In pursuit of wisdom:
Ancient Chinese and Greek perspectives on cultivation
International Conference at UNSW Australia (Sydney), 15-18 January 2016
New College, UNSW
Elements, Sylvia Benitez, Oil on Birch Panel, 2008
Conference Organisers
Professor Rick Benitez, Philosophy Department, The University of Sydney
Dr Hyun Jin Kim, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
A/Professor Karyn Lai, School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales,
Australia
Conference Secretary
Mr Andrew Koh, PhD Candidate, Philosophy, UNSW
Conference Sponsors
ARC Decra DE120101493: Dr Hyun Jin Kim (The
Transfer of Global Hegemony: Geopolitical
Revolutions in World History)
Keynotes
Professor Sophie-Grace Chappell
Open University
Beneficial actions and beautiful actions
It is routinely assumed that the ancient Greeks were eudaimonists: they believed that the point of
action is to bring about eudaimonia, a word which we usually (mis)translate as “happiness”. It might be
roughly true of some of the views that Socrates presents to say that they are, in our sense, eudaemonist
views, and there is of course plenty of material that can be used to support this reading in Aristotle.
Nonetheless there are also deep mistakes in this view even of the “big three” ancient Greek
philosophers; and eudaimonism is nowhere near the truth about the ethical views of many other Greek
thinkers, in particular the tragedians Aeschylus and Sophocles.
My project in this paper is to reappropriate, in particular from Sophocles and Aristotle, the ethical idea
of beauty as a reason for action. I claim that our moral, and so our ethical, concepts, and the moral and
ethical normativity that goes with them, are deeply aesthetically-coloured. The beautiful does indeed
have a central place within our thinking about normativity; because it has a central place within our
thinking about moral normativity. And the central place it has is this (or this is one of them): very often,
it is a good answer to the question “Why should I do x?” to reply “Because x is the beautiful thing to do.”
Bringing the idea of to kalon, the beautiful, to a central place in our ethical thinking and our
understanding of the ancient Greeks’ ethical thinking is a somewhat unusual move; but it has great
explanatory power when we are trying to understand them. It also casts surprising light on a number of
other issues, including how to understand unhappiness ethically, and even the theological problem of
evil.
Professor Yahei Kanayama
Nagoya University
Everlasting Inquiry in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Socrates, Plato and the Sceptics
Philosophia in Greek is different from its Chinese equivalent, 哲學, in its inclusion of philo (love). For
Socrates and Plato philosophy was above all ‘love of sophia (哲, wisdom)’, consisting in consideration in
quest of happiness. Greek skepsis, too, was different from its equivalent, 懷疑, in that skepsis was
positive in meaning, representing ‘consideration’ in pursuit of wisdom, while 懷疑 is rather negative,
with 疑 meaning ‘standing stock still, being unable to decide’. Later in Hellenistic philosophy skepsis
approaches懷疑, when it comes to imply ‘doubt’ under the influence of the Sceptics. However, I
maintain that their skepsis still kept its core meaning of ‘consideration’, without abandoning ‘pursuit of
wisdom’. Their doubt was an outgrowth of their everlasting inquiry, and helped them to distance
themselves from threatening appearances and disturbing suspicion, and to achieve tranquillity, or at
least moderation of passion, so as to be able further to engage in pursuit of wisdom and cultivation of
the mind. This is essentially the same as the attitude of Socratic awareness of ignorance, and I think in
this sense the Sceptics were genuine followers of Socrates and Plato, sharing their attitude of
emphasizing ‘pursuit’ more than ‘wisdom’. This emphasis is taken to be a distinctive character of Greek
philosophy.
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Keynotes
Professor Mu-chou Poo
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Mortuary practice and the search for happiness in Han China
The aim of personal cultivation, as implied by the theme of this conference, is in pursuit of wisdom. The
reason to pursue wisdom, ultimately, is to find happiness. However, as demonstrated by generations of
thinkers, happiness is a vague concept. It could be defined as a state of contentment, a kind of existence
that has no want, yet what that contentment entails may vary throughout time and space and among
different cultures. Yet scholars in pursuit of the pursuit of happiness found it fascinating how people in
different cultures satisfied their urge to seek for happiness in life. It could even be argued that by
looking at what happiness means and how happiness is supposed to be achieved in different cultures
we could find a common denominator that is the converging point of similarities and differences of the
meaning of human existence. In this paper, I propose to look at the problem not from a philosophical
point of view, but by looking at the mortuary practices, in ancient China in particular. My view is that,
since happiness is often elusive, and life is short, people resort to constructing an existence beyond this
life on earth, based on their earthly experience, their aspirations and apprehensions, as well as their
hopes for a rewarding life. The relationship between the concept of the netherworld, the belief system,
and the social norms that formulated the idea of happiness, therefore, may provide researchers with
insights into a particular cultural system. How people imagined the afterlife and make mortuary
preparations to ensure that existence could reflect what people had in mind of an ideal existence, or
happiness. If, as many may have assumed, this ideal existence was defined and confined by the
conventional wisdom of the day, it was a demonstration of the collective value of the society as a whole,
which may or may not be in accord with the elite ideologies in that society, or, for that matter, in other
societies. Through comparison, therefore, we learn that such differences can be traced back to how
people in different historical and cultural contexts managed to deal with universal human problems.
