Abstract
This chapter explores Liu Shu-hsien’s philosophy. Given his concern for human cultural development, Liu started his exploration with philosophy of culture. Diagnosing the problem of the present culture as one of our heart-mind’s losing its own way, Liu found a reconceptualization of philosophy necessary. He then constructed, with a creative use of Chinese philosophy, a systematic philosophy to explain value and significance and assign different realms of life their appropriate places. Under this enterprise, Liu suggested the possibility of a global ethic and interreligious dialogue. The idea of “one pattern, many manifestations” he abstracted from Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism is the focus. After an examination of this enterprise, this chapter discusses his contributions to the study of Chinese philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
The “school name,” also called xunming 訓名, is a separate formal name used by the child at school. En passant, I use the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system for most names.
- 2.
- 3.
While the manifestation is necessary for the elaboration of the prime symbol, it is the latter that determines the manifestation.
- 4.
Spengler examined nine cultural groups and identified their prime symbols and the relevant “souls.” For instance, he took the Apollonian soul as the core of Greek culture and the Faustian soul as the core the contemporary Europe, and thought that China has a moral soul, whereas India has a religious soul (see Liu 1970: 41–42). It may be controversial to say that a specific culture only has one prime symbol or one specific soul. A sympathetic reading of Liu and Spengler is that such broad characterizations have the pros of a vivid comparison but the cons of overgeneralization and overlooking of subtleties.
- 5.
Liu investigated deeply into Cassirer and he even translated Cassirer’s An Essay on Man into Chinese (Cassirer 1944; trans. as Liu 1959).
- 6.
The translation of yiyi xiluo 意義系絡 as “network of significance” is my suggestion, as Liu did not provide one.
- 7.
That is, cultural achievements are “networks of significance” or “ideas” (which Liu read from Spengler) that reveal certain forms; and for Liu the process reveals a significance structure in which significance is made possible. The following sections will show that Liu’s elaboration is in line with it: cultural achievements that express significance and value come from the creativity of human heart-mind, which Confucianism takes as benevolence (ren 仁).
- 8.
Liu’s example is that some cultural groups in Central Asia may join a larger cultural group, classical or Arab, out of choice (see Liu 1970: 89–90).
- 9.
Liu writes,“While people’s choices seem to be affected by inheritance, environment, and numerous external conditions, the genuine determination still lies in the basic free will of human beings” (Liu 1970: 218).
- 10.
I translate shen 身 as “self” instead of “body,” as for Confucians, it is agency or self that is the concern of cultivation. Besides, Liu sometimes put it as “settling down our heart-mind (xin 心) and establish our life” (e.g., Liu 1974: 2, 12; Liu 2001: 163). The meaning is equivalent as the heart-mind is the agency of the self.
- 11.
Liu criticized some narrow conceptions of philosophy, like logical positivism, which maintains that statements which are not analytic and cannot be empirically verified or falsified lack cognitive significance or meaning. Liu found it a bad philosophy, for it neglects many essential aspects of life, including the issues of value and significance (see Liu 1966: 7, 13).
- 12.
“Philosophy of significance” is a term he borrowed from Hermann Keyserling (Liu 1966: 89).
- 13.
In some cases, “meaning” and “significance” (and thereby “meaningful” and “significant”) are interchangeable in translating Liu’s use of “yiyi.”
- 14.
While in this paragraph Liu used the term cunzai 存在, which I translate as “the existent” or “existence,” I conjecture that here it can translated into “being,” as I take him as denoting something that amounts to “that which has the ontological status.”
- 15.
Liu said, “In the world of life, it is not a mere idea of ‘correspondence’ (duiying 對應), but a complicated idea of ‘correlation’ that determines what the reality of life is” (Liu 1966: 105).
- 16.
The idea of recognition with embodiment or embodied recognition has its history in Xiong Shili 熊十力 (e.g., Xiong 1973: 38) and Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (e.g., Xu 2002: 243). Tu Wei-ming 杜維明 expounds the series of concepts with “embodiment.” For instance, he regards “embodied knowledge” (tizhi 體知), as “the sensibility and awareness of the human heart-mind” (Tu 2014: 117). It is knowledge experienced personally and has the function of creative transformation (Tu 2002: 358).
- 17.
Here I suggest that this whole enterprise reveals Liu’s broadened view of metaphysics. Liu noted that “metaphysics” traditionally means ontology (cunyoulun 存有論), which investigates the ultimate reality; and in some usage, metaphysics involves cosmology (yuzhoulun 宇宙論) (see Liu 1987: 267). In Liu’s broadened conception, “metaphysics” includes our perspective towards the world and life, including how we see things as true, valuable, good, and so on; we somehow have some metaphysical presuppositions (see Liu 1987: 265). Liu appreciated some views in the twentieth century. For instance, R. G. Collingwood took metaphysics as a study that examines our absolute presuppositions (juedui jishe 絕對基設), which cannot be proved (see Liu 1987: 280). Paul Tillich took metaphysics as a study that examines ultimate concern (zhongji guanhuai 終極關懷). We all have some ultimate commitment to rely ourselves upon, such as god or money (see Liu 1987: 281–282). And one’s perception of the world and actions follow from the metaphysical view that he or she holds. The presuppositions imply the selection of an idea or attitude.
