Mahler's concept of "God" and Chu Xi's concept of "Li"

Author: Pang Jingren Feng Jun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Translator's Note Pang Jingren (1910—1985) was a native of Ning'an County, Heilongjiang Province. One of the pioneers in the study of French philosophy in China, he was a renowned translator of philosophical works and an advisor to the Academic Committee of the History of Foreign Philosophy in China, as well as a professor at the Department of Philosophy, Renmin University of China. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy, Peking University in 1936 and later studied and taught in France and Switzerland, earning his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Paris in 1942. He served as a teaching assistant and lecturer at the University of Paris, the Collège de Bethléem in Switzerland, and the University of Fribourg. After the victory of the War of Resistance (1946), he returned to China to become a professor at Nankai University. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as a senior translator for the Central Military Commission. Due to political reasons, he was imprisoned in 1953 and was released in 1956, after which he joined Renmin University of China as a professor but remained a foreign language teacher and served as the deputy director of the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Office until the early 1960s, when he finally transferred to the Department of Philosophy. With profound academic achievements, he had a deep understanding of 17th-century French philosophy, particularly in translating the works of Descartes, Malebranche, and Gassendi and writing papers on the subject, which filled the gaps in the study of foreign philosophy in China, expanded the field of research, and promoted cultural exchange and friendship between China and France. The Concept of "God" in Malebranche and the Concept of "Li" in Zhu Xi is one of his representative works. Pang's life was fraught with hardships, and he was repeatedly imprisoned. In the early 1930s, he was arrested by the Nationalists for leading the underground organization of Peking University students, and in the early 1950s, he was imprisoned again for the same reason. He was deeply passionate about philosophy but was unable to freely teach it on the lecture platform, so he turned to translating classic works to express his dedication to philosophy. He had an unwavering love for the Communist Party and, in his later years, longed to restore his party membership or rejoin the party but was unsuccessful. He loved his work, but severe hypertension and heart disease prevented him from fully dedicating himself to it. In his later years, his children arranged for him to emigrate to Switzerland, but he decided to stay because the organization asked him to serve as a doctoral supervisor, and he died on the job. Pang's life was filled with contradictions and tragedies. His translations of Kant's Introduction to Future Metaphysics, Malebranche's Challenges to Descartes, Leibniz's Letter to Dreyden on Chinese Philosophy, Malebranche's Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher, Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy, and James's Essays in Radical Empiricism are well-known in China's philosophical circles. Pang's academic achievements have left us a lasting legacy.
Pang had a strong interest in Western philosophy and Sino-Western comparative studies during his early years at the Department of Philosophy, Peking University (1932—1936). According to Professor He Lin, around the summer of 1935, he translated a paper on Schopenhauer's philosophy and personally traveled from the city to Xiangshan to seek advice from Professor He Lin, who was staying there for the summer. Professor He praised his translation highly. In the early 1930s, Professor He Lin also wrote an article titled A Comparative View of Zhu Xi and Hegel's Theory of the Taiji (published in the Literary Supplement of The Da Gong Bao in Tianjin in 1930), which may have inspired Pang to later compare Zhu Xi's philosophy with Malebranche's. The Concept of "God" in Malebranche and the Concept of "Li" in Zhu Xi was Pang's doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris, written between the late 1930s and early 1940s and published in 1942 by Jean-Fran?ois Presses Philosophiques in Paris. Due to World War II, it was rarely circulated in China at the time. At that time, Henry Goujet, a renowned professor at the Faculty of Arts of Lille University, later a member of the Collège de France, and vice president of the French Philosophy Association, wrote a preface for the book, praising it highly. This work, written in French over four decades ago, serves as an exemplary study in Sino-Western comparative philosophy. The book discusses three main issues.
