right are similar to this.
“Both an ox and a ram have hair, while a fowl has feathers. When we speak of fowl’s leg [as such], it is one. But when we count the [particular] legs of a fowl, they are two. Two and20 one put together make three.21 When we speak of an ox’s or a ram’s leg [as such], it is one. But when we count their [particular] legs, they are four. Four and one put together makes five. Thus a ram or an ox has five legs while a fowl has three. Therefore I say that an ox or a ram together are not a fowl. There is no other reason that [an ox or a ram] is not a fowl.
“A horse is better than a fowl [for the purpose of illustration]. Regardless of the ability of a horse and the lack of ability of a fowl, however, the fact is obvious that they are different in species [from an ox or a ram]. To give these cases as examples [of being one with an ox or a ram] is called a confusion of terms; it is giving an absurd case.”
A. “Then let us use some other illustrations.”
B. “Green and22 white are not yellow; white and green are not blue.”
A. “Why?”
B. “Because green and white cannot be combined, and if you combined them, they would stand in contrast to each other. They do not occupy adjacent positions; but if you made them so, that would not, however, injure their positions. This is so because while [green and white] stand in contrast to each other [in quality], they do not interfere with each other in position. This may be seen from the case of left and right, which cannot be mixed.23 Therefore it is impossible to unite [white] with green, nor is it possible to unite [green] with white. Then where does yellow come in? Yellow is a standard color, and can be given as a correct case. This is like the relation between the ruler (corresponding to white) and the minister (corresponding to green) in the state (corresponding to yellow).24 Hence there are health and long life.
“Furthermore, when green is mixed with white, white does not dominate [green]. It should but it does not. This means that the element of wood (corresponding to green) is injuring the element of metal (corresponding to white). This is [like] the color blue, and blue is not a correct example [of standard colors]. Green and white [originally] cannot be combined. When they are combined, one does not dominate the other, and both stand out. When they compete in standing out, [it is like] the color blue.
“Yellow is better than blue [for the purpose of illustration]. The case of yellow is [like] the case of a horse. Yellow has something in common [with green and white]. On the other hand, the case of blue is [like] the case of a fowl. It is in conflict25 with [green and white]. If a ruler and ministers are in conflict, both would compete and stand out. When both stand out, the result is darkness, and darkness is not a correct example. By not being a correct example is meant that names do not correspond to actuality. Mixed colors (colors that are not standard) come to shine out in brilliancy. This is what is meant by both standing out. When both stand out, truth fades away beyond rectification.” (sppy, 6b-9a)
4. On Hardness and Whiteness (ch. 5)
A. “Is it correct that hardness, whiteness, and stone are three?”
B. “No.”
A. “Is it correct that they are two?”
B. “Yes.”
A. “Why?”
B. “When whiteness but not hardness is perceived, we have a case of two. When hardness but not whiteness is perceived, we have a case of two.”
A. “When whiteness is perceived, it is incorrect to say that there is no whiteness. When hardness is perceived, it is incorrect to say that there is no hardness. The stone is by nature so [hard and white]. Does that not make it three?”
B. “When seeing does not perceive hardness but whiteness, there is no hardness to speak of. When touching perceives not whiteness but hardness, there is no whiteness to speak of.”
A. “If there were no whiteness in the world, one could not see a stone. If there were no hardness in the world, one could not speak of a stone. Hardness, whiteness, and stone do not exclude each other. How could the three be hidden?”
B. “Some are hidden by themselves, [such as whiteness is hidden from touch]. They are not hidden because someone has hidden them.”
A. “Whiteness and hardness are necessary attributes of the stone that pervade each other. How is it possible that they hide themselves?”
B. “Whether one perceives the whiteness [of the stone] or perceives the hardness [of the stone] depends on whether one sees or not. Seeing and not seeing are separate from each other. Neither one pervades the other, and therefore they are separate. To be separate means to be hidden.”
Comment. Fung Yu-lan thinks that to say that a thing is hidden or concealed seems to be another way of saying that it subsists. This is reading the Kung-sun Lung Tzu in the framework of the Neorealists to whom particu
lars exist while universale subsist. To make his interpretation consistent, he has to interpret chih as universal.26 But the meaning of chih is too uncertain to justify any definite conclusion.
