Chen, Lisheng 陳立勝, From “Self-Cultivation” to Its “Methods”—Manifestation and Turn of the Confucian Theory of “Inner Sageliness” 從 “修身” 到 “工夫” — 儒家 “內聖學” 的開顯與轉折

Dao https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-022-09857-5 Chen, Lisheng 陳立勝, From “Self-Cultivation” to Its “Methods”—Manifestation and Turn of the Confucian Theory of “Inner Sageliness” 從 “修身” 到 “工夫” — 儒家 “內聖學” 的開顯與轉折 Taipei 臺北: Research Center for East Asian Confucianism, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University 臺灣大學人文社會高等研究院東亞儒學研 究中心, 2021, 486 pages Chuanben WANG 1 Accepted: 3 September 2022 # The Author(s) 2022 Self-cultivation has always been an important issue in Confucianism, but to date it has not been studied in length, not to mention a systematic study of its development. CHEN Lisheng’s 陳立勝 new book is such an endeavor. The book presents the history of Confucian philosophy that centers around self-cultivation and its methods and takes us back to the Confucian tradition of “knowledge about life” in a time when Confucianism has been distanced from people’s daily life and limited to professionals and academies. The book consists of an Introduction and three additional parts, altogether 14 chapters. In the Introduction, Chen argues that the Confucian tradition of selfcultivation falls into four stages. First was the period of moral cultivation during the Spring and Autumn period when the purpose of self-cultivation was to become a morally superior person (jun zi 君子) and its focus was on the cultivation of morality in people and their behavior. Second was the period of mind drilling (xin ling cao lian 心靈操練) from the Tang 唐 dynasty to the Song 宋 dynasty when the purpose of selfcultivation was to “become sages” and the management of the will and ideas became its focus. In addition, the methods of self-cultivation were further developed both in scope and in depth. Third was the transitional period from the end of the Qing 清 dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China (1912–1949) when the key to self-cultivation was “self-enlightenment” (jue wu 覺悟), and its purpose was to become a new, morally superior person. The last stage is the modern period, another transitional period in which we begin to distinguish men from machines and doubt whether self-cultivation is * Chuanben WANG 1 School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, 299 Bayi Road, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, People’s Republic of China Chuanben WANG still necessary. Doubt of this kind, together with challenges to the Confucian methods of self-cultivation, motivate us to think further about where Confucianism should go. In Part One, Chen highlights the Confucian tradition of self-cultivation as a breakthrough in the axial age. He discusses the issue of “self-cultivation by being reverent” (xiu ji yi jing 修己以敬) beginning with Confucius, holding that as one of the basic propositions in Confucianism, “self-cultivation by being reverent” is to base the spirit of being respectful to heaven, men, and things on the consciousness of one’s own morality and life. Chen believes that the culture of being reverent prior to Confucius was elevated to the philosophical level through the proposition of “self-cultivation by being reverent” (32). In Part Two, Chen reviews the self-reflection phenomenon from Confucius’ time to the Song and the Ming 明 dynasties. He mainly discusses the selfreflection models, types, and domains. Following that, Chen elaborates on the methods of self-cultivation in Confucianism and then compares the Confucian view of anger and its way of controlling anger with the Stoic view of anger and its way of dealing with it. Chen also discusses two typical Confucian methods of self-cultivation, dreaming and “sitting in meditation” (jing zuo 靜坐). Finally, Chen explores in great depth the view on “punitive justice” (yin guo bao ying 因果報應) in Neo-Confucianism and how this view shaped one’s self-cultivation and education. Part Three highlights the turn and development of the Confucian theory of “inner sageliness,” that is, the mind-drilling period. Chen first analyzes the idea of “knowing only by oneself” (du zhi 獨知) of ZHU Xi 朱熹, and attempts to find the line of thought and characteristics of the Confucian theory of “inner sageliness” from the pre-Qin秦 time to the Song and the Ming dynasties. Chen argues that Zhu’s idea of “knowing only by oneself” in effect paved the way for the later development of the idea of “intuitive knowledge” (liang zhi 良知) of WANG Yangming 王陽明. According to Chen, what is known only to oneself in Zhu’s theory is the same as what is meant by the “intuitive knowledge” in Wang’s theory. Chen then talks about the two meanings of “one flash of thought” (yi nian 一念): “thinking” (yi nian 意念) and “thinking of caution and fear” (jie ju zhi nian 戒懼之念). In this way, Chen reveals the significance of the issue of the “one flash of thought” in Yangming’s method of self-cultivation. Furthermore, Chen discusses the three key words in Yangming’s method of self-cultivation so as to show that ZHU Xi’s idea of “knowing only by oneself” was in effect in line with Yangming’s “intuitive knowledge.” Lastly, Chen discusses the method of self-cultivation of PAN Pingge 潘平格. He argues that Pan’s “method of self-cultivation with no method” (wu gong fu zhi gong fu 無工夫之工夫) was to construct by destructing, which seemed to refute the method of self-cultivation in Neo-Confucianism. However, it was in fact helping complete NeoConfucianism, in particular, Yangmingism (Yangming xue 陽明學). It is in this sense that, Chen believes, Pan’s method is of great importance in the history of Chinese philosophy. As a bold attempt to systematically study the self-cultivation issue in Confucianism, Chen’s book is invaluable and its merits are obvious. First, it presents a unique methodology. It examines the Confucian tradition of selfcultivation and systematically presents the development of the Confucian idea of selfcultivation. It clearly defines and identifies various types of self-cultivation, such as “self-reflection,” “dreaming,” and “sitting in meditation.” The purpose is to present the diversity and variety of the methods of Confucian self-cultivation. Chen holds that the Confucian tradition of self-cultivation has attached much importance to the feelings of Review of From “Self-Cultivation” to Its “Methods” the heart-mind and the body but little to the analysis of phenomena and the explanation of principles and ideas, which makes self-cultivation difficult to be universalized and operational. In this sense, Chen proposes a new model for the self-cultivation theory and for the methods of self-cultivation in Confucianism. Finally, Chen examines the Confucian tradition of self-cultivation from both the Chinese and the Western perspectives. He compares the view of anger and the way to deal with anger in Confucianism and those in the West and tries to find the differences among them, so as to manifest the two different types of self-cultivation subjects and their respective characteristics. Chen argues that both Confucianism and Stoicism emphasize the importance of resorting to (...truncated)