This direct link, in the early twentieth century, and other links going back to Leibniz, should be backgrounded by a certain community of motifs. For instance: the giant. A too often forgotten figure in Western philosophy.
There is a valiant but small tradition of scholars who see the connection between the so called Western tradition and that of the “East”: among whom the most famous is, perhaps, Martin Buber. Before writing his masterpiece in the twenties, I and Thou, Buber published a “translation” of the Chuang-Tzu that was really a translation of the English translation of the Chuang-Tzu made by James Legge. In a wonderful essay by Jonathan Herman, “The Mysterious Mr. Wang: the search for Martin Buber’s Confucian Ghostwriter” (one of those rare academic titles that evokes the Fu Manchu series by Sax-Rohmer), the background of Buber’s effort is exposed. Sinology was constructed in the German speaking countries in the 19th century on terms that were consistent with a long theme in German culture stemming from Herder, which on one reading promoted a basic equality between cultural productions around the globe. The idea that one should accept the Chinese philosopher as an equal in the dialogue of philosophy is still more valued in theory than in practice. Few really put in that work. But in the German countries, perhaps partly due to German imperial designs on China after the Boxer Rebellion, Chinese studies held a special place. One remembers that Canetti’s Peter Kien, the protagonist of Auto-de-Fe, is a Sinologist. It is through these grids – Sinology and Hassidic Tales – that Buber was enabled to think through the metaphysics of communication that is at the center of the I – thou book. Kafka, too, in The Great Wall of China, sees China through - perhaps - Buber's eyes.
The first chapter of the Chuang-Tzu consists of a comparison between the giant and the small, beginning with the famed fish, K’un:
“IN THE NORTHERN DARKNESS there is a fish and his name is K'un.1 The K'un is so huge I don't know how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird whose name is P'eng. The back of the P'eng measures I don't know how many thousand li across and, when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over the sky. When the sea begins to move,2 this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven. (Burton Watson translation)
Against the wonder of the P’eng is set the laughter of the dove and the cicada:
“The cicada and the little dove laugh at this, saying, "When we make an effort and fly up, we can get as far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don't make it and just fall down on the ground. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!”
The chapter then proceeds through other giant/small contrasts in the style peculiar to it – each passage being at once unlinked from the proceeding one and yet bearing the distinct resemblance that one hand of cards bears to another. So giant and small face off against each other in wisdom, in status, in miraculous powers. The final contrast is between Hui Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Hui Tzu, given giant gourd seeds, plants and grows them, but the gourds are too big, so he smashes them Chuang Tzu laughs at this, saying that Hui Tzu, seems to be in thrall to the outward show of the gourds only: “Now you had a gourd big enough to hold five piculs. Why didn't you think of making it into a great tub so you could go floating around the rivers and lakes, instead of worrying because it was too big and unwieldy to dip into things! Obviously you still have a lot of underbrush in your head!"
So: what is the Daoist attitude towards the giant – are we looking at things from the perspective of the P’eng or the cicada? Surely Chuang Tzu’s tone of mockery is supposed to release us from the first impression of the giant – the impression of sheer wonder. And that is a motif that has references pointing to the early modern era in Europe: this is when, as a sly maneuver, the writers who were inventing the “novel” used it to attack wonder itself , the glue that officially kept the sacred system together. Rabelais’ mock giants, the windmills that Don Quixote attacks, thinking that they are giants – this is about, in one sense, chasing the giants from the culture. Giordano Bruno uses the same mock heroic means in the Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. In the Ash Wednesday colloquy, Nolan (Bruno himself) is extolled in terms that could plug into the Chuang Tzu:
“Now here is he who has pierced the air, penetrated the sky, toured the realm of stars, traversed the boundaries of the world, dissipated the fictitious walls of the first, eighth, ninth, tenth spheres, and whatever else might have been attached to these by the devices of vain mathematicians and by the blind vision of popular philosophers. Thus aided by the fullness of sense and reason, lie opened with the key of most industrious inquiry those enclosures of truth that can be opened to us at all, by presenting naked the shrouded and veiled nature; he gave eyes to moles, illumined the blind who cannot fix their eyes and admire their own images in so many mirrors which surround them from every side. He untied the tongue of the mute who do not know [how to] and did not dare to express their intricate sentiments. He restored strength to the lame who were unable to make that progress in spirit which the ignoble and dissolvable compound [body] cannot make. He provided them with no less a presence [vantage point] than if they were the very inhabitants of the sun, of the moon, and of other nomadic [wandering] stars [planets]. He showed how similar or dissimilar, greater or worse [smaller] are those bodies [stars, planets) which we see afar, compared with that [earth] which is right here and to which we are united. And he opened their eyes to see this deity, this mother of ours, which on her back feeds them and nourishes them after she has produced them from her bosom into which she always gathers them again -- who is not to be considered a body without soul and life, [33. This animistic world view precedes a slightly veiled affirmation of pantheism.] let alone the trash of all bodily substances.”
