Introduction
The way of doing philosophy in ancient China was very much different from the West, even though there have been efforts, by both Chinese and Western scholars, to interpret and place Chinese philosophy in Western terms. Great Learning, one of the four Confucian classics (the others are Zhongyong, Analects, and Mencius), points toward these differences, although the work itself is short. In this brief essay, I attempt to show one main difference lies in explanation. Given the great influence Great Learning has had on the subsequent Chinese philosophy, as one of the four Confucian classics, I venture to suggest this may reflect something essential about the overall purpose of philosophy for the Chinese.
Explanation and Purpose of Philosophy in the West
In order to make such a contrast regarding explanation between the two traditions, it is first necessary to clarify how explanation was done in the Western tradition, in which the colloquial sense of the term “explanation” is very much different from explanation inside of philosophy.
Since Plato, the core part of the traditional philosophy in the West was aimed at explaining the world in terms of objectivity, universality, and transcendence. The objects of such explanation were seen as stable and fundamentally permanent. Such explanation required a proper means for both inquiring and explaining; this means consisted of refining and applying logic in order to attain the truth. Like mathematics, the rigor involved in doing philosophical explanation was exactness via the principle of logic. As it turned out, the logic used in philosophy was over time itself seen as objective, universal, and transcendental, thus subsequently logic itself could not help turning into a primary object of philosophy. Such training in the refinement and application of logic aimed at pinpointing the ground for the truth behind things in the world is primary in foundational works such as Plato’s Parmenides.
Colloquially, the usage of the English word “explanation” closely corresponds to its original Latin, explanare, based on the root planus (which means “plain” or “flat”), as it denotes bringing complicated subject matter, which lies below or above the surface, to a level and understandable point. In this sense, explanation means both the process of as well as the result of making any text, including philosophical texts, clear and understandable. However, when one actually does philosophy, one discovers the objects interrogated by philosophy are much different from the topics of ordinary conversation. In philosophy, it can be related that explanation makes philosophical objects “understandable” by illuminating or revealing their objectivity and logical determinations, much the same way that explanations function in geometry. Explanation in the traditional Western philosophy meant doing logical deductions and forming conclusions that exhausted and covered all of the possibilities of a philosophical idea, as close to a mathematical explanation as possible, allowing the idea be revealed to the mind truthfully and comprehensively.
Therefore, for philosophy during this period of the Western culture, the notions of explanation and the overall purpose of philosophizing are not far apart. Even along side Aristotle’s shift to focus on the particular things themselves rather than their transcendental “ideas,” there exists the desire to fully and rigorously explain the most fundamental features of the universe, to establish it as undisputable fact, to make its relations part of a philosophical system that is objective and true. Doing philosophy was thus done to properly explain, by refining and utilizing logic, the truth of objects in terms of their logical determinations, objectivity, and necessity. This was the only way to truly understand the world and get to the bottom of things. Obviously such explanation is different from explanation in its common sense, by which we mean the process or result of making the sequence and message of a text plain or clear. Such a clarification between the colloquial sense of explanation and explanation in philosophy reminds us that, in Hegel’s words, philosophy is “the inverted world.”
What does Great Learning show about Explanation in Chinese Philosophy?
As one of the four Confucian classics, Great Learning has not only been thought of as a gateway into learning, but more importantly as a source for learning about the most profoundly significant aspects of human life. The text presents instructions for how to live in the world, how to make life profound and significant, how to be human. But before saying too much about the work generally, I first refer to Great Learning as a case in point for illustrating explanation is much different in Chinese philosophy.
Great Learning, I believe, is a suitable case in point for such a contrast because the work itself is made of up a main part (jing 经), attributed to Confucius, and a “commentary” (zhuan 传), attributed to the words of one of his disciples, Zeng Zi (曾子), which were based on Confucius’ teachings. The zhuan is supposed to explain (shi 释) the main terms and phrases from the jing. At first glance, however, the zhuan makes very few direct comments on Great Learning; it does even less to explain the main part. It rather does more to supplement and enrich the main text in a way that initially makes it seem like it could be a separate text of its own. Consider the first sentence of the main text: “great learning consists in illuminating illustrious virtue, consists in loving the people, consists in resting in perfect goodness” (daxuezhidaozaimingmingde, zaiqinmin, zaizhiyuzhishan 大学之道在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善). The first chapter of the zhuan is supposed to explain the first part of that which great learning consists in: “illuminating illustrious virtue” (mingmingde 明明德). However, this chapter does not go on to explain the meaning of this phrase, neither by a careful logical analysis nor by a more ordinary explanation, but rather refers to three ancient books (kanggao 康诰, dajia 大甲, didian 帝典) that recall a bygone golden age where people, under the legendary Emperor Yao (尧帝), were able to illuminate their illustrious virtue. These references show the importance of illuminating one’s illustrious virtue, that it has and can be done, but they do not clearly explain the meaning of mingmingde.
