## 1. The heart-mind and its ontological relation to the body in classical Chinese philosophy



Comparative interpreters frequently address whether the heart-mind is
conceived as being separate or ontologically distinct from the body as
they are, for example, in Cartesian dualism. The dominant view in
scholarship is that Chinese thought is not dualistic in any fashion.
The minority view is that it does not fall into *ontological*
dualism, and that it is all the better for avoiding it, but other
forms of dualism may fairly be attributed to Chinese thought.


### 1.1 Holistic interpretations of the relationship between heart-mind and body



Roger T. Ames interprets the heart-mind and body as parts of a process
he calls "bodyheartminding". He identifies the medium of
this process as *qi* (Qi ), the "vital energy
field" (Ames 2015: 173). What we call "things" are
persistent yet transitory perturbations of physical and psychic
energy. Life is a process of real energy. In a similar vein,
Francois Jullien (2005 [2007]) contrasts the Greek separation
of body or "organic being", and the principle of life or
"animation", (2005 [2007: 56-59]) on the one hand,
with the Chinese view that organic being and animation both emerge
from *qi,* "breath-energy", on the other hand. All
things are condensations or coagulations of a "diffuse and
invisible flow of energy that wends its way ceaselessly through the
world, animating as it goes" (2005 [2007: 76]). In China, the
phenomena associated in the West with the soul is light, refined
*qi* (breath) while bone is denser *qi*. Jullien sees no
ontological divide in these graduated distinctions in Chinese
thought.


### 1.2 Critical discussion of holistic interpretations



Ames's and Jullien's interpretations treat Chinese
philosophy as starting from the unity to which Western monists like
Heraclitus, Spinoza, and Whitehead and the pragmatists William James
and John Dewey aspired. The matter of modern physics, moreover, is
continuous with energy. The puzzles of quantum entanglement suggest
the entire universe might be intermeshed in a single holistic process,
not a plethora of separable events in mechanistic causal chains.



In Chinese thought, *qi* constitutes not merely the somatic,
bodily dynamics, but also the motivating force of thoughts, emotions,
and intentions of the individual. Originally identified with the blood
and breath of living animals, Zou Yan's theory of *qi* as
the stuff of everything became China's common view. The
*Mengzi* (latinized form "Mencius", 4th
century BCE) postulates a coherence of *qi* in the world with
the *qi* of the heart-mind. He asserts the will, the capacity
of the heart-mind to form aims or intentions, directs (*shuai*
Shuai ) the body's *qi* (*Mengzi* 2A8). When he
is asked what he means by saying that he is good at nourishing his
flood-like *qi*, he answers that his *qi* is exceedingly
great and strong, and if he nourishes it with uprightness
(*zhi* Zhi ), it will fill the space between Heaven and
earth (*Mengzi* 2A14). *Qi*, cultivated in appropriate
ways, realizes the moral virtues attributed to the heart-mind.
Mencius's heart-mind is the part of a person's *qi*
that has the function of guiding the rest of its *qi*.



On the other hand, Chinese popular beliefs about ghosts and spirits
have been discussed as weighing against or at least calling into
question the idea that Chinese thought is free of dualistic
tendencies. One such belief that appears in some early Chinese texts,
such as the *Chunqiu Zuozhuan
zhu*Chun Qiu Zuo Chuan Zhu ), is that if people
die a violent death, their *po* Po  soul and their
*hun* Hun  soul become stirred up and take malicious action
against the living. This suggests the *hun* and *po*
souls are hived off from the body's *qi*, perhaps in a
very rarefied form. Nowhere is there a clear and consistent statement
ruling this out (Goldin 2015: 62, n. 13). Separate from ghosts, early
Chinese texts refer to *shen* (Shen ) as somethings ghosts
may or may not have which gives the capacity for behavior guidance
that the living have. It is sometimes depicted as leaving the body at
death and taking up residence in a realm where it can be addressed
through sacrificial rituals by descendants. Translators routinely
render *shen* as "spirit", that sapient part of a
person that can be cultivated to promote by their behavior what is
central or important in the world. (*Zhuangzi* and
*Xunzi*). Neither bifurcates *shen* from *qi* but
suggests *shen* is the special kind of *qi* that is pure
energy--like light.



Paul Goldin points out passages in the *Zhuangzi*
(Zhuang Zi ) where the heart-mind seems to be unaffected by
quite drastic changes in the body, e.g., (*Zhuangzi*, *Da
Zongshi* Da Zong Shi , sec. 5; Goldin 2003: 228).
Edward Slingerland (2013) cites another passage in *Zhuangzi*
(*De Chong Fu* De Chong Fu , sec. 4), a story of
piglets who stop nursing at the body of their dead mother and run
away, sensing she was not like them. They didn't love their
mothers shape (*xing* Xing ) but what moved or commanded
(*shi* Shi ) it. Slingerland also cites what he describes
as a random sample pre-Qin texts, including the recently discovered
Guodian texts which he believes to manifest a strong folk belief in a
distinction of some sort. He acknowledges that his reading of the
passages is controversial but hopes that it is supported by his
comprehensive sampling of texts. He allows that the distinction might
not be the Western ontological, substance dualism.



The distinction, he notes, is not a fundamental dualism of substance
but of a range of phenomena, from the bodily organ *xin* to the
*po* and *hun* ghosts to the sapient *shen
which,* Slingerland notes, can be compounded. And in
*Mengzi* 2A, the heart-mind and bodily *qi* interact:
the heart-mind not only commands the *qi* through its
intentions, but can be moved by its *qi* when it is not unified
in its intentions. Unlike Descartes' mind, *xin*'s
*qi* can interact with both the body's *qi* and
the wider *qi* filling the space between Heaven and earth. That
image merges physical stuff, the body and heart-mind in a spiritual
and moral, as well as physical, space. It suggests human unity with
the rest of the world as an organic whole.



The heart-mind is not only the seat of cognition but also of emotions
and desires, which consist of *qi*. Chinese philosophers do not
explain behavior by a combination of cognitive and affective factors.
Finally, even though Slingerland labels the strong holism defended by
Ames and Jullien a "myth", he grants that in early Chinese
philosophy neither the mind nor postmortem spirits are immaterial.
They are rather some rarefied stuff that is continuous with natural
physical world (Slingerland 2013: 37). He (2013: 9) calls this
interpretive option a "weak holism". Raphals (2015:
133-34) observes that there is no clear boundary between
"weak holism" and "weak dualism". Given that
physicalism acknowledges the continuity of matter and energy, we can
perhaps circumvent these attempts to fit Chinese philosophy into
Western categories, and simply observe a similar continuity of these
elements of Chinese *qi-*naturalism that explain the functions
of the heart-mind, thinking, feeling and intentions in behavior. The
rest of bodily *qi*, as the *Mengzi* says, carries out
the commands of the heart-mind, or as the *Zhuangzi* responds,
other bodily organs (e.g., the stomach) can exert their own
motivational influence, and their guidance sometimes manifests itself
in behavior.



We conclude the Chinese view is a genuine alternative to substance
dualism, differing from reductive materialism in a way arguably
compatible with modern physics. This could lead one to treat the
Chinese conception of *qi* as referring to matter-energy while
not having the same intension. It leaves open the choice to see it as
a form of panpsychism (David Chalmers 1996 and Thomas Nagel 1979) or
not.



Functional distinctions between heart-mind and body accord with the
functional holism exhibited by organic wholes constituted by systems
of their parts (Wang 2013; Wong 2020). The relationships are sometimes
characterized as "correlative". What is meant by this term
varies (see Granet 1934; Needham 1954; Graham 1989; Hall & Ames
1998), but all refer to analogies between kinds (*lei*
Lei ). The most general of these kinds were *yin* and
*yang*, two types of *qi* that constitute other things
by their interaction: *yin* to contract and yield (associated
with darkness and the feminine), and *yang* to expand and
dominate associated with light and the masculine). Together, they form
a whole, whether in the world or the human person. Their interaction
can involve opposition, complementarity, and cyclical alternation
(Wang 2013).



Though the nature of the interactions is sometimes described as
non-causal, the contrast is most plausibly made with reference to
mechanical and linear notions of causation in which the effect (like a
billiard ball hit by another billiard ball) is purely passive and
inert. The interactions envisioned in Chinese philosophy are not
necessarily incompatible with alternative notions of causation in
which the cause "works with the tendencies of the thing
affected" (Perkins 2019). This is in keeping with the paradigm
of wholes being the biological and the organic. Mengzi conceives of
moral seeds/sprouts in human nature (discussed in
 SS2.4
 below) that grow into moral virtues through the agent's moral
reflection and action as these are influenced by secure material
livelihood and ethical education. Cultivating a person's
virtue-seed, then, is an instance of external factors interacting with
innate tendencies.



One distinctive characteristic of Chinese philosophy is its practical
and ethical orientation ('ethical' is here meant broadly
to include all normative guidance and not merely morality). Daoist
*dao* is broader than the moralist's concern with
*yi* (morality). The *Zhuangzi* focuses on this broad
sense of how (the way) to live (see
 SS2.5
 below). The organization and function of these parts of humans as
well as our interaction as part of the natural world (natural
*dao*) are relevant to this discussion. The Confucians,
especially Mengzi, focus more inwardly on a hierarchy of
functions/organs. Daoists, and to a lesser degree, Mohists and the
*Xunzi* address a broader arrangement of humans as a part of
nature. These different conceptions of how the heart-mind is to relate
to other parts of the body (the appetites and moods) and natural world
ground ethical discussion in ancient China. The *Zhuangzi*
offers a less hierarchical conception than the *Mengzi*.


## 2. Normative conceptions of the person



How should the heart-mind relate to other parts of the person? What is
knowing? What is the role of reflective thinking about emotions,
desires, etc. as inputs to the heart-mind? These are the questions
posed in Classical discussions of how to live.



The tendency in early Chinese Confucianism was to distinguish among
and to rank parts of the person, with the heart-mind in the lead. The
leading role is holistic in important ways, involving integration of
the perceiving, thinking, desiring, emotional, and intending functions
of the heart-mind. Further, the resulting conceptions of virtue are of
excellence physically embodied and realized in relationship with
others.



The Mohists emphasized the "eyes and ears" especially of
the common people and the operation of tools of measurement that
enable people to come to more reliable agreement in cooperative
arrangements. This focus on measuring fueled their tilt toward
utilitarianism as the goal of personal and social organization of
parts.



The texts that came to be associated with Daoism, the
*Daodejing* Dao De Jing  and the *Zhuangzi*,
treat the heart-mind as only part of the process of *de*
De  (practical competence) of political leaders, artisans,
gymnasts, and philosophers. Knowing how to live involves a combination
of wisdom, skill, and disciplined engagement of emotion and desire. In
the *Daodejing*, the heart-mind's conduit of guidance
function is often treated as emptiness and stillness to attune and be
responsive to an external path *dao* Dao , path or way to
live in the natural cosmos. Human *dao* is a part of a holistic
natural *dao* that accounts for the emergence and guidance of
all natural kinds.



In the *Zhuangzi,* this sometimes takes the form of demoting
the heart-mind's role in favor of a more egalitarian involvement
of all parts of a person's system of *qi* (conceived as
pervading all the organs, not just in the heart-mind). The full body
achieves attunement and responsiveness to the world--as in skills
ranging from archery to wheelmaking to cicada catching.



The *Xunzi* builds on previous Confucian ideas about hierarchy
within the person, but also incorporates ideas from Zhuangzi as well
as implicitly taking from their pragmatic conception of knowing and
explicitly replying to Mohist reformism and Daoist skepticism of past
models of music and ritual.


### 2.1 The *Analects*



The *Analects* (*Lun Yu* Lun Yu ) is the text
traditionally taken to be the most reliable reflection of the
teachings of the historical Kongzi Kong Zi  (latinized name
"Confucius" 551-479 BCE; see entry on
 Confucius, SS2.1
 for more information on the *Analects*). Confucius presents
himself as transmitting ethical guidance from ancient Sages (see Jiang
2021). The heart-mind of the *junzi* Jun Zi 
(exemplary person) and the *sheng ren* Sheng Ren  (sage)
thus play pivotal roles of examples of how to morally cultivate people
who can, advise rulers or themselves become rulers.



