History

WORD — THOUGHT SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CHINESE AND WESTERN 'WORLDS'

Fátima Gomes*

[PROLOGUE]

Reasoning, thinking, is commonly accepted as the activity that defines Humaneness, along with many other important and characteristic ones, such as feeling, living collectively in an orderly fashion, the capacity to produce culture, and others that stem more or less from these.

Communication through speech is closely linked to thought, as is the setting down of what is said in signs that constitute writing. With time, writing integrates the socio-cultural memory, which greatly enriches the genetic memory of the species. It seems safe to say that there are many differences between the Chinese and Western 'worlds' (real ones and those that result from theoretical analyses), but both have a durable system of signs that is unequivocally linked to thought and which, as a common, universal element, makes us autonomous beings who go beyond the limits of biological and geographical nature and create another nature: culture.

Culture is not equivalent to language in the strict sense of a code of communication organized by signs that are more or less aleatory and conventionally significant. However, it may be viewed as language when we understand the concretizations of species as significative elements of, and for, a human group that thus communicates a unique experience of life and defines a universe of meaning that allows its members to communicate/live together.

Having said that, it may be worthwhile to reflect on the obvious differences between the Chinese and Western ways of 'being in the world', which are immediately thematized in the written languages, in order to find the point of convergence. This point must necessarily be located in one of the universal aspects of the constitution of benevolence as such, beyond all circumstantial contingencies. First, it is necessary to explain a common characteristic, the interdependence between language and the orientation of thought as universal, and to postulate the differences in this thought that make it unique. This article is not meant to be a conclusive exposition based on serious bibliographical research, however; it is merely an introduction to raise some issues and begin to answer questions (to be elaborated on some day), motivated by the reading of various sources and living in a place that leads to the transformation of theoretical preoccupations into experienced problems. When dealing with that which is universally human, there is no need to resort to exposition and to linguistic or philosophical theories that would justify statements that are otherwise subjective. Any conclusions that may be drawn in this article should therefore be read in light of this; they result from the nature of the text itself, and as such should be considered provisional. The fact that they are provisional does not make them less true, but they are merely expressions of the current state of an old theoretical problem concerning certain issues, namely the understanding of the categories and suppositions of Chinese thought. This introduction, however, only presents an overview of what may be called Chinese philosophy, leaving the rest for a future text.

This article deals with some characteristic aspects of what makes Chinese different from Western languages. These immediately appear as indicators of thought that is manifested in cultural gestures foreign to the Western model. And if there is any justification of this obvious diversity in the history of Chinese thought, it is based on language, weaving a cultural fabric that manifests itself most in a specific value system, in a shared cosmic vision that defines a particular notion of the purpose of human life, giving it meaning. Rather than defining this cosmic vision, this article considers its scope of meaning by looking at the diversity of Chinese on two levels: one may be called 'immediate' and includes comments based on an immediatist contact with written Chinese, and the other may be called 'theoretical' because it may be considered results of linguistic analysis.

§1. IMMEDIATE DIFFERENCES: FROM LANGUAGE TO THOUGHT

One of the most remarkable differences between the Chinese language and Western languages stems from its being structured as symbols or signs — in the strict sense that its material structure refers to a meaning that is initially represented or 'drawn' — rather than abstract, conventional, generic units that I will call 'words'. 'Words' do not immediately refer to things but to an idea of things. They are the result of a psychological process — the 'formation of concepts' — that governs the relation between reason and reality and turn ideas into the referent with respect to which languages are translated (the translation of expressed meanings and not merely 'words').

Chinese evolved from rudimentary pictographs into the ideographs currently used, which are detached from reality but never lose sight of it. This does not, however, limit their meaning because the characters are subject to interpretation, evolve from 'natural' meanings to convey abstract meanings, and in some cases, characters have been invented to express certain theoretical concepts. Even in such cases, however, it is the written, material, form of 'words' that is adjusted by an original articulation of a radical with a particular phoneme, 1 even if the words are composed of a double character or two characters, which is the most common form at the moment (in which one of the characters — the radical — contains the meaning and the other conveys mainly the sound while retaining its own meaning, which is ignored in the compound). As a result, many of the concepts that structure Chinese philosophical thought are linked in their origin to the description of phenomena or elements from nature, as is the case of the basic concepts of yin and yang.2 Initially linked, respectively, to the images of a cloudy sky or a shady place, and to sunshine or the warmth of a sunny day, they eventually came to designate the dual nature of reality, as well as the cyclical movement of everything that constitutes it and its regulatory principle. Emerging from geographical and astronomical terminology, yin and yang became the fundamental theoretical elements of what may be called a Chinese philosophical cosmology that, through the notion of Calendar as the 'supreme law', still governs a large part of the life of the Chinese, determining the auspicious days for the major events in a person's personal and social life, and allowing those who know how to 'read' it to predict the course of events and to act accordingly. 3

The fundamental pictographic nature of written Chinese is immediately (and often as the theoretical result of Western analysis of Chinese thought) linked to the poor relative and apparent development of a Chinese philosophy, understood here as a theoretical search for principles or causes to explain reality, which, in turn, is transcribed in the very general concept of being (we owe this to Parmenides!). What is considered characteristic of Chinese thought is a politico-ethical tendency closely linked to the three major systems that dominate the mental universe of the Chinese: Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, which are also, and foremost, religions or belief systems. The fact that the Chinese value pragmatic thought as opposed to metaphysical thought, which has characterized the West since the time of the Greeks, should not be seen as a deficiency in the linguistic structure; rather, it is one of the poles of the interaction between a people and a particular context that structures a language that reflects and, at the same time, contributes to a particular way of 'being in the world'. As we saw earlier, the Chinese do not appreciate abstract classification, preferring symbols rich in real meaning to conceptual signs, and they seem to feel at ease with their place in the world, which determines a different evolution of thought. 4

