Abstract
While appreciating Roger Ames and David Halls’ provoking thoughts on the lack of transcendence in Chinese philosophy, the author of this paper discusses transcendence in the Chinese tradition by re-examining an important notion, tian 天, in Confucius’ Analects. Ames and Hall employ tian as strong evidence to reject the transcendent reading in the translation of tian as “Heaven”—having listed all the lines/places where tian is used in Analects. The author argues that although tian in the Analects differs from the Christian God as a creator, it is a purposeful supreme being that “goes beyond” the human world. Comparing it to Aristotle’s notion of God (theos), the author thinks that Aristotle’s theos differs from the Judo-Christian conception God. For Aristotle, contemplation, the highest human activity, is also what characterizes God. Contemplation, then, becomes a special link between human beings and the universe. Theos and tian share some similar nature traits. When one exercises contemplative activity, it puts one in the state of being one with God. Both Confucius and Aristotle intend to actualize what is divine in us internally. Philosophically, Confucius’ heavenly-based mission could be compared to Socrates’ divine mission of doing philosophy. The author concludes that tian is not a deity that creates the world, as Hall and Ames point out. However, when discussing lacking transcendence, one should keep in mind that the Judeo-Christian tradition is foreign idea not only to the Chinese tradition, but to the Ancient Greeks as well.
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Notes
See also Thinking from the Han, p. 190, where what is accounted for by A is not only the meaning or import of B, but also “existence” of B. The definition reminds us of Aristotle’s notion of “priority” in determining the relation between substance and attributes. Substance is prior to attributes “in formula, in order of knowledge, in time.” (Metaphysics, vii, 1, 1028b32-3), and substance is “that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated.” (vii.3, 1029a7-8).
My emphasis.
See also p. 233: “that translation inappropriately conjures forth the notion of transcendence in the minds of both the non-specialist reader and the uncritical specialists as well.”.
For a suggestive discussion, see Robert Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven (1990) Appendix A, “The Origins of the Term ‘Tian’.”.
Since the paper is a conversation with Ames, I use the translations in Roger Ames and Henry Rosemary. Jr, The Analects of Confucius (1998), unless otherwise indicated. In the Thinking Through Confucius, Hall/Ames uses t’ien rather than tian. For the sake of consistency, I use tian throughout.
From Zhu Xi’s Collected Commentaries to the Four Books, note to 2/4.
Mencius tries to distinguish between these two terms, but the distinction is hardly substantive. He says, “When a thing is done through by no one, then it is the work of Heaven; when a thing comes about through no one brings it about, then it is decreed [ming].” (5A/6; see also 7A/1, translation is from D. C. Lau, Mencius, 1984). Note from the editors: We could not track down this particular translation, and therefore cannot properly include it in the references. We ask for readers’ patience regarding references, as materials have been lost with the passing of Jiyuan Yu.
For textual evidence, see Zhang Dainian,’s Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Edmund Ryden (1989), pp. 12–13.
The sentence should be read with 9/1: “The occasion on which the Master talked about profit, fate, and ren were rare.” Yet ren is Confucius’ central concept and is certainly the one he talks about most often. Hence, it can only mean that he does not elaborate.
Analects 3/11 seems to imply that the fundamental features of the universe are determined by tian.
See Chapter IV. Two Levels of Meaning the Role of T’ien in the Analects, in Eno’s The Confucian Creation of Heaven (1989).
E.g, Arthur Waley claims that tian “clearly corresponds to our word heaven and to the German Himmel in the sense of Providence, nature, God.” Confucius (1989). The analects of Confucius. (A. Waley, Trans.). Vintage Books.
From the editors: The following citations of Aristotle are incomplete. As the late Jiyuan Yu did not originally include a full list of references, the editors are not sure as to which translations of Aristotle’s works Yu provides here. Yu did, however, provide names of works and Bekker’s pagination. As such, citations of these works from Aristotle will follow the standard method used to cite Aristotle—the Bekker pagination, the traditional abbreviations of Aristotle’s works, and so on—but with the translator and Bekker book numbers omitted. The same goes for later references to Plato’s work, but using the Stephanus numbers. With full respect to Jiyuan Yu, we apologize for this absence.
And, “Man must simply cultivate himself and accept whatever Heaven does.” (Puett 2002, p. 101).
Note from the editors: Yu did not originally provide a citation for this work. Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) originally published the work The Origin and Goal of History in 1949. Apart from this, there is not much else we can provide in the way of information for this reference.
Also, “Thus the line dividing the “divine” from the human is not sharply drawn.” From Schwartz, B. I. (1985). The world of thought in ancient China. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press).
For a detailed study of this issue, please see my “The Beginning of Ethics: Confucius and Socrates,” Here I concentrate on the comparison contributes to our understanding of tian in the Analects (Yu 2005).
E.g, Ames remarks that “China has a tradition that is at once non-transcendent and profoundly religious.” (Hall and Ames 1998, p. 233).
Similarly, Socrates also claims that he cannot be harmed (Apology, 30c8-d1, Crito, 46a3-4).
E.g, Ames says that Confucius is a philosopher “concerned only with those aspects of life that he can understand through personal experience and on which he can have some effect.” (Hall and Ames 1987, p. 197).
In this theoretical sense, I agree with Eno that “Tian probably performed no significant function in the philosophy of Confucius.” (Eno 1989, p. 98).
The Zhongyong begins with the remark: “What tian imparts to man is called human nature. To follow our nature is called the way. Cultivating the way is called education.” The full actualization of tian-endowed good nature, is the way of Heaven and also the ideal way of man. For Mencius, “For a man to give full realization to his heart is for him to understand his own nature, and a man who knows his own nature will know Heaven. By retaining his heart and nurturing his nature he is serving Heaven.” (Mencius 7a/1).
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Yu, J. Transcendence and Tian in the Analects. Int. Commun. Chin. Cult 8, 173–191 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-021-00220-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-021-00220-6