xinzhong yao

FROM “WHAT IS BELOW” TO “WHAT ISABOVE”: A CONFUCIAN DISCOURSE

ON WISDOM

In her article “What Is Wisdom?” Sharon Ryan undertakes a criticalexamination of the answers to this classic question, and concludes thatthe most accurate answer is that S is wise if S knows, in general, howto live well and if S has a general appreciation of the true value ofliving well.1 While her approach and conclusion may sit well with thediscourse on practical wisdom in European philosophy, where, sincethe time of Socrates, wisdom has been entangled with the issues ofliving well one way or another, it does not, from the viewpoint of aConfucian philosopher, provide an adequate answer to questions con-cerning what wisdom is and where wisdom comes from. A Confucianphilosopher would have further argued that not all types of knowingactivities are relevant to living well, and that not all kinds of “livingwell” should be the concerns of a wisdom perspective. He wouldtherefore contend that one could become wise and could live wellonly if one had knowledge of one’s nature, destiny, and, above all,heaven as the ultimate source of human knowledge and wisdom.2 Inthis paper I will examine the arguments and deliberations made in theAnalects of Confucius and the Book of Mengzi,3 particularly investi-gating how early Confucians, represented by Confucius, Mengzi, andtheir immediate followers, proceeded from ordinary knowledge ofso-called lower realms to the penetrating knowledge concerning theultimate reality, by expanding on their epistemological, ethical, andspiritual premises.

“Knowing Humans”

Fundamentally anthropocentric, Confucians consider knowledge pri-marily to be the knowledge of human beings, which is clearly illus-trated in a conversation between Confucius and one of his students:Fan Chi “. . . asked about knowledge. Confucius said, ‘it is to know

XINZHONG YAO, professor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies,University of Wales. Specialities: comparative religion, ethics, and Confucianism. E-mail:yao@lamp.ac.uk

© 2006 Journal of Chinese Philosophy

man.’”4 In Confucian terminology, “knowing humans (zhiren)” is toknow humans as individuals and as a species, including an under-standing of the human person, activity, community, and history, and acomprehension of moral rules, conventions, and virtues. For them,understanding and comprehension are intended to guide behaviorand provide patterns to society. In this sense,“knowing humans” is notmerely an analytical process, but also involves both factual and evalu-ative, particular and universal elements; it integrates all knowing andpractical activities into one single effort of fully understandinghumans.

Throughout philosophical history a strong argument has beenmade for the separation of evaluative judgments from sensational andfactual statements. In the Confucian effort to know humans, however,an opposite thesis can be found, one that proposes that different asthey are, the particular and the universal, the factual and the evalua-tive must not be separated from each other, that the former is seen asa necessary path to the latter, and that both are considered to beconstituent elements of true knowledge. In their justification for syn-thesizing the two, early Confucians demonstrated a unique character-istic of facilitating the progress from ordinary knowledge to wisdom.

Ordinary knowledge is here defined as the beliefs or statementsconcerning things, events, and phenomena which reveal to us what hashappened, while wisdom refers to the insightful awareness of the laws,underlying principles, and causes of what is in existence, which oftenleads to evaluative assertions concerning the destiny and future ofhumankind. Many great philosophers in the world focus their atten-tion on the tension between the gaining of wisdom and the learning ofordinary knowledge. Some of them are even drawn to a dichotomyleading to an extreme exclusion of all kinds of ordinary knowledgefrom wisdom.5

In the Confucian contexts that are under investigation, we can alsofind a differentiation between ordinary and wisdom knowledge.However, this differentiation is made primarily in a moral, not in anepistemological or metaphysical sense. For example, Confucius distin-guishes between learning for improving oneself and learning toimpress others (Lunyu, 14:24), and Mengzi contrasts the “clever men”(zhizhe) who force out reasoning and the men of “great wisdom”(dazhi) who achieve their goal without any special effort.6 When wecome to their epistemology, however, we find no trace of dichotomyor opposition between ordinary knowledge and wisdom; instead theyargue that between daily knowledge and ultimate wisdom there isonly a difference of degree but not of nature.7

It seems clear that in the contexts of the Analects and the Book ofMengzi two kinds of knowledge are highlighted for their importance

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to the seeking of wisdom, the temporary or particular knowledge ofcurrent affairs, and the profound or universal knowledge of perennialissues. A question remains here, however, concerning how a solutionto human destiny can be found in the awareness of human existence;or in other words, how the knowledge of limited experiences is able tobecome unlimited wisdom that explains the past, present, and futureof human beings.

