The Epistemology of Mengzian Extension

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2024

I argue that, for Mengzi, the kind of knowledge that features in expressions of the form 'knowing N', where N is a noun or a noun phrase, is not a kind of belief but is instead a capacity for intelligently performing relevant actions. My argument proceeds by showing that, first, Mengzi is committed to the view that a person knows N iff she is relevantly capable and, second, that the best explanation for this is that the kind of knowledge involved in knowing N is a capacity. Finally, I motivate such a practicalist interpretation by arguing that it offers us a general but informative explanation of what it is that knowing N makes the knower capable of doing.

Since the 1940s, Western epistemology has discussed Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how. Ryle argued that intelligent actions – manifestations of knowledge-how – are not constituted as intelligent by the guiding intervention of knowledge-that: knowledge-how is not a kind of knowledge-that; we must understand knowledge-how in independent terms. Yet which independent terms are needed? In this chapter, we consider whether an understanding of intelligent action must include talk of knowledge-to. This is the knowledge to do this or that now, not then or in general. Our argument is refined and buttressed by consideration of a text in Chinese philosophy, the Lüshi Chunqiu. This 3rd century BCE text, a compendium on good government, focuses on different types of knowledge that an effective ruler or a capable official should possess. A significant number of those discussions concern examples of knowing-how being manifested in particular situations. The text is explicitly aware of the importance of timeliness and awareness of context in manifesting know-how. Some might say that these are merely manifestations of knowing-how. But we see these examples as revealing characteristics of know-how that Ryle did not anticipate. Might knowing-to be an essential and irreducible aspect of intelligent action?

Philosophy East and West, 2018

A common interpretation of the Zhuangzi holds that the text is only skeptical about propositional knowledge, but not practical knowledge. I argue that this interpretation is problematic, for two reasons. The first one is that there is no motivation for Zhuangzi to criticize propositional knowledge, given some general pre-Qin epistemological assumptions. The second one is that Zhuangzi explicitly criticizes a certain kind of practical knowledge. I then explain how Zhuangzi’s skepticism can co-exist with the idea of “great knowledge”.

ed. Hans Lenk and Gregor Paul, eds., Epistemological Issues in Classical Chinese Philosophy, SUNY Press 1993

Asian Philosophy , 2024

Xuantong 玄同 (tentatively translated as dark oneness) is a unique Daoist idea that represents an ideally mental and physical state as a result of cultivation. However, owing to limited context in the Laozi, there is no consensus on the interpretation of xuantong. Contemporary studies have also neglected xuantong's evolution in early texts and assumed a homogeneous understanding, and hence, failed to provide a nuanced account. In this article, I investigate how xuantong evolves from the Guodian Laozi to the Huainanzi and Wenzi. I argue that although xuantong may originate from the Laozi, it is in the Wenzi that a coherent theory of xuantong is accomplished. This theory advocates an orderly process of cultivation that covers internal mental states, external acts, and integration with the whole universe. The cultivation would eventually lead people to adopt an undifferentiated perspective on, and reach oneness with, all things in the universe.

China Review International, 2017

Confucians Th e Master said: "Zilu, remark well what I am about to teach you! Th is is wisdom: to recognize what you know as what you know, and recognize what you do not know as what you do not know."-Analects of Confucius Th e oldest written sources hold few hints about knowledge before Kongzi (Confucius) and the beginning of classical Chinese philosophy. Verifi ably pre-Confucian passages of the Book of History describe the virtuous ruler's knowledge in terms of enlightened intelligence (ming), wisdom (zhi), and knowing others (zhi ren), that is, knowing how to recognize and use people's abilities. Th is knowledge may contrast with skillful artifi ce (qiao) and trickery (jian). Virtuous rulers are not only wise, they protect people against clever language and beguiling appearances and use their knowledge to regulate the ten thousand things. Th e Erya, a late-Zhou text glossing words of the classics, explains zhì (knowledge, wisdom) as "every principle arranged in proper order." Th e Book of Songs praises wisdom, intelligence, and foresight, but also deplores their capacity for deception and disorder. Words for the wisdom of ancient sage emperors also describe the destruction wreaked by cunning ministers, deceptive speakers, and clever women. 1 A prominent quality in the early vocabulary of knowledge is eff ectiveness, or more precisely amplifi ed eff ectiveness. Th e point of knowledge is the productiveness it enhances, preternatural effi cacy being the proof of knowledge, distinguishing it from commonplace cognition. Sometimes there is a connotation of learning and scholarship, as in the explanation of knowledge as "every principle arranged in proper order." Th ere may be an association of knowledge with virtue (de), but also worry about artful deviousness. And we see the early priority of knowing others, knowing people, their strength and weakness, especially when they have something to hide.