In *Analects* 2.4, Confucius presents a mini autobiography that
identifies several stages in his moral cultivation. At age fifteen he
set his heart-mind on learning (all references to the text in Chinese
will be to *Analects*, CTP, unless otherwise indicated). At
thirty, he was able to take his stand (his place in society). At forty
he had no perplexities (performed role-rituals flawlessly). At fifty
he knew the mandate of *Tian* Tian  (his nature-assigned
mission). At sixty, his ears were attuned (spontaneously reacted to
spoken cues). At seventy, he could follow his heart-mind's
desires without overstepping the boundaries.



The stages indicate the centrality of learning and practice to the
heart-mind. Moral cultivation was learning one's role well. At
seventy his learning made him an unerring in his second-nature
responses to situations with no inclination to immoral behavior. This
holistic cultivation is inherent in the heart-mind as guiding behavior
according to a learned role--which one views as natural for
oneself. Cultivation encompasses the whole person, not just the
heart-mind, but the *qi* of the body.



Moral excellence throughout that text is embodied. Book 10 contains
close observations of Confucius' ways of speaking, his physical
bearing, facial expressions, gestures, and bodily postures as they
vary over different contexts. In his home village, he looked humble
and hesitant in his speech, but in the ancestral temple or at court,
he spoke articulately but carefully (*Analects* 10.1). The way
he carried himself upon entering the duke's gate showed his
reverence for the office (10.4). Upon seeing someone in mourning
dress, even an intimate associate, he took on a solemn expression, or
riding past someone in mourning, he would bow to the crossbar of his
carriage (10.25).



The different ways his physical bearing and movements express respect
and sympathy according to context is related to the way that moral
cultivation involves dedicated performance of rituals that attach to
one's roles, such as greeting one's fellow villagers,
getting up to speak at the ancestral temple or at court, and greeting
those in mourning. Performing these rituals is a way of training
oneself to have the desired affective and bodily stances toward
others. Performance constitutes an individualized expressions of moral
excellence. Confucius thus becomes a model from which others may
learn. Modeling was key to this learning process. Knowing one's
roles is knowing one's "names" as they pertain to
these roles, and rituals constitute a self-training in how to perform
one's named role: let the ruler rule, the minister minister, the
father father, and the son son (*Analects* 12.11; see also
13.3).



The heart-mind is expected to take the lead in cultivation of the
entire person: "setting one's heart-mind on
learning". Its learning is not knowing facts but performing a
behavior guided by a model. The student follows examples of moral
standards. This eventually lets one to achieve moral excellence,
shaping one's desires and emotions so that they do "not
overstep the bounds", and so that the whole person is attuned to
*Tian*'s calling. Yan Hui (a remarkable student whose
early death breaks Confucius' heart) is praised by Confucius for
never repeating the same mistake (*Analects* 6.3), and for a
heart-mind that didn't deviate in its focus on practicing
*ren* Ren for three months. Others could maintain focus for
only days or a month (6.7). In the *Analects*, *ren* is
is this comprehensive moral excellence. Confucius sums it up as loving
or caring for persons (12.22). Later the *Mengzi,* would
identify *ren* as the particular virtue often translated as
"benevolence". Here we translate *ren* as
"human-heartedness". The heart-mind's aim
(*zhi* Zhi ) on becoming *ren* is all-important. In
9.26, Confucius says,



> 
> 
> The three armies may be deprived of their commander, but even
> commoners cannot be deprived of their aim. All commit to their aim as
> armies to protecting their commander.
> 
> 
> 



Confucian ethics centers on an ideal of fully-realizing humanity. The
ideal is rooted in family relationships and grows to all social
relations. Thus, learning about the heart-mind of others is crucial to
ethical cultivation. When he is asked whether there is a single word
that can sum up his guidance, Confucius replies, "It is
sympathetic understanding (*shu* Shu ): what you do not
want, do not do to others" (*Analects* 15.24). This has
been called the "negative" Golden Rule of Confucianism,
and 6.30 supplies the positive version when Confucius says that
*ren* people (Ren Ren ) wishing to establish themselves
also seek to establish others and in wishing to be a model of
excellence, helps others achieve excellence. He goes on to say that to
be able to draw from what is close as an analogy is called the method
of *ren*. The *Doctrine of the Mean* in the *Book of
Rites* (*Liji* Li Ji  *Zhongyong*
Zhong Yong ) comments further on what *shu* might mean
when applied to sympathetically understanding others to whom one
stands in a role relationship: to serve my father as I would expect my
son to serve me, to serve my ruler as I would expect my minister to
serve me, to serve elder brothers as I expect younger brothers to
treat me, and to treat my friends as I expect my friends to serve me
(*Liji Zhongyong* 13).



*Shu* is a method for achieving shared moral excellence in
communion with social others. One reflects on what is close to guide
one's aspirations to a life in a human social community.
One's desire for excellence is not transparent but emerges over
a lived life with others. Confucius's conception of moral
progress is sensitive to differences in each life circumstance, from
formative early social roles to physical characteristics and
temperament. One sympathizes with others by identifying both relevant
similarities and differences. Each person's *heart-mind*
is similarly sensitive to their particular capacities and roles in
their lives as they unfold.



In one conversation, Confucius suggests to his students Zilu and Yan
Hui that they each tell what they would most like to do. Zilu says
that he would like to share his horses and carriages, his clothing and
furs, with his friends, and if they damage them, to bear them no ill
will. Yan Hui says he would like to refrain from bragging about his
own abilities, and to not exaggerate his own accomplishments. When
they ask the Master what he would most like to do, Confucius replies
that he would like to bring peace and contentment to the aged, to
share relationships of trust and confidence with his friends, and to
love and protect the young (*Analects* 5.26 [1998]).
Zilu's and Yan Hui's statement of their aspirations
reflect their particular preoccupations as individuals.
Confucius' statement not only comprehends their aspirations as
particular ways of fulfilling his own, but identifies what everyone
might ultimately want. The heart-mind, then, is the source of
attunement not only to the *Dao* of *Tian* but to the
others with whom one's relationships go into a fully realized
social life.



The use of analogy in setting forth a fundamental tenet signals the
centrality of this type of reasoning in Confucianism and in Mohism, as
shall be seen below. Analogy plays an important role in the
*Mozi* but gets incorporated into a conception of knowledge as
skillfully and reliably classifying things and distinguishing them
from each other so that one may act rightly and benevolently in the
world.


### 2.2 The Mohists



The *Mozi* (Mo Zi ) is named after its founder *Mo
Di* (Mo Di , 470-391 BCE). The school of Mohism is
rightly credited for bringing argumentation into Chinese philosophy
(Hansen 1992). It is revealing that Mengzi says in 3B9 that while he
is not fond of arguments, he is compelled to argue with the Yangists
and the Mohists because "their language (*yan*) fills the
world beneath the sky". The Mohists contrast utilitarian
consequentialism with reliance on tradition. *Tian*
(sky-nature) desires human well-being. Traditional rituals guiding
conduct or social and political policies should be reformed to improve
people's livelihood. The argument is a strong one against total
reliance on tradition, but Mozi seems to compromise when he reflects
on the standards of correct *yan* (language use--see
below). He shares Confucius' insight about the role of learning
to the heart-mind's guidance of behavior. He also shares
Confucius' view of the role of political leader as
educator-in-chief. If the ruler's speech and behavior promote
universal human well-being, the people's behavior will change
"in a single generation".



Mozi's focus on developing a social and political *dao*
that creates and sustains general well-being starts from assumptions
about the heart-mind different from the Confucians. He envisions a
counterpart of Hobbes "state of nature" with the important
difference that the disorder is not a produce of universal
self-interest but of moral disagreement. Everyone is assumed to be
motivated morally, but to have different Yi  *yi*
(moralities). The social project he imagines is one of unifying the
varying conceptions of morality.



That social project, however, presupposed another fundamental
psychological assumption--that the social world could identify
and agree on who was "wisest and best" to lead the social
construction project. And the project itself hints at some assumptions
about human psychology. The leader, apparently selected by
acclimation, admits he's unable to unify all the world's
moralities. He appoints a Confucian-style hierarchical bureaucracy to
assist him. Each level of the hierarchy reports to those in the next
higher level. Still, even those at the bottom of the hierarchy (e.g.,
the village) admit their inability to say what is moral, so they
consult with ordinary people, who are to report what they find moral
and immoral. This stage is where Mozi speaks of punishing whoever will
not cooperate in this project of social morality construction by
withholding judgment.



Each level of the construction bureaucracy reports up the hierarchy.
However, the original assumption of moral disagreement is seemingly
ignored. Either at each level, there is no disagreement or the officer
taking the reports resolves disagreements *somehow*. The
"wisest and best" makes the final decision. Hints of how
that decision is made come from the contributions Mohists make to
developing a Chinese practical conception of knowing (*zhi*
Zhi ). Practical knowing, knowing-how, can underlie how we use
words and how we adapt modeled behavior in our own practice. The skill
we learn in learning Ming ming (names or terms) is learning
to Bian  *bian* (divide) into Shi  *shi* this and
Fei *fei* not-that. When paired, the translators routinely
use "right-wrong" as in right-from-wrong, right and wrong,
right or wrong. The demonstrative form reminds us that such choices
are made in real-time contexts.



Mozi suggests three standards for right and wrong use of terms:


1. Looking to the roots and original baptism with terms by the Sage
Kings and in accordance with the historical record of their ritual
behaviors. This is Mozi's compromise with Confucianism.
Continuity in language is important if know-how from the past is to be
successfully stored and transmitted to later generations.
2. According with the eyes and ears of the people, a kind of
intersubjective consensus of observation. This "empirical"
standard informs Mohist emphasis on measurement operations.


> 
> 
> The hundred artisans make squares with the set square, circles with
> the compass, straight lines with the string, vertical lines with the
> plumb line, and flat surfaces with the level. Whether skilled artisans
> or unskilled artisans, all take these five as models. The skilled are
> able to conform to them exactly. The unskilled, though unable to
> conform to them exactly, by following them in undertaking their work
> still do better than they do on their own. (*Mozi* CTP: Book
> 1.4 [trans. 2020: book 4.1])
> 
> 
>
3. Their practical use leads to general benefit. (*Mozi* CTP:
Book 9.1-2 [trans. 2020: book 35])



These standards seem potentially incoherent in that there seems no
guarantee that the results of applying one will be the same as the
results of applying the others. One way to help is make utility the
primary standard which justifies and guides application of the other
two standards: past usage is to be maintained to preserve social
know-how and coordination practices which benefit the people. Making
usage reflect ordinary empirical judgments makes learning easier and
application more reliable. Mozi's conception of usefulness is
robustly natural-bodily goods: food, clothing, housing, time with and
care for parents etc. He not only does not focus on pleasure, he
disapproves of it. Le  (*le* pleasure or *yue*
music--especially royal concerts and funerals) wasted material
goods and labor. Stable families and social order included filiality.
The early Mohist conception of benefit, therefore, seems to have been
constituted by a plurality of basic social goods, which indicates
their social and political orientation towards identifying a
*dao* or guiding path for society.



This solution has the advantage of explaining curious aspects of
Mozi's defense of "there are ghosts" and opposition
to "there is fate". He explains the first by testimony as
to the appearance and actions of ghosts who punish wrongdoers and
reward those who do what is right. However, chapter 31 of the *Mozi
simply* justifies sacrifices on the grounds that the sage-kings
practiced them, and the doctrine promotes good effects among the
living (i.e., sacrificial ceremonies to spirits build kinship among
the living and provide them with the food and wine). It suggests
ghosts do not exist but teaching and acting on their existence is
beneficial. It is probably a mistake to infer from this one passage
that the early Mohists theorized about truth vs. pragmatic benefits of
belief, though later Mohists may be interpreted as noticing such a
distinction.



