0:00

Hello

0:14

and welcome to the History of Philosophy in China

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by Peter Adamson and Karen Lai, brought to you

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with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's

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College London and the LMU in Munich, online

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at historyofphilosophy.net. Today's

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episode will be an interview about excavated

0:28

philosophical texts with Franklin Perkins who is

0:30

professor in the Department of Philosophy at

0:32

the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Hi,

0:35

Frank. Hi, Peter. Thank you for

0:38

having me. Thanks for joining us. You've been

0:40

working on some of these newly discovered texts,

0:42

these newly excavated texts, which is very exciting

0:44

work. And I'm going to

0:46

start by asking you an obvious question, which is

0:48

to get you to tell us

0:51

what sorts of texts have been discovered and

0:53

where and when the discoveries were made. Yes,

0:55

so they've found really an immense

0:57

number of excavated texts recently, and there's new

0:59

finds coming up all the time. So there's

1:01

a lot of them from all different times.

1:03

For philosophy, there's three main

1:06

collections. So two of them

1:08

are from the warring states period, which would be kind

1:10

of the period of classical Chinese philosophy. So they think

1:12

around 300 BC. So

1:14

one of those is known as the Guadian find. And

1:17

that was found in 1993, and it's

1:21

about 16 short texts, depending on how

1:23

you break them up. So

1:25

that's probably the most important of the

1:27

philosophical texts. The other one is

1:29

known as the Shanghai Museum collection. And unfortunately, yes,

1:31

the name of them suggests these were looted texts.

1:33

So we don't know where they came from. They

1:36

were purchased in Hong Kong by the Shanghai Museum. They

1:39

were purchased a year after the Guadian texts. And

1:41

there's some overlap. There's a couple of texts in

1:43

common between them. And the style is quite similar.

1:45

And so pretty much everybody thinks they came from

1:47

roughly the same time and place. So also around

1:50

300 BC. The

1:52

Guadian texts were buried in what was then the state of

1:54

Chu, which would have been at that time like

1:56

the southern fringe of China, but

1:59

is now more like. in the middle of China

2:01

so that they were found in Hubei province. So

2:03

those are the two main collections of texts. The

2:06

other most important one is known as Ma Wongdui, and

2:09

that's from the Han Dynasty. So that

2:11

was buried in, I think, around 168

2:13

BC. It was discovered in 1973.

2:18

And that has philosophical texts,

2:20

including a couple copies of the Lao

2:22

Zu Dao Zhejiang. It has

2:24

some Confucian texts. It has an

2:26

interesting collection of Han Dynasty

2:28

Daoist texts, usually referred to as

2:30

Fong Lao texts. And

2:33

it also has some interesting medical texts. So

2:35

for philosophy, those are the three collections most

2:37

people work on. And for me, because I

2:39

work more on the classical period, I've done

2:41

more with the Guwaiian texts and the Shanghai

2:43

Museum texts. But there's lots

2:45

of other ones. So there's collections of

2:47

divination statements, also from

2:50

like 300 BC, that at

2:52

least give us some kind of background knowledge. There's

2:56

a big collection that was purchased by

2:58

Tsinghua University that has more kind of

3:00

historical narratives in it. There's

3:03

some Xian dynasty legal cases. There's all

3:05

kinds of stuff that they've been finding.

3:08

Is there some reason that they all come from such

3:10

a kind of narrow stratum of

3:12

the historical record? Like why are they all

3:14

from right around 300 BCE? Those

3:17

are the earliest ones that we have. I'm

3:20

not quite sure. I think it was maybe

3:23

part of the conditions, like the physical conditions

3:25

where they were buried that made them more

3:27

likely to be preserved. But it might just

3:29

be part of the chance of where they've

3:31

come across these tombs. There are

3:33

later ones. So the earliest ones are around 300 BC. But

3:36

then you pretty much have continually ones that they found

3:39

from then. Obviously. So you're just

3:41

telling us about the earliest texts. And of

3:43

course, those are important because they often give

3:45

us texts that didn't exist or

3:47

weren't extant otherwise or maybe versions

3:49

of texts that weren't otherwise

3:51

extant. Right. Yeah. And

3:54

they're important for philosophy because they're counting really in

3:57

between Confucius and Mencius. be

4:00

to the main confusion for us versus kind

4:02

of filling in that gap between them. You

4:05

just said something about the physical circumstances

4:07

under which these texts were deposited and

4:09

in the last episode we also talked

4:11

about the physical nature of the text

4:13

themselves. So we've got random strips tied

4:16

together with string something like that. Can

4:18

you maybe say something more though about

4:20

what they were like? Like what did

4:22

the text actually physically look like? What

4:24

do they consist of? The

4:26

texts are written from the top to bottom right and

4:28

so each line of texts be written on one bamboo

4:30

strip and then like you said they'd be tied together

4:32

so you could roll them up and unroll them. They

4:35

couldn't be too long so none of the texts are

4:37

very long because they would get too unwieldy as a

4:39

big thing of bamboo. So when they started writing later

4:41

on silk you could have longer you know

4:43

more material on one roll of silk but

4:46

these bamboo texts are somewhat limited in size.

