Ritual-abiding or goodwill? A Confucian Question.

If we have to use one unit to focus on Confucius’s thought, we should do so about the concept of Ren, translatable as humaneness, humanity, benevolence, kindness, goodwill, etc.

The reason I said so is due to the historical situation that Confucius was facing when he tried to revive the Zhou ritual system to regain the peace of society in his time. Rituals, understood in the broad Ruist sense of “civilizational conventions,” changed since they are after all “conventions”. Even if we assume that none ritual prior to Zhou had never been considered by Confucius (which may be not accurate since he frequently mentioned ancient stories and cultures in the Analects), there had already been 5 hundred years passed after the event of “Duke of Zhou made rituals and composed music.” Yes, in Confucius’s time, rulers of states frequently usurped power to perform rituals that were supposed to be solely performed by the emperor. In this case, it was clear to Confucius what rituals these local lords should not perform and thus, he also condemned these hegemons relentlessly. (Analects 3.1) However, for rituals that are of less outstanding status, people in different times and places are just doing them differently, or in certain cases, people may stop doing them even if scholars can find the historical evidences of these abandoned rituals. Therefore, in order to teach rituals to his students to serve a distinctive social and political purpose, Confucius must have been delved into a quite serious, systematic thought about the origin, function and purpose of ritual in general, so that he could have a standard to advocate certain rituals over others, and in certain circumstances, even to invent rituals fit for his time. A visible instance on the creative ritual practice of Confucius can be found in those analyzed educational principles (please look into unit 6 of the course) that Confucius implemented in the first private school he founded.

So, what is the origin, function and purpose of ritual?

Regarding the origin of ritual, Confucius said, once ritual is lost, we should seek it in the wild field, which means seeking it in the uncultivated, non-urban areas where people still keep their naturally kind and warm-hearted dispositions. (Analects 11.1) He also likened the creation of ritual to drawing pictures on a plainly white canvas (Analects 3.8), and this means that only when we possess a solid foundation of those inborn dispositions of human beings, we can start to design rituals based upon it. In a more concrete term, when he explained why, in his time, people needed to mourn for three years after their parents passed away, Confucius said that people normally “derive no pleasure from the food that they eat, no joy from the music that they hear, and no comforts from their dwelling” after their parents die (Analects 17.21), and therefore, they need a ritual to perform and abide by to help them to go through this difficult time of deep grieving.

So, in the view of Confucius’s, rituals are needed to express and manifest the naturally given inner dispositions of human beings. This view is highly understandable even from today’s perspectives; for instance, we normally get excited, or feel somewhat different about ourselves when our birthday is approaching. It seems that we need something to mark this day, to celebrate what is meaningful to us, and also to project a conceivable future. All of these constitute the rationale of the perhaps most performed rituals of birthday party all over the world.

However, although rituals manifest the inner dispositions of humanity, they can also discipline and refine the latter. The Analects 12:1 noticeably instructs that “Humanity is realized through enabling oneself to return to ritual-propriety,” and also that “Look not at what is contrary to ritual-propriety; listen not to what is contrary to ritual-propriety; speak not what is contrary to ritual-propriety; make no movement which is contrary to ritual-propriety.” Given all our previous discussions of the significance of 禮, it is not difficult for us to understand this aspect of Confucius’s thought. Yes, the inner dispositions of humanity, no matter how naturally good they are, can serious go over their due measure, and become harmful. Think about the aforementioned mourning ritual, if there is no such a ritual to refine people’s natural feeling of grief, this feeling may be indulged for too long a period of time, and for too intensive a degree. If this happened, the community surrounding the grieving person might not have any means to interact the person, and the ordinary activities in that person’s life can also be greatly undermined. The same goes to every “goodwill” that human individuals may have towards certain aspects of life. For instance, I habituate myself to getting up early in the morning, and reading and writing as a scholar; however, in order to regather myself and maintain my creativity, I also drink a cup of coffee, do some meditation, and walk around the neighborhood every one or two hours when I am writing. If I only have a goodwill to balance the stillness and activities of my body without a routinely, materialized way to do it, the goodwill cannot be made true, and whether I have this goodwill at all can also be doubted.

Since ritual both manifests and refines inner dispositions of humanity, when these inward and outward aspects of human living hit a perfect balance and harmony, Confucius has an overall term to describe this ideal state of human character and personality: 仁, the virtue of humanity or humaneness.

Confucius once says that “if a person is not humane, what do they do with ritual-propriety? If a person is not humane, what do they do with music?” (Analects 3.3) So, to acquire the virtue of humaneness is the ultimate purpose of ritual performance. However, ancient Chinese characters normally have a cluster of meanings to apply in varying contexts. Treated as one among many virtues that Confucius advocated in the Analects, the virtue of humaneness refers to the sincere goodwill of human beings whenever we conduct ourselves kindly and benevolently in varying human relationships. However, seen as the cardinal human virtue on top of all virtues, the virtue of humaneness means “to love both oneself and the people” so as to fulfill the distinctive and all-encompassing human love in a cosmic consciousness. In other words, universal human love is how we realize what human beings can best achieve in an endlessly creating and renewing cosmos. Understood in both the minor and major meanings, the virtue of humaneness relates to rituals in a way that I can summarize as follows: Humaneness is the ontological origin, and existential purpose of ritual, while ritual both manifests, refines, and helps to nurture the virtue of humaneness. With this standard of ritual-propriety been set, Confucius can then select, invent and teach rituals in his school as a bunch of examples in this regard are indicated in the Analects.

Last but not least, among all the ways of ritual-propriety that Confucius thinks can help to manifest and realize the virtue of humaneness, there is one that stands prominently. Confucius called it “the method of practicing humaneness” and instructed his students to employ this method uninterruptedly for their whole life. (Analects 15.24) This is normally called the “golden rule” of ethics in the Confucian case. It has three major, inter-related aspects:

• Firstly, the negative golden rule, which is told by Analects 15.24: do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
• Secondly, the positive golden rule, which is told by Analects 6:30: establish others what you want to establish yourself; help others to achieve what you want to achieve yourself.
• Thirdly, the corrective golden rule, which is told by Analects 14.34: when someone does something wrong to you, you should neither revenge nor tolerate. Instead, you should treat them with justice, viz., to correct their wrong-doing in a loving, but just and righteous way.

Given our previous analysis of the relationship between ritual-propriety and humaneness, we will understand that none of these three aspects can be implemented separately. For instance, if you merely refuse to impose to others what you do not want to be imposed, but not proactively care and promote the well-being of your human fellows, your “humanity,” viz., the full potential to be a thriving human, will be greatly undermined. Most importantly, in mere reliance upon these three golden rules, we cannot become genuinely humane either. That’s because the implementation of these rules, just as any other practice of ritual-propriety, originates from the inner and deeper source of humanity, and thus, must be based upon the re-discovery and nurturing of certain aspects of our innately given human dispositions. For instance, if you do not like to eat American cheese, according to the negative golden rule, you cannot feed the American cheese to whomsoever. For starving and poor people who need the cheese and nutrition, this cannot be said as a humane deed. Therefore, the implementation of ritual-propriety must be based upon our good judgement of which naturally given pre-dispositions lead to the co-thriving of human fellows. In a Confucian term, this means the practice of ritual-propriety is premised upon and checked by our inner virtue of humaneness. In other words, the so-called golden rule of ethics can be best described as a silver rule according to a Confucian perspective.