Professor Lisa Raphals
University of California, Riverside
On Spontaneity
Several modes of action or attitudes of mind have been proposed as skills or processes at the heart of
good lives. Prominent among these are, in a Greek context, the devious but felicitous quality of mētis,
and in a Chinese context the particular type(s?) of indirection characterized as wuwei 無為. Both, in
different ways, are centrally concerned with spontaneity.
In Reason and Spontaneity, A.C. Graham attempted to address Hume's famous lacuna between “is” and
“ought.” He proposed a theory of value that grounds all values in the imperative to “be aware,” an
approach explicitly derived from the Zhuangzi. I reconsider these arguments from three points if view:
(1) Graham's account of inclination informed by awareness as the basis for agency and choices among
ends; (2) recent research on the biology of agency; and (3) possible continua between humans and
animals. I conclude with a few brief remarks on how Greek mētis and Chinese wuwei might fit into such
an account of awareness and spontaneity.
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Keynotes
Professor Wang Keping
Institute of Philosophy
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Two Ways of Pursuing the Good life: The Beauty Ladder and the Mind Excursion
Being two ancient thinkers living in the axial period, both Plato (428-348 BC) from Hellas and Zhuangzi
(369-286 BC) from China are preoccupied with the human condition in general, and engaged in the search of
the good life in particular. They have offered many interesting alternatives among which two acknowledged
ones turn out to be more appealing to my reconsideration: one is renowned as the beauty ladder and the other
the mind excursion.
As depicted in the Symposium by Plato, the beauty ladder is set to comprise seven levels of beauty (kallos),
ranging from the beauty of one body, the beauty of two bodies, the beauty of all bodies, the beauty of souls,
the beauty of observances and laws, the beauty of learning or sciences, up to the very essence of beauty in
itself, the essence that makes all other kinds of beauty become what they are. Having climbed up to the top of
the ladder, one is so delighted to encounter with the main ocean of the beautiful, and thereby he attains not
merely a peak experience of intellectual and spiritual joy via due contemplation, but also a fundamental
knowledge of the idea of the beautiful itself. Such joy is a special type owing to its profundity, duration, and
higher values. It is stemmed from intelligent intuition apart from aesthetic perception, and identified with the
supreme happiness that leads one to live a worthwhile life. Allegorically, the seven levels of the beauty ladder
imply a process of getting to know the seven kinds of beauty. The process as such involves personal
cultivation that can be seen as an epistemological progression from the phenomenal to the essential, and a
moral pilgrimage from the carnal attraction to the spiritual exaltation. Its possible accomplishment is supposed
to lie in the step-by-step enlightenment via aesthetic wisdom, moral wisdom, political wisdom and theoretical
wisdom.
Then, as noted in The Great Venerable Master (Da zong shi) by Zhuangzi, the mind excursion is claimed to
have eight stages of meditation for absolute spiritual freedom and independent personality. The eight stages as
a whole consist in a process of self-cultivation through approaching and exercising the Dao itself. Specifically
they include the first stage of going beyond the world (wai tianxia) that means the freedom from social
engagement in search of ambition and fame, the second stage of going beyond external things (wai wu) that
symbolizes the freedom from material acquisition and fetishist desires, the third stage of going beyond life
(wai sheng) that implies the freedom from bodily preservation, the fourth stage of morning enlightenment
(zhao che), the fifth stage of seeing the unique (jian du), the sixth stage of non-distinguishing between the past
and the present (wu gu jin), the seventh stage of living in the realm of neither death nor life (ru yu bu si bu
sheng) that is approximate to the state of nirvana, and the last stage of attaining the Dao in serenity (ying
ning). All this features a gradually deepened understanding of what it takes to live well in the light of the Dao
itself. It thus ranges from the initial insight into the Dao up to the final attainment of it as is companied by a
free play with it.
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Paper and Panel Abstracts
Anstey, Peter
The University
of Sydney
Back,
Youngsun
City University
of Hong Kong
Benitez, Rick
The University
of Sydney
Black, Martin
Socrates as dikaios in Plato’s Crito
This paper argues that the central theme of Plato’s Crito is what it is for a person to be
dikaios. It claims that Socrates’ attitude both to his impending death and to Crito’s offer
to help him escape from prison reveal him to be the exemplar of such a person.
