Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism

Nicholas S. Brasovan

Description

In this novel engagement with Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), Nicholas S. Brasovan presents Wang's neo-Confucianism as an important theoretical resource for engaging with contemporary ecological humanism. Brasovan coins the term "person-in-the-world" to capture ecological humanism's fundamental premise that humans and nature are inextricably bound together, and argues that Wang's cosmology of energy (qi) gives us a rich conceptual vocabulary for understanding the continuity that exists between persons and the natural world. The book makes a significant contribution to English-language scholarship on Wang Fuzhi and to Chinese intellectual history, with new English translations of classical Chinese, Mandarin, and French texts in Chinese philosophy and culture. This innovative work of comparative philosophy not only presents a systematic and comprehensive interpretation of Wang's thought but also shows its relevance to contemporary discussions in the philosophy of ecology.
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction
Thesis
Interpretive Methodology
Biographical Introduction to Wang Fuzhi
Significance, Symbolism, and Strata of the Yijing
Disambiguating Ecological Humanism
Synopsis

1. Natural Cosmology
Creationism as Antithesis
Tian qua Nature
Neo-Confucian Terminology of Cosmic Creativity

2. Complex Systems and Patterns of Energy
A Perspective from Ecosystems Ecology
Nature as Patterns of Energy
From “Simple” to “Complex” Materialism

3. Reading the Yijing from an Ecological Perspective
Holistic Hermeneutics
Cosmography of the Yijing
Practical Knowledge through Comprehensive Observation

4. Between Nature and Persons
Humanizing Nature in Ecological Humanism
Humanizing Nature in Chinese Philosophy
Between Persons and Nature
Wang Fuzhi’s Critique of Orthodox and Heterodox Doctrines
Mencius’s Heart-and-Mind and the Human Experience

5. Identifying Religiosity in Wang Fuzhi’s Neo-Confucianism
Ritual Propriety as Humanizing Nature
Immanence of Persons-in-the-World
Procreativity in the Yijing
Experiencing the Sublime in Nature

6. Conclusion
Summarizing Reflections
Application of a Theory

Notes
Glossary of Key Chinese Terms
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Applied ecology
• Confucianism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 27 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438464558
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

NEO-CONFUCIAN ECOLOGICAL HUMANISM
A volume in the SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor
NEO-CONFUCIAN ECOLOGICAL HUMANISM
An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692)
Nicholas S. Brasovan
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brasovan, Nicholas S., 1979– author.
Title: Neo-Confucian ecological humanism : an interpretive engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) / by Nicholas S. Brasovan.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York, 2017. | Series: SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031417 (print) | LCCN 2017009866 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438464534 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438464558 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wang, Fuzhi, 1619-1692. | Neo-Confucianism. | Humanism. | Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC B5234.W334 B73 2017 (print) | LCC B5234.W334 (ebook) | DDC 181/.112—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031417
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Amy, Sage, and Alethea
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Thesis
Interpretive Methodology
Biographical Introduction to Wang Fuzhi
Significance, Symbolism, and Strata of the Yijing
Disambiguating Ecological Humanism
Synopsis
Chapter 1. Natural Cosmology
Creationism as Antithesis
Tian qua Nature
Neo-Confucian Terminology of Cosmic Creativity
Chapter 2. Complex Systems and Patterns of Energy
A Perspective from Ecosystems Ecology
Nature as Patterns of Energy
From “Simple” to “Complex” Materialism
Chapter 3. Reading the Yijing from an Ecological Perspective
Holistic Hermeneutics
Cosmography of the Yijing
Practical Knowledge through Comprehensive Observation
Chapter 4. Between Nature and Persons
Humanizing Nature in Ecological Humanism
Humanizing Nature in Chinese Philosophy
Between Persons and Nature
Wang Fuzhi’s Critique of Orthodox and Heterodox Doctrines
Mencius’s Heart-and-Mind and the Human Experience
Chapter 5. Identifying Religiosity in Wang Fuzhi’s Neo-Confucianism
Ritual Propriety as Humanizing Nature
Immanence of Persons-in-the-World
Procreativity in the Yijing
Experiencing the Sublime in Nature
Chapter 6. Conclusion
Summarizing Reflections
Application of a Theory
Notes
Glossary of Key Chinese Terms
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
This study is a consummation of research that I began as a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i. I am infinitely indebted to my teachers, Roger T. Ames and Chung-ying Cheng, for their extensive and intensive lessons on Confucianism, Daoism, and neo-Confucianism. I am indebted to Ron Bontekoe for his seminars on radical empiricism and philosophical hermeneutics, Steve Odin for his seminars on radical empiricism and process philosophy, and David McCraw at the University of Hawai‘i, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, for his expert lessons on classical Chinese language and culture. I am thankful to Shana Brown at the University of Hawai‘i, Department of History, for her critical advice to contextualize this philosophical study with a biographical introduction to Wang Fuzhi. Thank you to all of these scholars for their critique of early iterations of this work. I am also grateful to Mary Tiles for her seminar on the philosophy of ecology at the University of Hawai‘i, which introduced me to the paradigm of ecological humanism.
I am grateful to my colleagues, Clayton Crockett and Taine Duncan, for their instructive discussions on new materialism. Indeed, their scholarship and arguments have persuaded me to change my original position on this interpretive engagement between materialism and neo-Confucian cosmology. I am particularly indebted to Taine Duncan for sharing her expertise on this topic in our collaborative work, “Contemporary Ecofeminism and Confucian Cosmology,” in Feminist Encounters with Confucius (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2016). I have reworked my discussion of new materialism here based on the resources and arguments that Duncan and I worked through in our co-authored work.
Thank you to the excellent editors at SUNY Press, Nancy Ellegate, James Peltz, Christopher Ahn, Jessica Kirschner, and Diane Ganeles, for facilitating the editing and publication of this work. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Nancy Ellegate in the early phases of acquisition and editing of this book. Her vision and effort as the acquisitions editor at SUNY Press played a key role in bringing this work to press. Nancy’s work has been essential to a wealth of resources on Asian philosophies published by SUNY Press. Her legacy lives on here and throughout the field of Asian studies. She will be missed by authors and readers alike.
Thank you to the University of Central Arkansas, University Research Council, for support of this research project. Finally, portions of my discussion of modernity and methodology here are iterated in a prefatory article, “Considerations for a Confucian Ecological Humanism,” in Philosophy East and West, vol. 16.1 (University of Hawai‘i Press, July 2016, pp. 842–860). Thank you to the editors at Philosophy East and West and the University of Hawai‘i Press for permissions to reprint portions of that article here.
Abbreviations of Works by Wang Fuzhi * ZYW Zhouyi waizhuan 周易外傳 (1655) DSS Du Sishudaquan shuo 讀四書大全說 (revised 1665) ZYXJ Zhouyi daxiang jie 周易大象解 (1676) ZMZ Zhangzi Zhengmeng zhu 張子正蒙注 (1679) SWW Siwenlu waipian 思問錄外篇 (c. 1680) ZYBS 周易稗疏 Zhouyi baishu ZYFL Zhouyi neizhuan fali 周易内傳發例 (1686) ZYN Zhouyi neizhuan 周易內傳 (1686) SYY Shangshu yinyi 尚書引義 (revised 1689) SL Songlun 宋論 (1691)

