Abstract
Roland Reichenbach is referring to the Confucian notion of heart-mind and uses it to make remarks on the metaphysics of educational theory. Metaphysical thinking is concerned with questions and hypotheses about (i) the nature of the mind and the world, (ii) the foundations of ethics and aesthetics, and/or (iii) the proper course of moral self-cultivation. When it is questioned whether intercultural discourse on philosophy of education pays off, one can assume that on the basis of respect and care for ideas at least mutual inspiration is possible. In English, the term “Neo-Confucianism” has only been used since the twentieth century. According to John Makeham, it is an “umbrella term” for a philosophical discourse associated with individual thinkers who have been classified as belonging to different schools or sub-traditions since the Song dynasties, particularly “Learning of the Way” (道學), “Studies of Moral Principles” (理學), and “Learning of the Mind and of the Heart” (心學; cf. Makeham J, Introduction. In: Dao companion to Neo-Confucian philosophy. Dordrecht and others: Springer, pp. ix–xliii, p. xiii, 2010). If the concept of the heart/mind is of interest in the following, this derives from the background insight that there is no homogenous “school of heart/mind” and that there does not need to be one. “Heart/mind” or “mind-and-heart” is the English translation for xin (心). The “heart/mind” is a metaphor, no more, no less. Therefore, it will often be argued vehemently by the apologists of a central idea that the case in hand should “merely” be a metaphor. Still, it is evident from a metaphorical viewpoint (e.g. Lakoff G, Johnson M, Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980; Blumenberg H, Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. (Original 1960), 1999) that the central cultural and scientific concepts cannot be more than metaphors. The chapter values the heuristic power of the Confucian idea and the metaphor of the heart/mind for today’s understanding of educational theory and practice.
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Notes
- 1.
Gardener explains that “in the Chinese tradition the character [for xin] refers to both the source of intellect and understanding and the center of emotions and feelings” (Gardener 2007, p. 14, footnote), whereas xinxue stands for learning of the heart/mind.
- 2.
“Heaven” is usually understood as a “generic term” for the “right way” (see Hu Hong, 14,18).
- 3.
“The Confucian tradition and Chinese thought in general have been much more attentive to this deep connection between ethics and aesthetics. (…) Literati like Lu Jinyuan placed tremendous emphasis on arts like calligraphy, painting, and composition” (Ivanhoe 2010, p. 262).
- 4.
“The unique graphic composition of xin clearly shows that ‘thinking’ actually is not merely a cognitive function, which is indicated by the xin graph for the fontanel, but also an emotive expression at once, which is represented by the xin graph for the heart” (Lu 2014, p. 61).
- 5.
- 6.
To Hu Hong Buddhists were egoistical because they want to escape from the cycle of death and life (van Ess 2010, p. 117). “The Buddhists in secret do not know how to serve heaven, whereas in public they do not know how to order (li) things (…) To serve heaven and to order things, this is the great enterprise of a Confucian” (Hu 1987, p. 41, quotation from van Ess 2010, p. 118).
- 7.
Hu Hong’s (pedagogical) anthropology is neither positive nor negative, but basically neutral. Hu cites Mencius: “When Mencius said that the nature was good, he used the word only as an expression of sighing admiration, not with the opposite meaning to ‘bad’” (Hu 1987, p. 333).
- 8.
“What exists is visible because it coalesces. We call it existing because by means of our eyes we know that it exists. Therefore we call non-existing what is dispersed so that it cannot be seen. What is real and ‘can be trampled under the feet’ [Zhongyong; Legge 1879-: 389]”. We call it existing because by means of our heart/mind we know that it exists. Therefore what is irrelevant and cannot be trampled under the feet we call non-existing” (Hu 1987, quoting from van Ess 2010, p. 111).
- 9.
“Lu Jinyuans’s original insights waited for and were taken up by Wang Yangming. In the process, Wang transformed Lu’s initial vision into his own distinctive philosophy” (p. 260).
- 10.
See Ivanhoe 2010, p. 254.
- 11.
- 12.
Hence li can be translated as propriety, usage, custom, etiquette morality, and behavior norms. Yet Zhu Xi among the neo-Confucians held li to connote a somewhat differently imbedded meaning. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia: “Li is inherently perspectival. Zhu adopts metaphors of the grains in wood, the lines in jade, the “veins” in a leaf, the lines in marble, and even the texture of beef, to stress that li are manifested immanently rather than abstractly, and thus are to be sought concretely by observing phenomena in the world, not by pure, disengaged, abstract ratiocination. Moreover, li are never presented in their putative optimal pure form. They always appear conditioned by the degree of purity of the qi through which they are manifested and of the environing conditions”.
- 13.
“Qi is the stuff of which the universe is made. It exists in various grades of purity. Although all things possess all the li of the universe within them, because of the impurity of the qi of which they are composed, some li are obstructed. Different combinations of li and qi are what account for the differences between things” (Tien 2010, p. 297).
- 14.
According to Wang, the heart/mind or consciousness is always so-to-speak intentional: “Whenever one thinks, there must be something about which one thinks. That about which one is thinking is the wu or ‘object of thought’. The wu are the content of one’s thoughts. (…) Wu constitutes the locus of one’s attention and is where one’s heart/mind is directed” (Tien 2010, p. 303).
- 15.
“Extending one’s pure knowing means to apply successfully the pure knowing to the matters of one’s daily life. Since one cannot extend one’s pure knowing if self-centered desires are obstructing it, the extension of pure knowing is contingent on first eradicating self-centered desires in relation to specific items of knowledge. Only after the pure knowing is extended can one attain real knowledge” (Tien 2010, p. 311).
- 16.
This stands in a certain opposition to Daoist teaching: Joy is not an intrinsic value to be pursued in Daoism (see Lu ibid., p. 74): “The experience of joy, for instance, is to be avoided by Zhuangzi’s (…) philosophy of non-attachment, as it is considered to be equally detrimental as sorrow to one’s well-being” (ibid.). “Whereas Confucius seeks to feel at ease with his true self and in his communion with his fellow human beings, Zhuangzi can only find peace in the impersonal passage of time and the unpredictable unfolding of events alien and external to his mind-heart” (Lu 2014, p. 74).
- 17.
See Analects 18.5–18.6).
- 18.
“Thus Confucian ethics both recognizes the profound influence that tradition and one’s relationship with others have in shaping and constituting the person, but also maintains the possibility of the self’s critically reflecting on and controlling the effect of these influences, especially as they bear on developing the ability to reliably judge and act on what is appropriate for the situation at hand” (Wong 2014, p. 193).
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Reichenbach, R. (2020). “When the Heart-Mind Is Lost…” Remarks on the Metaphysics of Educational Theory. In: Reichenbach, R., Kwak, DJ. (eds) Confucian Perspectives on Learning and Self-Transformation. Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40078-1_7
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