The moment of mockery, of the exorcism of the giants, gets its juice, its scoffing power, from the practical, from the peasant’s p.o.v. – it is, after all, through Sancho Panza that we know the giants are windmills in Don Quixote. What James Scott calls the Little Tradition – the culture of the peasant and its characteristic skepticism – penetrates the Big Tradition – the tradition of the metropole, with its merchants, scholars, and natural philosophers, all bound together through an intricate system of patronage.
However, it would be a retarded enlightenment indeed that remained frozen in the moment of mockery. The movement, as in the quote from Bruno above, is to another and more abstract view. In the Chuang Tzu, the scale by which the K’un is gigantic and the dove is small is itself neither gigantic nor small. The scale has no size. In Bruno, the attack on the giants is done in the name of a notion of infinity with which Bruno’s name is still associated. When Newton applies the laws of motion on earth to the heavenly bodies, his idea is related to this same notion of a scale of no size – of a force. Newton famously wrote that he saw further because he stood on the shoulders of giants – showing that he had learned something that would make him free from the reproach Chuang Tzu gives to Hui Tzu: "You certainly are dense when it comes to using big things!” In fact, there is a certain slyness to Newton’s phrase – he does not, as is usual with the phrase (tracked through every maze by Robert Merton in his book) call himself a dwarf – his own stature is, as it were, for the observer to determine.
Although there are many Enlightenment tropes that return us again and again to light, to seeing, to emancipation, the deepest trope, I think, is that which uses the chasses aux geants to make us think of the scale that has no scale – a viewpoint outside the divine.
Hii uhusiano wa moja kwa moja, katika karne ya ishirini mapema, na uhusiano mwingine kwenda nyuma kwa Leibniz, lazima kuwa backgrounded na jamii fulani ya motisha. Kwa mfano: yule jitu. Mfano ambao mara nyingi hupuuzwa sana katika falsafa ya Magharibi. Kuna utamaduni hodari lakini mdogo wa wasomi ambao wanaona uhusiano kati ya kile kinachoitwa utamaduni wa Magharibi na ule wa <unk>Mashariki<unk>: miongoni mwao maarufu zaidi ni, labda, Martin Buber. "Kabla ya kuandika kitabu chake cha ""I and Thou"" cha miaka ya 1920, Buber alichapisha tafsiri ya ""Chuang Tzu"" ambayo kwa kweli ilikuwa tafsiri ya tafsiri ya Kiingereza ya ""Chuang Tzu"" iliyofanywa na James Legge." Katika insha ya ajabu na Jonathan Herman, <unk>The Mysterious Mr. Wang: the search for Martin Buber<unk>s Confucian Ghostwriter<unk> (moja ya wale majina nadra ya kitaaluma ambayo evokes Fu Manchu mfululizo na Sax-Rohmer), nyuma ya juhudi Buber ni wazi. Sinolojia ilijengwa katika nchi zinazozungumza Kijerumani katika karne ya 19 kwa maneno ambayo yalikuwa sawa na mandhari ndefu katika utamaduni wa Kijerumani unaotokana na Herder, ambayo katika usomaji mmoja uliendeleza usawa wa msingi kati ya uzalishaji wa kitamaduni ulimwenguni. Wazo kwamba mtu anapaswa kukubali mwanafalsafa wa Kichina kama sawa katika mazungumzo ya falsafa bado ni thamani zaidi katika nadharia kuliko katika mazoezi. Ni wachache sana waliofanya kazi