The classical period of Chinese philosophy — pre-Han• — was a troubled time during which the principal motivation for thought was related to social order and, consequently, to the individual as part of that order. Rather than philosiphizing, in the speculative sense of the word, Chinese scholars tried to guide. Confucianism, which still dictates many attitudes regarding individual and group interaction, and in particular family and political relations (that is, between rulers and their subjects), arose from the need for social order at a time of great social instability. And if we consider the fact that after the Han dynasty (206 BC—AD 220), which is normally regarded as the orthodox period of Chinese thought, there was the development of an imperial society in which commentaries were seen as the valued form of text, and the knowledge they imparted as The Knowledge that, for example, gave access to the highest places in the social hierarchy, it is easier for us to understand that the conservatism of the Chinese language and of its structural elements reflects a fundamental conservatism of Chinese thought that has existed since China was organized as a nation. Orthodoxy, based on a bureaucratization of civil society, marked all of feudal China right up to the present day, reducing to glosses its most important testimony of reflection, which is found in the texts attributed to classical authors. Little is known about these authors and their original ideas, other than what has been said by commentators since then.

In this tension between speech and thought, in which the terms of the binomial are mutually determined, Chinese serves as a model, providing, upon reflection, access to a particular way of being in the world, in which the simple decomposition of a character often provides an indication of a specific way of looking at reality. 5 Consider, for example, the composition of the character shì (是) (to be (nonpositional), agree, or affirm). Composed of the characters related to the ri (日) (sun), xia (下) (under) and ren (人) (man), it immediately refers us to a materialized notion of humanity's place, summarizing in its compound and interactive unit all the ethical, prescriptive and pragmatic emphasis — related to the goals people should meet depending on their position in society — that governs Chinese thought.

Reflection on the Chinese language, even considered in its immediacy, is a useful vehicle for accessing the 'Chinese way of thinking', even if often it is intuition rather than systematized knowledge that allows us to recognize the scope of some compositions.

§2. LINGUISTIC THEORIZATION ON SOME DIFFERENCES: FROM 'THINKING ABOUT' TO 'THINKING IN CHINESE'

Another moment of reflection necessarily leads us to look at these statements more closely by examining elements of the theory of language and their articulation and thematization in more specific aspects of the mental/cultural universe of the Chinese.

We will begin with two conclusions presented by Chad Hansen6 and which may be summarized as follows:

1. Chinese and Western theories of language are different because their objects are distinct (pictographic language versus alphabetical languages) in their fundamental constitution and in the type of grammar that organizes them. Since this is not observed, it is the cause of many of the 'false' interpretations of the Chinese language.

2. The other major difference that results from linguistic analysis is the determination of functions of language that are very distinct in the two areas in question: the descriptive/representative function of language, which is based on a triple characterization of the properties of nouns in Western theories, has no equivalent in Chinese, whose main function is to socialize and regulate behaviour.

The basic unit of meaning in alphabetical languages is the sentence, and in Chinese the character/ word. 7 This is justified either because the written character is the best way to individuate language (multiple homophony of spoken Chinese) or because the sentence unit is a late form, so a weak grammatical structure is maintained in which the way words are arranged in the sentence determines various syntactic functions, as opposed to the syntactic functions being the favoured objects of linguistic analysis. This statement is corroborated by the fact that classical,pre-Han, authors initially wrote on strips of bamboo or silk, which were the individuated units of meaning, and no punctuation was used. Today this seems like an aphoristic language that, perhaps due to this, is more difficult to access. This is very different from the usual way of viewing the sentence or basic unit of the structure of language; this notion is achieved here through a material support that becomes part of the language. Let us take as an example the text Sanzijing• (Three Character Classic), which was compiled during the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), inspired by Confucian teachings and used as a teaching manual for almost eight centuries. In it, 'sentences' are organized into two groups of three characters whose literal reading differs from the meaning interpreted in compound units of meaning. 8

Something that appears closely linked to this is how the West determines the value of the sentence in relation to the word, referring to its mental support, that is, judgement, which has traditionally been considered the exemplary unit of thought because it is at this level that one ascertains the truth or falseness of a statement, something that is fundamental to the Western understanding of the value of language and/or the relation between reason and reality. Sentences are immediately evaluated through the evaluation of their validity (formal — that is, logical — or material — that is, suitability to the fact(s) they describe), which reinforces the essentially identifying, selectional and unifying function that governs the traditional view of language and the value attributed to this unit of meaning. Con-sequently, the declarative sentence is valued as the one that best captures this meaning, since the other types of sentences are derived from it and are considered secondary or dependent on this model.