The ritual-abiding behaviors alone cannot strengthen our goodwill to be a good human, while as analyzed before, the goodwill alone cannot guarantee us to be so either. An exemplary human should not let either aspect of the goodness of human life triumph over the other, and only when we reach an ideal balance between the raw and vibrant inner-dispositions and outward ritual-abiding behaviors, we can be called an exemplary human being, junzi. (Analects 6.18)

Required Reading:

Selections of Confucius’s sayings on humaneness and ritual-propriety in the Analects.

Recommended further watch:

Quiz:

1, Confucius never changed ancient rituals or invented new ones in his teaching. Is this statement right or wrong?

2, Confucius once said that in order to seek lost rituals, we should ask those seemingly uncultured human beings living in non-urban, wild field. What did he mean by this?

A, we should seek the manifestations of raw, inborn human dispositions.
B, Rural people are naturally more moral than urban ones.

3, Since Confucius advocated to “look, listen, speak and move in ways not contrary to ritual-propriety,” he would follow whatsoever rituals was prevalently practiced in his community and culture. Is this statement true or false?

4, The character 仁 have both minor and major meanings. What is the minor reference of 仁?

A, the sincere goodwill of humans when we perform rituals.
B, the cardinal human virtue of universal love as the ultimate purpose of ritual-abiding.

5, The character 仁 have both minor and major meanings. What is the major reference of 仁?

A, the sincere goodwill of humans when we perform rituals.
B, the cardinal human virtue of universal love as the ultimate purpose of ritual-abiding.

6, what is the golden rule of ethics in Confucius thought?

A, do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
B, help others to achieve what you want to achieve yourself.
C, treat someone who did wrong to you with justice.

7, “Filiality and fraternal respect – are they not the root of humaneness?” Whose view does this belong to?

A, Confucius’s student, You
B, Confucius
C, Mencius.

8, There are so many cultures, subjects and knowledge to learn in a liberal arts college. Can you describe the standard by which you select some ones rather than others to learn? And what do you think is the ultimate purpose of learning all of these? Do you find any similarity between your thought and Confucius’s on ritual-propriety and humaneness? Please answer these questions using a couple of sentences.

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College!

We have spent the previous units to talk about the name, the entering text, and several pre-Confucian exemplary figures of the Ru tradition. Now, we finally get to Confucius, which the English name of the Ru tradition, Confucianism, refers to.

It was the Jesuits who gave us this name “Confucius” in around the 16th century. When they did so, they tried to pronounce how Confucius was honored by Chinese people at that time. Kong is the surname, and Fuzi, means “honored master”; so Confucius sounds like Kong Fuzi, and it was not the original name of Confucius. The original name of Confucius is Kong Qiu, and he has a style name called Zhong Ni. Qiu means a hill, referring to what the forehead of Confucius looked like; Zhong means that Kong Qiu is the second son in the family, and Ni refers to the place where Confucius was born, a hill called Ni in the state of Lu, the state that we have discussed as the place where the offspring of the Duke of Zhou were enfeoffed, and thus, it preserved many ancient rituals and cultures of Zhou Dynasty.

I get into these fair details of Confucius’s birthplace and his name because I want to express my general feeling towards Confucius’s life: Confucius is such a real figure that his down-to-earth humanity stands very prominently among the leaders or founders of major world philosophies and religions. Firstly, this very human profile of Confucius is different from founding figures in the Abrahamic religious traditions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. From varying scriptures, we read a number of miraculous, nearly or fully divine deeds of these religious founding figures such as Jesus, Moses and Muhammad, which we barely find any resemblance in the case of Confucius. Secondly, the number of historical evidences we can gather about Confucius’s life and thought surpasses other legendary thinkers, the reality of whose life we can normally just guess and speculate. For instance, many scholars doubt whether we can know anything sure about the life of the Gautama Buddha, or the life of Laozi, the founder of philosophical Daoism.

However, this down-to-earth human face of Confucius does not mean that his life is merely human, secular, and thus deficient of all transcendent or spiritual commitment. As I will analyze in more details, the concept of “mandate of heaven” (天命) plays a significant role in Confucius’s life, and he indeed tried to live a meaningful and powerful human life with a cosmic consciousness towards what humans can and should do within the entire universe. In this sense, the person of Confucius indicates a lifestyle which we can name as “this worldly spirituality,” and for me, because the lifestyle seems naturally fit into many aspects of human consciousness in modern society, I find it very appealing.

The significance of Confucius to the Ru tradition is that he established the first private school in ancient China, and started to systematically study, teach and propagate ancient wisdom with an ultimate purpose of improving the society where he lived in. In other words, before Confucius, although legendary sages such as Yao, Shun and Duke of Zhou had furnished great wisdom for later generations to follow, all educational resources were monopolized by the government, and therefore, no commoner, which referred to people with no noble pedigree, could become an educated person. However, in the time of Confucius, the central authority of Zhou Dynasty was collapsing, and the official school system was crumbling. This situation furnished a historic opportunity for such a highly intelligent and dedicated human being, Confucius, to democratize the educational enterprise so that he could help his society through making education more accessible. This was unprecedented in ancient China, and in this regard, we can compare Confucius to Plato and Aristotle who opened the earliest schools of liberal arts in ancient Greece. This is also the reason why, comparatively speaking, we can have more historical evidences of Confucius’s sayings and deeds, since he had a large group of students and followers, and his main social activities took place within or in connection to his school. Because of the huge impact of Confucius upon the Ru tradition which he helped to continue and incubate, he was almost universally respected by whomsoever pursued their education in any school system in the context of ancient China. So, without any surprise, Protestant missionaries named the Ru tradition as “Confucianism” in the 19th century partly because of the universal respect to Confucius that these missionaries have witnessed among ancient Chinese people, although as I explained before, the name “Confucianism” is a misnomer.

Since the last topic to avoid in a course about “Confucianism” is Confucius, we will use two units to talk about Confucius. One is about his life and another is on his thought.

There is no better way to decipher Confucius’s life than his own autobiography. My teacher back at Boston, Prof. John H. Berthrong, once told me that this is perhaps the shortest, and also the most famous autobiography ever written by a human being, and it reads like this:

The Master said, “At fifteen, I set my mind upon learning (or, establish my will on learning); at thirty, I took my stand in society; at forty, I became free of doubts; at fifty, I understood the Mandate of Heaven; at sixty, my ears were attuned to it [or, I obeyed it (the Mandate of Heaven) ]; and at seventy, I could follow my heart’s desires without overstepping the bounds of propriety (or, without overstepping the due measures).” (Analects 2.4 – Translation based on Slingerland.)