ISBN 82-7678-AA44, 1992

International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, May 19-21, 2011

If anyone can develop their moral dispositions to become a sage, how is it that sages arise every five hundred years, according to the Mengzi and some other early Chinese texts? This paper describes this early dispensational scheme and asks the question how the periodic appearance of sages described in Mengzi 5B1 and 7B38, a variation on the general doctrine of tianming , could be compatible with the view that all people have an equal chance of becoming a sage in numerous other passages in the Mengzi, an expression of its special doctrine of renxing . This paper begins by considering the possibility that the five hundred year sage is an interpolation or otherwise unconnected to core doctrines of the Mengzi. This is unlikely in light of links between the theory and other passages that deal with sages and worthies, notably Mengzi 5B1. In fact, there are a number of places where discussions of moral actions are tailored to the distinction between the relatively benighted period before the rise of a sage, and the period during or just after the rise of a sage. Such dichotomies show a dimension of the text that is often not appreciated, that the nature and outcome of moral action is historically contingent. The Mengzi as a whole is seriously concerned with the effect of the alternations of history on the lives of individual moral agents. Not only does the role of the good person sometimes depend on whether one is living in the times of sages and worthies, but kingly 1 Prepared for and presented at the International Conference on "Fate, Freedom, and Creation in Early China" held at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen on May 21, 2011.

International Communication of Chinese Culture, 2021

This paper is an effort to explore a possible common ground for a discourse in comparative logic. Along with Roger Ames' and David Hall's inquiry into the lack of transcendence in Chinese philosophy, the author of this paper investigates why and how, according to Zhuang Zi's wisdom, treating myriad things, wan wu 萬 物, and I as one could be a way to understand dao. Using Cantor-Husserl's set theory, especially Edmund Husserl's contributions on the involvement of the intentionality or a subjective "I" in the process of knowing sets, the author argues that classical Chinese is a pictographic language and every radical groups a list of characters in a way that is similar to how a set includes its elements. Thinking in sets shapes a unique linguistical habit of dividing kinds and sorting things. Logic of sets is the alternative logic that Zhuang Zi practices. Two efforts are made for reinterpreting Zhuang Zi from the perspective of sets. First, borrowing a few basic concepts from set theory, the author compares four characteristics of Husserl's concept of sets to Zhuang Zi's way of sorting myriad things. Second, the author explores Zhuang Zi's wisdom of meditating into a state of losing one's self, which he calls as "an empty set, ji xu 集虚." For both set theory and Daoism, an empty set or emptiness can be a subset of every set or every possible world. When the boundary between a subjective "I" and myriad things disappears, myriad things and I are one. On the basis of the logic of sets, Husserl's "lived experience" in the cognitive process and Zhuang Zi's "losing I" in meditation could open an interesting discourse.

In 1A:7 of the Mengzi, Mengzi tries to convince King Xuan of Qi that he is a "true" king. As a reading of Mengzi's reasoning involved in his attempt at persuasion, David Nivison advances an inferential view, according to which Mengzi's persuasion involves inferences. In this paper, I consider the assumptions underlying the objections raised against Nivison's inferential view. I argue that these objections assume a contemporary Western view about the nature of logic and inferences. I propose an alternative characterisation of the relevant sense of inference that, I believe, is more sensitive to the classical Chinese philosophical context and argue that certain insights can be derived from reading Mengzi in light of this alternative characterization of inferences.