The early Mohist primacy of the benefit standard makes its ethics the
first consequentialist ethic in history. Destructive conflict among
people, families, and states is diagnosed in the *Mozi* as due
to conflicting social mores and relative bias toward our own family,
village, state and culture. Utilitarian reasoning yields a normative
psychological solution: adopt *jian ai* (Jian Ai )
(*Mozi*, CTP: book 4, chapters 14-16 [trans. 2020: books
14-16]). Sometimes translated as "universal love"
but now more often as "inclusive" or "impartial
caring", it is best understood as opposed to an exclusive focus
on the well-being of oneself and one's relatives as the source
of destructive behavior (for discussion of these controversies, see
entries on
 Mohism
 and
 Chinese ethics).
 *Jian ai* is a moral attitude of care towards everyone and
supports governance that distributes benefits to all, taking special
care of those in need and less able to provide for themselves. The
Mohists assume (arguably with Confucians) that our heart-minds are
shaped by the teachings promoted by social leaders--starting with
the ruler.



*Jian ai* is a moral attitude of care towards everyone and
supports governance that distributes benefits to all, taking special
care of those in need and less able to provide for themselves. The
Mohists assume (arguably with Confucians) that our heart-minds are
shaped by the teachings promoted by social leaders--starting with
the ruler.



The later Mohists shifted most weight to an empirical standard and
taught that the language to be used should emphasize something more
like "carving nature at the joints". The main object of
all learning was skills in sorting things reliably into their correct
categories according to the patterns of their similarities and
differences (*Mozi*, CTP: Book 12.8 [trans. 2020: Book 47.9]).
Interest in human well-being expressed itself in widening interest in
knowing the natural world. The utilitarian core was
*ren*(Ren )the virtue of impartial or
inclusive care and the behavior was *yi* (Yi ) morally
right. The Mohist concept of measurement standards (*fa*
Fa ) remain central in this realist later Mohist phase. The
*zhi* Zhi will of *Tian* (Sky or Nature),
Mozi's original source of normative guidance, was
measurement-like utility. We naturally choose the lesser of two harms
and greater of two benefits.



The role of *Tian* in Mohism suggests a kind of naturalism in
their conception of psychology and the capacity to adopt an attitude
of *jian ai*. In chapter 28 on *Tian*'s intent,
Mozi says that he measures *Tian* nature's intent as a
wheelwright measures with a compass and a carpenter the square.
*Tian*'s intent is a command, but a pattern in
things--flipping the Western argument from design. The world is
here for human benefit. It benefits and nourishes everyone; it rewards
societies who act together and share and harm those that do not. It
makes no distinction among humans and provides life and sustenance to
rich and poor, noble and low, kin and non kin; it created the regular
and constant pattern of the seasons and weather that makes all these
broadly distributed benefits possible.



The Mohists' theories revolve around the concept of
Bian *bian* distinctions in language. The role of
*Tian* is tied to nature's joints, natural points of
distinction. The natural normative distinction is between benefit and
harm. Appealing to that distinction as a measure of "this"
and "not-that" yields a naturalistic argument for
universal concern in government. *Bian* comes to be used of any
theorist's justifying of a guiding distinction. This makes the
Mohist use of the concept unlike "argument" in Western
philosophy. The conventional translation is misleading. The Mohists
did not conceive of arguments as consisting of premises and a
conclusion and a form that guaranteed truth was preserved. It is
rather that some distinctions are assumed in arguing for other
distinctions. The Mohists appeal to distinctions where nature takes a
stand as in operational use of a measurement tool. Compasses,
carpenter's squares, and plumb lines, give reliable and precise
distinctions for sorting and choosing. This guides effective and
beneficial action and policy in government both because nature is
involved and ordinary people, using their eyes and ears, can recognize
and acknowledge the result. This makes the operational measurement
useful as well as reliable and accurate (true).



The Mohist conception of *bian* is deeply pragmatic. The ways
of teaching language and behavior is ultimately guided by the natural
*bian* of benefit-harm--arguably a distinction deeply
embedded in our heart-minds. This pragmatism is also illustrated by
the different kinds of appeal they make in their arguments for
*jian ai*. Given their view that chaotic conflict results from
everyone acting on their own view of what is right, one might infer
that they believe people to be typically motivated to do what they
think is right. However, they argue for *jian ai* on other
normative grounds besides its naturalness. It seems to require both
modeling from the leader and a punishment and reward structure. There
is not much worry over the tensions between saying that *Tian*
and other supernatural agents reward and punish to enforce the moral
order and also asserting the need for a strict and rigid hierarchical
government structure that incentivizes conformity to that moral order.
Perkins (2014) puts the problem of evil in its most general form: bad
things happen to good people, and this regular occurrence troubles
accepting that *Tian* or nature is equally benevolent to all
human beings. In a philosophical tradition that is developing
vigorous, argumentative debate, that belief will become increasingly
troubled. This may be a reason why *Tian* drops out of the
discourse of the later Mohists, who contributed to increasing
conceptual resources for debate.



The later Mohists kept the basic outlines of the consequentialist
ethic that Mozi and the early followers developed, but further
developed and revised that ethic along with their methodology of
argument, philosophy of language and epistemology. In addition, they
wrote on metaphysical topics such as causality and space and time, and
in a number of the sciences such as geometry and mechanics. Their
writings comprise six chapters of the *Mozi* (see CTP: chapters
40-45 [trans. 2020: part IV]). The later Mohists are true to
their forebearers in conceiving the cognitive capabilities of human
beings as functioning to *bian* discern different kinds and
identifying which things belonged or did not belong to these kinds.
Though these capabilities involve empirical contact with the world,
the later Mohists didn't invoke mental representations of
propositions. The contact makes the heart-mind aware of distinctions,
boundaries of things. And this information guides the practical
ability to sort things appropriately for behavior. Assigning a name to
a thing or thing to a name is sorting into *shi*, right or
this, and *fei*, wrong or not-that. The translation of
*bian* as argument leads some to attribute the Mohists with
developing syllogistic reasoning. They rather cultivate skill or
know-how in carving the world with linguistic distinctions. They
reflect no conception of reasoning with *ideas*, mentalistic
items in container-like heart-mind. The primary term of epistemology
is "knowing" *zhi* (Zhi ), which is a
capacity like eyesight (*Mozi*, CTP: Book 10 Canon I.3 [trans.
2020: books 40-3, A3]. They are focused on the capabilities or
skills to reliably sort out the relations between various kinds, e.g.,
that the category of oxen belongs to the larger category of
animals.



As to the question of whether the later Mohists made more fundamental
changes to their tradition, scholars diverge in their interpretations.
A.C. Graham, in his influential *Disputers of the Tao*, saw the
later Mohists as engaging in a kind of *a priori*
systematization of the earlier ethic through a series of interlocking
definitions of crucial terms such as *ren* and *yi*
(Graham 1989: 146). Such a reading may be too much in tension with the
pragmatic reliabilism exhibited by their concern to sort things out
into the right kinds. Stephens (2021; see him also for a detailed
critique of Graham's interpretation) provides another
interpretation that has the later Mohists broadening their conception
of benefit and harm on the basis of a preference satisfaction
criterion using pleasure and displeasure as indicators (*Mozi*,
CTP: Book 10 Canon I and Expositions 26-27 [trans. 2020: Books
40-3 A 26-27]). This addresses criticisms they might have
received about the narrowness of the earlier list of benefits, as well
as the *Zhuangzi*'s point about the diversity of things
that people value (see
 SS2.5
 below). The later Mohists also introduced the conception of weighing
benefits and harms, which makes possible an all-things-considered
judgment as to what actions or policies most benefit or least harm a
society (*Mozi*, CTP: Book 11.3, 11.5 [trans. 2020: Books
44.3a-c, 44.5 ]). They recognized the permissibility of
benefiting one's parents and the elderly more than others
(*Mozi*, CTP: Book 11.6 [trans. 2020: Book 44.6), perhaps in
response to criticism from Confucians such as Mengzi. These changes in
Mohist philosophy indicate significant interaction and adjustment
between the different traditions and have ramifications for an
implicit broadening of capacities of the heart-mind conception.


### 2.3 The *Daodejing*



The *Daodejing* (Dao De Jing  *The Book of the
Way and Its Power*) may have begun to take shape in fifth century
BCE and reached the form as we know it in the second century CE
(references to the Chinese text will be to the *Daodejing* in
CTP). It shares with the *Mozi* the attribution of impartiality
to the natural source of norms--*tian's dao*.
However, impartiality in the *Daodejing* is broader than it is
in the *Mozi*. Chapter 10 celebrates its giving of life and its
nurturance of *all* things, not only humans. Chapter 5 declares
that *Tian* and earth are not *ren*, that it treats the
myriad things as "straw dogs", i.e., ritual objects
treated reverently during the season of rites but afterwards tossed
aside. Rather than attributing callousness or cruelty to *Tian*
and earth, the message is that each thing is given its time, which
then inevitably passes. It is not just that the desires fostered by
Confucians and Mohists have no basis in *Tian* and earth. We
project our time and place's human concerns onto the natural
world in both social *daos*.



The *Daodejing* reminds us that the *dao* path metaphor
used by the social moralists to talk about how people should live was
taken from its home domain of how things naturally came into being
(ch. 14). It says both *dao* and *tian* follow
*ziran* natural or spontaneous (self-realized) unfolding (ch.
25). The Daoist conception of paths is this natural path structure.
Language and human social daos have path structure, but not all path
structure is in language or human affairs. Natural, *tian
dao*'s structure is a distribution of what is and what is
not--*you* (being) and *wu* (non-being). The
structure of nature also emerges and evolves in nature. The first
chapter says, the *Daos* can be *dao-ed* (guided or
evolved). They are not constant *daos*. So *dao* only
moves forward, unlike physical law that applies forward and backward
in time. The actual environmental context of unfolding of all things,
named or not, moves in one direction as things self-realize their
non-being possibilities, the possibles which are not yet part of
being. "Non-being" names the beginning of the cosmos
(*Tian* and earth). "Being" names "the mother
of 10,000 kinds of things". Cosmic *dao* unfolds in
silence and effortlessly. It exists where there is emptiness that
invites filling with behavior (ch. 11).



*Dao* makes no names constant. Natural material (uncarved wood)
can be distributed to make utensils (ch. 28). But no human authority
can make uncarved wood its servant. When we take it into a human
structure, we use names. When we have names, we will know "to
stop" (ch. 32). Why stop? Names of things generate desires that
go beyond natural desires. Nameless uncarved nature is free from such
desires and these are dangerous, competitive desires, e.g., for social
status. This is the crux of Laozi's ("Old Master" or
the anonymous author's) view of psychology. Acquiring any social
*dao* through learning names and ritual behaviors, takes us
away from our natural self. Going back to that natural self is to
cease to guide our behavior using social
constructs--Wu Wei  *wuwei* is the paradigm of
self-realization without social domination.



The *Daodejing* hints at other ways our self-nature is changed
by learning language and a social *dao*. The distinctions
marked in language are poverty stricken in comparison to the ability
of our eyes and ears to register hues and tones (ch. 11). Linguistic
instructions using names are more rigid and less
accurate--imagine trying to explain how to follow a forest trail
by recipe-like instructions such as, "Walk 7 steps NNE then turn
12o west and take 4 steps, then ...". compared to
pointing to the trail. With natural *dao*, we respond to the
suppleness and constantly changing flux of ongoing experience of the
world (ch. 76). It could be said of much of Chinese philosophy but is
most dramatically presented in the *Daodejing*'s stress
on constant, ceaseless transforming.



Note that this view of the match between human naming and
classificatory capacity and the world runs against the view
presupposed by the Mohists. Usefulness often presupposes some socially
constructed of name-influenced desire or value. So, it cannot mediate
between different systems of constructing such values.