Plato of ancient Greece approached this question from the per-spective of the dualism between the “material world” or the “visibleworld” and “the world of ideas” or the “intelligible world,” and advo-cated that our mind had two faculties, knowledge of the real andbelief in appearance.While belief taking as its objects the world of thesenses, true knowledge comes from the grasp of “forms” with ourreason, for “forms” or “ideas” are eternal and immutable patterns,spiritual and abstract in their nature, constituting a totally differentreality that lies behind all things or beings.8

Confucians are also aware of the difference between the temporal-ity of particular knowledge and the totality of wisdom, but do not takethem as completely separable. Instead of making an artificial assertionthat wisdom belongs to those who have comprehended eternal formsor ideas that are far beyond the reach of human senses, Confucius ismore practical in search of wisdom, laying down a number of specificconditions that must be satisfied before anybody can be regarded aswise. First, a person will not be considered wise unless he/she has ahumble mind, and true knowledge is to admit frankly what one knowsand what one does not know (Lunyu, 2:17). Second, the most effectiveeffort to gain wisdom is primarily through practicing virtues, as Con-fucius pointed out, “How can one be considered wise who, when hehas the choice, does not settle in benevolence?” (Lunyu, 4:1). Third,one cannot possibly have wisdom unless one “enjoys” life, becausefundamental principles are to be understood during the active courseof a life (Lunyu, 6:23).9

The practical advice as listed above outlines a moralized concept ofwisdom that Confucius attempted to establish. But this has not yetsolved the problem of how to universalize particular knowledge ofthings, affairs, and behaviors. What is particular and what is universalas far as human existence is concerned? Confucius explores the dif-ferent levels of human existence, from individual experiences tomoral principles that are believed to be universal. Individual humanbeings come to life in a particular situation, go through a uniquecourse of life, are educated in different circumstances, and meet withspecific difficulties and problems. Understanding these particular situ-ations is taken as a necessary condition for knowing what life is, andby understanding them one is believed to be able to lead a good life

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and become less troubled by perplexities and worries. This is exactlywhat Confucius meant when he said that “He that is really wise cannever be perplexed.”10 However, from the thesis that a person ofwisdom has no perplexity, we are unable to develop a reverse state-ment that those who are not troubled by perplexity are wise. To bewise, there must be something more than an awareness of particularlife problems and their solutions.

In response to this problem, Mengzi comes to examine the univer-sality of human beings, in other words, what is common to all humanbeings. For him, although individuals have different appearances andmotives, their hearts/minds are the same, retaining the same principles,reason, and moral senses, from which a particular concept of human“heart/mind” is derived. For Mengzi, the nature of humans is rooted inthe heart/mind, and to know humans truly we should not look atexternal events or phenomena, but look into our own heart/mind.Therefore, by extending our heart, we would have good knowledge ofour own nature. Further, because our heart/mind is the same as thehearts/minds of all other people, and our own nature is the same as thenature of all other people, then if we truly know our own heart/mindand nature, we would be able to know the hearts/minds and nature ofother people. By this knowledge we would be able to grasp what isuniversal to human existence, community, and history.

With universal knowledge of human persons, experiences, andactivities, an individual would be capable of understanding theessence of the human being. Although highly valuing the role playedby particular or ordinary knowledge to enable the person of wisdom,it seems that Confucius and Mengzi do not build up their perspectiveof wisdom purely on epistemological grounds. For them, to be wise, anindividual must be more than a knowledgeable person; he/she mustput knowledge into practice, and practice it well. This is the messageConfucius tried to deliver: however abundant, small knowledge orknowledge of small matters (xiaozhi) is not a necessary qualificationfor an individual to be entrusted with great responsibilities (Lunyu,15:34). To be entrusted with great responsibilities, one must be agentleman (junzi). However, one should not be considered a gentle-man if he does not know destiny (ming) (Lunyu, 20:3). For Confuciusand Mengzi, knowledge of humans would not be qualified as wisdomunless it is concerned with human nature, and is able to reveal to usthe knowledge of human destiny.