Here, I will try my best to explain what Confucius looked like at each of these self-described stages of life. But I also highly recommend you to do the required reading, and watch the required video, so that you can get more details about how scholars have tried to confirm the details of Confucius’s life. So, let’s do it one stage after another:

Stage One: “At fifteen, I set my mind upon learning (or, establish my will on learning).”
Many books on self-care or success share a truism about human life: unless you want to be successful, you cannot be a successful person. The same goes to Confucius’s life. He said he established his will on learning, and after 60 years of ceaseless learning (Confucius died at the age of 73, the year of 479 B.C.E), Confucius became the most learned person in his time.

There are several factors to stimulate Confucius’s will of learning.

Firstly, he was born in a declined noble family, and as the youngest son of a concubine to his father, he definitely harbored a will to recover his family’s honor. This will was best represented by one story in his earlier life. It was told by Si Maqian that when Confucius was a teenager, he tried to approach the noble family of Ji Sun, a man that held a great power in the state of Lu, to find needed connections to strengthen Confucius’s own career. However, because Confucius was merely a son of a concubine, and hence, not noble enough, he was rejected. To his great dismay, Confucius realized that he could not rely upon his pedigree to get a stand in the society, and thus, he set his mind upon learning so that he can become a successful man through his own endeavor and hard-working.

Secondly, the city where Confucius was raised in was the capital of the state of Lu, where many ancient rituals and cultures were preserved since the offspring of the Duke of Zhou were all enfeoffed in the state. However, Confucius was not allowed into official schools which at that time admitted students exclusively from noble families. Scholars guessed that Confucius’s single-mother, the great woman of Yan Zhengzai, must have played a great role to nurture Confucius’s interest in ancient culture. However, we do know that Confucius was mostly self-taught, and he just sought and tried to grasp any opportunity that he could learn from somebody or somewhere certain knowledge of the past of his country and culture. During the process, he also earned his livelihood while doing ordinary jobs such as being a bookkeeper of a granary and a shepherd.

Stage Two: “at thirty, I took my stand in society.”
Confucius once described part of the curriculum of his teaching as “Be inspired by poetry, stand on the rituals, and be consummate in music.” (Analects 8.8). Hence, when Confucius said he could stand in society when he was around his thirties, it means he commanded a sufficient amount of knowledge on the ritual system of the time so that he can earn his livelihood, raise his family, and thus, find a position in the society.

In a more concrete term, this means that after at least 15 years of self-learning, Confucius was learned enough to open his school. He taught ancient classics, and six arts (ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy and arithmetic) to people from all backgrounds, and thus, prepared them to get hired by varying governments and noble families. During the process, Confucius could definitely charge his tuition, and became economically independent. To be a teacher, an independent thinker and scholar, and to be economically independent because of teaching and thinking, these were all entirely new phenomena in ancient Chinese history, and the accomplishment of Confucius in this regard cannot be underestimated.

Because Confucius took education as his major job, there were many verses in the Analects to indicate his wisdom on education. For instance, the following three principles of Confucius’s philosophy of education are my favorite. First, “learning without a constant teacher” (學無常師), which means you cannot blindly follow any teacher, but instead, you need to learn from anyone who may benefit your learning. Second, “teaching without discrimination,” (有教無類), which means education should be universally accessible to people of all backgrounds. It is said that a bunch of dry meat can be taken by Confucius as the tuition to accept one student willing to learn; but Confucius also had some extremely rich students such as Zi Gong, a merchant coming from the state of Wei. This speaks to the fact that the admission policy of Confucius’s school was flexible, and as the first school builder in ancient China, Confucius was indeed dedicated to broadening the accessibility of education. Third, “A noble-minded person cannot be like a utensil” (君子不器), which means everyone needs to learn broadly to be a good human being at first, and then, to be good at a specific career to serve a specific aspect of human society. This is very congenial to the western tradition of liberal arts, and probably a major reason why I choose to teach at a very historical liberal arts college in the U.S.

Stage Three: “at forty, I became free of doubts.”
At the age around 40, Confucius gathered much reputation because of his teaching and knowledge. He also started to seek opportunities of serving in government in his home state of Lu and its adjacent state of Qi. One event that marked the maturity of Confucius’s knowledge is that the ruler of Qi once asked him about how to govern, and Confucius answered the question in a very concise way: “let the lord be a true lord, the ministers true ministers, the fathers true fathers, and the sons true sons.” (Analects 12.11) Since we already studied the Duke of Zhou, we find that Confucius’s saying is a concise re-statement of Duke of Zhou’s role ethics which was taken to be the key to all good human life and government: every human needs to shoulder their duty to fulfill their role in varying human relationships.

In a word, in the age around forty, Confucius mastered his comprehensive and principled knowledge on human affairs, and started to apply the knowledge to realms of practical human life. In this sense, he described himself as being “free of doubts.”

Stage Four: “at fifty, I understood the Mandate of Heaven.”
At the age around 50, there is a major upgrade of intensity and change during Confucius’s life.

Firstly, he got to work in the highest level of the state government of Lu, and broadly engaged himself in economical, diplomatic, and military matters. Because he was so successful as a statesman and increased the interstate influence of Lu, the adjacent state Qi tried to find all means to undermine Confucius’s position and the power of Lu. A cohort of courtesans were sent by Qi to the duke of Lu with a result that the duke indulged himself days and nights to totally abandon his state responsibility. This made Confucius realized that he had no more room to employ his political talents. He decided to leave his home state, and plunged into a journey of self-exile and wandering among states for another 14 years, with a hope that he might find an enlightened ruler to realize his political and social ambition.

Secondly, another decisive event for Confucius’s life around the age of 50 was that he started to systematically learn the Zhou Book of Change, 周易. This is originally a book of divination, but because it contains ancient wisdom of human life in a very condensed and comprehensive way, Confucius treated it mainly as a wisdom book to help him understand the position of human beings in changing societies and in the entire universe. If Confucius’s knowledge before he learned the Zhou Book of Change was comprehensive in the practical sense that the knowledge could serve concrete teaching and governmental jobs, his understanding of human conditions after he learned the Book of Change was upgraded into an all-encompassing cosmic consciousness.

Therefore, this is my understanding about why Confucius said that in his fifty, he could understand the “Mandate of Heaven.” Firstly, he knew his “talent,” viz., what he was good at and what he could contribute to society while establishing his own life in the society. Secondly, he knew his “limit”, viz., the practical obstacles that existed in his life to preclude his full flourishing. The dire political situation that his home state was trapped into definitely referred to this limit which urged Confucius’s departure. Finally, he eventually comprehended the “mission” of his life, so that he would fearlessly exile himself in varying foreign states so as to try his best to fulfill the ultimate meaning of his life. In a word, under a cosmic consciousness, Confucius was crystal-clear of his own talent, would like to try his best to both acknowledge and overcome the limit of objective conditions, and finally, to fight his best to continually fulfill the ultimate mission of his life. Compared to the trope of this term “Mandate of Heaven” in early Zhou dynasty which was mainly used to legitimize a political regime, Confucius’s understanding of the term is definitely more individualistic, more spiritual, and because of this, more relatable to contemporary readers.