4:49

The strips are different lengths you know some people

4:51

theorize that some this is the shorter ones are

4:53

maybe more prestigious texts or not but it's not

4:55

so clear what that is. In

4:57

terms of like the conditions of them one

5:00

of the big problems is that the strings that tied

5:02

them together all decayed. So

5:04

when they're finding them it's just a big

5:06

pile of single lines of text and

5:09

so one of the big questions is then what order should

5:11

you put them in? You can kind of group them into

5:13

by their size by where the string you can see where

5:15

the strings were on the strips but

5:18

that's still these questions of like what order should they

5:20

be in with some with like the ones that are

5:22

looted especially there's questions of whether their strips might be

5:24

missing you know things like that. Yeah

5:27

so it's sort of like a jigsaw puzzle trying to put it

5:29

all back together. Yeah yeah

5:31

and so some usually it's obvious which one

5:33

flows into the next you know but there's

5:35

lots of ones where there's key debates depending

5:38

on what the proper order of the strip

5:40

should be. And is the

5:42

actual writing on the strip still usually fairly

5:44

legible or is there lots of in at

5:46

least in classical philosophy and that's what we

5:49

talk about lacunae right so gaps in the

5:51

tech I suppose the same thing happens

5:53

here right. Yeah so mostly

5:56

they're fairly clear what is said on to

6:00

happen was where the stream was was

6:02

a little weaker. And so a lot

6:04

of the strips like the last three or four

6:06

characters will be broken off. And

6:08

sometimes like a series of lines, the last you know,

6:11

three or four characters will be broken off. So

6:13

that's, so there's lots of gaps like

6:16

that that you have to kind of guess to

6:18

fill in. This sounds formidably challenging. And one question

6:20

that might leap to mind is why would anyone

6:22

bother trying to read these texts when we have

6:25

perfectly readable texts that

6:27

are then preserved right down through the

6:29

ages? And one hint at

6:31

an answer is something you already mentioned, which

6:34

is that they sometimes fill in the gaps

6:36

in our historical record. So

6:38

we might have texts that were

6:40

lost completely. And we might have versions

6:43

of texts that we

6:45

did have, but now we're getting a difference from

6:47

a sentient or a different version of the text.

6:50

Can you say something general about what the

6:52

excavated texts have done to fill our

6:54

understanding of warring states, philosophical work? It

6:56

is mostly in giving us a clear

6:58

sense of the context in which the

7:01

main texts that we focus on were

7:03

written, like who they're responding to on

7:05

a very general level. Probably the most

7:07

significant thing is that we've tended to

7:09

tell the history of Chinese philosophy as

7:11

primarily debates between different schools. So

7:14

the Moists are criticizing Confucius,

7:16

then Mengzi is criticizing

7:18

the Moists, and the Taoists are

7:20

criticizing the Confucians or the Moists.

7:23

That fits the rhetoric of the texts themselves.

7:25

But what we see in these excavated texts

7:27

is that the specifics that

7:29

these philosophers are developing their

7:32

positions around are primarily driven

7:34

by debates within the schools. So

7:37

we see much more diversity within Confucian

7:39

views. And if we look at

7:41

what exactly is Bencius arguing, really

7:45

being determined by what these other Confucians were

7:47

saying. So overall, at least trying to oppose

7:49

the Moists, but the actual contours of what

7:51

he's saying is really being determined by these

7:54

other schools. And so this debate within the

7:56

schools gets piloted much more also with

7:58

the laws of... seem to

8:00

come from nowhere. Historically, it seems

8:02

so different from the Confucian text,

8:04

but we found now three other

8:06

cosmogony texts. And

8:09

it's clear that what the laws are saying is

8:11

being directed largely in response to those texts, not

8:14

just broadly to the Confucian system or something

8:16

like that. So it gives us a pretty

8:18

different picture about how the debates were working

8:20

at that time. Would it

8:22

be fair then to say that what happened is that

8:24

the schools kind of individually hardened

8:26

around a certain set of doctrines that

8:29

became normative for each so-called school? So

8:31

you have like a sort of Taoist

8:33

position and a Confucian position

8:35

and a Moist position, but that

8:38

those were themselves the result of a

8:40

longer period of internal debate.

