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

The teaching of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was transmitted orally after his demise among Buddha’s followers. It was not until the first century B.C.E that these teachings were codified in written forms, firstly in Pali and then in Sanskrit. However, through reading these codified Buddhist teachings, it is clear to today’s scholars that Buddhism evolved quite a bit after the time of the Buddha. Around the 3rd century B.C.E, there was one flourished type of Buddhist teaching and practice which had been named as “Hinayana Buddhism” by later types of Buddhism. “Hinayana” means “small vehicle,” and compared to “great vehicle,” viz., the Mahayana Buddhism which developed later, Hinayana Buddhism was thought of as one inferior form of Buddhist teaching.

Since being named by its ideological competitor, no affiliate with the so-called “Hinayana Buddhism” would be happy about this name. In fact, this earliest type of Buddhism continues to spread and propagate. It is the origin of the dominate form of Buddhism in contemporary south Asia called “Theravada Buddhism.” Therefore, in order to avoid the sectarian and derogatory word “Hinayana Buddhism,” historians are increasingly inclined to use another more neutral term, “Nikaya Buddhism.” “Nikaya” means “collections,” “groups,” or “schools,” referring to the fact that varying interpretations of Buddha’s teaching existed shortly after his death.

As mentioned, the contemporary form of Nikaya Buddhism is “Theravada Buddhism” in south Asia, and “Theravada” means “the elders.” Named as such, this lineage of Buddhism is not only literally the eldest among all, but quite “conservative” in its philosophy, moral codes and its organizational form.

The teaching of Nikaya Buddhism is highly organized. It parsed out the Four Noble Truths preached by the historical Buddha in almost a Q&A format. For instance, to explain the origin of human sufferings, Nikaya Buddhism propounded two basic existential traits of all beings – impermanence and no-self. For each claim of these traits, it will furthermore provide arguments. Overall, these teachings were used to account for the reality of which human beings are alleged to keep “ignorant,” and therefore, incur a slew of sufferings to themselves.

After the diagnosis of human sufferings, how can we get rid of their causes? The answers given by the texts of Nikaya Buddhism are summarized as “Eightfold Path,” (right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right meditation), which are furthermore divided into three categories: wisdom, moral conducts, and meditation.

If we look into the details of the prescribed moral conducts and meditation, we find that although being centered upon the very charming ethic of universal compassion, these prescriptions are very “other-worldly” oriented, since they champion the monastic life featured by celibacy, moderate asceticism, and intellectual uniformity, and hence, they also doubt the value of family and state life to individuals’ spiritual growth.

Organizationally, compared to the commitment of Mahayana Buddhism to the equal status of lay people and monks regarding their ability to achieve nirvana, the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice, Nikaya Buddhism maintains a more rigid boundary between monks and lay people. The practical ways for normal human beings to achieve nirvana, and thus, be saved from the endlessly tormenting process of samsara seems to be envisioned by Nikaya Buddhism as in such a following process: if you are a normal person in a normal household, and you want to achieve nirvana or simply get a nicer birth in your next life cycle, then, either, you use your own wealth to support a group of monks so that their merits of spiritual achievement can be transferred to your own, or you must leave the household to join them, to become a monk or nun so as to actually practice Buddhism for the purpose of ultimate salvation. Even if you really become a monk or nun, the historical Buddha is for you not a deity; you will mainly rely upon your own teacher in the religious order, the transmitted oral or written Buddhist teachings, and your own efforts to elevate your spiritual strength.

So, why were Nikaya Buddhism and its modern-day offspring of Theravada Buddhism more conservative compared to other forms of Buddhism? Ideologically, it is less speculative, more organized, and in a certain sense, more practical since many of its raised points of thought are like psychi’atric manuals to treat specific diseases of mental health. Morally, it is more stern and ascetic; and organizationally, the rigid boundary between the religious and secular worlds is very visible.