The rest of the commentary follows this way of not really explaining the meaning of the main text, but instead reinforces why the messages in the main text are significant, and more importantly, instructs how to accomplish or attain them. The second chapter of the commentary, for example, focuses on “renewing the people” (xinmin 新民)—which suggested by the commentary was the intended phrase, instead of “loving the people” (qingmin 亲民), that constitutes the second part in which great learning consists in. “If you can renew yourself for one day, you can renew your self everyday, and continue renewing yourself” (gourixin, ririxin, yourixin 苟日新，日日新，又日新), reads the start of this paragraph. Here we do not find an explanation of the nature of “daily renewal” (rixin 日新) nor that of self (there is no subject mentioned in the Chinese sentence). Such an explanation via clarification of terms and ideas would be fundamental in a commentary on a philosophical work in the Western tradition. Here we rather get a very suggestive analogy for daily renewal: as this saying is engraved on a bronze tub used for bathing, just as one should bath daily to renew or refresh the body, one should practice daily renewal of one’s whole self to bring one’s whole self into proper harmony and focus within one’s multilayered relationships and surroundings, which themselves are always changing and transforming in a processional manner around the individual. How might such a task be accomplished? By starting from one day. As this example demonstrates, the zhuan does more to instruct the reader by a transmission of ancient wisdom regarding how to live properly within society, rather than to explain the precise meaning of the terms involved.
The above two examples help to show that explanation is very different for the Chinese. Indeed, it is as if explanation in the colloquial English sense of the term, as well as explanation in its philosophical application, is wholly absent from Great Learning. Consider another example from the seventh chapter of the zhuan that is meant to explain “self-cultivation consists in correcting the mind/body” (xiushenzaizhengqixin 修身在正其心). Instead of utilizing rigorous logic to make the relationship between self-cultivation and the correcting of the mind/body clear, we are presented with some conditions in which the mind is not correct. Under these conditions, the balance in our mind/body is upset and we lose the ability to properly anticipate events and interact with the world in its inter-relational and ever-transforming happenings and multilayered whole that make up our daily lives. Not only are we reminded in what directly follows that if our mind/body is not correct “we look, but do not see, listen, but do not hear, [and] eat but do not taste” (shierbujian, tingerbuwen, shierbuzhiqiwei 视而不见，听而不闻，食而不知其味), but as we recall from the jing, without correcting our mind/body, we cannot “harmonize our family” (qiqijia 齐其家), “properly govern the country” (zhiguo 治其国), and ensure “peace throughout the land” (tianxiaping 天下平), as each of these depends on first realizing the former. Correcting one’s mind/body is an essential step in realizing harmonized families, setting up a properly governed country, and ensuring peace throughout the land, and therefore it is crucial for becoming fully human. Obviously the meaning of “correcting the mind/body” from the jing is suggested by and referred back on by such a commentary, but it is by no means clearly explained. Its accomplishment, nevertheless, is key for flourishing human life and society.
In light of the above three examples from Great Learning, then, I risk the following thesis: explanation through commentary in the Chinese traditional philosophy, at least with respect to Great Learning, serves more to add depth and expansion to the main text rather than to make its meaning clear or plain. Learning from such a text challenges the reader to engage its study in dialogue with one’s own daily life, and that the illumination of the meaning of the text is very closely related to the illumination of one’s own life in the rich context of one’s surroundings. Such a way of doing philosophy, then, for the Chinese points more toward an underlying cultural assumption or orientation toward emphasizing the process of making life significant by learning how to live life in the rich context of others and interrelated happenings that make up daily life. Such an assumption did not lead to a preoccupation with ultimate truth and ontological ideas that rest at the core of the Western philosophical tradition, and thus “the inverted world” of Western philosophy is not found in Chinese philosophy.
This thesis is further supported by the fact that there are different methods for studying texts such as the Great Learning as opposed to those from the Western tradition. While studying this text for myself, I was encouraged not to try to explain it by merely careful analysis. Instead, I was encouraged to memorize and repeat it as often as possible, as this was the way the ancient Chinese did who were interested in learning from it. The classical Chinese of the text itself makes such a task possible, as it was intended for oral transmission. By practicing such a study method it was possible to personally experience through life the profound implications and meanings in the text, as these were then fresh in the mind and could easily be related to any number of common life situations and events. Therefore, it seems there is an extremely intimate dialogue possible between readers of Chinese philosophy and its texts: only through actually realizing its instructions in ordinary life, applying its wisdom to daily life events, can its meanings become clearly illuminated (perhaps we could even risk the word “explained”). Furthermore, it seems for those with more life experiences, or of older age, the meanings and implications in the text could reveal themselves easier upon frequent readings and repetitions. Such a complete turning toward daily life in the world, and relying on life itself as a valuable source for wisdom, or as an arena for deepening and enriching knowledge, aesthetically and commonly, is indeed exactly what the traditional Western philosophy sought to transcend and overcome.