As previously mentioned, the sentence is not a fundamental unit in Chinese, and it has not appeared as such for quite a while, mainly because the characters do not refer first and foremost to a universe of ideas that would support them; rather, given their graphic and symbolic nature, they have value in themselves and in relation to the sound associated with them. Characters refer immediately to a sound that naturally constitutes them, and from that to the distinction of the reality they promote. Knowing a word, therefore, does not imply associating a sound with a corresponding idea, but mainly mastering a skill, which allows knowledge of the meaning to imply knowing how to write and recognize a character. And this skill is social; it does not necessarily depend on a psycho-linguistic process, as is the case with alphabetical languages. It is a learned technique: the distinctions we establish in the world through language are learned when we learn the words that designate them, and it is ultimately impossible to decipher/read our interior language if we do not master writing and reading. 9

In light of this, it may be possible to advance further in our attempt to understand some of the more singular signs that express the Chinese mental universe: the fact that the texts that have been classified as classics of Chinese philosophy, which have come down to us for the most part through commentaries that are more or less recent, appear more as a collection of sentences (or rather juxtapositions of characters) that make them seem more like wisdom ('sagesse') than philosophy as we understand it from the Greek systematization. With all the risks associated with transcultural translations, in this case we are much closer to pre-Socrates philosophers than to Plato or Aristotle, especially in the way knowledge let itself be spoken. This wisdom is rarely translated in dogmatic expositions, and its original text is not known. Furthermore, we know very little about the major names in classical Chinese philosophy, their works appearing more as tradition than as documents by an author. With this, I want to highlight the absence, in the classical period of Chinese philosophy, of text that is unequivocally marked by the psycho-logical singularity of the person who produced it.

This is another way of affirming the non-conceptual character I presented as characteristic of the Chinese language as an object of analysis. And it is along these lines that we may establish as being fundamental certain concepts of Chinese thought that are closely linked to the characters that manifest them and to the interpretative contexts in which they occur. Each character functions in the reference it establishes in relation to all the others, with which it interacts within a text attributed to an author. The author thus emerges more as a figure who approximates the understanding of authorship as the expression, or 'voice', of a specific time/space, than as a person who is fundamentally marked by subjectivity.

§3. THE SINGULARITY OF THE DIFFERENCES: THE EXAMPLE OF CONFUCIANISM

A few comments on how language is related to thought will give us a broader and clearer idea of what is considered the major Chinese system of thought — Confucianism — which, through acceptance, refusal or renewal has decisively marked the Chinese way of being.

Confucianism is an exemplary doctrine for understanding what has been stated so far, which is synthesized in the narrow correlation between thought and speech, or better yet, writing, and which in Chinese has important specific elements for a more general understanding of the interaction of thought and speech and the links between them. As we saw briefly, there is the possibility of another understanding of the meaning of authorship (or its explicit absence) and its implications, as well as of the strange alliance between 'speaking' and the way what is said is 'written' (representative capacity of the characters and their capacity to convey more than one meaning, which often corresponds to historical evolution or the 'need'/'capacity' of the authors and/or the commentators). This polysemic interplay has as a range of understanding the priority given to the socializing function of language and the way in which language is thematized in the content of what is said. We are not dealing merely with the exterior form of the 'exposition' of the doctrine, but rather with the very spirit of the doctrine to 'be mixed', to define orientational goals and orient, in the same movement in which it is explained. Let us now proceed with the example, which should not be taken as an exposition on Confucianism but as a use of this theory to help clarify the interplay between speech and thought as it evolves within the limited classical Chinese universe.

Little is known about Confucius's life, 10 and even less about his work. The texts that are attributed to him have reached us through commentaries, glosses and works by disciples that are more or less distant in time, forming a set of works known as Sishu• (The Four Books): the Daxue• (The Great Learning), the Zhong Yong• (The Doctrine of the Mean), the Lunyu• (The Analects) and the Mengzi• (The Book of Mencius). The Analects are considered the most reliable source on Confucius's original ideas. 11

Confucianism expressed, as we know it, in short dialogues (structured in juxtapositions of words that are sentences) between a master and his students' is an ethical theory of a pragmatic nature, that is, a philosophical proposal whose objective is to improve the life of individuals and society by restoring socio-political order. This order is symbolized by the exemplary figure of the just Emperor12 and realized in the image of a society dominated by harmonious relations between individuals because the reciprocal duties of the interacting elements are fulfilled, with particular importance accorded to the son-father binomial and its moral basis — the filial piety that marks the Chinese way of being — through the primacy of the family. 13

Classical Chinese philosophy can therefore be viewed as 'sagesse' rather than an articulated theoretical exposition, as is exemplified in the particular link between writing and what writing says: the fundamental concepts are ethical and constitute in themselves 'the sentences' of the text.

A third element should be mentioned that is fundamental to understanding the meaning of language in the Chinese model: experience. From what we know of the life of Kong Fuzi• (Master Kong) or 'Great Master Kong', and from which the Latin version of the name is derived), he practised what he taught. Consequently, his life determines the concept of truth as experience. 14

We must bear in mind, however, that Confucius's life was determined by specific historical circumstances that are relevant because they intro-duce an obvious element of materialness. The fall of the Zhou• dynasty (1122/1027BC-256BC) and the socio-political disorder that followed is one, if not the main, reason behind Confucius's thinking. 15

Confucian theory has remained closely associated with things, something that is characteristic of the Chinese language in general, as previously stated. This is the result of thought as well as of the use of Chinese in an evolutionary phase in which it possessed a concreteness that was even more evident than that of the pictographs that are used today. 16 This link to what is concrete does not imply an incapacity to theorize, since Confucian texts have philosophical principles that are either expressed or derived: the natural equality of all people, the universal desire for happiness as the mainspring of human existence, and knowledge as the individual and social effort of permanently seeking an orientation, Dao (the path, way, or path of good or bad conduct), which is actualized in concrete experiences and in the character that expresses it. (For the presentation and decomposition of some fundamental characters in this theory, see below). 17 This idea of individual effort refers to a fundamental concept, perhaps the one that unifies the multiple aspects of Confucianism — education.