hiyo. Lakini katika nchi za Ujerumani, labda kwa sehemu kwa sababu ya miundo ya kifalme ya Ujerumani juu ya China baada ya Mapinduzi ya Boxer, masomo ya Kichina yalichukua nafasi maalum. Mtu anakumbuka kwamba Canetti's Peter Kien, mhusika mkuu wa Auto-de-Fe, ni Sinologist. Ni kupitia grids hizi <unk> Sinology na Hadithi za Hassidic <unk> kwamba Buber aliweza kufikiria kupitia metaphysics ya mawasiliano ambayo iko katikati ya kitabu cha I <unk> thou. Kafka, pia, katika The Great Wall of China, anaona China kupitia - labda - macho ya Buber. "Sura ya kwanza ya Chuang Tzu inaonyesha jinsi samaki wa aina ya K'un alivyofanana na samaki mwingine wa aina ya K'un, ""K'un"" (kuna samaki mmoja wa aina ya K'un, ambaye ni mkubwa sana na hawezi kupima hata elfu moja)." Yeye hubadilika na kuwa ndege ambaye jina lake ni P'eng. "Mzizi wa P'eng unapima ""sijui ni elfu ngapi za li"" na, anapoinuka na kuruka, mabawa yake ni kama mawingu angani." Bahari inapoanza kutikisika, ndege huyu anaelekea kusini, kwenye Ziwa la Mbingu. "Kulingana na ajabu ya Pyongyang, kicheko cha njiwa na chungu kinaonekana: ""Kikombe na njiwa mdogo hucheka hili, wakisema, 'Tunapofanya juhudi na kuruka juu, tunaweza kufika mbali na mti wa elm au mti wa saponwood, lakini wakati mwingine hatuwezi na tu kuanguka chini.""" Sasa, ni jinsi gani mtu yeyote kwenda tisini elfu li kusini! <unk> Sura kisha inaendelea kupitia nyingine kubwa <unk> ndogo tofauti katika mtindo wa kipekee kwa <unk> kila kifungu kuwa mara moja unlinked kutoka moja ya kuendelea na bado kubeba kufanana tofauti kwamba mkono mmoja wa kadi hubeba kwa mwingine. Kwa hiyo, mtu mkubwa na mtu mdogo wanakabiliana kwa hekima, kwa hadhi, na kwa nguvu za ajabu. Tofauti ya mwisho ni kati ya Hui Tzu na Chuang Tzu. Huizhou alipata mbegu kubwa za gourd, na kuzalisha, lakini gourds ni kubwa sana, hivyo yeye smashes yao. Chuang Tzu alicheka juu ya hili, akisema kwamba Huizhou inaonekana kuwa katika utumwa wa nje show ya gourds tu. Kwa nini usifikirie kuifanya kuwa beseni kubwa ili uweze kuelea kuzunguka mito na maziwa, badala ya kuwa na wasiwasi kwa sababu ilikuwa kubwa sana na ngumu kuingiza vitu! Ni wazi kwamba bado una mengi ya underbush katika kichwa chako!" Kwa hiyo: ni nini mtazamo wa Daoist kuelekea jitu <unk> je, tunaangalia mambo kutoka kwa mtazamo wa P<unk>eng au cicada? Bila shaka sauti ya Chuang Tzu ya kudhihaki inapaswa kutuweka huru kutoka kwa hisia ya kwanza ya yule jitu - hisia ya kushangazwa kabisa. "Hiyo ni sababu ambayo ina marejeo ya kuelekeza kwa enzi ya mapema ya kisasa katika Ulaya: hii ni wakati, kama maneuver hila, waandishi ambao walikuwa inventing ""novel"" kutumika kushambulia ajabu yenyewe, gundi ambayo rasmi kushikilia mfumo mtakatifu pamoja. """ Rabelais <unk> mcheshi mchafu, viwanda vya upepo ambavyo Don Quixote anashambulia, akifikiri kwamba ni wakubwa <unk> hii ni kuhusu, kwa maana moja, kuwafukuza wakubwa kutoka kwa utamaduni. Giordano Bruno hutumia njia ileile ya uigizaji wa ushujaa katika The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. "Katika mazungumzo ya Jumatano ya Ash, Nolan (Bruno mwenyewe) anasifiwa kwa maneno ambayo yanaweza kuunganishwa na Chuang Tzu: ""Sasa hapa ni yeye ambaye amepiga hewa, amevunja anga, amezunguka ulimwengu wa nyota, amevuka mipaka ya ulimwengu, amevunja kuta