* Unless otherwise noted, all citations of Wang’s work refer to the Complete Works of Chuanshan : 船山全書 ( 長沙市 : 嶽麓書社出版 , 1988–1996). See bibliography for further details. I follow the conventions for abbreviating Wang’s titles as outlined by Jacques Gernet’s list, Ouvrages de Wang Fuzhi (2005, 11).
One yin one yang is called dao ; continuing it is efficacious; developing it is a natural disposition. Humane persons see it and call it humane; knowledgeable persons see it and call it knowing. … Everyday novelty is called flourishing excellence. Procreative creativity is called change. … Continuous transformation is called an event. Yinyang , unfathomable, is called sublime.
— Book of Changes, Appended Phrases , “Upper Division,” 5.1
Introduction
Thesis
To be a person is to be a person-in-the-world. In this project I aim to analyze and amplify this slogan, and present the concept ‘person-in-the-world’ as a model for ecological humanism. I use the term “ecological humanism” in the sense that it is used in Kerry Whiteside’s (2002) work in philosophy of ecology, Divided Natures: French Contributions to Political Ecology . As Whiteside defines it, ecological humanism is a theoretical paradigm based on the belief that persons and the natural world are inextricably interrelated events. “The concepts of nature and humanity are bound together in historical-cultural processes, such that what nature is can be understood only in relation to human practices, hopes, and fears—and vice versa” (Whiteside 73). In this view, nature has no essence in itself; likewise, persons have no essence apart from the environments that they inhabit. The thesis of ecological humanism rejects any mode of thought that dualistically distinguishes persons from their natural and social environments. In this vein I propose “person-in-the-world” as a synthetic concept that draws together the concepts of “persons” and “environing world.” I use the term “person-in-the-world” to denote complex systems of interactive, causally efficacious, relationships that bind persons and the environing world. In short, a person-in-the-world is a complex system. The concept is unavoidably ecological. A person-in-the-world is a nested hierarchical structure. At the basic level, the nested hierarchical structure of a person-in-the-world consists of a complex, thinking-and-feeling, organism situated within a complex environmental ecosystem. With regard to the presence of a heart-and-mind (Chinese, xin 心 ) within persons-in-the-