The Chinese Mind, Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture ed. by Charles A. Moore (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 265 The Chinese Mind, Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Edited by CHARLES A. MooRE with the assistance of ALDYTH V. MoRRIS. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, University of Hawaii Press, 1967. Pp. 402 with index. $9.50. This book, together with The Japanese Mind and The Indian Mind, comprises a series of three studies of the Oriental mind. All articles selected for this anthology were given at the East-West Philosophers' Conferences at the University of Hawaii and published subsequently in its Proceedings of 1939, 1949, 1959 and 1964. The purpose of this anthology is to give Western readers a comprehensive picture of the Chinese mind from the philosophical perspective. There are fifteen articles in all, not counting the Introduction by C. A. Moore. The last six papers deal with the same topic: the individual in Chinese philosophy. Each article is reviewed in the order as it appears in the book. 1. Chinese Theory and Practice, with Special Reference to Humanism. By Wing-Tsit Chan. (pp. 11-28) The author presents, first, the Chinese notion of truth and, second, its relation to practice. The Chinese conceived truth to be the discoverable and demonstrable principles in human affairs. Thus all truths have a moral quality. Since truth has to do with human events, human history at once becomes the test as well as the deposit of truth..While Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) is of the opinion that truths exist primarily in the mind, Chu-Hsi (1130-1200) thinks that truths are inherent in things and human events. Because of the Chinese unique conception of the relation between truth and history, all historical events are considered as the unfolding and functioning of eternal principles. Consequently, Chinese classical history exercises supreme authority as a natural law over government, religion, society and other spheres of Chinese life. If truth is moral, then it implies an ethical ought. Confucius was the first to advocate the unity of knowledge and action. This doctrine was accepted by all Chinese thinkers and expressed in the Chinese maxim: " knowledge is the beginning of action and action is the completion of knowledge." The consequence of this theory is the practical orientation of all sciences, including philosophy, which has been considered not a science of pure speculation but also of doing. The discussion on truth is too brief, and the major portion of the article is devoted to practices in poetry, art and drama. The author also fails to observe the distinction between truth and knowledge and used the two terms interchangeably. 2. The Story of Chinese Philosophy. By Wing-Tsit Chan. (pp. 29-76) The history of Chinese philosophy is divided into three symphony-like movements: from 600 to 200 B. C. a period of three major themes of 266 BOOK REVIEWS Confucianism, Taoism and Moism, plus four minor ones of the Logicians, Neo-Moism, the Legalists and Yin-Yang Interactionism. The second movement from ~00 B. C. to 1100 A. D. is that of synthesis of Chinese philosophy with a counternote of Buddhism introduced from India. The third movement from 1100 to the present unfolds the melody of Nco-Confucianism . This article is neither profound nor original. It seems futile to recount in a brief article the whole history of Chinese philosophy. 3. Epistemological Method in Chinese Philosophy. By E. R. Hughes. (pp. 77-103) The author aims to prove two things: that there is an epistemology in Chinese tradition and that this epistemology is primarily linguistic, as shown in their linguistic experiments and their use of abstract categories. He believes that the Chinese consider philosophy a critique of language and a checking of this critique by a critique of history. Therefore , Northrop's theory that Chinese thinking is intuitive and not postulational is questionable, since linguistic method is postulational, not intuitive. He concludes that, in comparative philosophy, linguistic method is the most useful. I agree with the author that, unless we have an adequate understanding of the nature of Chinese language, we would never fully appreciate Chinese philosophy. However, many of his suppositions are by no means correct. For example, he says that Chinese philosophy is a critique of language or communicated meaning. This...