EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Philosophy 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 114 Sjoestedt Gunnar (University of Oslo) Meditation and Morality Ledgers: Joint Root-and-branch Self-cultivation in the Late Míng Key words: Meditation, quiet-sitting, Ledgers of Merit and Demerit, merit accumulation, late Ming Self-cultivation in the late Míng is in modern scholarship typically described as a reaction against the introvert and highly virtue-oriented self-cultivational schemes of earlier Neo-Confucianism. In the present paper I wish to nuance this view by pointing to the continued presence in late Míng Neo-Confucianism of sitting meditation ( 静坐 ). One of the practices commonly invoked as an example of the “reorientation” of late Míng thinkers towards action and practicality, is the keeping of daily morality ledgers (a practice used by Confucians, Buddhists and Daoists alike to record and alter the practitioner's deeds, and, in some cases, for the accumulation of moral merit). However, as I will demonstrate, two of its most important exponents, Yuán Liǎofán (1533–1606) and Liú Zōngzhōu (1578–1645), both employed the extrovert practice of morality ledgers together with, rather than in opposition to, the introvert practice of sitting in meditation. I believe that one fruitful way of conceptualizing this relation between “introvert” and “extrovert” self-cultivation practices, is through the root-and-branch ( 本末 ) paradigm of the Great Learning. In “branch”-like practices, transformation of actual conduct is thought to lead to a gradual transformation of the virtual “root”, i.e. the self and its virtues. Far from being only interested in this type of self-cultivation as is commonly assumed, I contend that many late Míng thinkers preferred to combine it with practices taking direct aim at the “root”, such as meditation, and instead viewed the two as complementary. Accordingly, the dichotomy drawn in recent literature between “ideal-centred” and “action-centred” approaches to self-cultivation in the Míng and Qīng is, as will be the aim of this paper to demonstrate, at best inaccurate. Sterckx Roel (University of Cambridge) Working the Soil: Agricultural Tool Metaphors in Early China Key words: Early China, agriculture, tool metaphors, human nature, Zhuangzi Our analysis of metaphoric language is often one-dimensional. We tend to be interested in how a particular image is used to refer to a particular idea. Overlooked is the fact that metaphors --of and by themselves—are also factually (socially and technically) revealing. Agricultural activity appears to be a fructifying trove for metaphoric experiment in that respect. Farming imagery is embedded in narratives on some of the core ideas in early Chinese philosophy: e.g. the generation of things out of some sort of prior state (germina- tion), the idea of growth and timeliness (the seasons), the fostering of human nature (sowing, weeding), etc. Can we learn something if we were to read figurative language “in reverse”, that is, if we were to read analogies and metaphors not merely for their symbolical or referential potential but as conduits of techni- cal and social information? In this paper I will explore the types of information agricultural metaphors can impart. I will start with the example of the “well-sweep” in the Zhuangzi and next move onto metaphors related to working the soil. Suter Rafael (Universität Zürich) Self-Negation as Self-Assertion: On A Possible Genealogy of the Dialectic of Moral Intuition and Representational Knowledge In theWork of Mou Zongsan Key words: Intuition, Dialectics, Self-Cultivation, Morality, Contemporary Confucianism 新儒學 Contemporary Confucians like Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1886–1968) and his disciple Mou Zongsan 牟宗 三 (1909–1995) played a crucial role for the philosophical reconstruction of Confucianism in 20th century China. Obviously influenced by the popularity of Bergson’s notion of intuition in the 1920s, they soon identified this concept as a genuinely Chinese mode of cognition and opposed it to Western logic and sci-