8:42

And it was only once the

8:44

school orthodoxy hardened that

8:47

it started to become more interesting to

8:49

argue across the boundaries between schools. Or

8:51

is that too simple? I think the

8:53

general sense that people have now, partly from

8:55

these texts, is that the

8:57

schools were always quite diverse. So

9:00

at various points in history, you have an attempt

9:02

to consolidate like this is no orthodox Confucianism, but

9:05

that still changes over time. And so that really

9:07

these were always being driven largely

9:09

by internal debates. But part of it

9:12

is what's normative for the

9:14

Confucian, let's say is certain

9:16

virtues, certain practices, and

9:18

that they're pretty consistent on like what you should do. They pretty

9:20

much all will say the same thing to a question of what

9:22

you should do. It's the theories

9:24

behind it where they're really disagreeing amongst each other.

9:26

So you can still say there's a kind of

9:29

orthodox Confucianism, but

9:31

the theories that are being used

9:33

to justify it vary quite widely.

9:36

If we think about the case where we've got different

9:39

versions of a text that we already had, how

9:42

widely do these other versions

9:45

diverge from what we had? The

9:48

strongest case we have is with the Lao Tzu.

9:50

So the Lao Tzu, we found two copies of

9:52

it in Ma Wong Dui. So that's the really

9:54

Han Dynasty one. There's also a

9:56

Slavey later Han Dynasty one that was bought

9:58

by Peking University. their looted text.

10:00

So we have another Han Dynasty version of that.

10:03

And then it was something in Guadian, but in Guadian it's

10:06

really very different because it only

10:08

has about one third of the passages from

10:10

the whole Lao Tzu. And

10:12

it was written on sweeping bundles of bamboo strips, so

10:15

it's not clear that it was one text or was

10:17

it three collections of passages. And

10:19

one of those collections has material that's not in

10:21

the Lao Tzu, so it's not clear if those

10:23

should be thought of as part of the collection

10:25

or not. On top of that,

10:28

the passages that are there, many of them

10:30

are missing parts from the received versions. So

10:32

it seems like the received versions were formed

10:34

by combining different things together in the passages.

10:37

So with the Lao Tzu, there's lots of bigger questions about

10:39

the status of the Lao Tzu, but if we just look

10:42

generally at the transmission of texts from

10:45

the Lao Tzu, from a few others that we have

10:47

received versions of, and then there's a few that we

10:49

found multiple excavated versions of, so they were unknown, but

10:51

we found more than one version of them. If

10:54

you look at those, they're

10:56

pretty good in keeping the main

10:58

meaning transmitted, but they were

11:01

pretty open to changing the

11:03

wording. Usually I think in ways that they

11:05

didn't see as significant, but they can be significant. It

11:07

can change the meaning of the passage. And

11:09

so we don't have any good sense of what the

11:11

original wording of any of these texts was, I think,

11:14

because the wording's being changed over time as

11:16

it's being rewritten. They were pretty liberal with

11:18

adding stuff in as well, as also happens

11:21

with transmitted texts. It's something that clearly is

11:23

trying to clarify the original passage or

11:25

make it an explanation out of

11:27

conclusion. But sometimes they just

11:29

will put in other material that they

11:32

saw is somehow related, but it's not

11:34

clear how it relates. There

11:36

are very few deliberate changes. There's a few.

11:38

So the most famous is chapter 19 of

11:41

the Lao Tzu. The received

11:43

version, it's a criticism of virtues, and the

11:45

received version has, among

11:47

those virtues, sagacity, benevolence,

11:50

and rightness. And those would

11:52

have been key terms for the Confucian terms and for

11:54

the Moist. The Guillain version, it

11:56

has more generic things like debate,

12:00

striving or being too active and then deliberation. So

12:02

somebody changed it to make it more polemical and

12:04

more of an attack on kind of established schools.

12:06

You know, so there are some like deliberate changes

12:09

like that, but for the most part, it seems

12:11

like it's not really just the deliberate changes except

12:14

when they added new material. That

12:16

then, you know, when you're trying to read it as a whole changes the

12:18

meaning of it. It's interesting

12:20

to me that you're talking about adding

12:22

material because that seems to suggest that

12:25

we have some grip or not we,

12:27

but you, because I certainly don't. But

12:29

experts have some grip on what

12:32

is more likely to be, as it were,

12:34

the original version. But

12:37

is that really a meaningful thought?

12:39

So is there any plausible chance

12:42

here of getting back to the

12:44

real l'auzour to which then

12:46

other things have accreted and you can say, Oh,

12:49

well, that word has changed here, but we know

12:51

that the original word was such and such, or

12:53

is it more like you just have a kind

12:55

of variety of different options and you can't get

12:57

past that to some kind of or

13:00

text that stands behind them all? It probably

13:02

doesn't even make sense to try to think

13:04

of what the original text was because I

13:06

think they were always being modified. And so

13:08

the ones where we have multiple

13:11

exclamated copies of them, they

13:14

vary from each other. Right? So already they're being

13:16

changed from something that was earlier than them. And

13:19

in a lot of cases, like with the l'auzour, it's

13:22

probably pulling a kind of famous saying from

13:24

one place and then somebody's adding some commentary

13:26

around it. I don't think it really makes

13:28

sense to try to say what was the

13:31

original text or what's the authentic text because

13:33

the texts were always shifting. I

13:35

do think we can still try to

13:37

track a progression or development. And there are

13:39

general principles for that. Like additions

13:42

are generally taken as later and it's more likely

13:44

to add an explanation than to cut an explanation,

13:46

but those are all just kind of probabilistic arguments.