Education is the preferred, best, exclusive path for creating people who are righteous, whose life is oriented for/by an agreement with Dao, which is realized not only through the practice of the fundamental virtues learned from childhood, but also by the most perfect mastery possible of reading and writing. As we saw earlier, to learn to read and write is to learn to make socially defined distinctions in reality, which in turn structure the way one sees-reads that reality. 18 This socializing function of language does not end with learning/instruction, which is very important in Confucianism and reinforced the importance of the educated class and the value of state exams that were fundamental to the maintenance of China's administrative bureaucracy; it is of an eminently practical and moral nature, which is linked to the teachings of Master Kong through exemplary stories, examples from his life and explanatory comparisons. This pedagogy of example and moral example model (independently of the moral qualities that function as values at a given time) was traditionally maintained in Chinese education/teaching, an indication of the decisive influence of Confucianism, which for a long time was included in the texts that supported learning. This dynamic circularity between text (for teaching), the transmission of the rules of conduct and the values to be prized/obeyed, and the definition of the goal that society should be striving for is processed within a social context, which at the time of Confucius was that of Tradition (referring to the Confucian Classics). 19 Tradition, which defines (but in the same way is renewed) understanding and provides social unity, is structured in a specific stage of the evolution of the Chinese characters with a polysemy that is 'attached' to it and specific to that stage. 20

The moral nature of Confucian teachings is also present in the doctrine's main concepts, which are of an ethical nature or are understood in this context as being markedly ethical or pragmatic. These basic concepts are transmitted through education, considered in its fundamental connection to life and its primordial function of making people human, that is, allowing them to acquire not only the superior moral characteristics but, and above all, a specific language that is culturally created and developed (the mastery of a language in the limited sense), and within which all action is taken. 21 The person to be attained through formative individual effort is designated by "chun tzu" by Confucius, which refers to the human ideal that, when concretized, should correspond to the sovereign and his exemplary action. "Chun tzu", which literally means "son of the ruler", was broadened to the concept of "superior man", which at the time of Confucius corresponded to men of the upper class, whose supremacy was based on their bloodline.

This ideal is an objective for everyone and is realized in the actualization of the principles/virtues that are inherent to human beings, thus affirming the structural principle of perfectibility, which is seen as a fundamental human characteristic. In its expressive capacity, this concept guarantees unity to a multiplicity of themes in the Confucian tradition and, in its intimate relation with the universal desire for happiness, introduces the note of dynamism that is the basis of education in the broad sense of moral and motor development of the new social order. This new social order is incarnated in the righteous person, who, in this doctrine, is unequivocally associated with the educated person, that is, the one who found the right, morally correct, measure of conduct through personal effort rather than through privileges acquired at birth. This person must be the ruler because his action, transformed by education/instruction (which includes arts and etiquette), transforms reality, and since he is on the right path to be followed (Dao), his well-being will lead to the well-being of others. 22

Confucianism, as it appears in The Analects, is based on a reinterpretation of concepts that existed at the time. Thus the notion of Dao, the central concept of Daoism, which emphasized its mystical aspect, was given a moral connotation by being identified with the Path of the Ancients (sage-Emperors), the model of conduct of the superior man who realizes the human virtues through appropriate education. The Dao of Confucius, contrary to that of Daoism, may be communicated (heard, studied, corrected, altered, present or absent, major or minor), which makes it the object of all education and gives it a natural character, because in order to attain human (moral) excellence one has to study and follow the example of those who are just. Since it orients action and is linked to communication (in the broad sense) through the intimate relation it establishes with education, the term Dao, when viewed as an extremely general common noun, may be approximated to the linguistic category of discourse, that is, language integrating multiple forms. In classical texts, "Dao" is used as a verb, usually being translated as "speak, say" which may still refer to "discourse" and be understood in a broad sense as any form produced by human language (verbal, body, pictorial and auditory language). This makes it easy to understand the emphasis placed on the importance of music, knowledge of rites and the imitation of the actions of superior men, along with the learning of reading, writing and arithmetic, for a proper education that is fundamentally practical, both in its objective, the way it develops and where it is applied — in life.

Everyone must find/know the path that will allow them to become better people and, in particular, that will make it possible to form the sovereign and the statesmen, in whom the moral virtues and the knowledge of correct attitudes must be more highly developed because they are the foundations of authority and the basis of a good government that governs by example rather than by force. As we can see, when a word is 'read' in light of specific presuppositions about human nature and politics, its meaning is broadened, rendering it more general and making it a supposition of all of Confucianism. Through the influence of the texts linked to this doctrine, Dao became an agent of change that modified society, marking Chinese thought with a pragmatic tendency that, in the final analysis, may be related to this moral, rather than metaphysical and cosmological, reading of the term in texts that are more characteristically Confucian.

