Growing Intelligence by Appreciating Things: On Zhu Xi's Commentary and Emendation of the Expansive Learning, 體用Ti-Yong Dialectics and Confucian Pragmatic Democracy
Joseph Harroff, American University
Zhu Xi continued to work on his commentary for the Expansive Learning right up until his death. Following the Cheng brothers method for reading the Four Books, Zhu views this chapter of the Classic of Ritual as paramount to understanding processes of self-cultivation and social-political transformation. The Mahayana Buddhist deposit in Zhu Xi's thinking will be considered in the context of the epistemology and hermeneutics of a profoundly social model of inquiry grounded in a creative reconstruction of "knowing practices" (zhi 知), enlightening virtuosity (mingde 明德), and cultural renovation (xinmin 新民). The use of concepts derived from Daoist and Buddhist sources such as "coherence is one, but its manifestations are many" 理一分殊 and "root-body and performativity spring from one source" 體用一源 far from presenting a metaphysical imposition on a naturalistic tradition of thinking about moral and political regimes of value, actually offers a means of understanding moral agency and political equality within a horizon of creative democratic advance as cultural reconstruction. This essay will provide an overview of the Daxue and Zhu Xi's commentarial appreciation by focusing on the aspects of the text that are rendered more intelligible as a result of being put into dialogical interaction with Buddhist thinking and its ongoing relevance for realizing enlightening patterns of relationality in an always contextual present. The task of creatively reconfiguring global dynamics of power in a geopolitical nexus of becoming is a most challenging task for the requirement of future-oriented thinking and feeling in the Buddhist-Confucian synthesis and its role in the realization of a superlative creative democracy—the task still before us.
"The knowledge acquired in this manner is not cognitive because its medium is not that of the exterior and objective eye of Descartes's cognizing subject. The approach here is cordial, and points to the efforts made by the good person and exemplary leader to surpass himself by becoming ever more aware of and respecting this numinous root that is present in other realities." (Diana Agherscu)
Sources
"The knowledge acquired in this manner is not cognitive because its medium is not that of the exterior and objective eye of Descartes's cognizing subject. The approach here is cordial, and points to the efforts made by the good person and exemplary leader to surpass himself by becoming ever more aware of and respecting this numinous root that is present in other realities." (Diana Agherscu)
Sources
- Gardner, Daniel, 1986, Chu Hsi and Ta-hsueh: Neo-Confucian Reflection on the Confucian Canon, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Gedalecia, David, 1974, “Excursion into Substance and Function: The Development of the T’i-yung Paradigm in Chu Hsi”, Philosophy East and West, 24(3): 443–451.
- Bol, Peter, 2010, Neo-Confucianism in History