13:48

So there are a few cases where my own

13:50

judgment would be that the what the end version,

13:53

which is the earliest version, is actually wrong. And

13:56

that the later version is probably right and that the

13:58

Gordian whoever copied that made so better. of error

14:00

if they're copying. So there's debates about

14:02

that. Does the openness

14:04

of the text itself tell us something about

14:07

the intellectual life of the time and the

14:09

way that these texts were being used? Because

14:12

it strikes me that if you thought that these texts

14:14

were, as it were, sacred

14:16

or maybe sacred is too strong a

14:18

word, but authoritative, then you

14:20

might be a lot more careful about

14:22

not changing a single character. Whereas this

14:25

sounds more like a fluid situation where

14:28

they feel very free to change things at least

14:30

to some extent. Yeah, I think that's right.

14:32

It suggests that these were not seen as something

14:34

like a sacred text. And you

14:36

could say an issue of something about their view of

14:39

the status of the authors, that they felt pretty free

14:41

to change the words that they used. With

14:44

Allows it doesn't cite anyone. It

14:46

doesn't say somebody said this. There's no appeals to

14:48

a minority at all. And it suggests, the way

14:50

it's used suggests that they weren't actually concerned with

14:52

who said it. They combined stuff

14:54

around, add stuff in. And

14:57

later uses have allowed to suggest something, some of the

14:59

quotations will be taken out of context to make some

15:01

other point. They seem like something that's a kind of

15:03

living text that's being formed

15:05

by the needs of the people using the text.

15:08

With the Confucian text it's a little trickier because

15:10

they will say Confucius

15:12

said this. Whatever a

15:14

disciple it is, they will quote people. But

15:17

even there it seems like who they attributed

15:19

to will be different in different places. And

15:21

the wording still was changing. Maybe

15:24

I think they themselves are aware that it's a

15:26

kind of rhetorical move to attribute it to Confucius.

15:29

I mean they do have a kind of respect

15:31

for Confucius but they're not that concerned with exactly

15:33

how he said things it seems. Right.

15:36

They're more concerned maybe with the idea

15:38

or the message or maybe even what it

15:40

says about his character. So if

15:43

you're thinking, there's a model sage, then

15:45

you might not worry so much about the exact phrasing.

15:47

You might worry more about what

15:50

we're learning about Confucius

15:53

by reading the text. Now

15:55

that you put it that way it connects even

15:57

the things that are fairly explicit in the text.

16:00

And so the line you have the same as the

16:02

example. So the line you select the main collection of

16:04

Confucius' sayings that's translated as the Adelites. So

16:06

there's a very famous passage where one disciple comes up

16:08

to Confucius and says, you know, when you hear something,

16:11

should you put it into practice? And you usually put

16:13

it into practice. And Confucius says,

16:16

no, you should defer to your parents. And then another

16:18

disciple comes up to him and asks word for word

16:20

the same question. And he says, yes. And

16:23

then the third disciple, the word first he says, well, like, what's

16:26

the answer here? And he says, well, the first guy

16:28

is too reckless. And so I said, no, defer to

16:30

your parents. The second guy is kind of lazy. And

16:32

so I said, yes, to push him forward. So

16:34

there's already a sense that these texts are

16:37

meant to further practical effects rather than sort

16:39

of what they're literally expressing. Yeah,

16:42

that actually, that passage that, I mean, that's

16:44

quite a famous passage from the Adelites. It

16:47

almost seems to push against the

16:49

limits of communicating philosophy in

16:51

written form, right? Because if it's written

16:53

down, you can't control who's gonna read

16:55

it. Or as if you're talking to

16:58

someone, then you can adjust your message to the person you're

17:00

talking to. So by

17:02

kind of having this meta reflection

17:05

on what you might say to different people, they've managed to

17:07

get that idea into a written text. That would be hard

17:09

to get into that format.

17:13

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That one of the

17:15

things they're struggling with is how to think

17:17

about writing and deal with writing in that

17:19

context. Because I think that's around when texts

17:22

are writing and circulating. It's

17:24

interesting, I mean, it's the exact problem that Plato is talking

17:26

about in the features. And I

17:28

think you could say Plato's dealing with it by writing dialogues

17:32

where there's always a context. Whereas the Confucians

17:34

are dealing with it by just throwing out

17:36

a bunch of different things that somebody can

17:38

use, some people might not use. And they're

17:40

saying explicitly, don't

17:43

think any of these is absolute, right? These are all

17:45

meant for a specific context. Yeah,

17:47

and if the reader had enough self-knowledge to know

17:49

which piece of advice they should take, that would

17:51

be good. Right, I hear

17:53

that's the difficulty. Speaking Of readers,

17:56

We've been talking mostly about the people who set

17:58

these texts down and what they were doing. What

18:00

they were trying to achieve. But.