Ren• (benevolence) is another concept whose meaning owes much to Confucian theory and that has a centrifugal quality in relation to other, more specific, concepts of this doctrine. Composed of ren 人 (man) and er 二 (two), it is difficult to translate because it is so general and is applied to many contexts that imply various moral virtues. As a term that refers to kindness, and in particular to the kindness the Sovereign should show to his subjects, it was rarely used in texts that predate Confucius, but it became the main object of reflection for Confucius and his students. Normally translated by terms such as benevolence, altruism, kindness and charity, Ren designates the virtuousness that, being equivalent to what turns a person into a just person, is the objective of education, defining the nature of the actuation of the person who has found his or her Dao, and thus reaffirming the eminently moral nature of Confucian thought. Its relational nature, implicit in its etymology, leads to the idea that goodness is not abstract but is realized between two people; it is practised in a social environment and corresponds to the transformation of human nature through the appropriate education, which immediately makes these two terms fundamental to the determination of human beings.

The perfection of the individual is socially defined and is expressed in the rules that govern interpersonal relations, in particular those established between fathers and sons, and sovereigns and subjects. Thus, at the root of Ren there is or xiao• (filial piety), zhong• (loyalty to the Sovereign [or of the ministers in relation to the feudal lords]) and xin• (good faith that should dominate relations between friends and inferiors-superiors) These particular virtues, expressed in prescriptions for action — duties — (Dao as a discourse that guides action), when naturally practised after a process of education, are a sign that what most essentially constitutes human beings has been attained. This has two important consequences. The interiorization of social norms (content of education) is fundamental to the actualization of human nature (from this follows the 'natural' character of education, which is a social process) and their exercise/repetition makes them easier to practise and better (more natural). Since Ren is a characteristic of the actions of just people and, at the same time, the possible determination of that which is eminently human, it expresses the double nature of the meaning of Dao: the formulas that orient education and the interpretation of social norms through action. Ren is therefore an interpretative key, with respect to Dao and to the major themes of Confucianism, while harmonizing relations between individuals and society, presenting this binomial as typical of morality.

This goodness, which characterizes actions that are morally correct, results when those actions follow more or less formalized models of conduct that are transmitted by education through knowledge/mastery of the classic arts and of literature that is considered correct (Confucius selected traditional songs/odes to be studied by his students), and the imitation of the superior men of the past, who were raised to the category of ideals of human conduct, especially for rulers. On the other hand, the idea that mutuality/reciprocity is the great characteristic of superior virtue, which ensures that the ruler not lose sight of the happiness of his subjects and that the well-being of each will be the well-being of all, introduces the importance accorded to social matters, understood as being established in a relational network dominated by family relations, which are a model for just political relations.

There is an underlying idea here, Li.• Li is an actuation code that, although transmitted, leaves room for individuality, and a norm of conduct that, although of universal nature, may be adapted to circumstances. At the time of Confucius, the term Li designated the ritualized protocol associated with religious rituals, which was broadened by extrapolation to the various forms of social actuation that involved a formalized code of conduct and normally took place within temples. The 'design' of the character gives an indication of this meaning by schematically describing a sacrificial vessel containing the precious objects to be offered to the spirits (today it still means 'gift') and, by extension, designates the ritual of offering and all the associated artistic manifestations. Li is one of the main terms discussed in Confucian texts, being identified as peculiar to government, and linked to the idea that the foundations of ritual are a force that orders individual actuation and social relations. The ethical emphasis placed on the term reveals the characterization of all ritual as a set of rules of proper conduct, which should correspond to the nature of social relations established in agreement with conventions based on the morality of interpersonal ties that are established at the level of the family and society as a whole.

To make a ritual gesture is to harmonize natural gestures, to dominate natural passions through a particular mental disposition that is associated with the corporal repetition of a set of rules considered appropriate for the establishment of a temporary direct relation between the natural and the supernatural or, more generally, for the creation and maintenance of social harmony. Emphasizing the social and individual need for ritual, it is the observance of the rule of action that is emphasized. Thus, the ritualization of individual and social gestures is analogous to their identification with action that is right and appropriate, with what it is correct to do, this being expressed in Confucius by the concept of Yi (Righteousness).

This rectitude of virtuous human action is intimately linked to the capacity to judge for oneself what is just, making it possible to understand, in a new light, the ethical essence of Li and its 'adaptable universality' in accordance with the dictates of practical reason. The rule that Li expresses is a universal one, but it must be associated with a rational decision in relation to what is right. Although this universality ensures the ethicality of ritualized attitudes (especially because the Chinese did not know of other cultures whose civilization was as developed as theirs) and their value for individual formative practice, admitting that in certain circumstances what is usually considered good may be bad, and as such must not be obeyed, ensures that the rule will be adaptable to circumstances, allowing it to be effectively moral. If Li is the expression of what is correct (Yi), it must fundamentally be the set of prescriptions of reason, which makes it possible to guarantee the supreme liberty of the superior man, whose actions do not need to be regulated for he always knows 'what must be done', thus guaranteeing the actions of the ruler when they are based on moral virtuousness (Ren), because they correspond to a manifestation of the true path (Dao), which is markedly moral.

In the final analysis, what Confucian virtues have in common is that they are of an eminently active nature, referring to actions that occur daily between human beings, which may thus be judged and evaluated. The exemplarity of morally correct action is manifested by itself and must be a factor of the development of, and harmony in, a society. We are not dealing here with the action of just any ideal being, situated outside of specific historical conditions, but rather with individual practice in a social universe that is conditioned but is the only one in which virtue has meaning. And the person who actualizes his or her essence as a moral being must be responsible for government through an actuation that manages obedience through respect. It is in this sense that a just person is the educator par excellence, to whom we may refer the pedagogical practice of Master Kong, who instituted the first public school in China, with all the importance this concept of jia• (school) was to have in the organization of Chinese thought later on.