Virtually in all fronts mentioned above, Buddhism appeared to be either revised or enriched by its later development, particularly by varying Mahayana schools that flourished in countries and areas of East Asia such as the ancient China, Tibet, Korea and Japan. However, even so, some fundamental understanding of the historical Buddha’s teaching formed in the period of Nikaya Buddhism remain quite consistent throughout history, such as the starting-point of Buddhist thinking on human suffering, the veneration towards monastic life, the distance from the secular, all-too-human world, etc. In the following, philosophically, I will specify one central point of Nikaya Buddhism and its arguments for it, since beyond the initial treatment of the point by Nikaya Buddhism, I do not find much extra types of argument for it in later Buddhism, and the point is also absolutely crucial for us to understand Buddhist thought in general.

The point made is that nothing has a “self” unrelated to something else, and thus, human sufferings caused by our unfulfilled desires of things-in-themselves are misplaced, since, firstly, there is no such an independent, isolated, “selfed” thing to cause suffering, and secondly, there is no such a “selfed” human to bear sufferings.

There are three major arguments made by the texts of Nikaya Buddhist (as indicated by the assigned reading) to argue for the idea of “no-self”:

• Firstly, nothing is impermanent, and therefore, no way to define a “self” for anything since all things constantly change.
• Secondly, each thing comprises of components, and thus, on top of these components, there is no self of this thing. Among the most frequently evoked examples are that apart from parts of a chariot, such as the wheels, yokes, straps, etc., there is no such a thing called “chariot,” and that if you continue to peel away the layered petals of a cabbage, there is really no such a “cabbage” to remain, and therefore, apart from those layered petals, there is no such a selfed thing called “cabbage.”
• Thirdly, there is a distinctively Buddhist idea called “co-dependent origination,” to imply that all things derive from a process of co-dependent emergence. Therefore, apart from those conditions that originate a thing, the thing cannot exist; in other words, there is no such a “selfed” thing which can exist apart from those conditions upon which it depends. This argument can be thought of as a further development of the second one, since all components of a thing can be seen as belonging to the cluster of conditions that originate a thing.

In a metaphysical approach, these three arguments are actually not that difficult to refute.

• Firstly, things indeed constantly change. However, for the period that one thing exists, viz., from its birth to death, there is always one way to define its stable character in distinction from other things. For instance, no matter how a tree changes from a seed to a full-shaped being, there is a way to distinguish the tree from other plants during the time when it is alive. Therefore, it is not a legitimate inference from perpetual changes of all beings to the conclusion that one thing cannot be distinguished from another, and thus, cannot have a self.
• Secondly, components cannot account for the whole existence of a being, since a being is quite often more than the sum of its parts. This is particularly true for organic beings, since beyond all visible parts that comprise a being, it needs an invisible principle, power or simply structure to integrate these components as a whole. A tangible example is a soccer team. Stripped of his or her connection to the team as whole, no soccer player can be a soccer player; however, even if we call on all the needed players to stand in line, this is still not a soccer team, which, in the final analysis, is exactly about how something beyond the discrete soccer players can organize them as a whole. Sometimes we use the phrase “the spirit of a soccer team” to designate the organizing principle or power, which is surely beyond the lump-sum of a bunch of separate players.
• Thirdly, the fact that all conditions originate the birth of a being does not entail that apart from those conditions, there is nothing new about the generated being. In other words, the generation of a being cannot be reduced entirely and without any remainder to its originating conditions; otherwise, the world is just a repetition of pre-existing conditions, and nothing new will ever take place, which, prima facie, is absurd.

The reason I enumerated my counterarguments above is not intended to deny the value of the Buddhist idea “no-self” all together. Instead, I just want to remind my readers that among traditions of world philosophies and religions, there are varying views of “self.” The Buddhist one may be correct, but in order to defend it, Buddhist thinkers need to confront possible critiques, such as the ones I just raised.