The *Daodejing* prizes attentiveness and responsiveness to the
present situation. Terms in language elide the differences in
situations. We see the world through the filter of our desires and try
to manipulate things and other people to make names apply. We cannot
stop the process of ceaseless change and unfolding.



We should neither elevate some people above others (so-called
worthies), nor value things for their rarity only, nor seek out things
of desire. These confuse the heart-mind. To achieve peaceful stable
life, sage leadership works to empty the people's minds of such
things so they focus simply on natural goals of adequate clothing,
health, and control of our own lives. In the battle of nature and
nurture, Laozi chooses nature. That is why the sage is for the belly
and not the eye (beauty) (ch. 3).



This goal of emptying the heart-mind of inculcated desires and the
crude distinctions behind names forms the basis of the later blending
of Daoism and Buddhism. We see hints of breath control and meditation
motivated by the paradox implicit in their goal--nirvana or empty
mind (ch. 10). The achievement is likened to returning to being a
newborn infant. A child's receptivity to the world is
celebrated. It finds its way as streams and rivers find valleys (ch. 6
and 15). The ideal for the heart-mind is to find its own equilibrium
in the world without the domination of a past culture's
presuppositions. The heart-mind's calmness (stillness) and
emptiness underpin this receptivity to undistorted nature. (ch. 16).
The heart-mind can attune to *dao* and follow its invitations
to behavior. This conception of forming a unity, becoming one with
*dao*, makes the heart-mind's self-realization the
standard guiding the changing *dao* (ch. 25). The heart-mind
that empties itself is able to attune to and participate in this
primordial movement of *dao*.



This unity of the empty and still heart-mind with the *dao* of
unfolding is why *wuwei* can be efficacious. It emerges from
supple receptiveness to the moment or situation at hand. In the
*Daodejing*, this is described as practicing teachings without
words, producing things without "owning" them, acting
without expectation of reward, and not lingering after one's
work is done (ch. 2). *Wu wei* is contrasted with behavior to
achieve a socially motivated end. Sometimes *wuwei* is
identified with spontaneous action, but not in the sense of impulsive
action but of *self-realization* of possibilities offered by
*dao*.



The text adopts various devices to help. Chapter 63 says to overcome
the hard while it is still easy and to achieve the large while it is
small. Difficult things start with what is easy, and great things
begin with the small. Chapter 64 says to set things in order before
they become chaotic. These sayings suggest careful attending to things
and a foresight born of perceiving incipient patterns of development.
Such careful attending may give rise to action that might be called
spontaneous, not impulsive, but instead supremely responsive to
others. The responsiveness is transparent to the shape of
*dao*'s invitation to behavior.



The text signal's awareness that *wuwei* is practically
contradictory since it recommends a type of behavior using two social
concepts--*wu* and *wei* (ch. 48). The text
(especially the 2nd *de* book) charges into social
and political ethics implied in this conception despite their
notorious tension with this anti-social domination beginning. The
invitations to behavior include social contexts. An open, transparent
pursuit of natural options include how one's actions are
complementary to others as in a dance. One is sensitive to others so
as to blend and complement one's energies with theirs.
*Our* joint receptiveness gives *us* a *dao*
which *we self-realize* in our joint behavior.



The political implication is the greatest sage rulers are barely known
to the people; the next greatest are those who are loved; after that
come those who are feared, and after that those who are ridiculed.
Tasks are completed and duties are fulfilled, and the people simply
say that this is their natural way (ch. 17). Sage rulers do this by
emptying their heart-mind and making the people's heart-minds
their heart-mind (ch. 49).



Some descriptions of how sage rulers do this seem controlling and
manipulative, where ancients good at enacting *dao* do not
enlighten the people but keep them stupid and ignorant (ch. 65). This,
however, is consistent with the basic worry about conventional
knowledge as frustrating self-realization. Sage rulers themselves
should be "without [such] knowledge" and nurture the
people's unfolding future without commanding it (ch. 10). In
chapter 20 the speaker refers to their own heart-mind as belonging to
a fool, empty of conventional wisdom.



The contrast is also with conventional morality. From the perspective
of the *Daodejing*, the Confucians and Mohists are locked into
an untenably anthropocentric view of *Tian* and earth that sees
them as somehow favoring humanity. The straw-dogs metaphor de-centers
humanity, placing it simply among the myriad things. Conventional
morality not only embodies an illusion. Following it does not make
matters better. *Ren* and *yi*, along with cleverness
and deception, emerge when *Dao* is abandoned (ch. 18). When
adopted to steer us toward a better course, its fixed values are too
rigid to allow the flexible response to the flow of experience
necessary for efficacy; moreover, they become instruments of personal
ambition and attempts to outdo others. It is better renounce
*ren*, abandon *yi*, along with cleverness and profit,
maintaining simplicity and embracing plainness, reducing desires (ch.
19).



*Laozi*'s philosophical psychology is reflected in
*The Mengzi*'s more elaborate theory of the
heart-mind's natural moral unfolding. A late chapter lists
*ci* Ci  (compassion) among "my three
treasures" (ch. 67). *Ci* figures centrally in how that
Confucian text seeks to rehabilitate the *Mozi*'s
*ren* (benevolence) and *yi* (morality). Mozi and Laozi
had put guidance in the natural world to which the heart-mind through
its training could be attuned or prejudiced and unreceptive. Laozi and
Mengzi share a concern about the arbitrariness of education in mores.
Laozi finds the map in the natural world; Mencius will find it in the
original human mind.



The shared attitude in the ancient Chinese conception of mind in
nature is the basic goodness of the world, but the rejection of
anthropocentrism in Daoism's interpretation of *Tian* and
earth puts into question the meaning of what this goodness could
be.


### 2.4 The *Mengzi*



The *Mengzi* (unless otherwise indicated, all references to the
Chinese text will be to *Mengzi* in CTP) carries forward the
idea that heart-mind should lead or command bodily *qi* (2A2).
In 6A15, he distinguishes the part of the person that is great from
the part that is small. Those who follow the great part become great
persons and those who follow the small part become small persons. In
6A14, nourishing the small part is associated with being given to
eating and drinking. This fits with the 6A15 association of the small
part with faculties of hearing and sight that do not think and are led
by things perceived through these senses. By contrast the faculty of
the heart-mind is to think, and it is the performance of this faculty
that is associated with establishing the greater part of ourselves.
This conception of the heart-mind as leader seems to overlap with the
contemporary conception of the executive functions of the mind:
perception of patterns of similarity and difference in the world,
responding to these patterns through reasoning and feeling, setting
aims, and initiating action to achieve those aims.



*Mengzi*'s conception of the heart-mind is holistic,
i.e., it's guiding blends the heart-mind's thinking,
emoting, desiring, and conating. The human heart-mind begins with
innate *duan* Duan , seeds or sprouts of goodness. Mencius
attributes these to *Tian's* implanting them in human
nature (*ren xing* Ren Xing ). These inborn
*duan* are dispositions to feelings or emotions (*qing*
Qing ) linked with the body. Cognition also has a *duan*
which takes the form of intuitions of right and wrong
(Shi Fei  *shi-fei*). When the heart-mind develops from
these sprouts it both acts well and grows in the sense that it
acquires new moral knowledge and motivation to perform better in other
situations. Reasoning and reflecting on emotions therefore involve the
body. Therefore, when Mengzi says that the function of the heart-mind
is to lead the rest of the person, he is not thereby contrasting
something that is purely mental or cognitive with another thing that
is purely physical or affective. The leading part of the person is
both mental, physical, cognitive, and affective (see entry on
 the emotions in early Chinese philosophy).



Mengzi numbers the *duan*, calling them the four heart-minds.
Each develops into a different dimension of ethical excellence:
*ceyin zhixin* Ce Yin Zhi Xin  (compassion)
can develop into *ren* Ren  (human-heartedness);
*xiuwu*Xiu E  (shame and dislike) can develop into
*yi*Yi  (righteousness); *ciran*Ci Rang 
(deference and yielding) can develop into *li* Li  (ritual
propriety, etiquette); and *shi/fei* Shi Fei  can
develop into *zhi*Zhi  or wisdom.



The heart-mind links humans with *Tian*. In 6A16, Mengzi
distinguishes the nobility of *Tian* from the nobility of
humans. Human-heartedness, righteousness, loyalty, truthfulness, and
taking untiring pleasure in doing good is the nobility of
*Tian*. Being a duke, minister, or high-ranking official is the
nobility of humans. In 2A2, Mengzi states his "unmoved
heart-mind" enables him to remain steady in the face of
inevitably uncertain fortune in pursuit of the nobility of humans. He
achieved this state, he explains, through cultivating his flood-like
*qi*. He cultivates it through the formation of *zhi*
(intent or aim; see also *Analects* 9.26), which
*rightly* leads and nourishes the body's *qi*. If
nourished uprightly, it fills the space between *Tian* and
earth. The suggestion here is that *Tian*'s goodness,
implanted in human nature, runs throughout the material world. Humans
who cultivate their goodness merge with that larger universal
goodness. This brief metaphysically pregnant passage that links the
heart-mind to attunement with the entire world comes to blossom in
Neo-Confucian metaphysics (see entries on
 metaphysics in Chinese philosophy,
 Song-Ming Confucianism,
 Zhu Xi,
 and
 Wang Yangming).



Mengzi focuses most on compassion and its development into
human-heartedness, the first *duan*. Of the four *duan*,
*shi/fei* and its development into wisdom bears most directly
on the way that the heart-mind's reflection and reasoning foster
growth of the sprout of compassion into human-heartedness and of the
other two sprouts into their corresponding virtues. Accordingly, the
discussion here will focus on the compassion/human-heartedness and
*shi/fei/wisdom*. However, there is a growing body of
literature on the Confucian view of shame and a sense of shame as
playing important roles in the development of moral character,
contrary to some prominent views in the Western literature that shame
is seldom, if ever, a productive moral emotion (see Van Norden 2002
[2004]; Seok 2017; Tiwald 2017; and Hu 2022) for examples of
discussion along these lines.



Mencius illustrates compassion with his story of the alarm, distress
and compassion that anyone would feel upon seeing a child about to
fall into a well (2A6). Clearly it starts with a *cognitive*
recognition of another as about to suffer. Alarm and distress are the
natural *qing* (emotion) in the situation and the compassion
implicit in that natural affection. In 2A6, Mengzi describes it as the
heart that is unable to bear or endure [the suffering of] others. The
*qing* also is an impulse to action--to prevent or
alleviate suffering. The impulse to action is the impulse to identify
what should be done; thinking in conjunction with empirical knowledge
of the world is required. Developing human-heartedness requires
learning to act on the emotion in the right way. In this, the sprout
of *shi/fei* and its corresponding virtue of wisdom come into
play.



Mengzi does not engage in much explicit discussion of
*shi/fei*, but the way that *shi* and *fei* are
used in the text provide clues. S*hi* is often used to identify
("this") or to compare actions, events, or qualities of
persons under certain categories (*lei*Lei ), and
*fei* is used to exclude them ("not this") from
certain other categories. In 1A3, Mengzi explains to King Hui why
people are not flocking to his state despite the King's
perception that he is more human-hearted toward his people than
neighboring kings are to their peoples. Compare, he asks the king, a
soldier who throws down his weapon and flees from the enemy for one
hundred paces to one who flees for fifty paces. Is not the second
still fleeing? The King agrees by saying that "this" is
also fleeing. Mengzi then points out that the King lets dogs and swine
eat food meant for human beings while his people die of famine. The
implication is that the king's policies still fall far short of
being human-hearted, even if metaphorically they go fifty paces less
in the wrong direction. If the King attempts to excuse himself by
saying that it has simply been a bad year, Mengzi asks, "How is
'this' different from killing a person by stabbing him and
then saying, 'It was not I; it was the weapon'?"
Here *shi* as "this" is used to liken the
king's inadequate efforts to save his people to the soldiers who
stop at fifty paces and to a killer who blames the knife instead of
himself.