One, the cultural background of the comparison The book explains the origins of this comparison from the history of cultural exchange between China and France. Malebranche was a famous 17th-century philosopher in France, one of the successors of Descartes' philosophy. However, he moved from Descartes' dualism to radical religious idealism, attempting to combine Cartesianism and Augustinianism and bridge the gap between Cartesian rationalism and Catholic doctrine through the latter. His most famous works include The Search for Truth and Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion. During the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty, foreign Christian missionaries in China engaged in a prolonged debate over "Chinese rituals," ostensibly about religious ceremonies like ancestor worship and Confucian rites, but the core issue concerned whether the official philosophy of the time, Zhu Xi's philosophy, was theistic or atheistic. One side consisted of early Jesuit missionaries, while the other was the Paris Foreign Missions Society, which came later. The former believed that China's official philosophy was theistic, with "Li" being God or the Lord; the latter argued that China's official philosophy was atheistic and, according to the decree of the Pope, prohibited Chinese Catholics from participating in ancestor worship and other rituals. After learning of this, the Kangxi Emperor ordered the arrest, imprisonment, and expulsion of missionaries who, lacking an understanding of Chinese thought, recklessly interfered with China's rituals. A missionary named Arthus de L'Annan (whose Chinese name was Liang Hongren) from the Paris Foreign Missions Society lived in China for many years and participated in this debate. He returned to Paris before the Kangxi Emperor issued the arrest order. He was a close friend of the famous philosopher Father Malebranche and introduced China's official philosophy to him, repeatedly urging him to write a pamphlet to refute the atheistic notion of "Li" in Chinese philosophy and assist their missionary work in China. To fulfill his request, Malebranche wrote Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher—On the Existence and Nature of God, published in 1708. The book argues that the concept of "Li" in China is very similar to Malebranche's own concept of "God" and that the entire atheistic shell of "Li" should be stripped away to align it with the concept of "God." After its publication, the book was immediately criticized by Jesuits, who argued that the "Li" in the Dialogue was inconsistent with the original Chinese concept of "Li" and that there were misunderstandings in the interpretation. However, the Jesuits, despite opposing the Paris Foreign Missions Society and believing that Chinese philosophy was theistic, did not fully understand Zhu Xi's philosophy. Both sides, in fact, made opposite mistakes: the Jesuits revered Chinese philosophy with theological bias, believing that the Chinese had a pure concept of God and that Confucius was their prophet, while the Paris Foreign Missions Society tended to believe that Chinese books contained only atheism and superstition. Therefore, the purpose of this book was to help Westerners understand the official philosophy of China at that time—Zhu Xi's philosophy—show the meaning of the concept of "Li," and point out the errors of Malebranche and Western missionaries. Comparing Malebranche's philosophy with Zhu Xi's philosophy was carried out against this cultural background. To better refute Malebranche and Western missionaries, Pang's book imitates Malebranche's Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher and is written in the form of a dialogue. The dialogue assumes that the participants lived in the 18th century, with one being Malebranche the philosopher Philalethes and the other Zhu Xi the philosopher Jin Dao. To make the comparison more convincing and help Westerners, especially the French, understand its significance, it was essential to present Zhu Xi's philosophical ideas, particularly his original texts, to them. At that time, two translations of Zhu Xi's works had already been published in Europe: Father Regis in 1894 translated half of the Collected Works of Chu Hsi (Volume 49) into French, and Bruce in 1923 translated the 42nd, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th volumes into English. However, Bruce's translation of the seven volumes only discussed Zhu Xi's psychology, and Regis, lacking a strong grasp of Chinese language, had to omit Chapter 4 of Volume 49 and many paragraphs and sentences from the first three chapters. Despite this, we can still find many sentences and words in his translation that contradict the original Chinese text. Pang said, "For this reason, I found it necessary to translate Volume 49 again, as it contains the metaphysical part of Zhu Xi's works." This translation forms the latter part of the book as an appendix. Pang's work in this regard is extremely important; it is a valuable historical resource for the study of the transmission of Eastern learning to the West. At the same time, Pang also provided detailed annotations on Zhu Xi's original works to help French scholars understand Zhu Xi's philosophy more accurately, and these annotations reveal his new insights into Zhu Xi's philosophy. To give Chinese readers a clearer understanding of the accuracy and novelty of Pang's translation and annotations, following the suggestion of Professor Chen Xiuzhai, the translator found the original texts from the Imperial Edition of the Collected Works of Chu Hsi and appended them to Pang's translation and annotations for comparison. For the quotations in the main text, I have also strived to find the original texts and included them in footnotes for reference. If the original texts cannot be found, I have added "See" in the corresponding footnotes to allow readers to consult them themselves. Additionally, to help Chinese readers better understand Malebranche's thought, the translator has included an article translated by Pang himself titled Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher—On the Existence and Nature of God (originally published in Journal of the History of Chinese Philosophy in the second and third issues of 1982) as an appendix for reference.