- 18.
For instance, the rationales in natural science cannot deal with the problem of value or ethics adequately.
- 19.
Liu’s own translation reads “one principle, many manifestations” (Liu 2010: 184; Liu 2011: 106); however, for consistency with the present volume, here I use “pattern.” Another translation by Liu reads “principle is one while manifestations are many” (Liu 2003c: 369). The interchangeability of “pattern” and “principle” is a complicated issue. While in most cases of the single concept of li, especially when it stands alone, I adopt “pattern” for consistency, in some cases I adopt the term “principle” for it can better express the sense of being a rule or a rationale.
- 20.
Liu named it as “constitutional principle” elsewhere (e.g., Liu 2001: 22).
- 21.
Namely, rightness and wrongness are mutually depending. Cheng Chung-yi, following Liu’s spirit, highlights another paragraph in “The Great and Venerable Teacher” in Zhuangzi, which reads: “In being one, he was acting as a companion of Heaven. In not being one, he was acting as a companion of man. When man and Heaven do not defeat each other, then we may be said to have the True Man” (Watson 2013: 44).
- 22.
Liu also delineated the idea of two roads in Confucianism and Buddhism (see Liu 1993: 189–239). In fact, such idea of Liu already appeared in Liu’s early work: “Here one important key is that we have to awaken. We view ‘one pattern’ and ‘many manifestations’ with equal attention and rub them into an inextricable whole. Only by then can we create and obtain the healthiest emotional style of life that has yet to be adequately promoted” (Liu 1966: 273).
- 23.
Liu said that a global ethic is “not a Buddhist, Christian, Marxist or any factional ethics, but a global ethic developed through dialogue. …That is a kind of basic attitude that differentiates good and bad” (Liu 2001: 93). As I read Liu, “ethics” denotes the normative doctrine in a particular and specific level, while “ethic” denotes the basic rationale or purpose of a normative doctrine.
- 24.
While Buddhism does not hold an ultimate being, it has its grasp of ultimate reality, namely, one that is grasped by the wisdom of the middle way (madhyamika): to adopt “dependent origination” to view the phenomenal world (the immanent) and “emptiness” to view the ultimate world (the transcendent) (see Liu 1993: 187, 199–211).
- 25.
These directives can be contested. For instance, despite the broad rationales put forward in A Global Ethic, there are vast differences in how the second directive is conceived (see Liu 2001: 30–31). Also, concerning the fourth directive, it may be objected that some forms of Islam, evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, etc. show no interest in the equal rights of men and woman. Küng and Liu could respond by restricting the universality of the directive while maintaining its majority. Instead of the universality of such a factual claim, Liu’s concern is what goals all religion ought to come to given the basic value of humanum.
- 26.
Liu said, “We need to carefully select the living and the dead elements in the tradition” (Liu 1974: 45).
- 27.
“The heart-mind of benevolence is a transcending principle and will not vary because of the differences in time and space. The execution of the way of benevolence, however, is related to the understanding of practical circumstances and will vary according to time and space” (Liu 1974: 44).
- 28.
Liu borrowed Husserl’s phrase and calls this “noetic-noematic correlation” (Liu 1987: 294).
- 29.
- 30.
Despite the limitation of selective attention, such an openness in attitude and pursuit of learning the others are possible for Liu, under the scheme of “one pattern, many manifestations.”
- 31.
I am grateful to the editor for this question.
- 32.
- 33.
Rošker also held this view (see Rošker 2016: 31).
- 34.
I refer to the 1995 version (3rd version). It first introduces Zhu’s life, his succession of school of thought, his exploration into the issue of “equilibrium” (zhong 中) and “harmony” (he 和), and his “Doctrine of Benevolence”, which paves the way to his completion of thought: the tripartite division of heart-mind (xin 心), nature (xing 性), and emotions (qing 情), as well as the metaphysics illustrated by the non-reducibility (buza 不雜) and non-separation (buli 不離) between pattern and vital force (qi 氣). Liu also examined the historical status and the modern significant of Zhu’s thought and the relation between Wang Yangming’s thought and Zhu’s.
- 35.
Liu wrote that, “In terms of ontology, the heart-mind belongs to vital force, but possesses the myriad patterns. In terms of epistemology, the extension of knowledge and the investigation of the pattern must be carried out by the heart-mind. In terms of ethics, only the heart-mind has the function of determination. It is no doubt that the concept of heart-mind occupies a pivotal place in Zhu’s thought” (Liu 1995: 261).
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Leung, Yh. (2021). Liu Shu-hsien and the Effort Toward a Global Philosophy. In: Elstein, D. (eds) Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_14
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