However, according to my knowledge of Buddhism, why it can be so appealing to many practitioners is not mainly because of its sophisticated philosophical arguments. Through the history of Buddhist thought, the practical commitment to releasing humans from suffering is always favored over philosophical sophistication; more importantly, the experiential, salvific approach to meditation is quite often thought of by Buddhists as being more thorough and effective than any philosophical speculation.

Seen from this perspective, it may be up to individuals to decide whether the Buddhist wisdom on “no-self” works; and I would conclude that the teaching may indeed work in the area of individuals’ inner psychology so that the philosophical entanglement with concepts and arguments would be seen by Buddhist practitioners as too off-the-track to be heeded. If this is the case, then, as what many religious traditions in the world turn out to be, the tension between religious practice and philosophy would become, again, visible.

Quiz:

1, what is the language that is the earliest one used by Buddhists to codify Buddhist teachings?

A, Pali
B, Sanskrit

2, Historians today agree that hinayana Buddhism is inferior to Mahayana Buddhism, and hence, it is called “small vehicle.” Is this statement true of false?

3, What are the three categories into which Nikaya Buddhim’s teaching on “Eightfold Path” can be grouped:

A, Wisdom.
B, Moral Conducts
C, Meditation
D, Literature.

4, For what reasons can we see Nikaya Buddhism, the origin of modern Theravada Buddhism, as a more conservative form of Buddhism?

A, it is ideologically more organized and practical.
B, it is morally stern and ascetic.
C, it is organizationally rigid regarding the boundary between lay and monastic people.

5, All aspects of Nikaya Buddhism have been changed by Mahayana Buddhism. Is this statement true or false?

Recommended Reading:

The Development of the Buddhist Canon.

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song for the introduction of Buddhism.

After contemplating ancient Greek philosophers and Chinese Confucian (Ruist) scholars, I believe my students will have an even greater cultural shock when starting to learn Buddhism.

If ancient Greek philosophy starts from stargazers’ unquenchable curiosity towards the being of the cosmos, and ancient Chinese philosophy starts from the self-taught Confucius’s study of ancient civilizational customs and conventions termed as 禮 (li), the Buddhist thought starts from almost a fairy tale, a story of a semi-divine figure’s personal life, whose real name is Siddhartha Gautama who lived around the same axial age of human civilization as Socrates and Confucius.

As a scholar grown up in China, I always felt the great impact of Buddhist thought, and consequently, I heard, read, and thought over Buddha’s biographical story for a number of times. In the beginning of this encounter with Buddhism, I was greatly amazed by each detail of the story, and got to figure out why Buddhists venerate the relic of Buddha’s body so much since understandably, such an extraordinary human being must have stimulated among his followers an extraordinarily pious feeling towards something which is of uttermost significance for human life. However, as I grew elder, experienced more, and learned more, I became a bit suspicious towards the authenticity of the told story whenever I re-read it. My suspicion derives from the fact that each major turning point of the story can be interpreted as having been used by someone to convey exactly the corresponding point of a philosophy. In other words, the more I read the story, the more philosophical it turns out, and consequently, the less story-telling it becomes. Since its purport can be so philosophical, I doubt whether the story was actually compiled by later Buddhist followers to serve a distinctively intellectual purpose. So far as we know from nowadays’ scholarship, the historical real Buddha is as much of a conundrum as many other founding figures of world religions such as Jesus, Moses, and others.

Nevertheless, the ideological thrust of Buddha’s story does provide convenience for us to learn a great deal of Buddhist philosophy, as well as the social background of ancient India where this philosophy originated and interacted. Since you can learn a great deal of Buddha’s story from this unit’s assigned writing and documentary, I would just pick up several major philosophical points of this story in the following, so as to provide an initial overview of the Buddhist tradition.

Firstly, when Siddhartha was born, he was predicted by an astrologer that he would either be a great king or a great religious teacher. In order to avoid his son’s path of being a religious leader, Siddhartha’s father secured an extremely luxurious and self-indulgent lifestyle for the youth of Siddhartha. Here, the contrast between the this-worldly success and the other-worldly spiritual accomplishment is impressive. It seems that from the very first beginning, the Buddhist thought envisions a dilemma between the two optional paths of human life: you can be either materially abundant or spiritually enlightened, but nothing in-between.

