Abstract
In a “Note on Confucian Self-Cultivation,” I explored the theme of “embodying the universe” as a defining characteristic of the Chinese world-view [15]. A major difficulty I encountered in approaching the subject was the inadequacy of the conceptual apparatuses in modern Western discourse. They cannot fully convey the Chinese sense of organismic unity and dynamic process, the non-dualistic thinking which a sinologist interprets as “complementary bipolarity and multiple periodicity” ([8], pp. 43–53). We, children of the Enlightenment, seasoned in Cartesian dualism, are ill-equipped to develop a sympathetic understanding of the Chinese world-view in general, and the seminal idea of “embodying the universe” in particular. It is one thing to appropriate some of the “disembodied” notions in Chinese thought to enrich the repertory of modern or postmodern pluralistic thinking, but it is an entirely different matter to understand “embodying the universe” not only as a culturally specific vision, but as a penetrating insight into the body as a central Problematik for philosophical reflection. For Chinese thought, the body is never merely material and mechanical, but an open and flowing system of vital energy.
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Notes
For this translation, see [19].
It is important to note that the Mencian philosophy of mind provides the background for this approach to human nature.
For a philosophical discussion on “correlative thinking and correlative cosmos-building”, see [3].
The expression “hidden harmony” is from Heraclitus. Ernst Cassirer uses it in Essay on Man (1944) to show that “[i]n order to demonstrate such a harmony we need not prove the identity or similarity of the different forces by which it is produced. The various forms of human culture are not held together by an identity in their nature but by a conformity in their fundamental task”. See [6].
The term is used in Emile Durkheim’s Division of Labor to reflect the fact that the societal transition from “mechanical” to “organic” solidarity is loaded with positivistic connotations. For a critique of Durkheim’s interpretive position, see [4].
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Wei-Ming, T. (1992). A Confucian Perspective on Embodiment. In: Leder, D. (eds) The Body in Medical Thought and Practice. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7924-7_6
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