Confucian Heaven and the Good Life
This paper examines the Confucian conception of tian, conventionally translated into
English as “Heaven.” The secondary literature on tian has primarily focused on the
question of what tian is: e.g., whether tian is an anthropomorphic deity or a naturalistic
force, or whether tian is transcendent or immanent. Instead, in this paper, I locate tian
with respect the ethical life of human beings and argue that tian directly involves a
particular way of understanding the world. Accordingly, by investigating the Confucian
conception of tian, we can figure out how early Confucians perceived the world, how
they conceived of the way to flourish in such a world, and what kind of flourishing life
they actually dreamed of. This paper will provide us with a more comprehensive
understanding of the role of virtue and the status of non-moral goods in the early
Confucian conception of the good life.
Cultivation and Harmony in Plato and Confucius
Plato once wrote that "rhythm and harmonious adjustment are essential to the whole of
human life," while Confucius claimed that "of the things brought about by the rites,
harmony is the most valuable." For both, harmony provides the framework within
which a conception of cultivation for both individual and society can be worked out.
This paper will focus on three 'levels' of harmony in Plato and Confucius. The first is the
level of rectification, where harmonious adjustment to right ways is necessary to
potential future happiness. The second is the level of understanding, where ordinary
rectification is adjusted to the greater melody of insight. The third is the level of
performance, where musical life enables the philosopher or sage to promote not only
personal happiness, but the happiness of society. Both Plato and Confucius believe that
musical life constitutes the highest level of harmony, and the greatest cultivation
possible for a human being. Thus, the harmony advocated by both philosophers is the
very essence of cultivation, not something merely instrumental to it. I conclude with
some observations about the application of Platonic and Confucian harmony to 21st
Century society.
The Forgotten Teaching of Classical Philosophy: Cultivation is the Imitation of Nature
The central thesis of the understanding of human affairs of classical Greek philosophy is
that human cultivation is an imitation of nature. This view is well known, but I intend to
suggest that its meaning has been forgotten. The power of the new conception of nature
promulgated by the early modern philosophers has apparently been confirmed by the
political and scientific success of their project. As their heirs we are tempted to
understand human affairs either as derivative directly from sub-human natural
processes or as “cultural,” i.e. non-natural constructions.
The classical view freely acknowledges the constructed nature of human affairs: the
poetry and laws give human beings their ways of life or forms their souls, and the arts
and sciences that sustain their bodies, are all human invention. However, they argue
that our language, standards, and forms of knowledge are more or less imperfect
reflections of the natural principles of things. This thesis has the advantage that it is
hard to argue for a coherent alternative on the basis of reason. However, it culminates in
a tension between the virtues cultivated for the political good and those cultivated for
the good of philosophizing itself, or between theory and practice.
4
Buckingham,
Will
Sichuan
University / De
Montfort
University
Coulson, Lee
The University
of Sydney
Di Lauro,
Frances
The University
of Sydney
Writing in the Service of Life: Liu Xie and the Practice of Literature
In this paper, I will look at the notion of shengqi, or ‘nurturing vitality’ in Liu Xie’s
Wenxin Diaolong, or ‘Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons’ to propose a notion of the
craft of writing as a form of cultivation in the service of life.
The practice of writing in the Western traditions has sometimes been claimed to be a
form of derangement or possession that, potentially at least, uses up the writer.
Alternatively, it has been seen as a practice that can act as a form of therapy, a means
towards curing the writer of the ills of existence. But for Liu, writing can serve life in a
way that departs radically from ideas of writing as a form of exhaustion, whilst also
going beyond notions of therapy. Instead, it is an activity that can contribute actively to
the nurturing of the vitality, or the liveliness, of life itself.
In this paper, I will draw on Greek and Chinese sources, and also on my own practice as
a writer. Moving between first and third-person perspectives, I aim to explore the
virtuous circle that is suggested by Liu Xie’s text, a circle in which writing can act to
nourish life, and equally, life can act to nourish writing.
Cultivating εὐήθεια: the wisdom of noble simplicity
Etymologically understood εὐήθεια is a compound of εὖ+ἦθος, and thus has the semantic
value of good disposition or character. Yet in ancient Greece, and indeed much Platonic
scholarship, the term is largely pejorative and generally connotes foolish naïveté and
simplemindedness. My paper argues that Plato's regeneration of εὐήθεια seeks to redress what
Thucydides warns are the dire consequences of losing "the ancient simplicity (τὸ εὔηθες)"
(Th. 3.83.1). That Plato's progressively positive use of the term in the so-called early and
transitional dialogues culminates in Republic’s affirmation of εὐήθεια as "the truly good and
fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind" (R. 400e), a noble
and virtuous disposition he personifies in Laws' Εὐηθέστεροι Virtue-Hero-Myth.
Εὐήθεια in Plato thus inscribes a remarkable semantic arc from its largely pejorative use in
early Greek literature to its personification as the exemplary Εὐηθέστεροι, who as δαιμόνιο
may afford the deific function of a personal tutelage deity. For Plato, then, the cultivation of
εὐήθεια is seemingly essential to satisfying the soul's affections for the virtue qualities of
courage, temperance and righteousness. Indeed, εὐήθεια may be synonymous with the
wisdom that nurtures virtue and develops self-knowledge. Hence in Plato, where rightly
cultivated, the deific spirit of εὐήθεια might mimics divine intelligence and endow the
apprehension of εὐδαιμονία as the wisdom of noble simplicity.