Since we have learned ancient Greek philosophies, and ancient Chinese thought, a comparison can make this Buddhist vision even more compelling. Politics was a central concern of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; and Confucius wandered for more than one decade to find an enlightened ruler in order to realize his political ideal, although he also would like to simply choose to be a hermit if no environment in any state allowed a Ru’s constructive political work. In comparison to all of these, what is indicated by Buddha’s biography does not indeed concern itself much with politics. Its ultimate message is about how to use a certain type of wisdom to defeat ignorance, and furthermore, to stop human sufferings as “sufferings” understood mainly in an individual and inner-psychological sense. It is not the case that this individualistic and inner-psychological mentality of early Buddhist thought cannot be employed by social activists to engage politics; instead, as indicated by the later development of Buddhist thought around the world, Buddhism can sometimes become politically very engaging. However, in the earliest moments of Buddhist thought, what is taken to be the foundation of religious enlightenment for each human individual is indeed of a thin relation to what’s going on outside humans’ inner psyche in society and politics.

Secondly, the four chariot rides that the young Siddhartha sneaked into were depicted as a turning point of his life, which propelled him to eventually leave his luxurious royal household to seek spiritual liberation. During these four rides, Siddhartha witnessed aging, sickening, and dying as three major forms of human suffering, and finally, he saw a religious renunciate who was practicing asceticism in order to find the desired liberation from the suffering cycle of birth and death. Here, we came across the reality which made Siddhartha formulate the first and second among four noble truths that was the first Buddhist sermon he preached after his enlightenment. Namely, human life is constantly suffering (noble truth 1) because we remain ignorant towards the reality that everything is impermanent and hence, has no fixed self (noble truth 2).

But more importantly, the story of Buddha’s four chariot rides spoke to the distinctively Hindu background from which Siddhartha derived his thought. Before the birth of Buddhism, the religious teaching of ancient Hinduism had gone through its earlier two stages, the one of ancient Hindu Valley and another one distinguished by the enormous ritual and wisdom collection of books called the Vedas. When the Buddha saw the religious renunciate, and decided to go to the forest to practice asceticism, he was following the method of religious liberation advocated by the third stage of Hindu religion: the so-called speculative Hinduism as embodied mainly by the teaching of the Upanishad. This form of Hinduism teaches that in order to get released from the endlessly suffering process of reincarnation (samsara) to achieve religious liberation (moksha), every human individual needs to renounce the society, treat their own bodies harshly, and accordingly find their genuine self – Atman, which, in the final analysis, submerges itself within the ultimate unchanging reality of the universe, called Brahman. So, why did the young Siddhartha see life and death as a tormenting burden for human life? Why did he go to the forest in order to get rid of the burden? It is all because of Upanishadic Hinduism.

However, as the story goes, Siddhartha finally denied this ascetic path of Upanishadic Hinduism, and realized that neither the self-indulgence before he entered the forest, nor the asceticism in the forest can afford the peace and happiness that he was longing for. The ultimate Buddhist path is depicted therefore as a middle way: you should still treat your body well, live a normal human life, but just don’t be attached to, or as Buddhists say, “cling to” it.

I believe that for many beginning learners of Buddhism, it may feel overwhelmed by the so many intricate details involved by the intellectual side of Buddhism, particularly its relationship with Hinduism. However, this is actually one of the most fascinating aspects of the learning process of Buddhism: we are able to get to know that Buddhism derived from the Hindu religious life as a boisterous voice of dissent, since 1) the Buddha philosophically critiqued the Hindu idea of genuine self, “atman,” and advocated instead that nothing has a self, and hence, there is “no self”, “anatman,” and 2) as mentioned, the Buddha also denied the extremely ascetic lifestyle of religious renunciates steeped in the teaching of Upanishadic Hinduism. More importantly, Hinduism continued to evolve after the movement of Buddhism, and eventually, Buddhism found no popular reception among Hindu people, and got to migrate to south Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and nowadays, it continued to set afoot in modern western countries. In other words, like Christianity, Buddhism has become a missionary religion which was uprooted from its indigenous land, and flourished itself all over the world. Why and how Buddhism proceeded as such, both philosophical, spiritually and socially, would be a great phenomenon for us to study. This would also be a major topic for us to ponder in our continual study of Buddhism and Eastern religions.