“Knowing Destiny”

In the Confucian deliberation on the knowledge of humans it seemsevident to them that we cannot be wise unless we have known our

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destiny (zhiming). What is destiny? In an early Confucian context,destiny is both the power that is believed to control events and humansuccess, and the predetermination of what happens or will happento individuals or history. Therefore, by associating wisdom with“knowing destiny,” Confucius and Mengzi demonstrate a complexawareness that wisdom is both within human existence and beyondthe reach of this existence. Clearly moralist in their overall recon-struction of the perception system, they seek in ethics rather than insuperstition possible answers to the question of how destiny can beknown. Instead of simply longing for revelation from gods or spiritualpowers, Confucius and Mengzi undertake an introspective approachin their endeavor to unlock the secret of human destiny, believing thatwe can know destiny only by knowing of human nature (xing).Human nature has been defined in a wide range of ways, and isgenerally agreed to be what distinguishes human beings from otherspecies. Aristotle examined the true nature of individual things fromthe perspective of their specific features and the characteristicpurpose of their existence, and concluded that “All men by naturedesire to know.”11 Like Aristotle, Mengzi also attempted to define thespecific characteristics of human beings. However, he did not locatethese characteristics in reason or rational capabilities as Aristotle did,nor did he agree with such statements as: “. . . the inborn is what ismeant by nature” or “appetite for food and sex is human nature,” asGaozi was supposed to have propagated. He insisted that humannature is what differentiated human beings from other beings andmust therefore be a moral quality; in other words, human nature couldbe located only in their capability of becoming good and in their“natural” tendency to righteousness and benevolence (Mengzi,6A:3,4,6).12

Is the moral nature of humans innate or cultivated? It seems thatConfucius is not specific in his concept of human nature. On the onehand he rejects the claim that there is innate knowledge, which indi-cates that he does not believe in the existence of a priori nature. Onthe other hand, he points out, “By nature men are alike. Throughpractice they have become far apart.”13 This can be interpreted thathuman nature is a combination of the innate common core and theposterior habits that are produced in practice, and that the former isunder the transformative influence of the latter.14

Mengzi takes a step further in the idealistic illustration of humannature that not only do humans have an innate nature, but also thatthis nature is morally good. In this illustration, as Chung-ying Chengargues, Mengzi’s view of human nature is in fact composed of twolayers: an ontological foundation and an existential state.15 Claimingthat the good is not welded on to human beings from the outside, but

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is in them originally (Mengzi, 6A:6), Mengzi nevertheless attempts tostrike a balance between the ontological and the existential, in a waysimilar to Aristotle, who argued that human nature should be definedmore by its potentiality than by actual conditions.16 Insisting thatinborn moral senses only provide a potential or beginning, Mengzidoes not categorically exclude posterior experiences from the forma-tion of human nature. Potential must be fully realized before anindividual can be clearly differentiated from the beasts. To demon-strate a complete “human” nature, the wise must cultivate or preservethe original heart, which is the guarantee for them to gain superiormoral and epistemological qualities, as it is argued in the Book ofMengzi that “[a] gentleman differs from other men in that he retainshis heart” (Mengzi, 4B:28). Whether Confucians believe that thedefining quality of a human is innately endowed or must be gainedthrough practice, their discourses on human nature can easily lead toa belief in the predestined course of life, namely, that human beingshave a fate or destiny (ming). Confucius attributes all human suc-cesses or failures to the function of a destiny that is beyond humancontrol: “It is Destiny if the Way prevails; it is equally Destiny if theWay fails into disuse” (Lunyu, 14:36). Yu-lan Fung has argued for ahumanist interpretation of destiny: “To know Ming means toacknowledge the inevitability of the world as it exists, and so todisregard one’s external success or failure.”17 It is clear, however, thatin the Confucian concept of destiny there is something more thansimply being content with what we are able to achieve, and thissomething associates destiny with the nature of humans. Differentfrom a purely spiritual predestination, which holds that the qualityand quantity of a life is predetermined by spiritual powers or causa-tional laws, Mengzi upholds a moral predeterminism; in other words,humans are compelled by their nature to be moral and are destined tobe good:“Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground.Thereis no man who is not good; there is no water that does not flowdownwards” (Mengzi, 6A:2). A key difference between moral prede-terminism and spiritual predetermination is that the former exploreshuman potentials to fulfill the destiny, while the latter seeks an expla-nation of human fate through divine intervention. Being a moralpredeterminist, Mengzi explains away the theory that human (bad)performance reveals human nature, and reinforces the Confucianbelief in the role played by each individual in fulfilling his/her owndestiny. Born with the tendency toward good, he argues, many eitherdo not know how to preserve it or do not care when it is damaged orlost. In this way, Mengzi seems to have conformed himself to the freewill theory that is clearly different from a determinist position: “Seekand you will find it; let go and you will lose it” (Mengzi, 6A:6).