Esoteric concepts of self and self-cultivation in early Daoist thought
Confucian texts like the Doctrine of the Mean, espouse self-cultivation by adhering to
communal norms, refining relationships between “monarch and subjects … the father and
the son … the husband and the wife etc.” Three moral traits of “sagacity, charity and
character” are attained through “studying”, “charity” and “doing good deeds”, and having “a
sense of shame.” Early Daoist self-cultivation texts instead prescribe internalized practice to
achieve individual transcendence. Abstract or esoteric concepts of self-cultivation are first
discernible in the philosophical speculations of the “Warring States” or Zhanguo age, the
period to which the emergence of the Daoism can be traced. The earliest of these, the Neiye
(“inward training”) grounds psychology and self-cultivation in a physiological substratum,
and prescribes techniques to induce self-transcendence, optimum health, and longevity.
This paper will examine the concept of the emptiness in Chinese philosophical thought,
outlining the development of abstract notions of the self and self-cultivation practices in
the formative period of daojia (Daoist philosophy), and the mutation in meaning of the
concept of wu wei, variously rendered “non contrived,” “non-artificial, “non striving,”
and “taking no action contrary to nature,” in texts that precede the Wang Bi, after which
it was read as “non action.”
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Fech, Andrej
South
University of
Science and
Technology of
China
Hendrischke,
Barbara
University of
Sydney
Hooper,
Anthony
University of
Sydney
The role played by auditory and visual perception in moral cultivation as represented in
early Confucian and Daoist texts
When consulting the early Chinese texts on the topic of moral cultivation, we encounter
a large number of passages dealing with the issue of auditory (wen 聞) and visual (jian
見) perception. Moreover, this topic seems to be of comparable importance to
philosophical traditions that had a radically different understanding of the nature of
moral cultivation such as Confucianism and Daoism. Therefore, in this presentation, I
am going to talk about similarities and differences in concepts of sensory perception as
represented in the texts associated with the two schools. Its leading question can be
formulated as to how perceptive abilities came to be connected to the question of moral
excellence and which contents of sensory perception were regarded by the two schools
as beneficial to cultivation.
The talk will be based on such texts as the Xunzi 荀子, Laozi 老子, Zhuangzi 莊子 as well
as the newly excavated texts Wuxing 五行 (Mawangdui, Guodian), Wenzi 文子
(Dingxian) and Ting you wu huan 聽有五患 (Yinqueshan).
Nurturing life in the Laozi as understood by Han Fei
The term “nurturing life” does not occur in the Laozi. However, what the Laozi says on
lengthening life had a big impact on the text’s enduring popularity. This paper starts
with a brief introduction to Laozi 50. This section deals with the threat of death. More
questions are raised than answered. The paper’s main topic is Han Fei’s (d. 233 BCE)
engagement with Laozi’s advice to avoid the “terrain of death”. Han Fei applies the
innovative concept of “dao’s patterns” (dao li 道理) to argue that personal survival relies
on the accurate and comprehensive analysis of one’s own situation.
My, How Death Becomes You! or Cultivation, Death, and Immortality in Plato’s
Symposium
Plato is a thinker who is centrally concerned with the cultivation of a virtuous character,
and no small amount of ink has been expended to explicate the faculties, behaviours,
habits, and perspectives that one must develop to live a eudaimon life. But Plato’s
interests in cultivation extend beyond ensuring a happy life, as he also has an interest in
ensuring that one may enjoy a state of death that is maximally productive of virtue. But
here I refer not to Plato’s various comments regarding the post-mortem existence of the
soul, but a subject on which insufficient ink has been spilled: the account of immortality
that is offered to us in the Symposium. This presentation is idiosyncratic because it does
not concern the post-mortem existence of the soul, but rather concerns the vicissitudes
of remembrance people may enjoy in this world. In the voice of Diotima, Socrates here
details how people win immortality by having the memory of their virtue inspire others
towards the production of virtue long after one’s death.
According to Socrates, the enterprise of winning immortality through memory
necessitates various modes of cultivation. These include: i) a re-evaluation from seeing
virtue as something that is valuable only when it is ‘one’s own’ to something worthy of
production in its own right; ii) a shift in emphasis from the production of virtue
exclusively in oneself, to a concern in bringing about virtue in others; and iii) a
commitment to the idea that the development of one’s own wisdom concerning virtue
constitutes merely one stage in an inter-subjective process of learning. Prima facie these
particular modes of cultivation of character appear relevant only to winning
immortality, however they more generally underlie the foundations of the development
of philosophical communities in life. In this way, happiness in death flowers from the
same soil as happiness in life. Time permitting, I also hope to comment on whether this
account of cultivation has any parallels in Confucianism and Daoism.