The third point I want to emphasize about the distinction of Buddha’s life is his seven-day meditation under the Podhi tree which eventually lead to his “enlightenment,” viz., his realization of the four noble truths which defeats the human ignorance towards true reality.

Still, let me use some comparison to express my overall feeling to this part of Buddha’s story. We all know that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all had a certain level of formal education before they constructed their philosophies. We also know that Confucius and virtually all Ru scholars were very much cherishing the value of education. However, what education did the Buddha get? We didn’t find any mention of teachers or tutors when he stayed in the royal household; when we get to know that one central teaching of Buddhism is the concept of “no-self,” neither could we find where this concept came from, except that the concept was a direct refutation against the idea of “Atman” in Upanishadic Hinduism. In other words, it is truly remarkable for Siddhartha to ground his central teaching not upon any book, any tradition, or any source of historical authority. Rather, the genuine foundation of the Buddhist teaching was actually the experience which a human figure, Siddhartha, got from an intensive and prolonged practice of meditation!

Actually, the defiance against literature, artifices and even words can be so radical in the later development of Buddhism that there was a unique type of Buddhism, called Zen Buddhism, which historically originated from China, and developed in Korea and Japan. Zen Buddhism proclaimed “words” as being a great obstacle to enlightenment. And the slogan for the ingenuity of Zen Buddhism is that its wisdom is “not established in any word, but transmitted outside the Buddhist teaching.” But how can a Buddhist teaching be transmitted outside the Buddhist teaching? Negatively, it is done so through the denial of the value of words and the teachings based upon words. Positively, it is through practices and human experiences, among which meditation takes an extremely significant role. Although virtually all major world religious traditions teach, practice and theorize meditation, the preponderate role Buddhism ascribes to it still makes Buddhism very distinctive in this regard among its peers.

Good, I have elaborated several major points of my philosophical understanding of Buddha’s story. As we will learn down the road, Buddhism evolves and diversifies greatly across varying geographical regions of the world and in varying periods of human history. It would be very inspiring to get to learn all these variations within Buddhism; however, as Buddhism started from a fairy tale with such a philosophical density, we can expect that the meaning of the tale will grow, proliferate, and twist according to different readers, and according to different ages of the same reader’s.

According to the structure of emotional reasoning indicated at the beginning of the course, emotions are triggered by both a report and a rating under the guidance of a rooted belief. Therefore, self-defeating emotions may be caused by either an erroneous rating or an ungrounded report. The fallacy of “over-simplification” is such a sort of ungrounded report, and there are three forms of it identified by the practitioners of philosophical therapy:

Firstly, Over-generalization, which is to categorize realities in a scope broader than what evidences can corroborate. I once had a client who believed that all marketing strategies are to sell things that customers do not want, which is wicked! Hence, he refused to learn any marketing skill which is actually crucial to his business. Here, this client clearly over-generalizes the marketing industry, which created a bunch of problems to have complicated his life.

Secondly, Pigeonholing, which is to squeeze realities into rigidly dualistic categories, such as right or wrong, good or evil, friends or enemies, success or failure, etc. For instance, one of the most deleterious thinking habits of humanity both in history and today is still to fit individuals into nationalistic terms, and then, to characterize nations either as friends or enemies. Nowadays, because some of Chinese-Americans oppose the Chinese Communist party and see it as an enemy, they would accept any American politician as their friend who seemingly dares to confront certain immoral deeds of the party, with a pigeonholing idea that the enemy of one’s enemy is a friend. However, while doing so, they may remain blind to how the policies proposed by the politicians could do harm to their own life, and as a result, they may vote for whomsoever will govern in a way contrary to their own interest.