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According to Mengzi, all humans are born with virtuous potentials,but few are perfect. In a Confucian context imperfect individuals areoften contrasted with the perfect character of junzi the gentleman, orshengren the sage, who is believed to have demonstrated a good orperfect nature through leading an unimpeachable life, in which moral,intellectual, and volitional qualities are all fulfilled. However, thegentleman or sage has done so, not because his inborn nature is totallydifferent from ordinary people, but because he has engaged in learn-ing and self-cultivation so much so that his inborn nature is com-pleted: “Our body and complexion are given to us by Heaven. Only asage can give his body complete fulfilment” (Mengzi, 7A:38). How cana sage do this? Through learning and cultivating. It seems clear toMengzi that all people are able to achieve the same because they havealready been endowed with the same or similar nature, in the sameway that seeds grow into healthy plants if they are given the rightenvironmental conditions and are taken care of properly. In this senseMengzi proudly claims that “The sage and I are of the same kind”(Mengzi, 6A:7). The difference between the sage and “I” can beexplained only by the degree of personal effort and knowledge: bornwith the same potential, some have fully realized this potential, thanksto their efforts in learning, self-cultivation, and moral practices, whileothers remain imperfect because of a lack of effort.

Since the realization of human potential primarily depends on thedegree of moral effort and knowledge (to follow the logic of Confu-cian arguments), it can be naturally derived from this that a morallypredetermined human future can also be known. However, there is adifference between knowing the future and knowing human destiny.The future can be reasoned out through examining the past and thepresent, and through appreciating the function of the cause–effectlaw. Destiny is also what will happen, but it is nevertheless different.It is something more mysterious than the factual future. It is fre-quently associated with the will of spirits or the influence of the vitalpower, and is perceived to have been determined by “an invisibleforce.” Therefore, by definition, destiny is unknowable and unchange-able, because if destiny could be known and changed, then it wouldno longer be “destiny”; it would have lost its primary meaning andfunction.

Confucius and Mengzi are not “predeterminists” per se, in the sensethat for them destiny is not totally the providence of spiritual powers.Destiny is the product of the combining forces of the human and the“suprahuman,” the inborn and the posterior, both of which mustconform to the fundamental moral laws or principles. In this sense,human destiny is determined by moral forces and is fundamentally amoral destiny. By adding a moral quality to human destiny, Confucius

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makes it not only possible but also necessary for humans to knowtheir own destiny, and therefore regards knowing one’s destiny as thedefining characteristic of a gentleman (Lunyu, 20:3).

Even if we admit that destiny is knowable, a question still remainsfor Confucius and Mengzi to answer, namely, how can destiny beknown? Unlike spiritual predeterminists who seek oracles or revela-tions from spirits or gods, Confucius and Mengzi do not have such aconvenience when seeking the knowledge of destiny. The secret ofthe Confucian solution of the apparent paradox of “knowing theunknowable” can be uncovered only in their association of humandestiny with human nature on the one hand and with heaven on theother.