6
Hui, Oceana
University of
New South
Wales
Kim, Hyun Jin
The University
of Melbourne
King, RAH
Berne
University
Machek, David
Berne
University
PANEL:
Virtues, virtue
and roles in
China and
Greece
(Organiser:
R.A.H. King)
The Zhuangzi’s Free and Easy Wandering: Equanimity through Metacognition and its
Associated Processes
The opening chapter of the Zhuangzi, titled "逍遙遊", has been translated several ways:
"Free and Easy Wandering", "Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease" or "Going Rambling
Without a Destination". These various iterations bring to mind ideas of a calm, relaxed
existence that is free from sources of worry. Accordingly, one might expect such a
chapter to advocate a quiet, reticent life. Counterintuitively, there are no such
prescriptions therein. Instead, one finds that it is brimming with paradoxical anecdotes,
dialogue, and witty criticisms. This paper adopts a literary analysis approach to examine
how the narrative form of the text itself might trigger metacognition through the
continual disruption of reader expectation. In doing so, it is suggested that achieving a
state of equanimity involves the restructuring of both cognitive and affective
dispositions.
The ‘Good Life’ according to the sages: ‘Solon’ and ‘Confucius’
The ancient Greeks and the early Chinese both articulated the good life and also
discussed what was good about it in their surviving works of literature. This paper
examines the Greek perception of the good life as presented by 'Solon' in Book 1 of
Herodotus. That perception is then compared with the 'Confucian' articulation of the
good life as practiced by the Junzi. It is observed that the socio-political milieu of both
traditions is critical to understanding the similarities and differences in the respective
representations of the good life in Greece and China.
Virtue and a swarm of virtues (King)
In Plato’s Meno, Socrates famously argues against Meno’s view that there are lots of
virtues – a swarm – for men, women, children, and he demands that meno give him a
definition of virtue – that form because of which anything is virtue, if it is virtue (72C).
Aristotle, as is well known argues against this view, but only in the Politics (I 13) –
where he poses the question about whether there can be virtues for slaves and women
and children. His view of politics is based on the family, and extends these roles to the
operation of the city. In this paper, I present Socrates’s arguments, and suggest that
Aristotle is right, both in having a general account of virtue in itself and in wanting to
preserve the role centred virtues. In the absence of a general account of virtue in China
the question arises of what serves as the core of virtue, and I scout some possibilities,
above all wisdom. Because not all have wisdom, this view of virtue militates for forms of
social dependence. It is also a central claim of the Socratic tradition.
Being a tax-collector, a human, a wife: China Warring States views about self-cultivation
in light of a role-defined self (Machek)
Is studying philosophy or learning how to control one’s emotions more conducive to
becoming a better person than learning to play the piano, or even learning to cook? Is
development of some skills or habits more central for cultivating one’s self than of some
others? The answer will depend largely on what we think this “person” or “self” actually
is. Besides defining the self in terms of entity (e.g. soul, mind, character or body), we can
also define the self in terms of its role: one can be a father, an officer, and/or simply a
living being. One’s self can be defined by multiple roles (that may be in tension with
each other), or by one fundamental role from which other roles are derived. What
exactly the self defined by its role amounts to, and what are the implications for the
appropriate self-cultivation curricula, was a much debated issue in Warring States
thought. Three different accounts from different fourth century B.C.E. texts – Mengzi,
Zhuangzi, as well as a Guodian text “Six excellences” – will be outlined in order to bring
out the diversity of existing positions in this debate.
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Lai, Karyn
The University
of New South
Wales
Lee, Yungwhan
Inje University
Ley, James
University of
Sydney
Reliability as the linchpin of Confucian life
In Analects 2.22, Confucius remarks on the implausibility—or impossibility—of a life
lacking in xin 信, reliability (人而無信，不知其可也). In discussions of Confucian
philosophy, this aspect of life is often eclipsed by greater emphasis on Confucian values
such as ren 仁 (benevolence) and yi 義 (rightness). More attention is typically given to
the Confucian value orientation, with less detail provided on the cultivation processes
that underpin the successful realisation of values. My discussion addresses this
imbalance by focusing on reliability, extending current debates in two ways. First, it
proposes that the common translation of xin as ‘trustworthiness’—to denote coherence
between a person’s words and deeds—is inadequate. The translation fails to capture
the longer-term consistency in a person’s actions and behaviours in different
circumstances across time, which is an irreducible dimension of xin. Second, I suggest
that reliability is not only moral but also epistemic in nature. That is, in order to be able
to proceed (行 xing; Analects 15.6) reliably, a person needs to know how best to act or
respond in different circumstances. I focus especially on the processes involved in
equipping oneself with this knowledge.
Cultivation of reason and ethics as an invitation to philosophy
Aristotle characterizes the good person as “heeding the reason/argument” (logoi
peitharchein). While the masses, living according to passion, should be persuaded only
with penalties, reason and teaching (logos kai didachê) cultivates the soul of the well
brought up person to enjoy and hate proper things. Even though it is obvious that the
reason takes the central place in Aristotle’s ethics, the reasonableness (capacity to heed
the reason) of the good person, how it is cultivated and how the excellences of the
character (not only the excellences of the intellect) are related with it, has not been
given sufficient discussion. Nicomachean ethics will be the primary text I will discuss but
I will also examine Plato’s Gorgias and the discussion of the power of logos in it also. I
will suggest in the end that we read NE as protrepticus where Aristotle encourages
students with good upbringing to listen to and appreciate (the power of) his arguments
and be properly motivated to follow philosophers’ path in their lives.