Mencius here draws on the analogical reasoning employed by the Mohists
talk of *shi/fei* as right/wrong. In another example, 2B3,
Mengzi is asked why he declined to accept money from King Xuan on one
occasion and accepted on two subsequent occasions. Mengzi points to
what he claims are relevant differences in the circumstances.
Declining was *shi* in the first case but it could be
*fei* on subsequent occasions. *Shi/fei* is used in such
contexts to exemplify the relevance of wisdom to ethical excellence.
The fourth *duan* involves inborn dispositions to perceive or
judge patterns of similarities and differences that play crucial roles
in the cognitive aspects of the other *duan,* in recognizing
moral relevance. The *duan* develop into full moral virtues
with the *growing* guidance of the cognitive moral intuition.
The intuition identifies who is suffering and which acts are shameful,
and which are not.



Analogical reasoning is pervasive in the *Mengzi*. In the most
general sense, analogical reasoning infers a conclusion in a
problematic case on the basis of that case's relevant
similarities with another case in which the conclusion is regarded as
correct. Has the King done enough for his starving people? Not if what
he has done is like the soldiers who stop fleeing from battle at 50
paces. Is it the King's fault that the year's harvest has
been a bad one? Yes, it is still his fault if his failure to prevent
or make up for the bad harvest is like the killer who blames the knife
and not himself. However, as the example in 2B3 illustrates, an
analogical inference may be defeated if a morally relevant
dissimilarity is pointed out (see Lau 1970; Wong 2002).



When the dispositions to deploy *shi/fei* develop into
abilities to reliably discern patterns of a morally relevant sort,
they grow to constitute *zhi* as wisdom. Wisdom is implicitly
ethical. In 4A27, authentic wisdom is identified as knowing the most
authentic expression of *ren* (human-heartedness) as serving
one's parents and the most authentic expression of *yi*
(righteousness) as following one's elder brothers. In 2A7 Mengzi
says that no one can cause us not to be *ren*--failure in
this derives from a lack of wisdom. In 7A46 Mengzi says that what is
urgent for the wise is confronting what is fundamental. There is no
one whom those who are *ren* do not love, but what is
fundamental is earnestly caring for the *worthy*. Mengzi does
not make explicit what the meaning of "most fundamental"
is, but one possibility is that it is to be given priority in the
order of development. One begins with concentrating most of
one's efforts to what is most fundamental and extends it to what
is less fundamental.



Wisdom includes weighing conflicting values and judging correctly
which takes precedence. In 4A17, when challenged by an example where
the situation seems to call for a violation of *li* (ritual
propriety) by taking the hand of one's sister-in-law to save her
from drowning, Mengzi replies that only a wolf would not save her.
Mengzi is then asked why he does not save the whole world when it is
drowning, the implication being that he refuses to sweep aside the
niceties of ritual propriety to do what is necessary. He answers that
it is a matter of discretion (*quan* Quan ) to determine
that saving one's sister-in-law takes precedence over ritual
propriety, but he wonders whether he is being asked to save the world
by pulling it out with his hand. One saves the world through the way,
the *Dao* Dao , and the implication is that saving the
world with the *dao* cannot involve simply sweeping aside
ritual propriety.



Crucial for Mengzi, then, is *how* the *duan* develop
into full virtues. Since analogy is the central method of reasoning
featured in the text, we may conclude it is a major way innate knowing
grows into moral knowledge. The initial knowledge is sprouts of inborn
moral intuition. We start, e.g., from knowing to serve parents and
following elder brothers and infer who else to serve and to follow in
developing *ren* and *yi* (4A27 and 7A46).



However, the central example in 2A6 of the operation of compassion is
one's emotional response to an endangered child who is neither
in one's family nor known. But even if human beings are
naturally disposed to spontaneously care for their family members and
for innocent children who are not their own, they may not be disposed
to spontaneously care for an irascible villager or for a stranger
they've never met. To know that we have a reason to care for
these others, we must see the relevant moral similarities between them
and the family member or child we do spontaneously care for. We infer
what we have reason to do from cases in which we are confident that we
know what to do. These base cases for further inference by analogy are
supplied by intuitions from the *duan*.



Still, such inferences are not valid if there are relevant moral
dissimilarities between the base cases and the problematic cases at
hand. This is an implication of 4A17, discussed above with reference
to *quan*. Though one may not accord with the ritual of men and
women not touching one another to save a drowning sister-in-law, one
has to save the drowning world through the *Dao*, and part of
following the *Dao* is to restore ritual propriety.
Mengzi's horizontal reasoning coming from comparing particular
cases stands in significant contrast with vertical, top-down reasoning
from general principles. It holds superior appeal if one thinks that
one's moral intuitions are more solid when rooted in the
particular, and it allows for building up to general principles
through noting recurrent patterns of similarities and dissimilarities
(Wong 2002). In 1A3, as seen above, Mengzi uses analogies to get King
Hui to see that he has to do more to keep his people from
starving.



Since the *duan* include emotions, however, growth of the
sprouts also depends on growth or maturation of the sprouts of
emotion. Mengzi attempts to foster that maturation in King Xuan in
1A7. King Xuan asks whether he has the capacity to be the kind of true
king Mengzi has been urging him to be. Mengzi prompts the king to
remember a time he spared an ox being led to ritual slaughter. The
King, moved by seeing the oxen's eyes, decides to spare the ox.
But he is uncertain about what his motivation was since, when asked
whether the ritual should be canceled, he orders a sheep to take the
ox's place. He is aware that his people surmise that he was
being cheap (a sheep not being as costly).



Mengzi expresses understanding as to why sparing the ox but sending a
sheep to be slaughtered confused the King, and his people, about his
motivation. However, he asserts that the King was rather moved by
compassion for the ox, and the King not only remembers being moved by
the ox's trembling in fear but also experiences the feeling of
compassion in his conversation with Mengzi. The King is prompted by
Mengzi's interpretation of his motivation to reflect back on the
incident and recalls likening the ox to an innocent person being led
to the execution ground. One implication of this very rich and complex
passage is that Mengzi seems to be trying to spark the feeling of
compassion in the king and get that compassion to flow from the ox to
his people. That is why Mengzi immediately asks the King how his
kindness could be sufficient to extend to animals but not to his
people. If it does not so extend, it is not because he is incapable,
but simply because he does not do it, thus implicitly answering the
King's original question of whether he could be a true king.



Notice that Mengzi has again deployed an analogy here: from the
ox's suffering to the people's suffering and has appealed
to the king's capability to respond to the ox to support the
inference that he has the capability to care for his people. But what
Mengzi is most after is not the purely intellectual recognition that
the King has the capability. He has gotten the King to feel again the
compassion he felt with the ox, and by bringing up his people's
plight, is trying to get the King's compassion to engage with
his people. That is, the most relevant analogy is from an emotion felt
in one case to a hoped-for emotion in the second case. It is all the
more plausible because the King himself mediated his compassion for
the ox with the thought of an innocent person being led to execution.
Analogy plays a crucial role not only in extending intellectual assent
but also the affective motivation to act on that assent. Recognition
of a reason to spare one's people suffering must be enlivened
with emotion to be motivationally effective.



There is more to be gleaned from this very rich and complex passage.
In his discussion with the King, Mengzi accepts the permissibility of
sacrificing an animal for the performance of a ritual, but he also
accepts that the King was right to spare the ox, having seen
it's suffering. The underlying rationale may be that one's
sensitivity to the suffering of animals is so close to one's
sensitivity to the suffering of persons that it can be harmful to
squelch the former, even if the sacrifice would have been justified
had he not seen its suffering. The *junzi* Jun Zi  or
"exemplary person" (see *Analects* [1998]) cannot
bear to see the suffering of animals, and so he stays away from the
kitchen (there is disquieting silence here on the moral plight of
those in the kitchen; some people's moral sensitivities
apparently matter less than those of others). The constructive point
to be taken here is that the sensitivity to other's suffering is
something that must be both nurtured *and* protected. It cannot
be turned off simply because it is justifiable to kill the suffering
creature in question in one case. In other words, compassion as an
emotional capacity has a course of development that is not malleable
to being regulated by moral judgments that ignore the natural course
of its development. In 1A7, Mengzi also mentions that deprivation of a
constant means of livelihood can entirely divert one's focus on
developing the sprouts to the urgent task of subsistence.



These views pertain to the kind of hierarchy Mengzi has in mind for
the relation between the heart-mind and the rest of the person. Recall
the close relation between emotions and the body. The heart-mind can
seek to direct the flow of the *qi* of emotive attitudes, as
Mengzi attempts to coax King Xuan's compassion to flow from the
ox to his people, but the *qi* has natural tendencies that the
heart-mind must respect. This point seems to be made in a more general
way by the passage in 2A2 about the farmer from Song. The farmer was
worried that his seedlings were not growing. He pulled on them,
intending to help them grow, and his sons returned to the field to
find them all withered. There are few people, says Mengzi, who do not
try to help their seedlings to grow, but on the other hand there are
some who mistakenly believe that they can do *no* benefit to
their seedlings and consequently neglect and do not weed among them.
Perhaps the thought about the need to weed is connected to the thought
in 6A15 that those who nurture the small part of the person become
small persons. The weeds may be excessive desires for objects of the
senses, and weeding may be controlling these desires so that they do
not deprive the moral sprouts from nutrition. But further, it is
possible to damage and even to kill the sprouts in trying to help them
grow. Underlying this implication is the belief that the inborn
*duan* have a structure such that they grow in response to
certain kinds of treatment and wither in response to other kinds.



Mengzi's conception of the relation between the
heart-mind's reflection and reasoning and its affective
dispositions is not a simple hierarchical one. It is of an organic
unity and mutual dependence. This conception presents a substantial
and, in many respects, appealing alternative to Humean and Kantian
conceptions of this relation. The heart-mind is not a slave to
emotion, but neither does it act independently of emotion when it acts
morally (Wong 2017). Emotions go into the very composition of the
*duan* of the heart-mind. Emotions have cognitive content
embedded within them which shapes their intentional direction. For
example, the affective disposition identifies another's
potential or actual suffering as a salient feature of the situation
that could constitute a reason and conative impetus for acting. On the
other hand, the heart-mind's reflective and reasoning evaluation
identifies other relevant features of the situation as possible
reasons that may augment or counteract suffering as a reason. For
example, in 1A7 (where King Xuan likens the ox's suffering to an
innocent person being led to the execution ground) and 3A5 (where
Mengzi associates the ancient kings' solicitous treatment of the
people as if they were innocent infants), Mengzi identifies a
person's innocence as relevant to having the compassionate
response. This of course implies that the heart-mind might override an
incipient compassionate response if the recipient is in some sense
deserving of suffering. Reflection, reasoning, and emotion are more
like partners in the human moral response to the world, rather than
one being dominant over the other, either descriptively or
normatively.


### 2.5 The *Zhuangzi*



The *Zhuangzi* puts the focus back on the epistemic and
normative (guidance) functions of the heart-mind, i.e., Mencius heart
of Shi Fei  *shi-fei* (this-not that). This reconnects
him with the later Mohist's theory of the norms of language/name
use. But his style differs and is unique. He relates insights through
vivid and often humorous stories and metaphorical imagery.



The *Zhuangzi* questions the very notion of a hierarchy with
the heart-mind leading the rest of the person (references are to
*Zhuangzi* in CTP). Zhuangzi advises listening to all the
natural parts of one's body, of which the heart-mind is only
one. This egalitarian conception of the parts of a person puts the
heart-mind in conversation with the rest of the body rather than in
command.



Zhuangzi's theory of cognition and guidance receives its most
sustained, varied, and intricate expression in the second chapter,
"Equalizing Assessments of Things" (*Qi Wu Lun*
Qi Wu Lun ). Its blend of illustrations of knowing and
of mistaking ignorance for knowing challenges interpreters to reflect
on how his theory of mind works. The opening reflection by Ziqi
Zi Qi  starts the analysis of the heart-mind regarding the
body. Seemingly deep in some meditative state, Ziqi describes it as
having "lost myself". He further explains to his
interlocutor using the metaphor of pipes. We know of human pipes but
haven't known of the pipes of earth; We've heard the pipes
of earth, but not yet the pipes of *Tian*. The Great Clump
(earth) blows its breath, its *qi*, through ten thousand
natural hollows. When blown lightly, it generates small harmony, and
when powerful, a vast and grand harmony.