One of the reasons why humans can know their destiny throughknowing their own nature is that human destiny and human natureare interpenetrated. Mengzi observes that it is destiny (ming) thathumans must behave in virtuous ways in dealing with various humanrelationships, that the good and wise must have wisdom, and that thesage must fulfill the way of heaven. However, after a closer examina-tion, he argues, we find that human nature also lies in them and thisknowledge can open a new horizon for our view of what is destinedfor humans (Mengzi, 7B:24). It seems clear to him that because of theinterconnectedness of human nature and destiny, we can knowdestiny through knowing human nature and can understand humannature better only if we have appreciated what human destiny is.

At the surface, knowing human nature seems to belong to a lowergrade of knowledge than knowing destiny, in the sense that humannature is approachable and observable, while destiny is hidden inmoral necessities. However, for Confucius and Mengzi, knowledge ofhuman nature also involves the knowledge of a higher realm, whichexplains why knowing human nature will naturally lead to the appre-ciation of human destiny. First, the knowledge of human nature is notpurely factual, but is also embedded in value judgments, concerningthe progression from what humans actually are, to what they shouldbe or could be.What humans should be cannot be simply explained bywhat they actually are; it also involves what they are destined tobecome, which is the realm of destiny. In this sense, knowing humannature is already part of knowing destiny. Second, both human natureand human destiny are primarily determined by universal moral laws,which can be explained only in terms of heaven. For Confucius, theultimate source of virtue is heaven (Lunyu, 7:23), and for Mengzithere is an inherent goodness that seems to have come from nowherebut heaven (Mengzi, 7A:15). Closely associated with heaven, humannature and human destiny are inseparable in the sense that humannature is the potential destiny and human destiny is the realized

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nature. In this way, a circular triangular relationship between compre-hending human nature, understanding human destiny, and knowingheaven is constructed.

“Knowing Heaven”

In an idealistic Confucian context, heaven represents the spiritual andmoral ultimate, the source from which all virtues spring and thecriterion by which all human behaviors are measured. In a literalsense, human destiny (ming) and heaven (tian) refer to the samerealm that is above ordinary existence and activity. In the words ofMengzi, “When a thing is done though by no one, then it is the workof heaven; when a thing comes about though no one brings it about,then it is destiny” (Mengzi, 5A:6). Kwong-Loi Shun argues convinc-ingly that this sentence has clearly revealed that destiny and heavenare associated with each other, but with different emphases:

Mencius regarded things not due to human effort as due to t’ien andas a matter of ming; the difference between “t’ien” and “ming” isprobably that the former emphasizes the source of such things andthe letter the outcome.18

There seems no doubt for Confucius and Mengzi that knowinghuman nature gives rise to “ordinary knowledge,” but that this ordi-nary knowledge is at the same time connected to the knowledge of“the higher realm,” because of its sharing the root knowledge ofhuman destiny and heaven. To fully appreciate the Confucian per-spective, therefore, we must investigate this “knowledge of the higherrealm” with which Confucian wisdom is so closely associated.

Progressing from ordinary knowledge to the knowledge of thehigher realm is characteristic of the Confucian search for wisdom, andis well illustrated by Confucius’s self-description: “I start from belowand get through to what is up above” (Lunyu, 14:35). Many differentinterpretations have been suggested for this sentence. As far asseeking wisdom is concerned, I argue that it means that knowledgemust begin with particular conditions of human existence, which as aninitial understanding of human nature is actually the knowledge of alower grade. The progress from this primary mode of knowledge tothe knowledge of a universal significance concerning somethingabove or beyond experiences is an entrance to the kingdom ofwisdom. However, the progress itself indicates an affinity between thetwo stages, suggesting that the “two categories” or stages of knowl-edge are in fact of one kind or one nature, the former containing theelements of the latter, with the latter being the full realization of the

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former. Thus, in a Confucian context, “what is below” and “what isabove” are both distinguishable and closely related.