18:02

Maybe the estimated test? Also tell us

18:04

something about the readers. Because.

18:07

The. Existing tests. I guess

18:09

obviously would have been transmitted through a fairly

18:11

it meets. Chain. Of

18:13

scholars right? Because on a would have

18:15

one up at libraries and so on.

18:18

Right? So there were talking about officials

18:20

bureaucrats are connected with, the courts of

18:22

rulers are on their own tastes. Is.

18:24

That also true the estimated tax or might

18:26

we be going here with. Copies.

18:28

Attacks there were being used by people who are

18:31

a little bit further down on the food chains.

18:34

As. Hard to say that because I'm an actor do to

18:36

stop era where they came from and you know into a

18:38

know where they can't Bumble not really sure she. Was

18:41

he was very there and we're not sure

18:43

why. that x Marbury with it also will

18:45

find something that will make this a little

18:48

more prayer or just because it's contents. The

18:50

majority that x talk about issues that

18:52

only which concerned someone in charge. desolate

18:54

when you scare were not. Way.

18:57

She about punishing people are not what kind of

18:59

education you supra is a their that as they

19:01

put. on the other hand there's things like. How

19:04

to deal with failing to get a job So

19:06

and lights out at Cultivate Yourself So it seems

19:08

clear that at least the majority and I would

19:11

probably project that's all of them. Were.

19:13

Meant for added educated elite, you wanted

19:15

to be influenced government over not themselves

19:17

in charge of things. And

19:20

I would guess that this time the checks

19:22

are. Largely circulating,

19:25

Our own By those people he has to

19:27

their nostrums. Imperial. Collections are

19:30

like collections that the kid only

19:32

have. At Royal. That

19:34

these different kind of sneakers would have their own

19:37

collection that the tech that the lights the most

19:39

striking thing with it is that all of that

19:41

collection that they sounds. Are

19:43

extremely diverse in the philosophies that they

19:45

house. Some what we know

19:47

that we didn't know for sure before. Is

19:50

that the readers were not just reading like

19:52

there's also asked me. But. They

19:54

were beating my quite widely across

19:56

different schools and perspectives and really

19:58

is striking that. Within.

20:01

Like. A worthy incest. And.

20:03

Harley to check that seem like they could

20:06

have been written by the same person. It's

20:08

almost every text is at least a slightly

20:10

different view in as Americans use and some

20:12

are more of dollars. that does your something

20:14

significant and there's been an argument that. Circulated

20:17

kind of from. Master to

20:19

disciple and were passed down in a lineage

20:21

and that seems to be false or release

20:24

is caused by the hundred p C. B.

20:26

There are clearly way circulating across lots of

20:28

different lines and was very. Much

20:30

as sharing of ideas going on. Is.

20:33

There any pattern to the kinds of

20:35

text is for softball or found the.

20:38

Or are these collections really just

20:40

philosophical collections of what he insists

20:42

I will call of them as

20:45

philosophical sex. The speculation is

20:47

that the person to they were buried with

20:49

was the sooner. It's at the royal family

20:51

so it was probably a teacher but it's

20:53

not certain. There's clues that suggests that the

20:55

some have you seen question Also I'm almost

20:58

all I would say or philosophical sex that

21:00

there's some were variety of text sarah but

21:02

they're still all we may see intellectual discourse

21:04

to. There's a commentary on the book of

21:06

a Hoods in it. But I

21:08

can see uses. But. then like the

21:11

mound dewey as medical tests. And

21:13

as elite million a distinct honor of

21:16

tax are still a probably was over

21:18

of black between you saw see a

21:20

medicine medical literature it's interesting isn't it

21:23

does that really seems to imply that

21:25

they saw. Commonality.

21:28

And. A kind of genres. A

21:30

unity of zone and room. In what

21:32

we're calling philosophical tax. On

21:34

a comforting it's not that we're. Projecting.

21:37

This back on the material reason that the han.

21:40

Scholars. Are projecting is that I'm mature?

21:42

I'm saying oh yeah, the legal Us and

21:44

them or us under conditions. They were also

21:46

during the same thing because of these collections

21:48

already around three hundred bc. Already

21:51

work and of marking out. Of.

21:53

Field of discourse in that way than some

21:55

like we're. Entitled to think about

21:57

is. A. Body.