So, what then are the pipes of *Tian*? It blows out the 10
thousand dissimilarities and makes them one's own, along with
one's own choosing, where does the impulse arise?
(*Zhuangzi* CTP: *Qi Wu Lun*, 1 [trans. 2009: 9]).
Zhuangzi's obscure answer has provided fuel for many
interpreters' employment (see entry on
 Zhuangzi).



The combative moral arguments of humans start from their choosing
different ways of marking similarity and dissimilarity in language,
e.g., with terms like Yi  *yi* (rightness). We speak of
great and small knowing, great and small ways of speaking and even
argue in our sleep. Waking, our heart-minds go into battle with
feints, deception, threats. We "shoot out" Shi 
*shi'*s (this is right) and Fei  *fei'*s
(No, that is wrong) like arrows from a crossbow. Then we stick to them
as if they were covenants, As the weight of commitments grows we slow,
weaken, fade and lose our vitality as if we were "[h]eld fast as
if bound by cords", continuing "along the same
ruts". "Thus, the heart-mind moves closer to death, and
nothing can restore its vitality" (*Zhuangzi* CTP: *Qi
Wu Lun*, 2 [trans. 2009: 9]). Presumably the insight Ziqi reports
as "losing my 'I'" concerns the cognitive and
normative capacity. But it views the battles with heart-minds as if
from a distance. Then, pointedly avoiding attributing them to the
organ, it introduces feelings that arise.



> 
> 
> Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, plans and regrets,
> transformations and stagnations, unguarded abandonment and deliberate
> posturing--music flows out of hollows, mushrooms form from steam!
> Day and night they alternate before us, but no one knows from whence
> they sprout. Never mind! Merely notice that they are there day and
> night...they come from somewhere. Without them there would be no
> "I", and without an "I" nothing chosen.
> (*Qi Wu Lun*, 3 [trans. 2009: 10]).
> 
> 
> 



This Hume-like reflection about the source of the "I"
suggests it is not identified with the heart-mind. The body has
"hundreds of bones, nine openings and six organs", is any
of them more "I" than the others? The *Zhuangzi*
goes on to muse that there must be some controller or true lord even
if we cannot identify it. Once put together, these parts depend on
each other as we struggle through life which passes by at a gallop.
We're never sure of what we've done or if we achieve
goals. As the body fades, the heart-mind fades with it. Sad!
(*Ibid*)



> 
> 
> If we follow whatever has so far taken shape, fully formed, in our
> heart-minds, making that our teacher, who could ever be without a
> teacher? The historical scholar knows the times and his
> heart-mind chooses by itself. The fool does so as well. To get
> "right" and "wrong" before one's pass
> structures someone's heart-mind --that is like leaving for
> Yue today and arriving yesterday. (*Qi Wu Lun*, 4 [trans.
> adapted from 2009: 11])
> 
> 
> 



The heart-mind acquires its structure as it "selects"
(*qu* Qu ) among alternatives. This *cheng xin*
Cheng Xin , the fully-structured heart-mind then "shoots
out" "this-right!" and "not that-wrong!"
suggests that the piping of human beings is formed on the basis of
selecting from some *this'*s and rejecting others. We
acquire a conception of "right" and "wrong"
from our past practice.



The passage goes on to say, "Courses are formed by walking them.
Things are so by being called so" (*Qi Wu Lun*, 6 [trans.
2009: 13]). The implication is that the heart-mind's
"right" and "wrong" and "thus and
so" and "not thus and so" emerge within the relative
space or our lived worlds in which our structure was acquired by our
past practice, our concepts of things with certain relations and
differences from other things in our environment. Zhuangzi's
view in the *Qi Wu Lun* is like Nelson Goodman (1978) and Iris
Einheuser (2011). On this view, facts are not "in the
world" independently of how we conceptualize them. We carve out
facts from the stream of goings-on in our environment. An independent
world is responsible for this stream, and we systematize and structure
it from the very small portion the world we have navigated in our time
in that world.



Recent neuroscience also fits within this Zhuangzian picture. It
suggests that we focus attention on only part of the overwhelming
amount of information we get from the world. We suppress conscious
awareness of information that seems irrelevant to that focus.
(Nakajima et al. 2019). This is how we can hear other people at our
table in a noisy restaurant. Once we have our concept scheme for the
world, we suppress alternative ways of naming (concept frameworks).
The natural world, independent of our concepts, does impact and
constrain the shape of that framework. Constellations of stars are a
metaphor for this process of selection. We may see a certain group of
stars as forming a "Big Dipper", but alternatively see
that group as part of a larger group forming a "Great
Bear", the dipper stars now forming a portion of the back half
of the bear's torso and its tail. Such alternative parsings
cannot produce just any range of facts. But we make the facts we make
through the parsings.



Zhuangzi's epistemology and theory of mind does not concern how
we represent mentally a fact that exists out in the natural world. It
is of a scheme of navigation with concepts we project on the world to
aid us in getting about. Zhuangzi sees a similar orientation by all
natural creatures. They are equipped with faculties for getting on
with their lives. Our language-ing the world is broadly like
bird's chirping. Both of us are seeking coherence with the
structure of the world in our own choices of ways to live.



Constructive skepticism and substantial assertion about the world and
how we relate to it do not just sit side by side in this haunting
imagery, but are intertwined. Zhuangzi's skepticism is
constructive because it does not compel us to give up on our
conceptualization, but to recognize its overarching similarity to
other creatures as well as other peoples with different
languages--systems of names. Thus, constructive skepticism is
compatible with substantive claims about the nature of the world as a
whole consisting in interdependent, fluidly interacting things that
react to and flow into a shared system. We become an ecosystem of
related ways of life *fitting* this natural world. Each of us
emerges from and returns to that greater whole, a living monism with
real parts. Indeed, the complexity and fluid plasticity of things is
part of what makes the range of alternative conceptualizations of the
world significant and wide. The significance of this way of all being
"One" is that the world can be expected to be elusive.



The *Zhuangzi* expresses a keen appreciation for the
variability of language and conceptualization across persons and
communities. People differ in the inferences that link the terms
ostensibly shared in their language. This often results in their
talking past each other, as is the case with the Mohists and the
Confucians. Each *shi'*s (affirms) what the other
*fei'*s (negates) and negates what the other affirms
(*Qi Wu Lun*, 4). Mohists, for example, will *fei*
ritual practice that puts resources and human energy into rituals of
mourning and burial that could have gone into fulfilling the needs of
the living, and Confucians will *shi* ritual practice that
expresses reverence and gratitude toward the deceased as cultivating
important emotional dispositions of deference, yielding and gratitude
toward others. Mohist bring coherence into their inference relations
among terms by making benefit and harm (*li hai*
Li Hai ) central to normative conceptual scheme. Confucians
will bring coherence to their inferences focusing on family relations
and fidelity to past usage and practice, deference and ritual (*li
rang* Li Rang ). The mere fact that both have emerged in
Pre-Han China does not, by itself, require either side to abandon its
scheme. But it does require that we be more modest about our own
constructions, even as we use them. We should recognize that our
reasons for them are themselves derived from the scheme constructed in
our heart-minds by past practice and exposure. We are well advised to
be open to how others construct their worlds and seek understanding of
how the others' scheme works in their way of life rather than
warring with or coercing them to follow what we "know" in
our way of life. "... if you want to affirm what they
negate and negate what they affirm, nothing compares with using the
light (*yi ming* Yi Ming )" (*Qi Wu Lun*,
4). What does it mean to use the light?



The *Zhuangzi* is often interpreted as holding that there is a
way of knowing that is not subject to skeptical doubt. This way may be
a kind of knowing-how different in kind from propositional knowledge
(e.g., see Ivanhoe 1993; Eno 1996), or it may be a kind of mystical,
ineffable insight into the nature of things or their oneness (e.g.,
Roth 2003). The skepticism, on this interpretation, is limited to
skepticism about words, argument, and discursive theory (for detailed
criticism of these interpretations, see Chiu 2018). Given the
elusiveness of the language in the text, it is not surprising that it
is hard to definitively rule out the presence of a voice that speaks
for ineffable, unmediated access to the world as it is. The skill
passages, however, require no such interpretation. They often
emphasize that the skill is largely independent of language and admit
to an inability to teach the skill to others.



A modest constructive skepticism takes care not to overgeneralize
skepticism itself. It does not require ruling out skills or
realization of our oneness with the world. It is, in fact, the
launching point of this theory of a mind that copes with reality as it
finds it. The value of Zhuangzi's skepticism is its combination
of cultivating one's way of structuring by appreciating
(shedding light on) other possibilities found *in nature* and
other human views. We are open to other voices in finding ways to live
together in a natural unity, but also open to the limitations of these
other voices. No performative author (including *tian*) makes
one of these lives required. They are real world, practical options.
We, the audience, are left to make up our minds, as would be in the
spirit of constructive skepticism!



Moreover, Zhuangzi even hesitates to definitively affirm ways of
living (if that means not dying).



> 
> 
> How, then, do I know that delighting in life is not a
> delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like an orphan
> who left home in youth and no longer knows the way back? (*Qi Wu
> Lun*, 12 [trans. 2009: 19])
> 
> 
> 



And later,



> 
> 
> While dreaming you don't know it's a dream. You
> might even interpret a dream in your dream--and then you wake up
> and realize it was all a dream. Perhaps a great awakening
> would reveal all of this to be a vast dream. (*Qi Wu Lun*, 12
> [trans. 2009: 19])
> 
> 
> 



Consider perception. In the opening story of the first chapter,
"Free and Easy Wandering" (*Xiao Yao You*
Xiao Yao You ) we encounter an enormous bird named Peng
flying 90,000 miles up. Is "the blue on blue" of the sky
is its true color or is it the distance that makes it look that way
(*Xiao Yao You*, 1). When Peng looks down, he sees only this
earth. We, looking around on earth, see much more detail. Smaller
creatures, a cicada and fledgling dove, who struggle to make it from
the sandalwood to the elm tree, and they wonder what Peng up to 90,000
miles in the air and head south for. These creatures illustrate that
their size and powers determine their *Umwelten*--the
worlds of their aspirations and ways of guiding their behavior (von
Uexkull 2010). Each kind of organism lives in a world shaped by
their distinctive capacities. Each organism "selects" from
the plethora of possibilities in the world, the possible paths to its
future given its size, powers and needs (see Cantor 2020 for a similar
take on the "Happy Fish" story in chapter 17,
"Autumn Floods" *Qiushui* Qiu Shui 
chapter).



Different creatures "fit" their environment in different
ways. People eschew sleeping in damp places, unlike eels. People fear
living in trees, unlike monkeys. Which of these creatures
"knows" the right place to live? Different creatures want
to eat different things. Each is attracted to creatures of their own
kind and not to other kinds. The passage concludes,



> 
> 
> From where I see it, the transitions of Humanity and Responsibility
> and the trails of right and wrong are hopelessly tangled and confused.
> How could I know how to distinguish which is right among them? (*Qi
> Wu Lun*, 11 [trans. 2009: 18])
> 
> 
> 



If the point of these observations about various animals were a fairly
simple relativism to the effect that each picks out the features of
the environment that is the most relevant to their size, needs, and
powers, there need be no skeptical thrust. Differences in what is
right for each type of creature need not pose problems for the
prospects of gaining knowledge. Yet the passage ends with the
declaration that the trails of right and wrong are hopelessly tangled
and confused. The point instead is that different animals are
inevitably partial in selecting the features of the environment that
are the most suitable given their size, needs, and powers. The
*Umwelt* of an animal is likely to leave out features of the
world that are not so relevant to its needs, and maybe some features
are out of reach entirely from the creature's powers of
understanding and perception.