There are epistemological, ethical, and spiritual implications to theformula of ascending from “what is below” to “what is above,” and themajority of Confucian scholars are indeed convinced that througheducation and moral training everybody is able to reach the heights,to know and understand heaven and to act properly in accordancewith heavenly principles. In seeking knowledge, as Confucius teaches,all human individuals must begin their journeys with primary learningand practice (“what is below”), then proceed to a higher view ofhuman existence and affairs, and finally reach universal knowledgeabout the world and profound knowledge about human beings,equivalent to the knowledge of the Way (Dao), destiny (ming), andheaven (tian) (“what is above”).19

Proceeding from “what is below” to “what is above” might not havebeen perceived by Confucians solely as a vertical ascending. It mightalso have been seen as a qualitative progress from surface knowledgeof human nature to an insight into the characteristics and source ofthis nature, or from particular knowledge of an individual thing orphenomenon to the knowledge of the nature and source of all thingsand phenomena in the universe. Human nature and the nature of allexistence cannot be fully comprehended, however, unless we haveunderstood their origin or source, the ultimate reality or laws of allexistence and activities, namely, heaven. It is possible for an individualto know other people, beings, and things because it is believed that allare produced by heaven, from which a common nature has beenformed. This is what Mengzi says about the “one root (yiben)”:“Heaven gives birth to all things in such a way that they have oneroot” (Mengzi, 3A:5). As the ultimate source of beings, things andevents, and the laws of all movement and quietude, however, theConfucian heaven does not have a clear godlike personality and doesnot intervene directly. Heaven reveals the secrets of the universethrough the way of changes, as Mengzi explains, “Heaven does notspeak but reveals itself through its acts and deeds” (Mengzi, 5A:5).This hidden nature of heaven indicates that humans can know heavenonly through ordinary matters and things at hand.

The strength of the Confucian argument about the possibility ofknowing this silent heaven lies in the belief that cause and effect areentwined, and that knowledge of the origin and the knowledge ofthings are mutually dependent upon each other. Transcendent as it isperceived, heaven exists in the intercommunication between indi-viduals and their origin, and in the mutual penetration betweenhuman nature and human destiny. It is in this sense that Mengziformulates a well-cherished pathway from knowledge of one’s self to

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knowledge of heaven, arguing that the way to the realm of the moralultimate is to be found in one’s own heart/mind, and believing that“by knowing one’s own nature one knows Heaven, and by retainingone’s heart and nurturing one’s nature one is serving Heaven”(Mengzi, 7A:1).

It seems to Confucius and Mengzi that there is no clearly definedpath to the knowledge of “what is above.” Different people mayencounter different kinds of restraints that block or obstruct themfrom gaining the knowledge. With different capabilities and circum-stances, people must each find their own way to the ultimate and theuniversal. From “what is below” to “what is above” is therefore apractical part of the overall strategy designed by Confucius andMengzi for dealing with human finitude.

Confucius and Mengzi are in general confident in the ability ofhumans to understand and interpret the world, but at the same timethey also clearly see the human limitations to this ability and wonderhow much the way of heaven can actually be fully understood andcorrectly interpreted. In terms of material conditions, individuals areoften restrained by their own physical capabilities, the environmentalconditions in which they act, and the tools available for their searchfor knowledge. To overcome these restraints, it is necessary that theymake the maximum use of what they already have, and pursue theirgoal with all strength and courage. Therefore, physical inability isnever considered an excuse for the failure to gain profound knowl-edge (Lunyu, 6:12). In terms of moral conditions, all individuals mustoperate within certain ethical boundaries and have a tendency tofeel frustrated if their ambitions and desires are seriously confinedby social conventions or moral rules. According to Confucius andMengzi, this sense of frustration only reflects immaturity of thinkingand weakness of will. As moral optimists, they believe that all peopleare able to reach the true, good, and beautiful as long as they wish todo so (Lunyu, 7:31; Mengzi, 4A:12), and wisdom will eventually beable to free humans from restraints or enable them to follow theirown will freely, without overstepping any moral line (Lunyu, 2:4). Inthe spiritual realm, humans are also faced with various restraints,which according to normal understanding can be overcome onlythrough religious means. However, as ethical monists, Confucius andMengzi attempt a new moral–spiritual solution of how wisdom can beachieved. For them, the spiritual and the moral are closely connectedand mutually dependent, and spiritual curves can be overcomethrough moral efforts when supported by adequate knowledge andthe performance of proper rituals. This is exactly what Confuciusattempts to teach. When being asked about the meaning of wisdom,he replied,“To work for the things the common people have a right to

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and to keep one’s distance from gods and spirits, while showing themreverence, can be called wisdom” (Lunyu, 6:22).