22:00

of literature which we can call philosophical

22:02

literature. Some

22:04

people might question how appropriate to call it

22:06

all philosophical, but I think it is a

22:08

kind of coherent body of literature that is

22:10

what we call, what I would call Chinese

22:12

philosophy. So that was a much college master's

22:15

literature as a kind of later category. I

22:19

think it is all of that kind of genre. Maybe

22:25

we can get a little bit more specific

22:27

now and talk about just one specific work

22:29

that you have worked on. Maybe

22:31

we can take the example of the Manzi and

22:34

talk about how binding

22:36

versions of the Manzi in

22:39

the excavated collections has changed your

22:41

understanding of the text. So

22:44

Manzi is the Chinese pronunciation that has been known

22:46

in English as Benjis. So I sometimes will use

22:49

Menjis, sometimes I will use Manzi. It is better

22:51

to use Manzi, but I will sometimes switch back.

22:53

It is a bit more of the Chinese terms,

22:55

but then we are not forgetting. I

22:58

do the same thing. With

23:00

most of the main philosophical texts, with the Laozi

23:02

as the one exception, we have not found anything

23:05

that we could take as being like, okay, this

23:07

is another expression of Manzi's philosophy. So

23:10

the texts felt more indirectly. Just

23:15

to get into the specifics with Manzi in

23:17

particular, I think the most helpful text is

23:20

known in Chinese as the Xingzi Mingzhu, which

23:22

means something like the natural dispositions come from

23:24

what is all allotted. And the

23:27

main thing that does with the Manzi is

23:29

help us clarify the context that he

23:31

is reacting against. So one example

23:33

of this would be that in the Xingzi Mingzhu

23:36

text, Xingzi is this

23:38

word for natural dispositions. It is kind of the key

23:40

word for Manzi and also for Xunzi later, and Daoist

23:42

will use it as well. So

23:44

it is saying that our natural dispositions are both

23:47

good and bad. I mean, it

23:49

does not even actually label them that way. Our

23:51

natural dispositions are the kind of psychological

23:54

given that we start with. And

23:56

to cultivate ourselves, some of those dispositions

23:58

should be encouraged. grown and

24:01

some of them need to be restrained. And

24:04

then this leads into, in

24:06

other texts that seem to have a

24:08

similar viewpoint from the Guadian texts, the

24:10

idea that benevolence is internal because it's

24:12

an extension of natural feelings that we

24:14

have and then say rightness,

24:16

ritual propriety, these are external because these are

24:19

constraints on the natural feelings that we have.

24:22

So one really interesting thing

24:24

is that the main debate in early

24:26

Confucianism with Mengzi who says our shing,

24:28

these dispositions are good and

24:30

Sunzi who says these dispositions are bad. So

24:33

what we find out is the original position kind

24:36

of combined both of them. And

24:38

one of the significant things overall, I know I said

24:41

it's talk about Mengzi, but is that Sunzi

24:43

is usually seen as like kind of

24:45

a heterodox Confucian in arguing that

24:47

our dispositions are bad. But it's

24:49

clear now that he's as authentic to this original

24:52

as Mengzi. They're really both taking up one side

24:55

of this position that was originally unified together.

24:58

So we now know

25:00

that what Mengzi is arguing against, which is this

25:02

idea that we have both of these tendencies and

25:05

we can see, I

25:07

think we're precisely what's new in

25:10

his account. So one

25:12

thing that's new in his account is an argument that

25:15

even virtues that are focused on rule

25:18

following, right? So rules that clearly are

25:20

socially taught like ritual, even

25:23

those are motivated by the natural feelings

25:25

that we have. So he uses

25:27

shame as the example, right? So shame is what tries

25:29

us to follow the rules. So the rules have to

25:31

be learned and that's since they're external, but

25:34

the virtue of rightness of following

25:36

the rules is motivated internally. So

25:38

essentially he's taking this position from the shing of the

25:41

Mingzhu and saying, no, all of

25:43

the virtues arise from encouraging natural

25:45

feelings, even the ones

25:47

that seem really external. It just gives us a

25:49

more precise sense of what exactly he's arguing, like

25:52

what's new in his account. It's

25:54

interesting to me that he would be

25:57

reacting to actually both him and Shunzhu.

26:00

would be sort of taking one half

26:02

of this original position because the original

26:04

position on the face of it

26:06

looks a lot more plausible. Like if

26:09

you just hang around with children, for example, it

26:11

seems like they have some good instincts and some

26:13

bad instincts and you should be trying to cultivate

26:15

or help them cultivate the good instincts and try

26:18

to rein in the bad instincts. So when they

26:20

hit another kid, you say don't do that.

26:23

When they are generous and give something to

26:25

another kid, you say good

26:27

girl, good boy, you're going to work, right?