Right before this relativist passage, Nie Que asked Wang Ni if he
knows what all creatures agree on affirming. He demurs "how
would I know that!" "do you knows what you do not
know?" Same answer (*Qi Wu Lun*, 11). This illustrates
that the sort of skepticism in play here. It is not a complete denial
of knowing that dooms any attempt at discovery. Modest, constructive
skepticism encourages discovery. In the first chapter, Zhuangzi
chastises Huizi for being unimaginative in using a huge gourd. Why had
he not thought of making it into a boat? That Huizi stopped trying to
find a use for an unconventionally large gourd because he only had
conventional uses for it in his mind meant that he still had a lot of
tangled weeds clogging up his mind (*Xiao Yao You*, 6 [trans:
Ziporyn 2009: 7).



The tone of skepticism here arises from our treating conventional
knowledge as final. This skeptical stance is constructive in two ways.
First, the prospect of overturning received ideas is greeted with
delight. We can do this by learning to take the perspectives of
others, human and non-human.



Learning is using one's capacities to increase know-how. An
essential part of learning is practice. When the *dao* of our
inner parts, our *li*, is coherent with a *dao* in our
environment, we can achieve extraordinary skills. Skill learning
involves the entire body. Such sublime exercise is described with
Zhuangzi's usual skill with words in "The Primacy of
Nurturing Life" (*Yangsheng zhu*
Yang Sheng Zhu ) chapter. Zhuangzi describes the coordination
of his hand, foot, shoulder, and knee as he carved the ox--like
performing an elegant dance--even the sounds of the cutting,
flopping, ripping were like the musical accompaniment. The artist,
Cook Ding, replies to a ruler's praise of his elegant dance-like
butchering, that what he values is *dao* through which his
skill advances. When he first began butchering, he saw only the oxen.
After three years, he never again saw the ox as whole. Now his
"spirit" (*shen* Shen ) guides rather than his
eyes depending on natural lines (*Tianli* Tian Li )
dividing its joints and spaces (*Yang Sheng Zhu*, 2).



Three years of practice led to a changing conception of his
performance as a natural way through the path structure in the ox. He
no longer self-consciously performs the constituent behaviors, but
focuses on the *dao* and *li* of his movements and the
environment. He is totally absorbed and yet performs in relaxed joyous
ease. His body knows the way; no Cartesian pilot in the head directs
it.



Recent work on human embodied activity reflects Zhuangzi's
description of elevated skills. Sean Gallagher (2005) has written
about the way embodiment of know-how shapes our "body
schemas", the sensory-motor capacities that give us a sense of
our bodies in space. When we close our eyes and raise an arm, our body
schemas enable us to know exactly where our arm is located. Our body
schemas become engaged with the environment to help us accomplish our
task. When we get good at using these available things as tools, they
in effect become part of our body schemas, at least in that context
(see also Barrett 2011: 200).



Zhuangzi's reflections on this kind of knowing invariably
includes notice of its defects and limitations. The modest skepticism
that motivates being open to further advancing know-how remains for
Cook Ding. When he comes to a difficult spot in the ox, he pauses and
focuses, looking carefully at the point of difficulty, and carefully,
cautiously, goes at cutting the knot. The experiential immersion in a
learned behavior never reaches absolute or total perfection, the flow,
no matter how advanced, always possible to improve or achieve with
greater ease and satisfaction.



Further, even great skill may not amount to an ability to teach
others. The wheelwright of the "Heaven's Way"
(*Tian Dao*Tian Dao ) chapter says he cannot pass onto
his son the right way to chisel a wheel, and likens his situation to
the ancients who left their words in texts but not what they
accomplished and how--know-how that died with them (*Tian
Dao*, 9).



Humans learn complex patterns of motor responses involved in playing
musical instruments and driving cars, in which the acquired knowledge
is not fully accessible to discursive awareness (Clegg, DiGirolamo,
& Keele 1998), and much of the way we learn language, especially
the first language, is natural programming. (Cleeremens, Destrebecqz,
& Boyer 1998; Reber 1967, 1989). When intuitive know-how or
ability is unconsciously learned, conscious monitoring of performance
can be a matter of degree. Learning skilled motor responses involve
being guided by kinesthetic feelings--e.g., walking on two feet.
Knowing how to ride a bicycle is notoriously persistent as
"second nature". The same applies to navigating the
internet, playing an instrument, reading the emotions and body
language of others (Rosenthal et al. 1979; Edwards: 1998; Lewicki
1986), or, as Zhuangzi notes, Hui Shi's philosophical
reflections (*Qi Wu Lun* 7). Propositional knowledge is easily
explained as activation of an acquired capacity to formulate an answer
to a question with "kinesthetic" sense of confidence in
our performance. (Cohen et al. 1990; Dimitrovsky 1964; Rosenthal et
al. 1979)



Zhuangzi links his theory of how learning *cheng* (shapes) the
body and heart-mind and what he calls "fasting the
heart-mind" (*Ren Jian Shi* 1). The text advises Yan Hui
to fast (*zhai* Zhai ) his heart-mind in advising a violent
ruler. In interacting with him, Yan must listen with the heart-mind
rather than with the ears, but not just with the heart-mind but
listening with his bodily *qi*:



> 
> 
> For the ears are halted at what they hear. The [heart-]mind is halted
> at whatever verifies its preconceptions. But the vital energy is an
> emptiness, a waiting for the presence of beings. (*Ren jian
> shi*, 2 [trans. adapted from 2009: 26])
> 
> 
> 



One may have a strategy, but its implementation must respond to the
whole situation.



Having the heart-mind involved the way it was in learning after the
performance has become bodily, second-nature motor memory, may
actually impinge on performance flow. (Lieberman 2000: 121; McDonald
& White 1993; Packard et al. 1989; Rauch et al. 1995; Fletcher et
al. 2005). Thus, the relation between heart-mind's engaging in
learning and intuitive flow and bodily performance is complex. Thought
focused on method can also take over when intuitive performance hits a
problematic spot, as in Cook Ding's difficult spot in the ox. At
other times, it can be better to suspend the heart-mind's
judging in favor of sensitive responsive processing because the two
can interfere with one another. If there is sometimes competition
between the disciplined learning and practice and the immediate
processing of the complexities of a situation of performance,
*Zhuangzi* encourages *fasting* the heart-mind and
responding with one's whole *qi*.



*Zhuangzi* thus rejects Mencius' hierarchical conception
of the person with the heart-mind in control of all behavior. The
whole body works together, and the role of the heart-mind may fit (as
in learning and practice) or distract. When Confucius advises Yan Hui
to fast his mind it is in the context of his going into a dangerously
complex environment which demands totally alert focus on minute
details of the situation. Moral lecturing and strategic manipulation
of the ruler may have a counter-productive effect. More fundamentally,
the appeal is to the deliberative mind to recognize how elusive the
complex and changing world is, and to take seriously the possibility
that it is tapping into just a sliver of the information coming in
from that world.



Some link Zhuangzi's "fasting the heart-mind" to
meditation. Certain forms of meditation may increase one's
capacity for attentiveness to features of the present situation,
including cues as what others are thinking and feeling. There is some
evidence that it increases attentional focus and cognitive
flexibility. (Cahn & Polich 2006; Davidson et al. 2003; Moore
& Malinowski 2009; Moore et al. 2012; Siegel 2007; but see
Hartkamp & Thornton 2017 for a negative result). "Be
cognitively flexible" is in part the message of the stories of
Huizi's gourds and the trainer's alternative offer of
chestnuts to his monkeys, and the heart-mind might be able to learn it
through meditation. Chan Buddhism or Zen has a complex theory of this
which some link to fasting the mind.



This distinction between the conscious deliberative heart-mind as such
and the heart-mind that is rigidly committed to certain
conceptualizations of the world is used by advocates of combining
Confucian with Daoist approaches to decision-making and epistemic
inquiry. They see the *Zhuangzi* as affirming or approving of
conscious deliberation as a learned process. When Confucius presents
Yan Hui with a *dao* or way of "fasting the
heart-mind", they engage in conscious, deliberative discussion
governed by training-induced pathways in their brains.



When Cook Ding employs caution upon encountering a complicated place
in the ox, his conscious, deliberative heart-mind is taking over
control from the first-order heart-mind. *Zhuangzi*'s
advice on the organs taking turns in guiding the body, operates on a
meta or second-order level. It is advice about how to prepare oneself
to make quick, selectively precise and perceptively sensitive
decisions on a first-order level (Kahneman 2011). The training takes
place on the second level, the deliberative, cognitive level. One may
be advised to turn off the second-level, meta-*dao* in a
real-time. If you can't recognize an ox when you see one, you
won't recognize the words we used in teaching you a *dao*
for butchering one. Thus, Cook Ding underwent three years of study and
practice after which he didn't have to rehearse his lessons to
distinguish and divide the thigh joint from the femur. He saw the
animal as a composition of its natural parts. He goes about carving at
the first level.



A later Confucian, Wang Yangming (1472-1529 see entry on
 Wang Yangming)
 influenced by Daoist theory, argued that we go about learning to do
second order deliberation at a first order level. We are, that is,
natural learners. Cook Ding went about learning to carve, but now
he's learning to practice in a different context, the
king's palace. He learned a *dao* of carving an ox as Hui
Shi learned his discursive deliberative, deliberative, rhetorical
teaching style. Both gradually came to shift from deliberate learning
through practice to fast, first-order responsiveness.



Later Chinese inheritors of the *Laozi* and the
*Zhuangzi* would as enthusiastically embrace teach and learning
logic and scientific method. Yan Fu (1854-1921) saw science and
logic as a *dao* of learning about natural *dao*.
Metaphorically, he treated evolution as our natural *dao*.
Similarly, Jin Yuelin (1895-1984) taught mathematical logic at
Tsing Hua university modernized *Zhuangzi's* Daoism.
Nothing in Zhuangzi's conception of naturalism rules out being
trained in a *dao* of logic to use in guiding first-order
deliberative, discursive interactions with others.


### 2.6 The *Xunzi*



The *Xunzi* (references to the Chinese text will be to
*Xunzi* in CTP) is named after Xun Kuang (Xun Kuang , c.
310-c. 220 BCE). It further develops the Confucian tradition of
appealing to authority of a leader to conceptualize the role of the
heart-mind. Xunzi was a synthetic thinker, and his work shows
influence from and response to the Mohists, the Daoists, Zhuangzi in
particular, and Mengzi who becomes a foil in chapter 23
"*Xing E*" (Human nature is bad). Xunzi takes
Confucius teaching about the role of ritual and music in moral
cultivation more seriously than does Mengzi's focus on innate
moral knowledge.



In the "Correct Naming" (*Zheng Ming*
Zheng Ming ) chapter, Xunzi identifies what emerges in our lives
as our nature (*xing* Xing ). This nature includes our
capacity to register sense distinctions accessed in the real world
through the five sensory faculties. Our nature also includes liking,
disliking, happiness, anger, sadness and joy which we call
"dispositions" (*qing* Qing ). The *qing*
reacts to events in the world and the heart-mind deems what is
permissible or impermissible to seek through deliberating (*lv*
Lu ). When the heart reflects and one's abilities act on
it, this is called "deliberate effort" (Wei 
*wei*).



> 
> 
> That which comes into being through accumulated reflection and
> training of one's abilities is also called "deliberate
> effort". (*Xunzi* 22.2 [trans. 2014: 236])
> 
> 
> 



Social things and activities are measured by utility, and behavior
(Xing  *xing* walking) is measured by morality. That by
which people understand things is called "the
understanding" (*zhi* Zhi ), and when the
understanding connects to things it is called "knowledge"
(*zhi* Zhi ). The ability to do things is called
"ability" (*neng* Neng ) . To do things well, we
correctly sort parts of the world into named categories according to
their similarities and differences. Xunzi shares with the Mozi and the
Daoists a conception of knowledge as practical know-how.