The communication between “what is below” and “what is above”facilitates the idea of a two-way flow of knowledge. On the one hand,humans have to strive to know heaven (zhitian), the knowledge ofwhich is the only guarantee for them to reach wisdom. On the otherhand, being known by heaven is a necessary belief that enableshumans to face courageously what they might not be able to achievein this life and this world. The former is the destination of humanknowledge, the completion of the human search for wisdom, while thelatter is a spiritual encouragement by which humans continue toextend and deepen their knowledge. With such an unshakable confi-dence in heaven, Confucius seeks wisdom in a way few of others canfully appreciate. However, even not appreciated by his fellow men, hestill keeps going because of the belief that he is or will be understoodby Heaven (Lunyu, 14:35).

With the knowledge of heaven and the fundamental belief inheaven, one would be able to reach the highest of the human knowl-edge, becoming sagely or being a sage. In Confucius, the sage isembodied by ancient kings who had profound knowledge about theworld and had the capability to employ this knowledge to run worldaffairs (Lunyu, 6:30, 9:6). Mengzi puts more weight on the internalcompletion of human nature and the external fulfillment of humandestiny, proposing that “the sage is the culmination of humanity”(Mengzi, 4A:2), and that the sage completes human knowledge: “Tobegin in an orderly fashion is the concern of the wise while to end inan orderly fashion is the concern of the sage” (Mengzi, 5B:1). Thosewho have completed knowledge are resident in wisdom and arenaturally considered teachers of a hundred generations (Mengzi,7B:15), becoming an essential link not only between the past and thefuture, but also between “what is below” and “what is above,” in whichConfucian wisdom finds its magnificent manifestation.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this article we introduced Ryan’s examination ofvarious formulas for defining wisdom, pointing out that these formu-las are concerned only with practical wisdom and are not adequate toreveal the Confucian perspective. In the following examination weattempted to reconstruct a Confucian epistemological discourse onwisdom, by drawing upon the implications of the progress from “whatis below” to “what is above” and the interrelationship betweenknowing human nature, human destiny, and heaven as elaborated in

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the Analects and the Book of Mengzi. These examinations haveenabled us to conclude that different from other philosophical orreligious traditions that attribute wisdom wholly either to intellectualknowledge or to transcendental revelation, Confucius and Mengzi ofthe Confucian tradition define wisdom as the progress from theknowledge of “lower realms” concerning human existence and activ-ity to the understanding of the “higher realms” that are initiallybeyond the reach of ordinary people but can be fully realized in theireffort to know, understand, and appreciate. It is in the formula of thisprogression that we have found the characteristic Confucian perspec-tive of wisdom.

UNIVERSITY OF WALESLampeter, United Kingdom

Endnotes

The author wishes to thank Professor Chung-ying Cheng for his insightful comments andsuggestions on an earlier version of this article.

1. Sharon Ryan, “What Is Wisdom?” Philosophical Studies 93 (1999): 119–39.2. A central thesis of this article is to argue that in the ladder of various types of

knowledge leading to wisdom, Confucians believe that the knowledge of humannature, destiny, and heaven enables them to explain human failure or success, and todetermine the present and future, and that this kind of knowledge alone is ultimatewisdom.

3. Unless otherwise indicated in endnotes, all quotations in this article from Lunyu (theAnalects of Confucius) and Mengzi (the Book of Mengzi) are from The Analects (Lunyü), trans. D. C. Lau (London: Penguin Books, 1979) and Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau(London: Penguin Books, 1970). Among other early Confucian texts on wisdom,Zhongyong or the Doctrine of the Mean is also of significance, probably functioning asan interlink between Confucius and Mengzi. However, to simplify our discussion of anearly Confucian perspective on wisdom, we will not give it a primary consideration inthis article.

4. Lunyu, 12:22. See Wing-tsit Chan, trans. and comp., A Source Book in Chinese Phi-losophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 40.

5. For example, we can read from the Daode jing (Tao Te Ching) that to gain wisdom wemust “exterminate learning (juexue)” (see Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, trans. D. C. Lau[London: Penguin Books, 1963], 24).