Stage Five: “at sixty, my ears were attuned to it [or, I obeyed it (the Mandate of Heaven) ].”
The life of self-exile in order to find supportive and enlightened rulers is not easy. Confucius’s life was under serious threat in several occasions. However, at the age around sixty, all these difficulties strengthened Confucius’s cosmic consciousness on his “mandate of heaven” to a further phase, and the strengthened consciousness made him accept whatever may befall him with a total equanimity. For instance, when Huan Tui intended to kill Confucius, Confucius said: “it is Tian (heaven) itself that has endowed me with virtue. What need I fear from the likes of Huan Tui?” (Analects 7.23)

More importantly, regardless of those difficulties that either put Confucius in a life/death situation or drove him to seek tirelessly enlightened rulers, eventually of no avail, Confucius was firm on his mission and would like to do whatsoever ought to be done regardless of consequences. For instance, when a hermit mocked him to say: “The whole world is as if engulfed in a great flood, and who can change it? … Wouldn’t it be better to follow men like us, who avoid the world entirely?” Confucius’s answer was that “A person cannot flock together with the birds and beasts. If I do not associate the followers of men, then with whom I associate? If the Way were realized in the world, then I would not need to change anything.” (18.6). Similarly, he also forcefully encouraged his sometimes quite frustrated students in this way: “it is humans who can enlarge the Way, not the Way that can enlarge humans.” (15.29)

Therefore, with a firm belief in his Mandate of Heaven, Confucius accepted whatever may befall him in the evolving difficult situations of the 14-year self-exile with a total equanimity. In this sense, he can totally attune himself to the Mandate of Heaven without any doubt or complaint.

Final stage: “at seventy, I could follow my heart’s desires without overstepping the bounds of propriety (or, without overstepping the due measures).”
Confucius came back to his home state when he was 68. He was dedicated to studying ancient classics and teaching, and meanwhile, he was consulted on state affairs by the state while not pursuing any formal role in office. After decades of learning and practicing, Confucius was able to feel completely at ease with himself while still diligently pursuing those noble ideals of his life. So, in the age of fifty, he understood his mandate of heaven; at sixty, he obeyed his mandate of heaven; at seventy, he was his mandate of heaven, united himself completely with his mandate of heaven, without any second of his life to depart from the mandate.

However, this completely free and easy-going way of life is not without stress and grief. Several of Confucius’s best students died before him, his son also died earlier than him, and most importantly, until the end of his life, Confucius still didn’t find any enlightened ruler to help him to realize his political ideal. In many of these occasions, Confucius overwhelmed himself with the feeling of sorrow and grief to the effect that even his students were doubting whether his emotions were appropriate. (Analects 11.9). However, Confucius would say: when you need to grieve, grieve in the best and right way! That’s why he could follow his heart without overstepping the appropriate measure!

This is exactly the Confucius whom we were familiar with: a down-to-earth ordinary human with an extraordinary level of cosmic consciousness while never giving up his dream to make the world be better!

Required Reading:

Bin Song, “命 (Ming) – Mandate, Talent, Fate and Mission,” Huffpost.
Peimin Ni, “Life of Confucius,” in Understanding the Analects of Confucius (SUNY press, 2017): pp. 4-8.

Required Watch:

Recommended Watch:

Quiz:

1, The birthplace of Confucius helps his early learning of the Ru tradition because

A, The Duke of Zhou’s offspring were enfeoffed there.
B, Ancient rituals and cultures were preserved there.

2, We get relatively more evidences of Confucius’s life in comparison to other founders of world philosophies and religions around the same time. Is this true or false?

3, Confucius built the first private school in ancient Chinese civilization, and broadened the accessibility of education. This becomes one of the greatest accomplishments of Confucius. Is this statement true or false?

4, what factors stimulated Confucius’s will of learning when he was fifteen?

A, He wanted to recover the honor of his family.
B, He could not rely upon his pedigree for his career.
C, His mother helped to nurture his interest in learning.
D, He lived in a historic and culturally rich city.

5, what principles of philosophy of education did Confucius advocate?

A, Learning without a constant teacher.
B, Teaching without discrimination.
C, A noble-minded person cannot be like a utensil.

6, “Let the lord be a true lord, the ministers true ministers, the fathers true fathers, and the sons true sons.” In what context did Confucius say these words?

A, to answer questions about governance and statecraft.
B, to answer questions about family ethics.
C, to answer questions about his own life.

7, “Mandate of Heaven” for Confucius means:

A, his talent.
B, the fate and limit of his life.
C, the mission of his life.

8, For Confucius, freely following his desires without overstepping appropriate measures means no stress, sorrow, or other seemingly “negative” emotions in human life. Is this statement true or false?

9, Please use a couple of sentences to write what strikes you the most in the details of Confucius’s life, and what you have learned from them.

Title: Duke of Zhou Made Rituals and Composed Music.

Hallo! This is Dr. Bin Song in the course of “Ru and Confucianism” at Washington College.

The first unit of our course starts from explaining a key concept of Ruist philosophy, 禮, normally translated as ritual or ritual-propriety, and its significance for us to understand the name of the tradition, 儒.

If we look into some earlier forms of the character 禮, it looks like a utensil holding jade or other rarities.

Quite visibly, the origin of the term 禮 pertains to religious ceremonies by which people follow customs and utilize facilities to express their pious feelings towards ancestors and other deities. Therefore, the normal translation of 禮, ritual or ritual-propriety, is quite literal. However, in the Ru school, the school that almost single-handedly took charge of inheriting, perfecting, and philosophizing ancient rituals in the context of ancient China, the meaning of 禮 greatly expands, and becomes a unique, hardly translatable, concept and perspective to ponder the overall nature of human civilization. Let’s read how the Classic of Rites describes this broad significance of 禮：

“The course of the Way, human excellence, benevolence, and righteousness cannot be fully carried out without the rules of ritual-propriety; nor are training and oral lessons for the rectification of manners complete; nor can the clearing up of quarrels and discriminating in disputes be accomplished; nor can the duties between ruler and minister, high and low, father and son, elder brother and younger, be determined; nor can students for office and other learners, in serving their teachers, have an attachment for them; nor can majesty and dignity be shown in assigning the different places at court, in the government of the armies, and in discharging the duties of office so as to secure the operation of the laws; nor can there be the proper sincerity and gravity in presenting the offerings to spiritual beings on occasions of supplication, thanksgiving, and the various sacrifices. Therefore an exemplary human is respectful and reverent, assiduous in their duties and not going beyond them, retiring and yielding – thus illustrating the principle of ritual-propriety.” （《禮記 曲禮》adapted from the translation of James Legge）

Here, any rule or convention that can lead to the re-ordering of an aspect of human civilization, such as individual moral self-cultivation, varying human interactions, education, the execution of law, the establishment of political institutions, leadership in army, court and other governmental offices, etc., can all be called 禮. In my frank opinion, there is really no singular English word which can capture this broad implication of 禮. Trying the best that I can, I would like to say 禮 is any “civilizational convention.” The philosophical reason why the Ru school came up with this concept to designate the essential nature of human beings is understandable: once having evolved with a capacity of using signs, symbols and languages to interact with the world, the relationship of humans to humans, and the one between humans and the nature are always mediated. In other words, humans interact with the realm of uncarved realities, the nature, through our interpretations of the meaning of these realities to us, and using a Ruist term, these human interpretations are constructed by our use of varying 禮. For instance, our mind reads people’s smiles in different ways, depending upon the cultural and societal environment we live in, and furthermore, we also interact with these smiles using postures and expressions fit for our purpose. Natural impulses such as those raw emotions of wonder, joy or anger, may play a certain role during this interaction, but they are all embedded in a much more complicated cognitive and emotional process mediated by our interpretations of the meanings of the world. Understood in this perspective, every means to mediate the relationships between humans and between humans and nature in a uniquely human way can all be called 禮. Therefore, my translation of it, civilizational convention.