To correctly sort things, one must use the names for them consistently
and with clarity:



> 
> 
> If the names and their corresponding objects are tied together in a
> confused fashion, then the distinction between noble and base will not
> be clear, and the like and the unlike will not be differentiated
> ... Thus, the wise person draws differences and establishes names
> in order to point out their corresponding objects. Most importantly,
> he makes clear the distinction between noble and base, and more
> generally, he distinguishes the like and the unlike. (*Xunzi*
> 22.4 [trans. 2014: 237])
> 
> 
> 



To explain how one achieves comprehensive clarity, Xunzi draws from
Zhuangzi's account of the Qing  *qing* as the basis of
choosing. Xunzi adopts the concept of emptiness (*xu* Xu )
to talk about being receptive to impressions and keeping memories of
earlier learning from interfering with this receptivity. He similarly
adapts Daoist unity (*yi* Yi ) as bringing all one's
diverse impressions into a harmonious whole in which none obscure
others; Daoist tranquility (jing Jing ) is remaining calm and
alert, not swept away by the plethora of thoughts and perceptions,
stimulation or even "irritation" (characterizations of the
three concepts from Stalnaker 2003: 90-91; see *Xunzi*
CTP: 21.8 [trans. 2014: 228]).



What Xunzi omits from Zhuangzi, however, is the idea that bodily
*qi* plays a crucial role in providing avenues to the
world's structure that plug into the deliberating heart-mind.
Xunzi recommends the three states of heart-mind to equip it in picking
out, sorting, and systematizing. Xunzi is also less open than Zhuangzi
to the possibilities of alternate conceptualizations of the
environment for behavior. He takes for granted that there are just the
similarities and differences in things that our concepts register.
Sorting them correctly just is using the established, conventional
names correctly. Direct realism must not be confused with
Xunzi's doctrine.



Names are conventionally established to stand for object types. With
them, we can communicate with distant peoples. There is no inherent
property of a name that suits it to be the name of what is
conventionally established to be its referent. Once established,
however, there must not be competing accounts of its referent until it
is disestablished (e.g., by a "Later King") in favor of
another, purportedly better, name for common use in picking out a
natural kind.



In the "Discourse on Heaven" chapter (*Xunzi* CTP
17.4: *Tian Lun* Tian Lun  [trans. 2014: 176]),
*Tian* is said to give human beings their inborn dispositions,
the sensory faculties, and the heart-mind for controlling these
faculties to act as their lord. In the "Undoing Fixation"
chapter (*Jie Bi* Jie Bi ) the heart-mind is said to
be the lord (*jun* Jun ) of the body, to be the one to
issue orders but taking orders from no other part (*Xunzi* 21.9
[trans. 2014: 229]). The next chapter "Correct Naming"
goes on to say, however, that



> 
> 
> Deeming something permissible and guiding one are what the
> understanding must provide. Thus, even were one a gatekeeper, the
> desires cannot be eliminated, because they are the necessary equipment
> of the nature. Even if one were the Son of Heaven, one's desires
> cannot be completely satisfied. Even though the desires cannot be
> completely satisfied, one can get close to complete satisfaction. Even
> though desires cannot be eliminated, one's seeking can be
> regulated. Even though what is desired cannot be completely obtained,
> the seeker can approach complete fulfillment. Even though desires
> cannot be eliminated, when what is sought is not obtained, one who is
> reflective desires to regulate his seeking. When the Way advances,
> then one approaches complete fulfillment. (*Xunzi* CTP: 22.15
> [trans. adapted from 2014: 244]).
> 
> 
> 



The import of this passage seems to be that Xunzi's way brings
the society of seekers close to fulfilling desire by regulating
seeking, not, as *Laozi* had suggested, by forgetting desires
along with names. The understanding takes satisfaction of desire as
the basis for social regulation of seeking behavior with the aim of
maximizing satisfaction of desire.



Xunzi's normative development of this picture of human nature,
desire, and government compares to Mill's classification of
pleasures. His "heavy" vs. "light" are like
Mill's "higher and lower" pleasures--metaphors
for making good judgments about superior versus inferior desire
satisfactions. One problem posed by the text is how Xunzi can validate
this classification on the naturalistic grounds with which he started
his account of the hear-mind, feelings, and pleasure so it does not
look like arbitrary declaration from the "regulator of
seeking".



His most notorious chapter "[Human] Nature is Bad"
(*Xunzi* 23 *Xing E* Xing E ) seems an attempt
to derive the ranking from natural assumptions. Human nature is bad,
he says, and goodness is a result of deliberate effort. People are
born with a fondness for benefit, and if they follow along with this,
struggle and contention arise. This inference seems to presuppose
psychological egoism and Xunzi would be alone among the Classical
masters in taking selfishness to be natural. That interpretation,
however, is controversial. Others find greater continuity with Mengzi
than the title slogan suggests.



However, he goes on to list inborn feelings of envy and dislike and
sight and sound "desires". The former lead to cruelty and
villainy and the latter to licentiousness. It is only through
transforming nature using teachers and models *dao*ing ritual
and traditional mores (*yi*), that human beings can be shaped
to be yielding and deferent to proper order and end up becoming
controlled. Rituals (and traditional music) and *yi* (ritual
mores) generated by the sage kings are the only ones suited for the
task of reshaping human beings to be compliant and deferent to proper
authority and order. This is the context for making sense of
Xunzi's striking crafts metaphor: reshaping natural dispositions
is like steaming and straightening crooked wood on the shaping frame,
or honing and grinding blunt metal until it becomes sharp (CTP: 23.2
[trans. 2014: 248]). Thus, morality is not part of
*Tian*'s order, but something set up by the sage-kings to
correct what is dangerous and unruly in people's nature.



The heart-mind does not have the power to reshape natural desires and
emotions simply through its command. Xunzi consistently stresses the
need for unrelenting "deliberate effort" to reshape and
beautify people's motivational system and character. In fact, in
one famous passage, he says that the exemplary person



> 
> 
> repeatedly recites his learning in order to master it (beauty),
> ponders it in order to comprehend it, makes his person so as to dwell
> in it, and eliminates things harmful to it in order to nourish it. He
> makes his eyes not want to see what is not *this*, makes his
> ears not want to hear what is not *this*, makes his mouth not
> want to speak what is not *this*, and makes his heart not want
> to contemplate what is not *this*. He comes to the
> point where he loves it, and then his eyes love it more than the five
> colors, his ears love it more than the five tones, his mouth loves it
> more than the five flavors, and his heart considers it more beneficial
> than having the whole empire. (*Quan Xue* Quan Xue  CTP:
> 1.18 [trans. 2014: 18])
> 
> 
> 



If this passages about finding far greater satisfaction and peace of
mind in performing actions on behalf of a beauty ideal and not for the
sake of the self is put alongside the selfish characterization of
human nature, the question immediately arises how one starts with a
nature like that and ends up in a startlingly different place. Merely
coming to realize the benefits to self-interest in cooperation rather
than conflict would be insufficient for explaining how this
transformation could come about (Wong 1996, 2000). Sheer persistent
effort does not explain how interests *in the self* can become
interests *in the welfare of others for their own sake*.



It may be that the only plausible alternative for Xunzi to work out
his theory is to admit that among the inborn dispositions there is at
least latent and incipient interest in others as well as the
self-concerned interests highlighted in the famous passage from the
"Human Nature is Bad" chapter. There are passages in the
text that seem to make this concession. In the chapter
"Discourse on Ritual" (*Li Lun* Li Lun ),
Xunzi says that



> 
> 
> Among all the living things between Heaven and Earth, those that have
> blood and *qi* are sure to have awareness, and of those
> that have awareness, none fails to love its own kind.
> 
> 
> 



He gives as examples birds or beasts who become separated from their
groups, grow distressed, and who seek to rejoin them. Xunzi concludes
by saying that



> 
> 
> among creatures that have blood and *qi*, none has greater
> awareness than man, and so man's feeling for his parents knows
> no limit until the day they die. (CTP: 19.26 [trans. 2014: 213]).
> 
> 
> 



That Xunzi identifies a disposition which humans and other animals
share implies that it is natural. How is this consistent with
Xunzi's saying that human nature is bad? People's nature
can still be called bad if the self-concerned, envious and hateful
dispositions become dominant when they get *no* education in
ritual and mores or when education fosters dominance of selfishness.
Human beings in their nature can be nurtured to behave on powerful
impulses that get them into endemic, destructive conflict. Human
nature is mixed and conflicted. Absent an environment that nurtures
control of the impulses that lead to conflict, people show their worse
sides.



Thus, while Xunzi appeared to postulate a strong hierarchy of the
heart-mind over the rest of the person, the way he fills out the
picture suggests that the heart-mind attends to the total system of
desires and *dao*s a strategy for the greatest satisfaction of
this total. This impression is supported by the language of
"nurturing" (*yang* Yang ) the desires arising
from the natural dispositions. He concludes that rituals and rightness
make it possible for humans to constrain seeking behavior by dividing
things and ranks so that seeking never exhausts nor depletes material
goods (*Li Lun* Li Lun  CTP 19.1).



Xunzi's conception of a mixed human nature and reliance on
social nurturing to reshape the natural mix brings him into sharp
disagreement with Mengzi about the goodness of human nature. He argues
that Mengzi did not distinguish nature from what, with deliberate
effort is nurtured:



> 
> 
> What is in people's nature is not learned and cannot be worked
> at. Those things they learn and achieve through working at them are
> their deliberate effort. (*Xing E* Xing E ; CTP 23.9
> [trans. 2014: 249])
> 
> 
> 



This sharp dichotomy rejects Mengzi's metaphor of natural
sprouts growing into morality, benevolence and wisdom. Xunzi treats
moral intuition on the analogy of the natural acuity of the senses. It
is not something that can be learned or worked at:



> 
> 
> people's nature is such that their eyes can see, and
> their ears can hear. The brightness by which they see does not depart
> from their eyes, and the acuity by which they hear does not depart
> from their ears. Their eyes are simply bright, and their ears are
> simply acute. One does not learn this brightness. (*Xing E*
> Xing E ; CTP: 23.4 [trans. 2014: 249])
> 
> 
> 



Scientific inquiry has not been kind to this particular view of
Xunzi's, and it relates to what he does not take from Laozi and
Zhuangzi. Scientists have discovered that perception is both bottom-up
and top-down. We receive sensory input, but the mind fills in gaps
(e.g., the famous "blind spot" to preserve awareness of a
world as we "know" it. Our conceptual scheme exerts a
top-down organization of the sensory input. Some of the
classifications we get are inborn, but most are learned from infancy
partly from our culture and from our exploring our environment, seeing
which of our guesses as to what is bringing sensory input to us are
correct. Acuity of perception in Xunzi's terms, the range of
distinctions our senses can distinguish may be something given to us
by *Tian* but the world we see is profoundly influenced by
top-down processes.



Zhuangzi can retort that different systems of names can result in
differently populated and structured worlds. Contemporary conclusions
about the relation between nature and nurture may support
Mengzi's conception of the inborn capacity as like a sprout that
develops under the right environment conditions as well as
Xunzi's emphasis on nurture. But Mengzi is also vulnerable to
Zhuangzi's insight that nurture can take nature in many
different directions, so it becomes daunting to try to sort
*tian* (nature) from *ren* (human social nurturing).



Xunzi's theory of reasoning and reflection vs. emotion and
desire is also different from Mengzi's. However, the differences
are nuanced and his position closer to Mengzi's than the
twenty-third chapter title ("Human nature is bad") would
suggest. Clearly, the heart-mind has a supervisory role. It determines
what behaviors best promote optimal fulfillment of natural desires.
His language of nurturing the capacity to resist seeking satisfaction
of certain desires, stresses the wise and foresighted desires of the
person. The supervisory role is ultimately geared toward the good of
the whole person, as is Mengzi's. The heart-mind's
effective supervising entails paying attention to the direction and
rhythms of our emotional life, e.g., our responses the death of a
loved one. When the heart-mind is sensitive to the overall pattern, it
can select how to channel seeking behavior to achieve personal and
social harmony.