The Purpose of Philosophy in Ancient China
In the third example above used to illustrate that commentary in Great Learning is aimed more at expanding and enriching the jing, we saw how the zhuan suggested and referred back to “correcting the mind/body” and described more about how such a task might be achieved by the person as well as the serious importance of such an achievement. We saw how such an achievement was necessary before other crucial achievements could be sought. The jing additionally instructs other steps that are even more primary than “correcting the mind/body.” Although there are steps that are even more primary, all of these instructions are crucial for the flourishing of human life. It is in following this regression all the way down to the most basic instruction that I suggest will point us toward confronting the most basic feature or message of Great Learning. Again, given the great influence Great Learning has had on the rest of Chinese philosophy, as one of the four Confucian classics, I venture to suggest this may reflect something essential about the overall purpose of doing philosophy for the Chinese.
The jing tells us that the ancients, in wanting to correct their mind/body (zhengqixin 正其心), to cultivate themselves (xiuqishen 修其身), to harmonize their families (qiqijia 齐其家), and to properly govern their country (zhiqiguo 治其国), first made their thought/will sincere (chengqiyi 诚其意). In order to make their thought/will sincere, they first extended their knowledge (zhiqizhi 至其知). Finally, we are told, the extension of knowledge consists in gewu (格物). The meaning of gewu has been a very debatable topic in the history of Chinese philosophy. Two main Neo-Confucian Schools divided the debate, The School of li (理) by Zhu Xi (朱熹 1130－1200) and the School of xin (心) by Wang YangMing (王阳明 1472－1529). According to Zhu Xi, the meaning of gewu was to “investigate things” under the premise that principle, li (理), was inherent to things. Wang YangMing did not think the investigation of things was the most basic step, and held that making the thought/will sincere was prior to the investigation of things.
This debate itself provides some evidence for the significant influence of Great Learning on the later developments and interests of Chinese philosophy, and it also supports the notion that the key to the text lies in the meaning of gewu. As stated above, neither the jing nor the zhuan of Great Learning clearly explains the meaning of gewu. Above it was suggested that the text itself presents instructions that must be related to, applied to, and/or understood in relation to one’s life experience. If such a position is accepted, then it must have been the case that the ancients who approached such a text had already able to understand at least vaguely or tacitly the meaning of gewu, or at least be able to seek out the elaboration from other teachers who possessed such an understanding.
Therefore, we must look at the basic meaning of gewu as it was generally understood during the time when Confucius transmitted the ideas in Great Learning. During this time, Ge (格) had the meaning of lai (来), which means, “come.” Wu (物) did not refer merely to the now common English translation, “things,” but was more general in meaning, implying not only “things,” but also “events,” “situations,” and “affairs”. Moreover, these process-orientated words indicate not only ever-changing things focused at a particular moment and place in time by an individual, but also included the meaning of affairs and contexts that are ever transforming in processional change.
Of course the Great Learning itself must support and refer back to such a broader understanding of wu for this understanding to be tenable, and indeed such support can be found. For example, the jing tells us “things [now understood to include affairs, situations, events] have their roots and branches; affairs have their end and beginnings” (wuyoubenmo; shiyouzhongshi 物有本末；事有终始). These two phrases thus say essentially the same thing, and their structure, one directly following the other, points toward the commonality of wu and shi (affairs): wu/shi transform from beginning to end, end to beginning, roots to branches, branches to roots, not linearly, but in an ever-transforming process.
So far it has been suggested that gewu is the key instruction of Great Learning, and that its original meaning was closer to the English “come things/affairs.” With the overall background of the text as instructions that must be related to, applied to, and/or understood in relation to one’s life experience, another thesis regarding the overall purpose of Chinese philosophy, with Great Learning as a foundational case in point, can now be presented: the overall purpose of Chinese philosophy, or at least classical Confucianism, is to instruct the student of life so as to adjust ones whole person in such a way as to be very sensitive to the gewu, the process of coming things and affairs. Such sensitivity consists in a state of nothingness in which the individual person is wholly consummated by the whole ever-transforming process of life. If one over focuses on or indulges in a particular thing or affair, it will be harmful to one’s interaction with the world and society, as one would be out of touch with the coming of new affairs. Similarly, if one does not realize the importance of an affair or thing that has come, one will miss a valuable change to transform and develop along with the rest of the world.
Conclusion
Against the background of the notion of explanation in the Western tradition, both in its colloquial sense and its philosophical application, explanation in Great Learning appears to be very different. Considering such a difference in explanation has led to the possibility of a completely different purpose for philosophy in Ancient China. In this brief essay, then, two basic theses were presented based on Great Learning: (1) explanation through commentary in the Chinese traditional philosophy, or at least in Great Learning, serves more to add depth and expansion to the main text rather than to make its meaning clear or plain, and (2) the overall purpose of Chinese philosophy, or at least in classical Confucian philosophy, is to instruct the student of life so as to adjust ones whole person in such a way as to be very sensitive to the gewu, the process of coming things and affairs. As a student of the Philosophy Institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, I look forward to continuing to analyze these issues as I go on to further study Chinese philosophy and compare my understanding of it in dialogue with other scholars in the field.