Two, the comparison of categories Pang summarized the comparison between Malebranche's philosophy and Zhu Xi's philosophy as a comparison of the categories of "God" and "Li." He believed that the two philosophers, despite their vast temporal and spatial differences, were close to a common goal: the former sought to reconcile Cartesianism and Augustinianism, while the latter aimed to establish a system that intricately integrated the teachings of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. They each centered their thoughts around a single concept: "Li" for Zhu Xi and "God" for Malebranche." Moreover, he believed that Zhu Xi's original concept of "Li" was more similar to Malebranche's "God" in the Dialogue than to the "Li" described by the Chinese philosopher in that book. "God" and "Li" are the central categories of these two philosophers, and by comparing and analyzing these philosophical categories, we can see the similarities and differences between these two philosophies. The starting point of Malebranche's philosophy is the same as Descartes', "I think, therefore I am," which is also the fundamental principle of his philosophy. "To think is to exist," I am a thinking thing, a mind. But the difference lies in this: for Descartes, "I think" is a direct cognition and at the same time a clear and distinct cognition, "because not only do I know in some way that if I think, I must exist, but I also know in some way that I will never be mistaken when I think." "Whatever our minds have clear and distinct ideas of is true. But for Malebranche, 'I think' can only tell us the consciousness through which we can perceive our existence but not our essence." This consciousness is clear and distinct, but it is not cognition. Because to have cognition, one must have ideas, and our minds are devoid of ideas. Only in God can we see ideas, and only in God can we know. Malebranche's "idea" is similar to Plato's "form," referring to the prototype or model of existence. These ideas exist only in God. "God" is an infinite, infinitely perfect being that contains everything within it, and its essence contains the reality and perfection that exist in all things. We only share in the particular existences of God; we are divine, but God is infinite, and we cannot represent God. According to Malebranche's doctrine, God is eternal, infinitely vast, and the creator of the objective world. "We indeed depend on God; if we are separated from him, we will know nothing and be nothing. First, we are created by God and continuously created by God; if God's will were to cease for even a moment, we would immediately fall into nothingness. Second, God is the true cause and motive of all our movements. Because if we can move our arms, it is God who helps us move them. Since there is no direct connection between the mind and the body, without God's help, we could not even move our fingers. Moreover, God is our light; without God, we could know nothing. Because the ideas of all existents are in God, and it is precisely in God that we can see all things." Therefore, God is our cause, our motive, and our light. Moreover, God "is also our object of knowledge. Our studies in mathematics, physics, astronomy, and metaphysics, and ultimately all science, all truth, and all laws, are all aimed at discovering the essence and method of God." Finally, God is also the highest purpose of our life. Because we can only hope for everything to be happy, and happiness exists only in God. Therefore, "our purpose is to see God and be united with God" (p. 37). On the other hand, Zhu Xi's "Li" shares many similarities with Malebranche's "God." For example, "Li" is also infinite, eternal, vast, omnipresent, and infinitely perfect, and it is pure good. "Li" is always one, an entirety. But it has different functions, and because of these functions, we often use different names to represent it. When it is the supreme authority, the creator and sustainer of the world, it is called "Heaven." It not only creates the world but also sustains it, continuously recreating it. When it is the cause of all things and the root of the universe, it is called the "Taiji." The "Taiji" is a primordial and eternal force whose movement is eternal, waxing and waning, and whose movement creates qi. The two qi of yin and yang are actually two ends of the same qi. In reality, there is only one qi. "However, like all material things, yin and yang cannot move by themselves; if they move, it is because there is another being moving them outside of them, the ultimate cause, the original motive, which is the 'Taiji.' If we can see, hear, speak, and act, it is the Taiji that enables us to see, hear, speak, and act." This is very similar to Malebranche's view that God is the only true cause in the world, and all natural causes are merely occasional. When "Li" creates things and exists within them as the reason, form, and nature of their existence, it is called "xing." When it creates humans and exists within them as their nature, it is called "xin." This is similar to Malebranche's "idea," which exists in God and serves as the reason, form, and nature of things. Moreover, "Li" is also the source of our "zhi" function, and it combines with the "jue" function derived from qi to carry out cognitive activities. Finally, "Li" is also the source of ethics. When it acts as a pure moral law, Zhu Xi calls it "Dao," which is benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, or the "highest good," and thus "Li" is also like Malebranche's "God" in that it is the highest purpose of human life.
