Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’

Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’s A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: Part I，the general outlook of Chinese philosophy

To my shame, I never read books about Chinese philosophy seriously before. It is absolutely delinquent to a master student of philosophy even though his major study is western philosophy. But to be honest, the Chinese philosophy academic community in China does not have sufficient worthy works. Their works are far less than the western philosophy academic community in China and what should they do is much more than that at present.

I agree with the word of my tutor’s tutor Prof. Zhang Rulun in Fudan University that: nowadays, a man who do not understand western philosophy can not understand Chinese philosophy. In the opinion of Prof. Zhang, the modern Chinese people are not the true Chinese. They are far away from the Chinese tradition. They are trained and educated in a western way, so that they think and move in a western way as well. In this situation, if a modern Chinese want to understand the Chinese tradition, he should understand what that stipulates and forms his mode of thinking is first. In this sense, my comprehension about Chinese philosophy will not worse than the students even the professors who specialize in Chinese philosophy, maybe much better than them.

Mr. Fung Yu-lan is an example. He studied Chinese philosophy, but also he was familiar with western philosophy. In this book of the history of Chinese philosophy, he mentions western philosophy many times, and in many places he even compares the philosophy in china and in western minutely. But I have to say that some words of Mr. Fung shows that his thinking is more close to western academic than to Chinese tradition. For example, Mr. Fung mentions his view of philosophy that “philosophy is systematic, reflective thinking on life…every man, who has not yet died, is in life. But there are not many to think reflectively on life, and still fewer whose reflective thinking is systematic,”[1] which reminds us of the statement that “philosophy is systematic world view and methodology” in Chinese ideological and political coursebook.

In this book, Mr. Fung does not discussed the specific schools of Chinese philosophy at first, he makes an introduction as “The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy” before the formal writing. According to the description of Mr. Fung, unlike modern Chinese people their life are out of philosophy, in the old days Chinese people’s life are deeply philosophical. Because in that time, if a man were educated at all, the first education he received was in philosophy. When children went to school, the Four Books, which were the most important texts of Neo-Confucianist philosophy and consist of the Great Learning, the Confucian Analects, the Book of Mencius, the Doctrine of Mean, were the first ones they were taught to read. Therefore Mr. Fung says: “The place which philosophy has occupied in Chinese civilization has been comparable to that of religion in other civilization.”[2]

Religion or Philosophy

Indeed Chinese people’s life permeated with Confucianism just like western people’s life permeated with Christian, but it does not mean Confucianism is a religion like Christian. As Mr. Fung says: “Confucianism is no more a religion than, says, Platonism or Aristotelianism…It is true that the Four Books have been the Bible of the Chinese people, but in the Four Books there is no story of creation, and no mention of a heaven or hell.”[3]

As to Taoism, there is a distinction between Taoism as a philosophy, which is called Tao chia(the Taoist school), and the Taoist religion(Tao chiao). Their teaching are not only different; they are even contradictory. Taoism as a philosophy teaches the doctrine of following nature, while Taoism as a religion teaches the doctrine of working against nature. Mr. Fung makes an instance here: “according to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, life following by death is the course of nature, and man should follow this natural course calmly. But the main teaching of the Taoist religion is the principle and technique of how to avoid death, which is expressly working against nature.”[4] There is a similar status to Buddhism that it also has the distinction between Buddhism as a philosophy, which is called Fo hsueh(the Buddhist learning), and Buddhism as a religion, which is called Fo chiao(the Buddhist religion).

In fact, Chinese people have been less concerned with religion than other people are. As a western scholar says: “They are not a people for whom religions ideas and activities constitute an all important and absorbing part life…It is ethics(especially Confucian ethics), and not religion(at least not religion of a formal, organized type), that provided the spiritual basis in Chinese civilization…All of which, of course, makes a difference of fundamental importance between China and most other major civilizations, in which a church and a priesthood have played a dominant role.” But dose it imply that the Chinese are not conscious of those values which are higher than moral ones?

western people maybe think that there are some kinds of super-moral values, namely religion values, which are higher than the moral values. The love of man is a moral value, while higher than it the love of God is a super-moral value. But Mr. Fung gives his argument that: “strictly speaking, the love of God in Christianity is not really super-moral. This is because God, in Christianity, is a personality, and consequently the love of God by man is comparable to the love of a father by his son, which is a moral value. Therefore, the love of God in Christianity is open to question as a super-moral value.”[5]

Some western people maybe think that Chinese people do not care about the higher values on account of that china does not have religion. But in fact, besides religion, there has philosophy, an other access to the higher values, which maybe is more direct than that provided by religion. As Mr. Fund says: “According to the tradition of Chinese philosophy, its function is not the increase of positive knowledge(by positive knowledge I mean information regarding matters of fact), but the elevation of mind—a reaching out for what is beyond the present actual world, and for the values that are higher than the moral ones.”[6] To put it in Lao-tzu’s word, “To work on learning is to increase day by day; to work on Tao is to decrease day by day.” From then on, in the tradition of Chinese philosophy, there is a distinction between working on learning and working on Tao, and this view also belongs to western philosophy especially metaphysics.