In the Analects, the book that furnishes the most authentic record of Confucius’s deeds and sayings, there are plenty of scenarios where Confucius either talked of or actually performed ritual or ritual-propriety in the analyzed sense of civilizational conventions. He cared about any knowledge about the sacrificial rituals in temples, he talked of why people in his time needed to mourn for three years after their parents’ death, and other related topics, such as how to conduct human relationships, what are the best qualities of a state leader, what music is the most appropriate for a certain social occasion, and even how to stand, walk, speak, look, eat, etc. In fact, one of Confucius’s self-suggested missions is that because the system of ancient rituals in his time were collapsing, and music was decaying, so that he would try his best to learn, discover and even redesign the best rituals fit for his time, and then, he would teach and propagate these ideal rituals so as to recover social order and lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of civilization. He called the entire body of these ancient rituals as “civilization” (文), and was quite confident to assert that the destiny of this civilization is on his shoulder. In extreme difficult situations, such as when he almost got murdered by political opponents during his exile, he relied upon this deep sense of mission and responsibility to strengthen his will of life, and eventually survive the distress.

However, a legitimate question for us to understand Confucius’s mission is that since he was a learner and advocate of ancient rituals, where were these ancient rituals come from? If he was the most respected teacher in the Ru tradition who has built the first private school to pass on ancient civilization to later generations, whom did he learn from? In the past several units of this course, we discussed Yao and Shun, these ancient sage-kings who had accomplished great deeds for Confucius to admire. But they lived thousands of years before Confucius, and Confucius’s admiration of them cannot be converted into the solid knowledge of their times. So, just like Americans who quite often evoke their founding fathers to make their contemporary moral and political cases, Confucius looked into the founding fathers of the dynasty he lived in, the Zhou dynasty, which had already endured about 500 years before Confucius. Among all these founding fathers of Zhou dynasty, one figure, the Duke of Zhou, whose name is Dan, stands prominently, and he turned out to be the most impactful figure on Confucius’s learning and teaching.

Let’s read several sayings in the Analects to understand this lineage of wisdom that Confucius tried to continue:

19.22 Gongsun Chao of Wei asked Zigong, saying, “From whom did Zhongni (Confucius) get his learning?”
Zi Gong replied, “The Way of Wen and Wu has not fallen to the ground. It is still there among the people. The worthy remember its major tenets, and the unworthy remember the minor ones, so the Way of Wen and Wu is nowhere not to be found. Where could not the Master learn from? Yet, what regular teacher did he have?”
7.5 The Master said, “Extreme is my decline! I have not dreamed of the Duke of Zhou for a long time!”
3.14 The Master said, “The Zhou sits on top of two previous dynasties. How rich and well developed is their civilization! I follow the Zhou.”
3.9 The Master said, “I could describe the rituals of the Xia dynasty, but the state of Qi cannot sufficiently attest to my words. I could describe the rituals of the Yin dynasty, but the state of Song cannot sufficiently attest to my words. This is because these states have inadequate records and worthies. If those were sufficient, I could adduce them in support of my words.”
2.23 The Master said: “the Yin (Shang) dynasty followed the rituals of the Xia, and wherein it took from or added to them may be known. The Zhou dynasty followed the rituals of the Yin, and wherein it took from or added to them may be known. Should there be a successor of the Zhou, even if it happens a hundred generations from now, its affairs may be known.” (Translation adapted from Ni, Peimin)

In the first two quotes, Confucius and his students indicated the origin of Confucius’s learning. It is the Way of Wen and Wu, and the teaching of the Duke of Zhou. These three mentioned figures, King Wen, who is the father of the other two, King Wu, the elder brother, and the Duke of Zhou are three most important founding fathers of the Zhou Dynasty. Among the three, Duke of Zhou’s role is the most significant since Confucius dreamed him all the time. And the last three quotes speak to the three major reasons why Confucius took the ritual system of Zhou as his primary masterpiece to learn and teach:

• First, The ritual system of Zhou Dynasty synthesized previous ones, and thus, represented the gist of ancient Chinese civilization in Confucius’s time.
• Second, Previous ritual systems are too remote to corroborate and study in details. But the Zhou rituals are well preserved in the state of Lu, which is the home state of Confucius, and also where the offspring of Duke of Zhou were enfeoffed.
• Third, the ritual system of Zhou Dynasty represents principles of human civilization that Confucius believes are eternal and everlasting so that any future generations, as long as they aspire to a sustainable civilization, still need to learn them.

Since Duke of Zhou was so important for Confucius’s learning, in the remaining part of this unit, we will focus on his personality, deeds, and his accomplishment in making rituals and composing music to eventually lead to Confucius’s admiration.

As indicated by the required readings, regarding the personality and the political accomplishments of Duke of Zhou, there were several major points to be honored by Confucius and later Ru scholars:

• 1, He helped his father, King Wen, and his brother, King Wu, to overthrow the last king in Shang Dynasty, and justified the conquest using a very new political theory: the legitimacy of rulership consists in the virtues of the rulers, which are confirmed by the support of the people. If a ruler succeeds to be virtuous and earn the support of their people, they will have the Mandate of Heaven, and thus, be legitimate to govern.
• 2, He helped his brother King Wu to govern the newly established state. In a crucial situation, he even would like to sacrifice his own life to secure his brother’s health. Also in light of his assistance to his father King Wen, Duke of Zhou represented the cherished family virtues such as filiality, and brotherly love in quite an eminent way.
• 3, When King Wu died, his son King Cheng was too young, and thus, Duke of Zhou had to act as a regent. On the one hand, he was the teacher of King Cheng so as to prepare his enthronement. On the other hand, when King Cheng was mature enough, Duke of Zhou fulfilled his promise and resigned from his regency. In this part of his story, Duke of Zhou was an uncle, a teacher, and a supreme governor, and he performed superbly in all of these three roles. Mostly importantly, his attitude towards political power earned much kudos from later Ru scholars: firstly, he was not obsessed with political power; when time is right, he would step down and yield to King Cheng as a subject. Secondly, his ultimate goal was to teach King Cheng to be a good ruler during the time of his regency, and this ideal of being an educator to political leaders quite fits the self-identity of later Ru scholars.
• 4, Duke of Zhou suppressed the rebellion in the eastern part of the country, punished its wicked leaders, appointed new leaders, and laid out a series of rules of government to stabilize the new dynasty.