The cultivation of memory in Classical Greek Philosophy
For both Plato and Aristotle living well involves acting in the right way in relation to the
capacities of human memory. Both philosophers describe iterative practices that affect
memory and determine whether we live well or badly. These practices concern both the
acquisition and retrieval of memories and they have effects both upon our access to
knowledge and our ability to live a good life. Plato’s recommendation that philosophers
target the retrieval of long-held propositional memories is familiar to us as his ‘theory of
recollection’. But he also carefully warns against the harmful acquisition of new
memories in the Phaedo. In this paper I consider Plato’s separation of beneficial and
harmful practices in relation to memory and Aristotle’s responses to it.
8
Liang, Yuhan
Nanyang
Technological
University
Lind, Per
Lund
University
Liu, Linna
Nanyang
Technological
University
Thinking as a method to cultivate moral character
For Mencius, moral cultivation is to nurture a moral character through long time
practice and thinking (si思) is a main method to do it. However, if we scrutinize the
whole text, some inconsistencies can be found. On the one hand, Mencius
proposes people should think to be moral. On the other hand, he also seems
to appreciate the moral actions that are carried out without thinking. In this paper, I try
to provide a plausible explanation of this problem by deciphering the functions of
thinking in moral practice. Despite that one can carry out moral actions occasionally,
this kind of moral impulse is unstable. Thinking is crucial for moral fortitude because
both the epistemological problem and motivation problem can be solved by thinking in
practice. Firstly, thinking not only can reinforce incipient moral judgments in mindheart but also assist mind-heart to make proper decisions in moral dilemmas. Secondly,
since thinking maintains a moral view, when one fails to do what ought to do, feeling of
shame would be triggered and motivate one to try again and harder until he fulfills the
goal. Thus thinking can assist one to adhere on the moral practice, until one nourishes
virtuous character and performs moral will spontaneously and reliably in the most time.
How to Learn from Fake Mistakes: Raising metaconceptual awareness the Pyrrhonist
way
The present paper proposes that the wisdom cultivation technique prescribed by the
ancient Greek art-of-living school of Pyrrhonism sidesteps the central transformative
issue of the Stoic and Epicurean systems, namely the molding of the practitioner’s
cognitive outlook into accordance with school dogma. Instead, it is argued, the
Pyrrhonean technique of deliberately seeding cognitive conflict (“fake mistakes”) in the
mind of the practitioner aims to wake her up to the contingency, instrumentality and
negotiability of the cognitive structures she already employs. Observing that in
everyday experience, the presence of cognitive conflict (and its functional corollary
perplexity) signals the occurrence of a mistake (in the form of cognitive failure and/or
misjudgment) the basic developmental potential inherent to states of cognitive conflict
and perplexity is undeniable. According to the proposed reading, the Pyrrhonean
technique effectively harnesses the unique – and most likely hardwired – function of
cognitive conflict in the human cognitive architecture to derail habitual and automated
ways of conceiving the world so as to bring consciousness to bear more immediately on
the conflicting structures of cognition, which otherwise tend to function outside the
direct reach of volitional thought. In thus effectuating a shift from the cognition of
reality to the cognition of cognition, cognitive conflict enables the owning up to of
previously unacknowledged instances and levels of cognitive agency.
Forgetting Emotions: Zhuangzi’s Pursuit of Peaceful Mind
Zhuangzi advocates a peaceful mind free from the disturbance of emotions. However,
his perspective towards emotions seems contradictory. Does he mean that sages will
keep positive emotions like ordinary people, or should eliminate all influence of
emotions? Evidences on both views can be found in the Inner Chapters. In this paper, I
will firstly argue that both the opinions of “with emotions” and “without emotions” fail
to explain some counter examples in the text. Secondly, I will raise the idea of
“forgetting emotions” as a better approach to interpret Zhuangzi’s perspective, with
which we are able to read the text of the Zhuangzi consistently. Thirdly, I will
demonstrate how people can reach the state of “forgetting emotions”, and “fasting of
mind” will be discussed as one of the most important approaches to deal with emotions.