The terms presented above constitute an independent conceptual network, and when read in light of ethical/moral Confucian ideas, in a context of reinterpreting classical notions, it was possible to give them an extremely practical connotation that had a determining influence on the Chinese way of thinking/being. The use of literary texts in an educational program in which terms were interpreted in light of theoretical presuppositions that differed from the ones traditionally associated with them, making it possible to alter their meaning — broaden their plurisemy — constituted an important step in the evolution of Chinese characters.

§4. A PROVISIONAL CONCLUSION

In this article, I have tried to explain the fact that the immediate differences in the way of being and the cosmic vision of the Chinese may be clarified to a certain extent through reflection on the Chinese system of language, which expresses and organizes the way of being Chinese. Although linguistic analysis, when well placed, allows us to affirm the priority of the word over the sentence, both as an object of analysis and in the experiential use of written language, it still refers to the primarily socializing function of language (as being a consequence) and thus manifests the normative character language exerts on the way we access the world. The way we think is immediately limited by the way we use language as a possibility characteristic of human beings. In the case of the Chinese, the way language is used is decisively linked to the structure and nature — pictography — of characters as linguistic units that are perfectly distinct from those of alphabetical languages.

Along with the 'attachment' of the written form to the things it says, the practical directionality of Chinese thought distances it from the metaphysical orientation that has always dominated western thought, affecting the evolution of thought and language, whose rhythm is notoriously slower in the Chinese world. This does not imply an absence of abstract thought; rather, in the Chinese cosmic vision priority is given to practical reason and to the domination of the individual by social ties. The history of Western thought has typically been preoccupied with speculation on the ultimate meaning of the universe and humanity's place in it. For the Chinese, the issue is the best path to be followed by people who are presupposed in relation to the universe and, in particular, the social universe on which they depend and in which they intervene through their actions. For this reason, thought of an ethical nature takes priority over theoretical speculation in classical Chinese philosophy.

These differences account for two ways human beings see their place in the world. This diversity does not suggest a value judgement regarding the primacy of one of them, but rather an attempt to start looking beyond the immediate irreductibility of some aspects for an understanding that may allow a truer access to the meaning of Humaneness and its main capabilities.

Confucius was chosen to illustrate the particularity of the Chinese way of situating oneself in the world and to show some of the suppositions associated with it, in particular the tensional interplay between reality-language-thought, because he was one of the main classical Chinese thinkers, the beneficiary of a cultural tradition to which he gave a new direction, and because humanist concerns are evident in his doctrine, along with reflection on language itself. Aside from this, the emphasis placed on the social aspect and the permanent constitutive relation between this and the individual, which give it a 'natural' dimension through reflection on education as the means of humanization par excellence, were determinant themes in the evolution of Chinese thought, which is essentially still Confucian. 23

As I stated at the beginning, this is not a definitive article on Chinese thought or one of its models; rather, it brings together a few ideas, based on various sources, that help shed some light on an apparently different way of being in the world. It is an effort to understand the meaning of Humaneness, while accepting that there are multiple ways of being, which rather than indicating a defining weakness, seems to indicate a richness that points to universal traits. Beyond the immediate differences there is a common substratum that identifies us as humans and, in this sense, explanations of that which is different are also a way of knowing ourselves better. And in a world dominated by diversity and rapid change, every effort to understand what is different is a stop on the natural pace, a moment of reflection on the permanent suppositions that structure change and contribute to the approximation of cultures that are more and more destined to communicate.

Translated from the Portuguese by: Paula Sousa

NOTES

1 C. HANSEN, Language in the Heart-Mind, in ALLISON, Robert E., ed., "Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots", Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, p.77 — "Most characters are made up of one or more units of basic meaning which we call radicals. Radicals tend to be used as semantic categories even in constructing otherwise phonemic characters [...]. For example, the phonematic ma with the 'earth' radical means dust, with a 'hand' radical means 'touch', and with a 'stone' radical means 'grind'."

2 GRANET, Marcel, La pensée chinoise, Paris, Éditions Albin Michel, [n. d.], chap. 2 — To appreciate the interpretative richness of this theory and the two characters that designate it.

3 WING Tsit Chan, trans. and ed., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, p.244 — "The yin yang doctrine is very simple but its influence has been extensive. No aspect of Chinese civilization — whether metaphysics, medicine, government or art — has escaped its imprint. [...] all things and events are products of two elements, forces or principles: yin, which is negative, passive, weak and destructive, and yang, which is positive, active, strong and constructive. [...] The two concepts of yin and yang and the Five Agents go far back to antiquity and to quite independent origins. [...] For example, we are not sure whether the terms yin and yang originally referred to physical phenomena (clouds shading the sun and the sun shining, respectively) or the female and male."