26:30

So why would they have been motivated

26:32

to take

26:34

just one half of the story, if you see what

26:36

I mean? So

26:39

I think with Mengde, he is still

26:41

in a way distinguishing two kinds of

26:43

motivation but he wants to say that

26:45

the negative motivations he associates with desire

26:47

is for sensory pleasure which he rhetorically

26:50

at least tries to separate from these

26:52

natural dispositions. So in a way,

26:54

he's still keeping the two sides. I

26:56

think the significant thing he's trying to say is that

26:59

in trying to cultivate virtue and trying to get other

27:01

people to cultivate virtue, we should

27:04

be appealing always to

27:06

their natural motivations. So

27:09

in fact, like the rules you follow are going

27:11

to restrict your personal sensory pleasures.

27:15

Even we'll say that you might have

27:17

to die to follow the rules, right?

27:19

But the motivation is not just external.

27:21

The motivation also is internal, which

27:24

is the sense of shame. One

27:26

of the most profound things he says is

27:28

that he makes an argument that everyone has

27:30

certain things they would refuse to do even

27:33

facing death. And

27:36

this is not because they've been taught it but

27:38

it's because internally there are certain things we care

27:40

about even more than our own life, you know,

27:43

with the obvious example being like our children. But

27:45

also he thinks even, you know, there

27:47

are certain things we wouldn't do to a stranger. Maybe

27:50

he's being a little optimistic there, right? But

27:52

his overall motivation is really not so much

27:54

to say we don't have any negative tendencies,

27:56

but rather to say that all of virtue,

27:58

all of the... social order should

28:01

be based on appeals to our natural feelings rather

28:03

than on just, you can't do this, you can't

28:06

do this, or else you're going to be hurt,

28:08

you're going to be punished. Okay,

28:11

that does seem very powerful because I can

28:13

imagine you just thinking, well, if

28:15

the thing that we want people to do isn't

28:17

rooted in their nature at all, then how could

28:19

we ever expect them to do it, right? Because

28:21

there's nothing in them to get a kind of

28:24

hook on to push

28:26

them in the right direction. Or maybe

28:28

hold their nature in the right direction, the

28:30

direction it already wants to go. He's

28:34

a little, again, maybe overly optimistic, but

28:36

his ideal is to have a social

28:39

order that doesn't use much physical

28:42

coercion, right? So people do

28:44

the right thing because they would feel shame if they didn't do

28:46

it, rather than because

28:48

they're afraid of being punished for not doing it. So

28:51

there's a strong political dimension. And just the whole

28:53

thing. By the way,

28:55

just to go back to the situation of

28:58

the actual text of the material you're drawing

29:00

on, are you saying that this more

29:02

kind of diverse picture where there's

29:05

both good and bad in nature, are

29:07

you saying that that's in an alternative

29:09

version of the month itself, or

29:11

in some other text to which the month

29:14

itself is? Yeah, it's a different Confucian text.

29:16

So we don't have alternate versions of the

29:18

month at all. And

29:20

so what we have are these ones that there

29:23

are links to the monks. So within the monks,

29:26

there's a debate with a guy named Galza. These

29:29

are very famous passages. It's debated

29:31

about whether she's their internal

29:33

or external. And historically, there's

29:35

always been a question, who is Galza? And some

29:37

people even said he's probably a Moist or maybe

29:40

a quasi-Daoist maybe.

29:43

But now, from the things he says, it's pretty

29:45

clear that he's expressing some of these views that

29:47

appear in the excavated texts. So

29:49

we can say, OK, well, this is the position and the

29:51

month is really arguing against there. And then

29:54

can see from the language he

29:56

uses, there's significant overlap with the

29:58

Shinsan-Mingju text in China. in terms

30:00

of his conception of the dispositions, various

30:03

things like that, I think pretty conclusively say

30:05

this is the context against which he's arguing.

30:08

This is really nice how this sort of

30:10

reflects the task of dealing

30:12

with the text themselves. You said that they're putting

30:14

it together is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

30:17

And now at this higher level, it's

30:19

like putting together the history of Confucianism itself

30:22

as like you found a missing piece, right?

30:25

Oh, so it was actually responding to,

30:27

right? Yeah, it's really, really fun.

30:29

You know, you said earlier, like why spend all the

30:31

trouble trying to read these texts? But it's

30:34

really just, you know, if we found a whole

30:36

bunch of texts that were written, I don't

30:38

know, between the time of Plato and Aristotle that no one

30:40

had ever read before, it's exciting,

30:42

you know, to see what these are and then to try

30:44

to retell the story and rethink the story. Yeah,

30:47

so your enthusiasm for these texts maybe already

30:49

sort of answers the question I'm about to

30:51

ask you in conclusion, but I'm gonna ask

30:53

anyway. You're unusual in that

30:55

you work seriously on both

30:58

European and Chinese velocity. So for example, you've

31:00

worked on Leibniz and in

31:03

fact, early on in your career, you sort of

31:05

started out as an early modernist and

31:08

moved more and more into the Chinese literature.

31:12

Do you think of these as

31:14

roughly comparable tasks? So

31:16

trying to, you know, read the excavated

31:19

Chinese texts and trying to read Leibniz.