9
Liu, Ni
Shanghai Jiao
Tong
University
Pfister, Lauren
Hong Kong
Baptist
University
Ciccotti, Jesse
Hong Kong
Baptist
University
(PANEL)
Anger and Self-Cultivation in the Analects
Yuet Keung Lo advocates the ability to manage one’s anger is a sign of one’s selfcultivation. He takes Yanhui as a good role model for the ability to master anger;
Confucius praises Yanhui for “not taking his anger out on others (不迁怒)” in the
Analects. However, in the Analects, Confucius also finds that anger (忿) can make one
lose awareness of one’s safety and for his/her parents. The solution to this problem is to
turn his/her thoughts to the consequences. Besides that, Confucius relates one’s safety
to his/her piety (孝). In this way, how to manage one’s anger (忿) has a crucial role to
play in one’s self-cultivation. In this paper I will discuss the two ways of managing one’s
anger in the Analects as well as scholars’ interpretations of the relationship between
anger and self-cultivation.
Dislodging Mundane Wisdom: Counter-Cultural Alternatives for Transformative Forms
of Cultivation in the Dialogic Teachings and Paradoxical Rhetoric of Master Zhuāng and
Rabbi Yeshuah (Pfister)
Practical wisdom is often dressed in rationalized garb, especially among the literati elite
in ancient China and the philosophical teachings of major intellectuals in ancient Greece.
They regularly presented a form of prudential wisdom couched within rationalized
visions of life involving idealized rulers and their own sagely teachers. Nevertheless,
counter points to these teachings were explicitly articulated in the more paradoxical
dialogues of Master Zhuāng and Rabbi Yeshuah (or, as Witherington intones, the “Sage
Jesus”). In order to dislodge more rationalized versions of wisdom in their own
traditions, both employ “dislodging” paradoxes and parables with embedded critiques
in order to reorient the development of a form of practical wisdom based upon
transformative understandings of the nature of reality – including the human selves
living within those realities.
Based on revised reflections about the use of dialogic / pluralogic speech texts in
selected portions of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuāngzǐ (following cues from Yearley
and DeFoort) and the Four Gospels in the New Testament (with help from
Witherington), I will seek to characterize and compare these two varying approaches to
practical wisdom. Within this process, I will argue that transformative experience must
precede the search for practical wisdom for both sages, leading subsequently to new
expressions of inner peace, and fidelity to the Way. As already suggested, both Master
Zhuāng and Rabbi Yeshuah initiate this transformative process by dislodging
contemporary forms of “mundane wisdom” for the sake of recognizing and pursuing
alternative and higher (and therefore therapeutically more satisfying) forms of sagacity.
The Feelings of Kingship: Mèngzǐ and Marcus Aurelius on Regal Emotion (Ciccotti)
Central to discussions of action and agency is the role of the emotions, and both Stoic and
Ruist (Confucian) traditions make much of the role of emotions in the moral life in
particular. While some general studies have been made to compare Greek and Chinese
theories of emotion,1 specific studies that closely examine texts comparing Stoic and Ruist
views of emotion and its relation to ruling have not yet been undertaken. My paper will seek
to fill this gap by comparing the writings of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 120180) and the Chinese philosopher Mèngzǐ (372-289 BC). In particular, I will be exploring the
role(s) Aurelius and Mèngzǐ believes the emotions play in the activity of ruling, and what
prescriptions for cultivating and exercising these emotions they advocate in order to assist
the ruler in ruling well. I will argue that appropriate regulation and engagement with
apposite emotions is a key resource that enables a ruler to perceive the needs of the people
and respond fittingly.
1 E.g.,
G.E.R. Lloyd, “The Greeks and Chinese on the emotions and the problem of cross-cultural universals
and cultural relativism,” in How Should One Live?, ed. R.A.H. King and D. Shilling (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010),
241-258.
10
Pierdziwol,
Annette
The University
of Notre Dame
Australia
Riegel, Jeffrey
The University
of Sydney
Sharpe,
Matthew
Deakin
University
Sin, William
Hong Kong
Institute of
Education
Aristotle on role of habit in moral education
This paper examines the role of habituation in Aristotle’s account of how the virtues are
acquired. The first part of the paper surveys recent positions in the debate between
non-cognitivist and cognitivist interpretations and considers their relation to the
‘paradox of moral development’ (the progression from habituated virtue to reflective
virtue). Focussing on some of the more persuasive proposals from the cognitivist camp,
and in view of the charge levelled against them that they lack any explicit textual
warrant, the second part of the paper pursues a close reading of key passages where
Aristotle discusses the role of habituation in virtue acquisition, and seeks to offer a
clearer account of the concrete resources Aristotle can and cannot offer contemporary
philosophers of education on this question.
Emotion and Accumulation in the Xunzi
Two key elements in the theory of moral cultivation found in the text of the Xunzi are
qing 情 (emotion) and ji 積 (accumulation). Several passages in the text illustrate how
emotional reactions to stimuli of various sorts disclose to a subject the boundaries of
proper behavior while learning and other experiences one has accumulated guide a
subject in transforming insightful feelings into a fuller understanding of what one ought
to do. The meaning of some key passages that relate to these ideas of moral cultivation
remains obscure and the passages themselves are perhaps corrupt. Part of the problem
is that the old forms of the graphs 情 and 積 were sufficiently similar that they were
easily confused by scribes. There is of course a wealth of philological research on these
passages done mostly during the 17th and 18th centuries. This paper re-examines these
passages and the relevant scholarship on them and then offers what the author takes to
be the best readings.