za uwongo za ulimwengu wa kwanza, wa nane, wa tisa, wa kumi, na chochote kingine ambacho kingeweza kushikamana na hizi kwa njia za hesabu za kipofu na kwa maono ya wanafalsafa maarufu.""" Hivyo, kwa msaada wa utimilifu wa akili na akili, hufunguliwa kwa ufunguo wa uchunguzi wa bidii zaidi, vifungo vya ukweli ambavyo vinaweza kufunguliwa kwetu, kwa kutoa uchi wa asili iliyofunikwa na kufunikwa; aliwapa macho moles, aliwaangazia vipofu ambao hawawezi kuweka macho yao na kuvutiwa na picha zao katika vioo vingi ambavyo vinawazunguka kila upande. Alivunja ulimi wa bubu ambao hawakujua [jinsi ya] na hawakuthubutu kueleza hisia zao ngumu. Aliwarudisha nguvu wale waliopooza ambao hawakuweza kufanya maendeleo hayo katika roho ambayo [mwili] usio na heshima na usioweza kuyeyushwa hauwezi kufanya. Aliwapa uwepo [mahali pa kutazama] kama vile wangekuwa wakazi wa jua, mwezi, na nyota [mbinguni] nyingine za kuhamahama. Alionyesha jinsi ambavyo vitu hivyo [nyota, sayari] ambavyo tunaona mbali vinavyofanana au kutofanana, vikubwa au vidogo, ikilinganishwa na kile [ardhi] kilicho hapa na ambacho sisi tumeshirikiana nacho. "Akawafungulia macho yao ili waone mungu huyu, mama yetu, ambaye juu ya mgongo wake anawalisha na kuwalisha baada ya kuwazalisha kutoka kifuani mwake, ambako anawakusanya tena na tena, ambaye haipaswi kuonwa kuwa mwili bila roho na uhai.""" Maoni haya ya ulimwengu ya uhuishaji hufuata uthibitisho uliofichwa kidogo wa uungu wa miungu. "Hata hivyo, wakati wa utani, wa kufukuzwa kwa majitu, hupata maji yake, nguvu yake ya utani, kutoka kwa vitendo, kutoka kwa p.o.v. ya mkulima. """ Ni, baada ya yote, kupitia Sancho Panza kwamba tunajua majitu ni windmills katika Don Quixote. "Kile ambacho James Scott anaita ""Utamaduni Mdogo"" - utamaduni wa wakulima na shaka yake ya kipekee - huingia katika ""Utamaduni Mkubwa"" - utamaduni wa mji mkuu, na wafanyabiashara wake, wasomi, na wanafalsafa wa asili, wote wameunganishwa pamoja kupitia mfumo tata wa usimamizi." Hata hivyo, ingekuwa mwangaza wa kucheleweshwa kwa kweli ambao ulibaki umezama katika wakati wa dhihaka. Harakati, kama katika nukuu kutoka Bruno juu, ni kwa mtazamo mwingine na zaidi abstract. Katika Chuang Tzu, kiwango ambacho Kun ni kubwa na njiwa ni ndogo si kikubwa wala kidogo. Kiasi hicho hakina ukubwa. Katika Bruno, shambulio dhidi ya majitu hufanywa kwa jina la dhana ya ukimya ambayo jina la Bruno bado linahusishwa nayo. Newton alipotumia sheria za mwendo duniani kwa miili ya mbinguni, wazo lake linahusiana na wazo hili lile la kiwango cha ukubwa usio na nguvu. "Newton aliandika kwamba aliona mbali zaidi kwa sababu alisimama juu ya mabega ya majitu, akionyesha kwamba alikuwa amejifunza kitu ambacho kingemweka huru kutokana na dharau ambayo Chuang Tzu anampa Hui Tzu: ""Hakika wewe ni mzito linapokuja suala la kutumia vitu vikubwa."" Kwa kweli, kuna ujanja fulani katika maneno ya Newton: ""Hakuna, kama ilivyo kawaida na maneno haya (yafuatwa kupitia kila labyrinth na Robert Merton katika kitabu chake) kujiita dwarf.""" "Hata ingawa kuna mifano mingi ya Enlightenment ambayo inatuelekeza tena na tena kwenye mwanga, kuona, na kuachiliwa, nadhani mifano ya kina zaidi ni ile inayotumia ""chasses aux géants"" kutufanya tufikirie kiwango ambacho hakina kiwango, mtazamo nje ya kiungu."