中欧社会论坛 - China Europa ForumConception of the Person in Early Confucian Thought
in Confucian ethics: a comparative study of self, autonomy, and community
Authors: Kwong-loi Shun
Date: 2004
Published by edited by Kwong-loi Shun and David B. Wong, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.183-199
In this article, the author starts off from some reflections on different words used in Confucian works to refer to the self: ‘ti’ (body, limbs), ‘qing’ (facts, emotions), ‘qi’ (energy), ‘xin’ (heart/mind), and the tendencies that come from this: ‘yu’ (desire) and ‘wu’ (aversion), ‘zhi’ (will) and ‘yi’ (thought). These concepts are brought in relation to ‘zi’ and ‘ji’, two words referring to oneself, be it in a different relation: ‘zi’ emphasizes one’s relation to oneself, while ‘ji’ emphasizes oneself as contrasted with others. These linguistic observations show that the Chinese have a conception of the way one relates to oneself. A person has the capacity to reflect on, examine, and bring about changes in oneself. The xin (heart/mind) plays a crucial role in this process of self-cultivation. It has the capacity to reflect on its own operations, and is independent of external control in this sense that it can resist such influences. While the xin, in its self-reflecting capacity and in its role of guiding the operations of the body and guiding the ideas and the will, is distinguished from other aspects of the person, it is, precisely through its guiding function, at the same time intimately linked to other aspects of the person. These other aspects and the heart/mind are mutually interacting. Therefore, in their emphasis on self-cultivation, the Confucians have in mind a transformation not just of the heart/mind, but of the person as a whole. Such a person stands in a fourfold relation to society: he knows social distinction, he has to observe traditional norms that govern people’s behavior by virtue of social position (it is through participating in this social order and letting oneself be shaped by it that one becomes fully human); his human relations are directed toward other human beings who are equally formed by the same social order; his cultivated character will have a transformative effect on other human beings. One’s own self-cultivation thus will have a transformative effect on other things, and such effect is itself a measure of one’s progress in self-cultivation. This implies that one’s freedom to shape one’s own life is not autonomous: one becomes fully human only in the social context. Therefore, while Confucian thought does allow room for legitimate claims on not fulfilling one’s responsabilities, the basis for such claims is not a view of human beings as individuals whose interests require protection either because of competing interests among people or because their freedom to choose their own ends needs to be preserved, but is generated by some appropriate social contexts.