In human history, I believe as long as any political figure succeeded to achieve similar deeds, they would be put on a pedestal to be memorized by later generations. However, the most important accomplishment of Duke of Zhou, from a Ruist perspective, still surpass the areas of self-cultivation, family-regulation, and governance. That took place in the form that Duke of Zhou established a whole system of rituals to reconstruct the entire Zhou civilization. This historical event was normally named by historians as “Duke of Zhou made rituals and composed music” (製禮作樂).

According to Wang Guowei (1877-1927), a prominent sinologist, there are three major breakthroughs that Duke of Zhou has made in this historic event:

• Firstly, he established the institution that kingship must be passed down to the eldest son in the royal family;
• Secondly, he re-organized the system of sacrificial rituals to one’s ancestors so that the relationship among different generations and branches of an extensive family is ordered;
• Thirdly, he prohibited marriage within a family of the same surname.

All these three major points of the Zhou ritual system are extremely important because Zhou dynasty is a feudal society, and the King appointed local political leaders according to their merits and their closeness of pedigree to the royal family. So, an elaborated family ethic to distinguish the duty and role of varying family members is crucial to the well-functioning of the entire political system. On the other hand, Duke of Zhou designed other aspects of the ritual system such as about how to recruit able people to fit government posts, how to distinguish offices, and how to hold many civil and religious ceremonies, etc.

Underlying all these concrete ritual arrangements of the newly established dynasty, there are several major principles that Confucius admired, and believed can guide human civilization for future generations:

Firstly, the purpose of ritual-performance is to cultivate people’s virtues so as to bring order to society. Although the blessing of deities and the divine power of Heaven were thought of as important, Duke of Zhou prioritized the role of humans in securing the blessing. In other words, in order to earn the divine support, humans need to primarily dedicate themselves to cultivating virtues through performing rituals. This spirit of humanism was continually developed in later Ruist thought.

Secondly, each human needs to fulfill their duty required by their role in a specific human relationship, and this role ethics, so-to-speak, was thought of as the foundation of individual well-being, social order and good government.

In a more concrete term, this second principle consists of the following aspects:

• First, 親親, that is to treat your family as your most close and important human fellows.
• Second, 長長, that is, within a family, the order of seniority is respected.
• Third, 男女有別, that is, men and women are different; marriage should not happen within the same family; and the right of a couple upon the management of their household must be fully respected.
• Fourth, 賢賢, that is, to respect people of good education and moral excellence. Accordingly, a key principle of good governance is meritocracy, which implies that a good leader must appoint the right people in the right positions.

On top of all of these ritual principles and initiatives, Duke of Zhou also composed poems, lyrics and music, and utilized these arts to educate the people of all these important ethical and political principles.

In a word, Duke of Zhou has cultivated great virtues, governed his country well, and more importantly, made rituals and composed music to lay a foundation for sustainable human civilization. Because of this, he was treated by Confucius as the most significant founding father of Zhou civilization, and became Confucius’s teacher secondary to none.

Required Readings:

“The Story of The Duke of Zhou,” compiled by Robert Eno in https://chinatxt.sitehost.iu.edu/Resources.html.

“The Announcement to Kang”, in the Classic of Documents, adapted translations by Bin Song from multiple sources.

Quiz:

1, In light of the etymology of the character 禮, what is the literal meaning of it?
A, religious ceremony/ritual
B, social etiquette
C, political institutuion

2, 禮 represents the distinctive nature of human civilization because:
A, the relationship between humans, and the one between humans and the nature are mediated by 禮.
B, uncultivated raw emotions have no role to play in human interaction.

3, Confucius described his own mission as to teach ancient rituals to all the people in order to recover social harmony for his time. Is this statement true or false?

4, Among King Wen, King Wu, King Cheng and Duke of Zhou, who is the eldest?

A, King Wen
B, King Wu
C, King Cheng
D, Duke of Zhou

5, which of the following reasons does not belong to the ones why Confucius chose the Zhou system of ritual as his target of learning?

A, the Zhou system of ritual is synthetic.
B, the Zhou system of ritual can be studied in greater details.
C, the Zhou system of ritual represents principles of human and civilizational thriving.
D, none of the above.

6, “Yet each time I bathe, I am called away three times, wringing out my hair in haste; each time I dine, I rush off three times, spitting out my food in haste, in order to wait upon some gentleman. I do so because I am always fearful that I may otherwise fail to gain the service of a worthy man.” This quote describes one governor’s willingness to respect and appoint talented people to the right governmental positions. Which governor does this depiction refer to?

A, King Wen
B, King Wu
C, Duke of Zhou

7, “O Feng, such great criminals are greatly abhorred, and how much more (detestable) are the unfilial (不孝) and unbrotherly (不友)! – as the son who does not reverently discharge his duty to his father, but greatly wounds his father’s heart, and the father who can no longer love his son, but hates him; as the younger brother who does not think of the manifest will of Tian, and refuses to respect his elder brother, and the elder brother who does not think of the suffering of his junior, and is very unfriendly to his younger brother.” Which principle of the Zhou ritual system do these words of Duke of Zhou’s represent?

A, reciprocal role ethics: every human needs to shoulder their duty defined by their role in a human relationship.
B, utilitarianism
C, deontology.

8, What have you learned from the thought and deed of Duke of Zhou? Please share your critical thought on this unit’s teaching.

Lecture in the course of
“Liberal Arts during the Pandemic”
at Washington College
2020 Summer

Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College.

Thanks for Ben and Sara to invite me to share my teaching experience to such a vibrant learning community which is formed during this very special summer, the summer of 2020, when, most of time, students and teachers do not know how we will teach and continue our life in the fall.

This uncertainty intruded very abruptly into our life in this past spring, and ever since, every human on the earth needs to learn how to adapt to it, and in particular, how to manifest the resilience of life in this particular time.

I have made several major adjustments to my previous teaching during this pandemic, and the theme of self-care and resilience stands prominently.

In the course of “Ru and Confucianism,” which is a 300-level course of philosophy and religion, I started to systematically teach meditation. I am personally a long-time practitioner of meditation, and have learned it from multiple traditions. However, it is only until recent years that I started to develop a curriculum to instruct students to practice meditation and contemplation in the classrooms of a college or university.

There are many pedagogical concerns to teach contemplation in a college setting. For instance, how not to proselytize a specific religion or ideology? After all, we are a secular liberal arts college, and do not prioritize any religion or tradition-based belief system. A related question is how to respect and harmonize students’ preestablished worldviews, and make them feel safe and inspired to practice meditation, the technique and philosophy of which may derive from cultures other than their own? In my classrooms, students may be Catholic, Muslims, Methodists, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, etc. Then, the question for the instructor is: how can we organize discussions and conversations on topics of meditation that can make everyone feel included and benefited?

My general strategy to deal with these concerns is

• 1) to contextualize, viz., to trace the origin of the history of any meditation practice so that I can present an authentic body of historical experience of meditation, rather than focusing upon my personal view, although I do express my personal views when they are needed.
• 2) to diversify and compare, viz., to show the rich diversity within a taught tradition, such as Confucianism, regarding how Confucian practitioners may debate their different views and conceptualizations of meditation; and to compare one tradition with other traditions, such as Daoism or Buddhism. In this way, students will still utilize their ability of critical thinking to decide which approach makes the best sense, and thus, have a conversation with their peers to exchange their views.
• and 3) to try to apply those traditional meditative skills in a modern context, which may mean bringing modern sciences such as brain science and evolutionary biology to account for the significance of meditation, or it may imply each individual student would be expected to create their own meditative method for the benefits of their own life.