A. “[The whiteness] is the whiteness of the stone and [the hardness] is the hardness of the stone. Whether one perceives them or not, the two together [with the stone] make three. They pervade each other as width and length do in a surface. Is this not a [clear] case?”
B. “Some thing may be white, but whiteness is not fixed on it. Some thing may be hard, but hardness is not fixed on it. What is not fixed on anything is universal. How can it be [in] the stone?”
A. “According to the nature of the stone,27 without it (hardness) there cannot be the stone, and without the stone we cannot be talking about the white stone. That [they] are not separated from each other is so by nature and will forever be so.”
B. “Stone is one; hardness and whiteness are two. But in the stone one of them can be felt and the other cannot; one of them can be seen and the other cannot. What is felt and what is not felt are separate from each other; the seen and the unseen are hidden from each other. As they are hidden, who can say that they are not separate?”
A. “The eye cannot perceive hardness nor the hand perceive whiteness. But one cannot say that there is no hardness or whiteness. [The organs] have different functions and cannot substitute for each other. Hardness and whiteness reside in the stone. How can they be separated?”
B. “Hardness does not have to be combined with stone to be hardness; it is common to many things. As it does not have to be combined with things to be hardness, it is hardness by necessity of its being hardness. As it is hardness without being the hardness of the stone or other things, it seems there is no such hardness in the world. [Actually] it is hidden.
“If whiteness is from the beginning not whiteness in itself, how can it make the stone and other things white? If whiteness is necessarily white, it is then white not because it is the whiteness of a thing. It is the same with yellow and black. However, the stone is no longer there. How can we speak of a hard stone or a white stone? Therefore they are separate. For this reason they are separate. For this reason it is better to follow this (natural separateness) than to determine [their separateness] by the use of strength and knowledge.28
“Furthermore, whiteness is perceived by the eye because of light. But light itself does not see. Neither the light nor the eye sees; it is the mind that sees. The mind does not see either. Seeing is something separate [from them]. Hardness is [perceived] by the hand, and the hand [perceives] by the stroke. But the stroke itself does not feel. Neither the hand nor the stroke feels; it is the mind that feels. The mind does not feel either.29 This means that they are separate. [Things] being separate, this is the only correct thing in the world.” (sppy, 9a-11b)
Comment. The problems discussed are strikingly similar to those of seventeenth-century philosophers in Europe, namely, primary and secondary qualities.
5. On Names and Actuality (ch. 6)
Heaven, earth, and their products are all things. When things possess the characteristics of things without exceeding them, there is actuality. When actuality actually fulfills its function as actuality, without wanting, there is order. To be out of order is to fall into disorder. To remain in order is to be correct. What is correct is used to rectify what is incorrect. [What is incorrect is not used to]30 doubt what is correct. To rectify is to rectify actuality, and to rectify actuality is to rectify the name corresponding to it.
If the name is rectified, then “this” and “that” are restricted. If the designation “that” is not restricted to that, then the “that” will not do. If the designation “this” is not restricted to this, then the “this” will not do. This is because the non-equivalent is regarded as the equivalent. What is not equivalent will lead to disorder. If that “that” is equivalent to that and is therefore restricted to that, then the designation will do for that. When this “this” is equivalent to this and is therefore restricted to this, then the designation will do for this. This is because the equivalent is correct. Therefore it is correct that “that” is limited to that and this “this” is limited to this. But it is incorrect to apply “that” to this and even to regard “that” as this, or to apply “this” to that and even to regard “this” as that.
A name is to designate an actuality. If we know that this is not this and know that this is not here, we shall not call it [“this”]. If we know that that is not that and know that that is not there, we shall not call it [“that”].
Perfect were the wise kings of old. They examined names and actualities and were careful in their designations. Perfect were the wise kings of old. (sppy, 11b-12b)
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THE YIN YANG SCHOOL
The yin yang doctrine is very simple but its influence has been extensive. No aspect of Chinese civilization—whether metaphysics, medicine, government, or art—has escaped its imprint. In simple terms, the doctrine teaches that all things and events are products of two elements, forces, or principles: yin, which is negative, passive, weak, and destructive, and yang, which is positive, active, strong, and constructive. The theory is associated with that of the Five Agents or Elements (wu-hsing,1 Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth) which may be taken as an elaboration of the yin yang idea but actually adds the important concept of rotation, i.e. that things succeed one another as the Five Agents take their turns.