And thirdly, Stereotyping, which is to stick to pre-established categories regardless of exceptional realities. Since it has been a while for me to write and publish academic articles, I am very cautious to use broad categories to characterize phenomena which are of interest in my field, precisely in order to avoid stereotyping. For instance, whenever I mention the term “Confucianism,” or write the phrase “according to Confucian philosophy,” I try to give my reference to pin down what philosopher in what place at what period of time thinks so, since the term may mean vastly different things across different places and times. For the same reason, for a long time, I have felt uncomfortable to be introduced as a “Chinese philosopher” or a scholar with an expertise in “Chinese philosophy” in varying events, since, as I anticipated, there are prevalent stereotypes about what “Chinese philosophy” means among the audience, and those stereotypes could by no means fit my own approach to the study of Chinese thought.

These three forms of over-simplification are clearly inter-connected. All cases of stereotyping are over-generalization, and once we overgeneralize, dualistic categories such as friend and enemy will be pit against each other so as to pigeonhole their corresponding realities.

Furthermore, all these forms of over-simplification are about the misuse of the basic units of human language, category. According to Aristotle, categories are born from the inductive reasoning, viz., the process to distill generic traits from the observation of samples in groups. Once established, these categories can be put into use in the deductive reasoning through which varying relationships among categories infer different generic traits of those observed samples in groups. Clearly, the soundness of human reasoning according to this categorical method of Aristotelian logic crucially depends upon whether we can reach the exact degree of generality for the exact amount of samples. This would imply that whenever we generalize more than samples can indicate, no matter how consistent our reasoning is, it is not sound. For instance, the deductive reasoning “all swans are white, this is a swan, and hence, this is white” is not a sound one because the generalization “all swans are white” cannot cover all samples of “swans.” When one uses the over-generalized category of “swan as white” to perceive all swans in the world, they are clearly stereotyping swans, and pigeonholing them as either “being swan as white” or “not being a swan at all.” In the latter case, I do not think those black swans would be happy. Therefore, to confront all forms of over-simplification which over-generalize and misuse human categories, philosophical therapists recommend the virtue of “objectivity,” namely, to perceive realities exactly as they are, and thus, to be ready to revise pre-established categories for exceptional and changing realities.

This virtue of “objectivity” in terms of seeing the things as they are is also advocated by Confucian philosophers. For instance, Xunzi’s ethics relies upon the intelligence of exemplary humans to accurately perceive the value of things in the world, and hence, to achieve a state of mind called “vacuity, single-mindedness and quietude”:

“How do people know their Way? I say: with the heartmind. How does the heartmind know the Way? The heartmind is always holding something. Yet, there is what is called being ‘vacuous’. The heartmind is always two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ The heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quiet.’ Humans are born and have awareness. With awareness, they have focus. To focus is to be holding something. Yet, there is some state called being ‘vacuous.’ Not to let what one is already holding harm what one is about to receive is called being ‘vacuous.’ The heartmind is born and has awareness. With awareness, there comes awareness of different things. These differences are perceived at the same time, and when they are perceived at the same time, this mental state could be to be two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ Not to let one perception harm another perception is called being ‘single-minded.’ When the heartmind sleeps, then it dreams. When it relaxes, then it goes about on its own. When one puts it to use, then it forms plans. Thus, the heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quite.’ Not to let dreams and worries disorder one’s understanding is called being ‘quiet’.” (Xunzi, chapter 21, translation adapted from Eric Hutton)

Here, Xunzi urges one’s emotions not to interfere our awareness of the world so that what we already know not bring harm to what we are about to, and what we know one thing not perturb what we know about another. Clearly, this is a Ruist call not to over-generalize, pigeonhole or stereotype.