In general, I embed the instruction of meditation and contemplation within the general pedagogy of liberal arts, try to use it as a major tool to regain the wholeness of students’ personal growth, and thus, manifest the holistic spirit of liberal arts education.

Once we have a pedagogical foundation to teach meditation, the benefits of teaching it will be very visible. And this is particularly so during the pandemic.

In the course of Ru and Confucianism, the final assignment is “Body Discipline and Video Production.” Students need to practice their favorite way of meditation inspired by philosophical concepts learned in the class, and make a video or powerpoint to demonstrate it. The examples of this assignment can be seen from my website (https://binsonglive.wordpress.com/2020/06/10/confucian-teaching/)

For instance, Theo explains one key concept of Qi (vital-energy) in Confucianism, and how he practiced meditation close to the ocean near his Californian home during the quarantine time.

Jason used his new knowledge of “harmony” or “harmonization” to re-describe his experience as a roller, and advocated the significance of this historically rooted, yet personalized practice of meditation for the contemporary world.

Christopher demonstrated superbly how he practiced archery to enhance focus and mental health during the quarantine. He was a senior to have written a joint thesis of philosophy and anthropology, and taken several courses in the final semester of his college; with the habit of meditative practice of archery deep in his heart, he seemed to navigate the busy, uncertain semester quite well. His thesis was actually awarded as an honor in the department of philosophy and religion.

In the following one, April used another philosophy we discussed in the class, Daoism, to reflect upon the seemingly over-development of human civilization. She believed Daoist ideas sincerely, and made a very nice video about it.

Finally, myself also made a series of videos to teach the breathing skills and varying postures of meditation such as cross-legged quiet-sitting, sitting on a chair, sleeping, walking, standing, martial arts, etc. Now, this is an established series in my youtube channel, and I can continue to use it for my future teaching. Let me remind the friends and students here that I continue to offer the course of Ru and Confucianism in the fall, and if you are interested in it, just give it a try.

Good, you now get a sense of how I teach meditation in a college class for the sake of self-care and personal development during the time of pandemic.

In the coming Fall, another adjustment I will make to my teaching is that, after being encouraged by students’ performance and evaluation of my spring online teaching, I decide to make my teaching of ethics in an even more timely and practical manner. I will teach the skill of philosophical practice and how to apply traditional philosophical and ethical wisdom to coping with self-defeating emotions such as anger, distress, anxiety etc.

The course is called “foundations of morality,” and it is a two hundred level of ethics course. I design the course according to the procedure of philosophical practice, which is a very new and promising development in the area of mental health and good human living. In general, the philosophical practice comprises six steps:

First, identity the emotional reasoning. Since most human emotions are accompanied by beliefs and a cognitive process of reasoning, the first step is to use logic, a crucial aspect of philosophical training, to uncover the hidden process of emotional reasoning. So, you need to know what you believe or what you think when you emote.

Second, if you think it wrongly when your emotions are inappropriate and self-defeating, find those fallacies of thinking.

Third, refute these fallacies.

Fourth, find a corresponding virtue to correct each fallacy. For instance, you may demand perfection about either yourself or the outside world. In this case, you commit a fallacy of thinking when you indicate a strong, disturbing emotion towards a certain life event. Then, we need to point out a virtue, a habit of thought and behavior, for you to correct your fallacy. In the case of demanding perfection, the corrective virtue is called “metaphysical security,” which is to feel safe and secure even in an uncertain and imperfect world. This is also a very timely virtue for the pandemic.

Fifth, find an uplifting philosophy to promote the virtue. For instance, you can use the knowledge of Aristotle’s ethics, Stoicism or Confucianism to promote the virtue of metaphysical security. In this case, the prescription for philosophical counseling may be a movie, a novel, a philosophical treatise, a book, or a piece of music. In the area of mental health counseling, this is called biblio-therapy.

Sixth, to design a plan of action and implement it.

The wonderful thing is that since I decide to focus upon self-care and good human living for my teaching during the pandemic, all the readings, skills, and techniques I discuss with my students can actually be connected to each other. For instance, in the sixth step of philosophical practice, students can visualize the plan of action during meditation, and thus, enhance the transformability of their emotions and behaviors during this uncertain time.

Good, I hope my lecture helps you understand how I work with my students to adapt our college teaching and learning of liberal arts into this very unique situation of pandemic. To conclude my lecture, I will re-emphasize the joy of teaching I get during the process: it is really among the most wonderful things in human life. As Confucius said in the first verse of the Analects: to learn, and to timely practice what you learn, isn’t this a joy?

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song in the course of introduction to philosophy at Washington College.

In this unit, let’s continue to discuss Plato.

One of the most ironic technologies that humans ever invented is social media. It is ironic because its original purpose runs so contrary to what this technology can actually bring into human life. What I am talking about is the effect of feedback loop in social media. Nowadays, anyone can find their group, any opinion can have an audience, and any information, including misinformation, can find its channel of circulation and proliferation, all because of social media. However, originally, we know social media was created for the purpose of increasing human connection, but now, it becomes a powerful tool to divide humanity into different echo chambers, and hence, put people into different caves. The cast of images, shadows and sounds from the outside real world on the walls of these caves would represent different realities to those people who consume them. Within a cave, people become so subservient to their majority view, while across these caves, people become so difficult to talk with each other. A notable instance in this regard is the well-studied role of social media in the 2016 presidential election of the U.S, when people on the two sides of the aisle seem to be particularly difficult to debate on policy issues in a civil and constructive way.

However, there is one way to break down the walls between echo chambers built by social media even if you are a consumer of social media. The function of feedback loop in social media is based upon people’s habit of thinking and information-consumption, and these habits can be revealed by the social-media machine which collects a gigantic amount of data from users’ past consumptive habits. For instance, if you’ve ever posted your opinion of one presidential candidate, then social media will recommend to you ads, friends, groups or simply news according to your preference. Since these recommendations are feeding your preference, it makes you very inclined to click them. Normally, the connection between your post and these ad. is patterned as it is indicated by a high correlation in the collected data. In a cognitive sense, these connections can be called a “habit of thinking,” “pattern of views” or even “stereotypes” about certain social or political issues. However, if you have a unique habit of critical, logical and independent thought, and particularly, if you always try to nurture an art of reasoning and persuasion which equips you with skills and a warm-heart to communicate with people who may disagree with you, then, your social-media presence can significantly break these correlative patterns which the machine detects solely based upon its collection of previous data.