The two concepts of the yin yang and the Five Agents go far back to antiquity and to quite independent origins. Much obscurity still surrounds their history. For example, we are not sure whether the terms “yin” and “yang” originally referred to physical phenomena (clouds shading the sun and the sun shining, respectively) or the female and male. We do not know anything about their early representatives or works, if any. Tsou Yen (305–240 b.c.?) is often mentioned as the representative thinker of this school, but his work is lost and all that we have about him is a brief account of his life and thought in the Shih chi (Records of the Historian) by Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145–86 b.c.?).2 However, long before Tsou Yen’s time, both the ideas of yin yang and the Five Agents had been discussed by various philosophers. The yin yang idea is present in the Tso chuan, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Hsün Tzu,3 and the Five Agents idea is present in the Book of History, Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, Tso chuan, and Kuo-yü.4 Curiously enough, they are not found in the Analects, the Book of Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean or the Great Learning. In other words, of all ancient Confucian Classics, they are not mentioned except in the Hsün Tzu. And yet Hsün Tzu (fl. 298-238 b.c.) himself said that Confucius’ grandson Tzu-ssu (492–431 b.c.) advanced the Five Agents theory and Mencius followed it.5 The possible explanation is that in Tsou Yen’s promotion of the theory, there is explicitly the exaltation of virtue, the stress on personal cultivation, especially on the part of the ruler, and the emphasis on humanity and righteousness, all of which are moral objectives of Confucianists.
Briefly, both the yin yang and the Five Agents doctrines may be regarded as early Chinese attempts in the direction of working out a metaphysics and a cosmology. Questions of the process through which things in the world have come to be and the fundamental stuff of which they are made have captivated men’s minds since time immemorial. These Chinese proposals indicate reality as a pair of opposites in the one case, and as a group of five items in the other. Whether two or five, they are understood better as forces, powers, and agents than as material elements. The emphasis is on principles and laws of operation. The outlook is dynamic and not static. And the end is an ordered nature rather than chaos. In point of process, there is contradiction as well as harmony, and in point of reality, there is unity in multiplicity. The apparent dualism and pluralism are, in each case, a dynamic monism through the dialectic.
By the time of Tsou Yen, the two concepts, which had much in common, were thought of together. As a matter of fact, he is usually credited as the one who combined the two independent
currents into one. The one is now the expression of the other, and both operate in cycles of rise and fall and in a universal pattern, thus uniting man and Nature. There developed also the ideas of mutual production and mutual overcoming among the Five Agents, as well as the correspondence of them with five colors, five tones, five tastes, and the like. When this interest in correspondence was extended to the realm of political affairs, there emerged a cyclical philosophy of history on the one hand and the mutual influence between man and Nature on the other. Just as the seasons rotate, so does history; since man and Nature correspond to each other, they are expressions of the same force and therefore can influence each other.
The cyclical theory of history exercised a tremendous influence in the Han dynasty (206 b.c.–a.d. 220), especially over Tung Chung-shu (c.179–c.104 b.c.). It turns into a definite theory Mencius’ simple idea that in every five hundred years a true king will arise.6 This cyclical interpretation of history has been a persistent one in Chinese thought.
The idea of the cycle is not limited to the interpretation of history, of course. It is thought to characterize all changes. In the cyclical process, the idea of one force overcoming another was soon replaced by that of one producing another. This idea was particularly strong in the Han. Eventually, however, it is the idea that all forces are harmonized that has become the typical Chinese conception.
The theory of the mutual influence of man and Nature is hinted at in the Doctrine of the Mean where it is said, “When a nation or family is about to flourish, there are sure to be lucky omens. When a nation or family is about to perish, there are sure to be unlucky omens.”7 The Confucianists intended this to be a moral lesson, but the theory eventually led to fatalism and much superstition. Philosophically, however, it resulted not only in the concept of a common law governing both man and Nature but also in a most important doctrine that has dominated Chinese philosophy in the last eight hundred years, namely, the unity of man and Nature, or “Nature and man forming one body.”8
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