4 ALLISON, Robert E., An Overview of the Chinese Mind, in ALLISON, Robert E., ed., "Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots", Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, pp. 13-14 —At this point, it is worthwhile citing what this author R. E. Allinson wrote in the opening chapter of the book that compiles some of the current contributions to a Western understanding of Chinese thought and its difference: "If man is envisioned as being already in harmony with the cosmos and the world, it is much more likely for a philosophy or philosophies to evolve which point the way to maintaining, enhancing or, if it is lost, recovering that initial harmony with the world. There is absolutely no need, as in the case of Heidegger, for discovering man's nature to be in the world (or remembering this) and announcing it as if it were a great insight. This has already been tacitly or explicitly accepted as a long-known fact. [...] There is no strong drive to find the ultimate answer if one already feels that one has a place and is in that place."

5 Apart from the proposal that follows, which is a subjective reflection exercise (as they all are!), this particular aspect will be discussed further later on, as it applies to concepts of an ethical and moral nature.

6 See: Note 1.

7 HANSEN, Chad, op. cit., p.82 — "Classical Chinese philosophers' theories about their own language, by contrast, fix on the word as the basic unit. They think of a word as having a scope — the part of reality it selects. They pursue an interest in how stringing or combining words affects this scope. This interest leads them to study compound terms and some phrases and sentences. However, they do not pick the sentence out as a distinctly structured string."

8 XU Chuiyang, ed., LIANGSHIN Sheng, illus., PHEN, S. T., trans., Three Character Classic in Pictures, Singapore, EPB Publishing, p.36 — E. g., Yue 曰 (say), Ren 仁 (Benevolence), Yi 义 (Righteousness), Li 礼 (Propriety), Zhi 智 (Wisdom), Xin 信 (Trust).

Meaning that there are five basic virtues: Benevolence, Righteousness, Propriety, Wisdom and Trust.

9 HANSON, C., op. cit., pp. 80-81 — "Classical Chinese philosophers do not formulate any mental language theory [...] knowing a word was analogous to mastering a skill. The writing or verbal skill combined with an ability to make a distinction. This ability to discriminate is also a learned, socially defined skill. The test for mastering or knowledge of that skill is irreductibly social or conventional. [...] Had Chinese thinkers invented a 'mental picture' view of how the mind learns language, it would have seemed redundant to them. It would never have seemed to them to have solved any important issue about language."

10 CREEL, Herrlee G., Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-Tung, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1953, p. 25 — "Our attempt to understand Confucius is made difficult by the large mass of legend and tradition that has accumulated about his name so thickly, over the centuries, that it becomes very hard to see the truth. [...] Our only safe course, therefore, is to completely disregard the elaborate traditional story of his life and thought and trust only the more meager testimony that can be gleaned from documents that can be proved to be early and reliable."

11 WING Tsit Chan, trans. and ed., op. cit., p. 19. "Interpretations of Confucius' teachings have differed radically in the last 2,000 years. [...] The Analects is a collection of sayings by Confucius and his pupils pertaining to his teachings and deeds. [...] The name Lun-Yu did not appear until the 2nd century BC. At that time there were three versions of it, with some variations. [...] The material [referring to the only surviving version of The Analects] is unsystematic, in a few cases repetitive, and in some cases historically inaccurate. However, it is generally accepted as the most reliable source of Confucian teachings."

12 CHENG, Anne, Conversações de Confúcio, Lisboa, Ed. Estampa, 1991, pp. 13-14 — "In the beginning, there was order. We must return to that, to the time of the sage-emperors of mythology, Yao, Shun and Yu, to whom Confucius pays tribute. [...] They are the founding fathers of Chinese culture and, in a way, of political order. Confucius refers mainly to Yao and Shun as examples of humble and disinterested sovereigns. [...] Then come the founders of the 'historical' dynasties. Cheng Tang is mentioned only once in Conversations (XII, 22); it is mainly to the founders of the Zhou dynasty (1121-256 BC) that Confucius refers as the sovereigns of an ideal government."; WING Tsit Chan, trans. and ed., op. cit., p. 15 "His repeated mention of sage-emperors Yao and Shun and the Duke of Chou as models seems to suggest that he was looking back to the past. Be that as it may, he was looking to ideal men rather than to a supernatural being for inspiration."

13 Idem. — "His primary concern was a good society based on good government and harmonious human relations. To this end he advocated a good government that rules by virtue and moral example rather than by punishment or force. His criterion for goodness was Righteousness as opposed to profit. For the family, he particularly stressed filial piety, and for society in general, proper conduct or Li (propriety, rites)."; ALLISON, Robert E., op. cit., p. 19 — "In the case of Kongzi, filial piety and the place of the family in general receives a strong emphasis for the development of ethical values. [...] For the Chinese mind, the value of the family is self-evident [...] the family represents a natural extension of oneself. There is no need to prove the priority or the primacy of the family. It is accepted as a given fact."

14 CREEL, Herrlee G., op. cit., p.45 — "Confucius was not only willing that men should think for themselves; he insisted upon it. He was willing to help them and to teach them how to think [...]."

15 CRÉPON, Pierre, Le bouddhisme et la spiritualité orientale, Paris, Éditions Pocket, 1994, p.72 — "Confucianism developed during a period of feudal battles that followed the classical period of the Chou dynasty. That period was characterized by violence and disorder. [...] The teachings of Confucius are above all an attempt to restore moral order and peace in a society where anarchy reigned."