In an ultimate term, if we admit freedom and autonomy is a fundamental principle for good human living, and accept that each human individual is unique, non-replicable, and cannot be put exclusively in any “category,” then, we need to acknowledge that the difference between any two individuals can be bigger than any two races, ethnicities, genders, societies, economies, countries, and even cultures, because all the latter can be treated as merely categories, but individuals cannot. Precisely because of the essentially non-deterministic traits of human living, we need to continually construct, deconstruct, and refine our categories to adapt ourselves to changing realities in society.

It is because change is a fundamental feature of the reality we humans are trying to deal with, the Confucian tradition also contributed another way to our looking on the function of “categories.” Categories are not only formulaic terms to carry over generic traits of a group of items from one corner of our mind to another. Actually, if whenever we mention a category that is of ethical concern to us, we can simultaneously point out how we practice it in real situations of human life, these categories can be instead treated as performing examples so that we can emulate these examples to find appropriate reactions to our own unique situations.

For instance, in the Analects, when Confucius was asked by students how to understand the cardinal human virtue of humaneness, Ren, Confucius once gave a universal definition of it as “loving people.” (Analects 12:22) However, most often, Confucius’s strategy to explain the concept is to use practical words targeting students’ different situations. For people who are glib and fast to talk, he will say humaneness means reserving a solemn tone of one’s rare speeches (Analects 13:27); for people who traveled a lot and were extremely sociable, he would recommend to find the right friends in order to keep humane. (Analects 15.10) An advantage of this individualized pedagogy is that whenever the category of “humaneness” is mentioned, students will grasp it may mean different things for different people, and thus, they would truly pay attention to specificities before they apply the universal ethical teaching of humaneness.

Similarly, Mencius also thinks of the virtue of humaneness as what distinguishes human beings from non-human beings, and thus, being a category in its own right. However, more importantly, Mencius indicated through a thought experiment that ordinary humans will spontaneously have the feeling of alarm and fright whenever they see a baby about to fall into a well. In this way, Mencius argued that every human has their incipient sprout of humaneness to work on, and the process of being humanized depends upon whether one is dedicated to creating a social environment beneficial for the natural growth of the moral sprout. Again, the good thing for Mencius’s argument on the virtue of humaneness is that after we take the feeling of alarm and fright triggered by that concrete situation as a performing example of the category of humaneness, firstly, we understand it not only intellectually but also in an embodied way; and secondly, we can remain sensitive to our own situations so as to emulate the virtue of humaneness discussed by Mencius while not entirely photocopying it, which means, the feeling of commiseration rooted in the virtue of humaneness may be acted out in diverse ways.

In my view, for human transactions that are of ethical concern, if we can consistently practice this Confucian sensitivity towards the practical implication of categories, and hence, treat categories as imitable examples with no need of photocopying it, it will greatly contribute to avoiding the thinking fallacy of over-simplification.

To continue the instances I gave above, if by mentioning the term “friends” we always bear in mind cases of exemplary friendship in human history, we will hold on to the fact that while using “friends” to categorize humans, what we deal with are still concrete human persons., rather than a lump of abstract generic traits which can be easily pigeonholed or stereotyped by categories.

In a Confucian term, this mindset to categorize while exemplifying realities is once depicted by one very popular slogan in the period of neo-Confucianism: “the principle is one, while its manifestations are many.” Also, in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Aristotle admonishes us to form the “practical wisdom” so as to apply universal ethical principles to concrete and changing situations. Here, different from the misuse of categories by the thinking fallacy of oversimplification which demands the uniformity of traits of realities in order to put these traits into established, neatly bounded categories, we are called upon to pay attention to how realities within a category can merely bear an analogical resemblance to each other. Hence, evolving situations would continually urge us to refine our understanding of those categories, and modify our reifiable emotional and behavioral patterns.

In my view, for the sake of good human living, we definitely need to make use of categories in this enriched and enriching way.