For instance, I have been a long user of facebook. Ever since I studied in the U.S., I used facebook to find friends who are interested in what I am learning, and the everyday English used in the platform also helps the growth of my own English skill, since English is not my born language. However, I also happen to have some very different thought on a variety of political and social issues. For instance, I critique both authoritarian and democratic governments; I do not buy into any binary thinking to categorize the Western and Eastern cultures as essentially different; and I have way more FB friends who happen to be of different colors from me than Chinese or Asians. All of these make FB very hard to feed news and ads to me, since I guess, the machine cannot predict my habit of consuming information based upon how other people consume it in the past. You cannot fear criticism when you post something significant to your views of human life either; but when someone disagrees with you, debate with them nicely and constructively just as what you can do in a philosophy classroom. In this way, given time, I find my social media account is managed relatively well. Nasty comments and hostile personae appear less, and I can still use facebook for a source of needed information.

Believe me, raising my own use of facebook as an example about how to break the echo chambers does not mean that it is easy. No, it is not easy. I experienced exactly the same frustration and distress as many fb users did when I read rude comments or even attacks from online strangers during the past decade. As I mentioned, in order to have a good online environment, you cannot post in fear of criticism, you cannot consume information from one singular source, and you must always hold on to your principle and habit of thinking for yourself. These are anything but easy things to do. It needs energy, time, and a tremendous amount of willpower.

Nevertheless, I think all the above depictions about how the consumption of social media shaped human life can be understood in a very classical way in light of Plato’s Allegory of Cave, which is part of Plato’s book called The Republic, and also the required reading for this unit.

Careful students may already find that when I depict the situation of human life in the echo chambers of social media, I used the term ‘cave’ to hint at its connection to Plato’s Allegory of Cave. If you zoom into the details of Plato’s work, you will find even more illuminations on the situation. The competitive and aggressive manner by which prisoners chained in the cave communicate with each other; their hostility towards the freed prisoner who has seen the genuine light while being willing to come back to inform his fellow prisoners; for the liberated prisoner, he does not consume information, viz., images and sounds moving and echoing on the walls, from one singular source; but when he climbs up the cave, he needs a strong willpower to overcome his fear, frustration, and discomfort. All of these make Plato’s cave a great prophecy to human activities in social media.

Surely, the angle of social media is not the only one you can read Plato’s allegory of cave. You can read it as a story about how one gets education, in whatever area of human activities you can imagine. You can also read it as a story of political emancipation, about how oppressed people stand up and fight against their oppressors. You can even read it as a story of psychoanalysis, because the dark, sweaty and noisy cave is very much like people’s subconsciousness, while when one wakes up and enters into their consciousness, they are like climbing outside of the cave to breathe in fresh air and bask in the sunshine. However, the reason why the Allegory of Cave can be read in so many ways and has indeed generated its huge influence upon the intellectual history of human beings is that as primarily a philosophical allegory, it touches a pair of big issues that are so fundamental to human life. That is, what is real? And if something is real, how can humans know it? In philosophical terms, the first question is metaphysical while the second is epistemological.

In the assigned reading of this unit, there are two places where Plato elaborates his answers to these two questions before he told us the story of his cave.

In one place (479a-479c), Plato calls forms and mathematical objects as “reality” since they are eternal, unchanging, and always proportionate and perfect, and calls its opposite as “non-reality” which denotes nothing to exist. Meanwhile, he calls the visible physical world as something between “reality” and “non-reality,” because everything in this physical world are changing, becoming, succumbing to corruption, and more importantly, can be perceived differently from different angles. For instance, a tree can be both high and low, big and small, beautiful and ugly from different perspectives. Correspondingly, Plato calls human perception of reality as knowledge, the one of non-reality as incomprehension or nonsense, and the one of the in-between reality as belief or opinion.

In another place (510a-551e), Plato elaborated his hierarchy of realities and human perceptions as one allegory of four lines. In these four lines, on the left half, realities are in the physical world, and they are furthermore divided into images and objects, like a shadow of tree and the tree itself. The perception of images is called conjecture or illusion, and the one of physical objects is called belief. And these two kinds of perceptions comprise human opinions. On the right half, realities are in the intelligible, non-physical world, and they are also divided into mathematical objects and forms (or “ideas”). The perception of the former is called understanding, while the latter is called thought, and these two comprise the realm of human knowledge. For Plato, the knowledge of forms is higher than mathematical knowledge because mathematical systems start from premises taken by mathematicians as granted, and mathematical reasoning must rely upon the assistance of figures and images in human mind. However, for the knowledge of forms, such as philosophical discussions on justice, courage, goodness, etc., nothing is taken for granted. Also, philosophical discussions can critically think of each and everything, and do not use images or figures as an assistance. For Plato, realities on the right hand of the line are more real than the left hand, and their corresponding knowledge also enjoys a certain order in superiority.

Eventually, Plato thinks the form of “goodness” is the highest reality that humans can ever imagine. The role of the form of goodness is like the one of “sun” in the physical world: it makes everything be what it is, and it also provides energy and vigor for everything to strive for their ideal, the ideal of what is uniquely good for themselves.

Understood in this way, the allegory of cave is a vivid depiction about how a prisoner trapped into lower levels of realities and perceptions strives for higher-level ones. It is a story of intellectual development, a story of personal transformation, and a story of human striving.

Frankly, Plato’s allegory of cave is among my favorite philosophical writings in the entire world and the entire history. You may disagree with Plato’s metaphysical and epistemological visions underlying this allegory; you may read this allegory from vastly different perspectives and angles. However, the unquenchable spirit of striving for what is truly real and good represents a deepest dimension of the motivation of human life, and believe me, you will always need to come back to this allegory to ponder a certain truth about human life when you learn more, have more, and experience more.

Required Reading:

Plato, The Republic, Book V, 475 e-518 d. (A reading guidance is provided in canvas)

Recommended Further Watch:

Quiz:
1, What perspectives can you take to read Plato’s allegory of cave?

A, social media
B, education
C, political struggle for emancipation
D, psychoanalysis
E, and others.

2, what are the two most questions that Plato asked before he told his story of the cave in The Republic?

A, What really exists in the world?
B, If something is real, how can humans know it?
C, what is beauty?

3, The reasons Plato characterized the physical world as lying in between “reality” and “non-reality” include:

A, physical objects are changing, becoming, and thus, not as eternal and unchanging as mathematical objects.
B, physical objects are not completely nothing.
C, physical objects can have contrary attributes depending upon the perspectives of human perception.

4, The reasons Plato thinks philosophical knowledge is higher than mathematical knowledge include:

A, philosophical knowledge takes nothing for granted.
B, philosophical knowledge does not need to be aided by images and figures.
C, philosophical knowledge is higher than human opinions on the changing objects in the physical world.

5, what is the simile Plato uses to depict the highest form of “goodness”?

A, sun
B, moon
C, star

6, In 477d, Plato uses one term to refer to the ability of human beings to perceive the outside world, and it can be imagination, sense, intelligence, or memory. What is this term?

A, faculty
B, capability
C, power

7, According to 518e of the assigned reading, what is the decisive factor of education for Plato?

A, one’s will to learn
B, having good teachers.
C, having good textbooks.
D, entering good schools.

8, In the past several semesters, your schoolmates drew beautiful pictures to illustrate the setting-up of the whole story of the allegory of cave. Can you try to draw it on paper by yourself? The more details in the picture, the better. (This is not an assignment, and no grade will be given. You can choose to do it by yourself, and to post your answer if you want.)