Three, the conclusion of the comparison Malebranche's "God" and Zhu Xi's "Li," or Malebranche's philosophy and Zhu Xi's philosophy, share many similarities but also many differences, such as: 1. They have different definitions of the term "body." In Malebranche's philosophy, "body" and "extension" are synonyms, created by God according to an idea within it. In Zhu Xi's philosophy, "body" is a composite of qi and "Li." Qi is created by Heaven and is the extension of the body; while "Li" is Heaven itself, existing within the body as its nature. Moreover, in Malebranche's philosophy, there is only one substance, while in Zhu Xi's philosophy, the five elements—gold, wood, water, fire, and earth—combine to form all extension. 2. "Mind," in Malebranche's view, is created and can only see all things by being united with God. In Zhu Xi's view, the mind is "Li" itself, and it can see all things through itself. 3. "The idea of the body," in Malebranche, exists in God, and we see all things in God. In Zhu Xi, it (xing) is "Li" itself, and it exists within the body, constituting the nature of the body, and we can directly see the body, etc. However, Pang believed that the main difference lies in this: the foundations of these two philosophies are completely different. Malebranche's philosophy is based on religion, and he himself was both a priest and a philosopher; while Zhu Xi's philosophy is based on morality. The former is a theocentric system, while the latter, although centered on "Li," believes not in a religion but in "a pure and independent morality that has deeply permeated the hearts of all Chinese people since Confucius to our time." Benevolence and benevolence are the true foundation and highest point of Zhu Xi's philosophy. However, in Zhu Xi's philosophy, "Li" and "Heaven" also have the meaning of a personal god. The Emperor, Heaven, and Lord command and determine our fate, rewarding the good and punishing the evil. We must obey Heaven's will and not offend or lie to it. Therefore, Heaven is the supreme personal god. If one denies the personal god in Zhu Xi's philosophy, that would be inaccurate; but if one portrays it as a living, head-and-hand-wearing person wearing clothes and hats, that would also be inaccurate. This has resolved the debate over whether Chinese philosophy is theistic or atheistic.
Overall, the book shows that decades ago, Pang was able to compare and study these two philosophies from China and France, separated by vast differences in time and space, and to reach a conclusion on this "case" in the history of philosophy and culture. This is extremely valuable. As the preface to the book says, "This is thanks to his deep understanding of Zhu Xi's system and his predecessors, as well as his excellent grasp of French philosophy." Moreover, in the process of comparison, he paid attention to the cultural background of the comparison and the comparative study of categories, both of which are worth learning from when conducting Sino-Western cultural and philosophical comparisons. However, the book also shows a lack of theoretical depth, merely identifying points of similarity and difference without in-depth theoretical analysis or extracting the laws and lessons of human theoretical thinking from the comparison, nor pointing out its philosophical implications. Although Pang had once accepted Marxism in his early years, he had not yet used Marxist philosophy as a methodology for the study of the history of philosophy at that time, so it was impossible for him to achieve this under the conditions of the time. Therefore, we should not hold him to today's standards. This book was translated with the encouragement and support of Professors He Lin, Chen Xiuzhai, and Gao Song, to commemorate Pang's passing. Professor Chen Xiuzhai personally proofread the translation, and Professor He Lin wrote the preface for the Chinese edition. I am deeply grateful for this and express my sincere thanks here. Unfortunately, due to certain reasons, the book has been translated for more than eighteen years but has not yet been published. Now, Professors He Lin, Chen Xiuzhai, and Gao Song have passed away and could not see the book published. I would like to take this opportunity to express my respect and remembrance for these three elders of philosophy once again. I should also specially thank Mr. Chen Xiaowen and Mr. Xu Yichun, who agreed to continue placing this book in their publishing plan for editing and publication. In this way, the wishes of the aforementioned elders have been fulfilled, and it can be a solace to their souls in the afterlife. At the same time, I also hope to use the publication of this book to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Pang's passing.
This book is a work by Pang Jingren, a renowned translator of philosophical works in China, on the comparison of Sino-Western philosophy. It was originally Pang's doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris, written between the late 1930s and early 1940s and published in 1942 by Jean-Fran?ois Presses Philosophiques in Paris. Henry Goujet, a renowned professor at the Faculty of Arts of Lille University, later a member of the Collège de France and vice president of the French Philosophy Association, wrote a preface for the book, praising it highly. It is a dialogical work with four dialogues between Philalethes and Jin Dao, discussing various aspects of Sino-Western philosophy, such as the different understandings and interpretations of God, Heaven, Earth, "Li," mind, qi, xing, idea, truth, order, law, occasional cause, extension, Taiji, and the five elements. Additionally, the book includes the 49th volume of the Collected Works of Chu Hsi, Malebranche's Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher—On the Existence and Nature of God, a glossary of proper names, and a bibliography. The book was translated by Pang's student, Feng Jun, who specializes in French philosophy and has a solid foundation in Sino-Western comparative philosophy. Therefore, the translation is basically faithful to the original text.