31:22

I mean, obviously Leibniz presents his

31:24

own challenges, right? But

31:26

do you feel like as a

31:28

historian of philosophy, you're kind

31:30

of doing the same thing or do

31:32

you feel that it's very different experience

31:35

and challenge working in say early modern

31:37

European philosophy and ancient Chinese philosophy? Sorry,

31:39

that's kind of a big question, but

31:42

since your work straddles that divide, I'm

31:45

wondering whether you sort of feel like

31:47

it's almost like you're two

31:49

different kinds of historians. Philosophy, depending on what day

31:51

it is and which text you're

31:53

working on. Yeah, that's a great question. I fundamentally

31:56

think it's the same methodology.

32:00

And so I would feel comfortable just saying I

32:02

do the history of philosophy, and I part of

32:04

the early modern and part of the do early

32:06

Chinese philosophy. And really, I think doing

32:08

the history of philosophy is always what

32:11

people would call comparative philosophy, right? Because

32:13

you're always bridging between this earlier viewpoint

32:15

and contemporary viewpoints. So I think it

32:18

is largely the same. And I would

32:21

say you find in both the same kind of

32:23

two poles among scholars, so people who are

32:26

more interested in trying to pull out philosophical

32:28

positions they can use now, and

32:30

people who are more historical and kind of more

32:32

interested in getting a foreign perspective. So I'm always

32:34

more on that second side. So even with Leibniz,

32:36

I, you know, were trying

32:39

to read Marginalia in his books and the

32:41

Leibniz archive, you know? So I've kind of

32:43

engaged more on that historical side. So

32:45

I do think it's pretty similar, but

32:47

maybe the biggest difference is in terms

32:50

of what we might call the

32:53

reception history. So reaching the history of

32:55

Western philosophy, you kind

32:57

of already come to it knowing roughly

32:59

what it means now, because there's been

33:02

this continual progression of interpreting it. With

33:05

Chinese philosophy, it's harder to know how to

33:07

bridge it to modernity,

33:09

but then especially to say, you know,

33:12

Western Anglo-Sone discourses of philosophy, how do

33:14

you build that bridge? There's

33:16

work that's been done on that, of course, but it's

33:18

still much more in question how you would do that.

33:22

And I would say, for that

33:24

reason, there's much deeper disagreements about

33:26

how you would do that, like

33:28

more fundamental, different interpretations of how

33:30

early Chinese texts. And

33:32

then there's lots of topics that people haven't

33:34

really talked about very much. You know, so

33:36

I was asked to write

33:38

an essay for an Encyclopedia of Philosophy

33:41

of Religion on philosophy of religion in early China.

33:44

I'm not sure anybody's talked about that. I

33:46

came in totally kind of from scratch to think,

33:48

well, how would I even approach this? Because they

33:50

don't distinguish philosophy and religion in the same way,

33:52

and it's so different. But

33:54

how do you bring that into this discourse? Where

33:57

anybody in Western philosophy at least has some orientation on how to do it? you're

34:00

going to bring them into a discussion of philosophy

34:02

of religion. So there's more

34:04

uncertainty in the interpretations and more space

34:08

for creativity. I have to say part

34:10

of why I shifted from Leibniz to

34:12

Chinese philosophy was just that it's

34:15

really hard to say anything important new on

34:17

Leibniz. I mean, you can,

34:20

but it's hard. A lot has been discussed.

34:22

With Chinese philosophy, it's pretty easy. Like, there's

34:24

lots of topics that no one has talked

34:26

about in a contemporary setting. You know, I mean, of

34:28

course, through the history of Chinese philosophy, you have lots

34:30

of interpretations of the medchias. But when you're trying to

34:32

think, well, how does it apply to the world now?

34:36

There's a lot more space for how to figure that

34:38

out. Okay. Well, that's

34:40

a bit of motivation for anyone who's out there

34:43

listening, wondering whether they should get into the field

34:45

of Chinese philosophy. And one of the

34:47

purposes of this series is to encourage people to think that

34:49

that might be a good idea. So

34:51

I think you've helped a little bit with that. Thanks so

34:53

much. And thanks very much

34:55

for joining us. Next time,

34:57

we are going to start looking at

34:59

our first so-called school, although as we've

35:01

been talking about a lot, this whole

35:04

idea of dividing things into schools that

35:06

are defined in terms of standard doctrines

35:08

is a little bit problematic. And

35:10

the first one we're talking is indeed Confucianism, which

35:12

is what we've just been talking about. So that's

35:14

what the next several episodes will be about. But

35:17

for now, I will thank Frank Perkins very

35:19

much for coming on the podcast. And thank you

35:21

for inviting me. It was a fun conversation. Yeah,

35:23

likewise. I enjoyed it. I will invite

35:25

those listeners to join me and Karen next time

35:28

as we start to look at Confucianism here on

35:30

the history of philosophy in China.