Other-worldliness or This-worldliness

To almost all the Chinese philosophers, the ultimate purpose of philosophy is arriving at Tao the highest being. The man who makes it may be called a sage, and the highest achievement of a sage is the identification of the individual with the universe. But Mr. Fung notices that “the problem is, if men want to achieve this identification, do they necessarily have to abandon society or even to negate life?”[7] Mr. Fung mentions in his first chapter of this book that the most important problem that ancient Chinese philosophers have tried to solve is the problem of “sageliness within and kingliness without”, that is, which is the Tao or way to become an inner sage and outer king? Some of the Buddhists and some of the Taoists thinks that the way of outer king is a way of positive knowledge and this way should be abandoned; while the way of inner sage is a way of working on Tao, is contrary to the former one. Maybe Plato will be agree with them, because he says that the body is the prison of the soul, and the polis is a cavern. All these philosophical theories that believe in that the sage has to abandon society and even life itself, and only thus can the final liberation be attained, may be called “other-worldly philosophy”.

Homologous, as Mr. Fung mentions that, “There is another kind of philosophy which emphasizes what is in society, such as human relations and human affairs. This kind of philosophy speaks only about moral values, and is unable to or does not wish to speak of the super-moral ones. This kind of philosophy is generally described as ‘this-worldly.’”[8] General speaking, not in an accurate sense, Buddhism and Taoism are other-worldly philosophy, in spite of that both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu pay attention directly to governance and ethics; while Confucianism is this-worldly philosophy. With society and the daily, present life of human relations not with the universe and a man’s life in a world to come, Confucianism is concerned chiefly. Just as Confucius replies: “Not yet understand life, how can you understand death?” also as Mencius says: “The sage is the acme of human relations.” It seems obvious that what Confucianism calls a sage is a person quiet different from the Buddha of Buddhism and a saint of Christian religion. As Mr. Fung summarizes: the Confucian sage “is not one who does not concern himself with the business of the world.”[9] For Confucianists, the way of kingliness without is not anti to the way of sageliness within; these two ways are even closely involved with each other. This sounds like the Plato’s theory of the philosopher-king that the philosopher should be the king or the king should be a philosopher in the politeia. Just like the Confucian sage, the philosopher-king must undergo a long period of philosophical training before he can be a qualified ruler. But Mr. Fung mentions the difference between Confucianists and Plato that, the philosopher-king is forced to be a king, while a Confucian sage is not, in fact, if he has a chance to be a king he would gladly serve the people.

To Mr. Fung, it is hard to say that Chinese philosophy is wholly this-worldly or other-worldly, “It is both of this world and of the other world.”[10] My tutor has said a similar word that: the ancient Chinese literati is both Confucianist and Taonist, both realist and idealist. In fact, other schools of Chinese philosophy also concern on politics and ethics. For example, the School of Names, which is famous by the argument of “a white horse is not a horse”, is known by world for a longtime as a school focusing at logic. But to this school, the purpose and reason of studying logic is that “wished to extend this kind of argument to rectify the relationship between names and facts in order to transform the world”. In the period of Kung-sun Lung, every where could we see a wrong relationship between names and facts, and solving these mistakes was the reason why he focused on names and logic. We can say ,as mentioned above, that Chinese philosophies are political, ethical and practical. As Mr. Fung summarizes: “the study of philosophy is not simply an attempt to acquire this kind of knowledge, but is also an attempt to develop this kind of character. Philosophy is not simply something to be known, but is also something to be experienced.”[11] In this sense, we can say that, Chinese philosophers were all of them different grades of Socrates. In Chinese, the word of learning(Xue) means in itself practice.

The Expressing Way  and The Language of Chinese Philosophy

As we know, many ancient Chinese philosophical essays are very short and briefness. At the same time, most of Chinese philosophers liked to express themselves in the form of aphorisms, apothegms, or allusions, and illustrations. So it is difficult for most people to understand what the philosophers want to express at the first look. Mr. Fung thinks that such a phenomenon may be due to the fact that “the more an expression is articulate, the less it is suggestive—just as the more an expression is prosaic, the less it is poetic”[12]. “The saying and writings of Chinese philosophers are so inarticulate that their suggestiveness is almost boundless.”[13] This is a kind of method used in Chinese art. In Chinese poetry and Chinese painting, what the author intends to communicate is often not what is directly said or drew by him, but what is not said or drew by him. To Chinese people, in good poetry “the number of words is limited, but the ideas it suggests are limitless.” Obviously the ideal of Chinese art is not without its philosophical background. To Chinese philosophers, the most important knowledge can not be told, but only suggested. Mr. Fung summarizes: “words are something that should be forgotten when they have achieved their purpose.”[14] But what I want to say is that, the reason that those ancient philosophers expressed themselves in such way may be just of the shortage of bamboo slips in the ancient material-poor period.

[1] Fuing, Yu-lan . A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. The Free Press, 1948, p.2.

[2] Ibid.,p.1.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.,p.3.

[5] Ibid.,p.4.

[6] Ibid.,p.5.

[7] Ibid.,p.6.

[8] Ibid.,p.7.

[9] Ibid.,p.8.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.,p.10.

[12] Ibid.,p.12.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.