6. Mengzi, 4B:26. See A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 76.7. Chung-ying Cheng has suggested the use of knowledge (zhi) in the Analects of

Confucius seems to be basically ambivalent:“There is the concept of chih in the senseof knowing facts and there is concept of chih in the sense of knowing values andnorms or knowing what one ought to do” (Chung-ying Cheng,“Theology and Practicein Confucius,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1 [1974]: 179–99). However, as we aregoing to argue, this ambivalence will dissolve if we view these “two” concepts simplyas different dimensions of the same intellectual faculty or as two kinds of effort inone’s search for truth about human destiny.

8. Francis MacDonald Cornford, trans., The Republic of Plato (London, Oxford, NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1945), 186–87.

9. For a more detailed examination of these practical dimensions of Confucian wisdom,see my article “Knowledge, Virtue and Joyfulness,” Dao: A Journal of ComparativePhilosophy 2 (2006): 273–292.

361from “what is below” to “what is above”

10. Lunyu, 9:28, see Confucius The Analects, trans. Arthur Waley (Ware, Hertfordshire:Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996), 59.

11. W. D. Ross, ed., The Works of Aristotle,Vol. III, 2nd ed. (Oxford:The Clarendon Press,1928), 980a.

12. It seems to have become a widely accepted tenet among early Confucians thathumans were distinguished from all other species by their moral rather than physicalor psychological qualities. It was vigorously propagated by Mengzi and his followers,and was also upheld by those who basically disagreed with Mengzi’s concept ofhuman nature, for example, Xunzi. While insisting that the inborn nature of humanswas composed of natural tendencies to self-preservation and self-satisfaction and thatthe moral nature of a human must be attained by posterior learning and practice(wei), Xunzi did not believe that these inborn qualities or instincts were what differ-entiated humans from other things or beings; instead, he presented a laddered struc-ture for all existence in the world, arguing for the sense of righteousness (yi) to berecognized as the fundamental quality of a human being (Xunzi, 9:19, see JohnKnoblock, trans., Xunzi, Vol. 1 [Changhsa: Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1999],236).

13. Lunyu, 17:2. See A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy, 45.14. Confucius confirms that “It is only the most intelligent and the most stupid who are not

susceptible to change” (Lunyu, 17:3), implying that humans are born with a differentdegree of intelligence, and that apart from those who have extremely high and lowinborn capacities, the rest are all subject to change, either for better or for worse.

15. Chung-ying Cheng, “Theology and Practice in Confucius,” Journal of ChinesePhilosophy 1 (1974): 179–99.

16. It is stated that “of all those faculties [intellectual as well as moral] with which natureendows us we first acquire the potentialities, and only later effect their actualization”(J. A. K. Thomson, trans., Aristotle Ethics [London: Penguin Books, 1976], 9.91).

17. Fung, Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy—A Systematic Account ofChinese Thought from Its Origin to the Present Day, ed. Derk Bodde (New York,London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore: The Free Press, 1976), 45.

18. Kwong-Loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1997), 77.

19. Although it was recorded in the Analects that his students seldom heard Confuciusteach on [human] nature and the way of heaven (Lunyu, 5:13), the insight of Con-fucius into human nature and its connection with the way of heaven is enlightening.Reflecting on his own experiences, Confucius believed that his wisdom actually beganwith “setting his heart on learning” when he was fifteen years old, and that it took himanother fifteen years to gain a solid stand. He believed that progress in learningenabled him to be free from doubts or perplexities at forty, which could be considereda symbol of full maturity in one’s perspectives of the world and life. However, heconsidered that a higher grade of knowledge did not come until he was fifty, when hecame to fully understand what heaven decreed, reaching the oneness of the humanrealm and the heavenly realm (Lunyu, 2:4).

Chinese Glossary

dao

dazhi

dazhi

Gaozi

juexue

junzi

Laozi

Lunyu

Mengzi

ming

shengren

tian

362 xinzhong yao

xiaozhi

xing

yi

yiben

zhi

zhi

zhiming

zhiren

zhizhe

363from “what is below” to “what is above”