Cultivation in Seneca: Ilsetraut Hadot’s Spiritual Direction and Practice of Philosophy
2015 saw the translation of Ilsetraut Hadot’s magisterial study on Seneca: Spiritual
Direction and Practice of Philosophy into the French language. In contrast to recent
analytic treatments of his thought, the book argues that Seneca’s Stoicism and his
philosophical writings should be conceived as belonging to a long Greek and Roman
tradition of “spiritual direction”. This paper will critically reconstruct Hadot’s claims
concerning the practice of philosophical cultivation in Seneca’s writings, paying
particular attention to her defence of “the very idea” of such cultivation against analytic
readings of the great Roman Stoic.
Bruce Lee, Zhixing, and the Trolley Problem: Cultivating the Right Response in the
Desperate Moment
When an agent comes across a desperate situation, his ability to perform the right action
is often not a mere matter of theoretical clarification, but practical deliverance. In the
case of Trolley, for instance, even if it would be morally better for the agent to save five
lives by diverting an out-of-control trolley onto an innocent victim, he might not have
the strength and determination to perform the action. This point is echoed by the
martial artist Bruce Lee in his book Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Lee says that in the case of
street combat, unless the agent is prepared to die, and has complete devotion to deal
with the difficulty which arises in the moment, he will not survive the challenge. In this
paper, I will describe this ability with reference to the virtue of zhixing 直性; the literal
meaning of zhixing involves a preparedness to respond to challenge in a straightforward
manner and with complete determination. In addition to Lee’s elaboration, I will explain
the virtue of zhixing with reference to the doctrines of Zen Buddhism and Confucianism
respectively.
11
Suzuki, Yumi
University of
Hong Kong
Tiquia, Rey
University of
Melbourne
“Examining a life” in the ‘Teaching’ of Socrates and Confucius
Both arête (ἀρετή/virtue) and ren (仁/humanity) are one of the most frequently
discussed topics in Socratic and Confucian ‘teaching’. Socrates famously suggests that it
is the greatest thing to discuss arete and to test himself and others on the issue because
the unexamined life is not worth living (Apology 38a). He thinks that the discussion
should come first, before the state of being virtuous, or any action whereby to practice
virtue, because it is impossible for us to examine how to come to possess the virtue
before knowing what it is (Meno 71b). On the other hand, Confucius often responds to
the question of what ren, renzhe (仁者) is, or what it is to practice ren in various ways
(4/1-7, 5/8, 19, 6/26, 7/30, 34, 12/2, 3, 22, 14/1, 4). Ren is developed through reading
the Classics, learning traditions and rituals, whereby we reflect on ourselves in order to
achieve ren (1/4, 4/17, 9/24,). This paper demonstrates that the two different paths to
become a good person entail different modes of doing moral philosophy: the former
focusses on developing hypothetical methods to approach the destination, while the
latter on the pragmatic approaches to the process.
The Wisdom of Developing the Habit of Cultivating and Aligning the Flow of Our Life
Force (qi) With The Movement of the Season/Time For Good Health and Good Life
In the prologue to his book On Their Own Terms Science in China, 1550-1900, Benjamin
Elman observed that ‘like their classicist counterparts in sixteenth-century Europe, the
Chinese authors of natural histories sought to identify and classify natural phenomena
through correct use of language of words. For them, all phenomena originated from the
stuff of the world (qi) formed through the spontaneous shaping of all things (zaohua) by
some sort of ultimate shaping force (zaohua zhu) or internal power (zaowu zhu). They
mediated efforts to make sense of the world of things through their prevailing social,
political and cultural hierarchies.’ Therefore, qi acts. Qi translates. Qi defines. Qi flows. Qi
gets stuck. Qi gets unstuck. When qi ‘assemble’ 聚 there is life. When qi disperses 散,
there is death and a new form of life.” “The cosmic yin and yang qi of the ‘sky/heaven/
celestial sphere’ 天 and ‘earth/terrestrial sphere’ 地 ascend and descend and climatic
weather conditions during the‘four seasons’ resonate with these changes. Humanity
must harmonize and adapt to these changes as well. During spring and summer seasons,
one must nurture the cosmic yang qi while during the autumn and winter seasons one
must nurture the cosmic yin qi. In this way, unusual illnesses will not come about.
According to Chinese medical theory, if one maintains a balance of heart and mind and a
qi (yang) 氣 and blood (yin) 血 that flow in harmony with the world around them xin he
qi ping 心和氣平, then there will be a presence of good health. And in accordance with
the classical, modern, Eastern and Western senses, ‘good humour’ or good qi flow that is
a natural effect of the alignment of emotions and seasons, which if absent should be
restored. As Joseph Needham puts it: “When one feels naturally happy, and free from
self-seeking and upsetting personal desires or greedy ambitions, then the salutary qi of
necessity responds and follows. Vitality thus guarding from within, how can diseases
originate.”
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