16 CHENG, Chung-Ying, Chinese Metaphysics as Nonmetaphysics: Confucian and Daoist Insights into the Nature of Reality, in ALLISON, Robert E., ed., "Understand-ing the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots", Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, p. 167 — "The separation of the sensible from the non-sensible can thus become an inherent tendency in the use of a phonetic language, just as the cohesion of the sensible with the nonsensible can become a fundamental feature of the use of an imagelanguage."; HANSEN, Chad, op. cit., pp. 79-80 —"Briefly, that a character is an ideograph [actual possible characterization of the nature of characters] entails that its written shape be partly or largely a function of the meaning of the character. In pictographs, a spatio-temporal isomorphism explains the relation between the written word and the parts of the world it picks out. [...] Written Chinese was standardized at the end of the classical period of philosophy. Before this standardization, Chinese characters were relatively more varied and pictographic. They were more intuitively recognizable as pictures. The Han characters are, in turn, relatively more pictographic than the simplified characters promoted in China."

17 CUA, A. S., The Concept of Li in Confucian Moral Theory, in ALLISON, Robert E., ed., "Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots", Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, pp. 209-210 — "Definition, in the sense of meaning-explanation, is a matter of practical rather than theoretical necessity. Since discourse is viewed as possessing normative import, implying a unity and harmony of knowledge, thought, speech, and action, it is not something one engages in for the sake of theory construction, which has no necessary connection with conduct. The point does not depreciate the importance of theoretical inquiry, but focuses upon its relevance to the requirements of practice."

18 HANSEN, Chad, op. cit., pp. 87-88 — "Chinese characters are social and learned. Chinese theory treats learning language as acquiring the ability to follow socially shared discrimination patterns. [...] A language is always the language of a community. The sounds do not represent pictures in our subjectivity [a notion that is presented as typical of Western language theory]. If sounds correspond to anything, they correspond to the characters or graphs of a shared and unifying system of conventional pictures. Language is social. It is the key way in which we socialize with other humans. [...] The scope of a term corresponds to the skill of dividing things. We are all similarly trained to discriminate in guiding behaviour. However, each situation in which we guide our action by codes made up of ming• [noun, word] is unique. We inevitably extrapolate from the circumstances in which we learned the word to a circumstance in which we apply it."

19 The Confucian Classics include ancient Chinese texts (some of which are attributed to Confucius, although they must have been written much later) that constituted the epitome of knowledge/religion at the time of Confucius. They are: The Book of Changes, The Book of Odes/Songs, The Book of Rites, The Book of History and Spring and Autumn Annals, although not everyone classifies them this way. Several miscellaneous cosmological 'theories' were added to these texts, among them the theory of yin and yang and of the five elements or principles (associated with the five points of the compass — the centre being included and given priority — the five colours, the five principal relations between people [...]), which was fundamental to the Chinese cosmic vision. This theory is echoed in the five Confucian virtues, which are associated with a numerological theory that represents cosmic movement by representing the interrelation between the Wu Xing (Five Elements) of the two major cosmic categories (yin and yang).

See: GRANET, Marcel, op. cit.; TSAO, Pen Yeh, Taoist Ritual Music, Hong Kong, Hai Feng, 1989 — Especially the first part.

20 NEVILLE, R. C., The Chinese Case in a Philosophy of World Religion, in ALLISON, Robert E., ed., "Under-standing the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots", Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, p.55 — "In China, for instance, the ancient ideas of yin and yang were developed in many ways, connected with ideas of Heaven, Earth and Benevolence, with moral speculations in Mengzi (Mencius), with physical speculations in the medieval Daoists, and with systemic concerns in the writings of Zhou Dunyi• and succeeding Neo-Confucianists."

See: Note 16.

21 CHENG, Anne, op. cit., p.31 — "The Master says: — "To study a rule of life, to apply it at the right moment, is that not a source of great pleasure? To share it with a friend who has come from afar, is that not the greatest joy?"" Also see: DAWSON, Raymond, Confucius, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 18 —" 1:1. Confucius said: — "Is it not a pleasure to learn and to repeat or practise from time to time what has been learned? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from afar?""

CHUNG, Tsai Chih, ed. and illus., TZU, Mary Ng En, trans., Da Xue: The Great Learning, Singapore, Asiapac Books, 1992, pp. 7-8 — "Through the investigation of things, knowledge is perfected, with the perfection of knowledge, thoughts become sincere, with sincerity in the thought, the heart is rectified, through rightness in heart and mind, the self is cultivated and disciplined, when the self is disciplined, the family can be rightly regulated, when the family is rightly regulated, the state can be well governed, when states are well governed, the whole empire will enjoy peace and harmony."

XU Chuiyang, ed., LIANGSHIN Sheng, illus., PHEN, S. T., trans., Three Character Classic in Pictures, Singapore, EPB Publishing, p. 178 —

E. g. gou 苟 (if), bu 不 (not), xue 学 (learn), he 何 (how), wei 为 (be), ren 人 (man).

Meaning: If one does not want to learn [study], how can one be considered a man [human being]?

22 With respect to this concept, which is of unequalled importance in Confucianism (it appears numerous times in the Analects) and merits individual attention on another level to clarify its place within the categories of a possible Confucian anthropology.

Also see: WING Tsit Chan, trans. and ed., op. cit., pp. 14-17; CREEL, Herrlee G., op. cit., pp. 27-29.

23 Ibidem., p.45 — "Yet few human lives have influenced history more profoundly than that of Confucius. The appeal of his thought has been perennial. In China, generation after generation has made him its own; today, even some of the Chinese Communists claim him for their own revolutionary tradition."

* B. Phil. by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Portuguese Catholic University), Lisbon.

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