Quan-ti Da-yong: the Fundamental Structure of Zhu Xi’s Daoxue
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Hsu, Hu
Abstract
Quan-ti Da-yong 全體大用, proposed by Zhu Xi 朱熹 in his annotations of the Great Learning, is an important idea to both Zhu Xi’s own system of Daoxue 道學 and historians’ understanding of early modern Chinese intellectual history. The main contention of this thesis is that Quan-ti Da-yong is the fundamental structure of Zhu Xi’s Daoxue, arguing that ti-yong 體用 is a momentous way in which Zhu Xi interpreted the Dao, cultivating himself and improving the society. Meanwhile, this thesis will venture that scrutinizing Zhu Xi’s Quan-ti Da-yong is of vital importance to our understanding of the intellectual foundations of early modern China. In order to fully appreciate Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong, this study will not be confined to specific methodological claims; it will rely on a sort of idea analysis which takes both the examination on unit-ideas of the history of ideas and the emphasis on the historical contexts of historical agents into account. This thesis consists of four parts that respectively deals with four independent yet closely related issues: First, why did Zhu Xi choose ti-yong as the way to constitute the idealistic learning of sage? Second, what was the characteristic of the mode of thinking of ti-yong through which Zhu Xi constituted the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong? Thirdly, how did the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong work in one’s mind-and-heart 心, as well as what was its ultimate goal? The fourth part of this thesis goes beyond Zhu Xi, comparing the fundamental structure of Zhu Xi’s thoughts with that of his contemporary thinkers in order to determine the position of Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong in the intellectual history of Southern-Song China. In the first part, this study indicates that Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong was a learning tending to solve the problems to which the dualistic worldview originated in the middle ages gave rise. The dualistic worldview means that one may settle down his interior world by Taoism and Buddhism on the one hand, while simultaneously establishing the socio-political order, the order of outer world, according to the teachings of Confucianism on the other. It was incomprehensible for Zhu Xi that one could, at the same time, lead a Taoist-Buddhist and Confucian life; therefore, Zhu Xi tried to conceive a monistic system of value or worldview exclusively belonged to Confucianism. The learning of Quan-ti Da-yong provided the solution to this problem in the sense that ti-yong is compatible with both the viewpoints of the heaven and the human, an argument that could be found in Zhu Xi’s interpretation of sincerity 忠 and empathy 恕. It was due to this characteristic of ti-yong that turned Zhu Xi to employing it in constituting his ideal learning of sage, instead of other prevailing ideas in Song China resulted from the continuation, transformation, and even opposition of the dualistic worldview, such as nei-wai 內外 and ben-mo 本末. The second part of the thesis investigates the process of ti-yong’s development into a mode of thinking, as well as its characteristic. Ti- yong, as a specific idea, came into being during the metaphysical debate, the debate of body and spirit 形神之爭, in Neo-Taoism 玄學. It then became the prevailing idea in the Sui-Tang period due to the preference for metaphysics of Taoism and Buddhism; that is to say, ti-yong had been an idea exclusively dealing with metaphysics since medieval China. However, in the age of Song, the nature of ti-yong gradually changed, when the term was employed by scholars to express or realize the relations of various things. In other words, ti-yong was on its way toward becoming a mode of thinking in terms of its meaning as the way in which things were conceived by scholars. This development of ti-yong as a mode of thinking is prominent in the case of Zhu Xi. Ti-yong has been a mature and critical mode of thinking through which Zhu Xi constituted the learning of sage, the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. It is important to note that although Zhu Xi sometimes used ti-yong to articulate the fundamental structure of Dao, ti-yong should not be construed as the synonym of li-qi 理氣, the elementary composition of the world, as many scholars have suggested. This thesis also argues that the relation of body to its functions is the original model that constituted Zhu Xi’s understanding of ti-yong. This will lead to two main characteristics of Zhu Xi’s mode of thinking of ti-yong: First, ti and yong are inseparable; second, ti is the premise of yong. To some extent, the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong could be regarded as a learning of mind-and-heart 心學 because of its great emphasis upon the cultivation of the mind-and-heart. The third part of this study argues that Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong entailed a structure of mind-with-ti-yong 心有體用, whilst pursuing an ultimate state of consciousness called everything-is-one. Having recourse on repeated meditation on the problem of zhong he 中和 and the delicate reinterpretation of the key idea “mind-and-heart governs xing and qing 心統性情” proposed by Zhang Zai 張載, Zhu Xi finally established the structure of mind-with-ti-yong, the core of his learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. This structure signifies that the operation of mind-and-heart, for instance, self-cultivation, should be accorded with the mode of ti-yong. However, for Zhu Xi, it was necessary to stress that ti-yong, as a mode of self-cultivating, is arranged for ordinary people, for sages are born to be perfect and , therefore, there would be no need for them to cultivate themselves. In spite of the differences between ordinary people and sages, ordinary people can still, by illuminating their own mind-and-heart, reach the ultimate state of consciousness, everything-is-one, as same as the sages born to be. The last part of this thesis turns to a viewpoint of comparative analysis devoting to discuss the position of Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong in the intellectual history of Southern-Song. By closely investigating the fundamental structures of the thoughts of the members of the community of Daoxue, this part of the thesis aims at exploring the nuances between Zhang Shi 張栻, Lu Zu-qian 呂祖謙 and Zhu Xi. This part will then go on to argue that, amongst the members of the community, it seems that only Lu Jiu-yuan 陸九淵 refused to embrace the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong, although the disciples of Lu Jiu-yuan gradually adopted the word of ti-yong. In spite of these unnoticeable nuances, Zhedong 浙東 scholars, the rivals of Zhu Xi’s scholarship, still considered ti-yong as a main character of Daoxue. For instance, Chen Liang 陳亮 had ever been convinced by Daoxue in his early days, knowing the importance of ti-yong to Daoxue. But after converging to an utilitarian Confucianism, he vehemently repudiated Daoxue’s inclination for searching the essence of the world. Similar with Chen Liang, Ye Shi 葉適 was skeptical about the idea of ti-yong. Furthermore, Ye Shi disagreed with Zhu Xi’s interpretation of sincerity and empathy, the foundation of the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. It is worth noting that, despite his unsatisfaction with Zhu Xi’s learning, Ye Shi paid the same attention to the question of nei-wai, a question inquires how one deal with his own spiritual world and outer socio-political world. In fact, Ye Shi even revised Daoxue’s insight into that question, proposing his own opinion that entailed active actions in the realm both of nei and wai. Last but not least, this thesis argues that the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong was widely accepted by the successors of Zhu Xi’s scholarship, such as Huang Han 黃榦, Chen Chun 陳淳, Chen Te-xiu 真德秀. Despite the fact that their learnings of Quan-ti Da-yong were of some differences from the original model of Zhu Xi, it is still evident that Quan-ti Da-yong was a predominant idea in the tradition of Daoxue in Southern-Song China.
Subjects
Zhu Xi
Daoxue
ti-yong
Quan-ti Da-yong
the learning of sage
everything-is-one
the intellectual history of Southern-Song
Type
thesis
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