5Meaning and Reality

IN THE PROCESS of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, meaning is not only presented at the level of ideas in the act of cognizing and evaluating; when grounded in practical activity, meaning is also externalized as the world of actual beings or the real world. As the externalization or actualization of meaning, this domain of being, which is generated through the process of knowing and practicing could also be seen as the actual or external formation of a world of meaning, whose actual content is the Nature for-humans or things-for-us as social reality or the living world.

Transforming Nature in-Itself into Nature for-Humans

A world of meaning, as actual being, is first of all said in opposition to being in-itself. Being in-itself is what has not entered the human sphere of cognition and practice, and whose meaning therefore is still concealed for human being. A world of meaning, on the other hand, is already imprinted with the mark of human and presents the different levels of things for-us. In Chinese philosophy, Nature in-itself (tian zhi tian ) refers to things in-themselves. As the form of being beyond the domain of cognition and practice, Nature in-itself has never formed an actual connection with human being; so, it does not constitute an object with meaning at the level of ideas and has no actual meaning in the practical realm. Abstractly speaking, “being” is attributed to both human being and Nature in-itself, so they are not absolutely divided from one another, but while Nature in-itself still lies beyond the domain of practice and cognition, they are presented more as two worlds divided apart rather than as a world integrally whole.

To overcome the division separating human being from Nature in-itself presupposes human being actively reforming the world. Being in-itself will not spontaneously suit human beings, no more than it will fulfill human needs by itself. Even in the primitive age of humankind, that of hunting and gathering, the being of humans did not by any means passively rely on the gifts of nature. In effect, hunting and gathering itself also falls under the category of productive labor in the broad sense. It is precisely by means of this practical activity that humans moved out of nature on the one hand and moved toward nature on the other. To move toward nature means to continuously open up being at the epistemological level and to transform being in-itself into human being’s world at the ontological level. By means of turning toward and reforming nature, human being makes nature suit human needs, and meanwhile, imprints the mark of human upon the world in-itself, thereby giving it various kinds of meaning.

Under the precondition that human being is opening up and reforming the primordial form of being in-itself, being emerges as actuality. Here, from the perspective of the relationship between humans and being, a distinction must be made between “actual” and “real”: being in-itself is undoubtedly real, but this does not mean that it is actual for human being. Here, actuality means entering the domain of cognition and practice, becoming an object of cognition and practice, and consequently obtaining actual meaning.1 When the light of cognition has yet to shed upon them, things remain concealed in the state of being in-themselves. A metaphor alluding to this point can be found in the following saying: “If Nature had not created Confucius, history would be, as it were, a long night.” “Confucius” should of course be understood here in the sense of human being as species. Similarly, while things in-themselves lie beyond the practical domain, there is nowhere from which their form of being and concrete properties could be presented. But, one confirms human being’s essential powers in the process of “participating in the developmental growth of the Heavens and the Earth,” in the process forming the actual world, and meanwhile the world in-itself presents its actual qualities by merging into human being’s cognitive and practical processes. In fact, it is precisely their internal identity and unity that led Marx to connect the actuality of objects to the objectification of human being’s own essential powers:2 “On the one hand, therefore, it is only when the objective world becomes everywhere for man in society the world of man’s essential powers—human reality, and for that reason the reality of his own essential powers—that all objects become for him the objectification of himself, become objects which confirm and realize his individuality, become his objects: that is, man himself becomes the object.”3 Here we can see that objects obtaining actuality and objects obtaining a humanized form (objects becoming man’s own objectification of himself) are two aspects of the same process, which manifests human being’s unique way of being through the objectification of its own essential powers, and meanwhile transforms the being of the objective world: after Nature in-itself (tian zhi tian) transforms into Nature for-humans (ren zhi tian) it simultaneously forms substantial connections with the being of humans and is thereby determined as actual.

In correspondence with the dimension of actuality, being also presents the quality of being “true.” Here, “true” refers simultaneously to the grasping of being as it really is in the epistemological sense and also to reality in the ontological sense. Though things in-themselves “exist,” for human being, this kind of “existence” has never been confirmed, so it is as if they are not there even though they do exist. Yet, in the process of knowing and practicing, being is presented as being that is confirmed, and its true reality is concretely manifested; this true reality expresses the “truth” of the world at an original level. This “truth,” whose content is reality, therefore constitutes the ontological precondition of the attainment of “true” knowledge.

The humanized world confirms the truth of being, which is identical to human being reforming the object out of its being in-itself. This is to say that cognizing and practicing not only opens up the world, but also transforms it. Historically speaking, from the basic process of existing (maintaining life functions) to the development of society and culture, the being of humans is always faced with a multiplicity of needs. However, the world will neither harmonize with humans on its own initiative nor spontaneously fulfill human needs; only by acting upon the world in different ways will humans make objects qualify as being “for-humans.” In effect, transforming being out of its original state into humanized being essentially means making the world in the original sense become “things for-us,” which suit human needs. “That which is desirable is called good;”4 at an original level, “desirable” here could be understood as harmonizing with human needs; when being in-itself is acted upon by human being and becomes identical to human needs, it is presented as possessing the value of “good.”

Aside from displaying value for the being of humans, the humanized world is also linked to human aesthetic activity. As the beings that have not entered the process of knowing and practicing, things in-themselves simultaneously lie beyond the realm of beauty, and do not present any sense of beauty. Zhuangzi states that “the heavens and the earth have a great beauty that is without words.”5 Here, “the heavens and the earth” are no longer purely things in-themselves; they have already formed some kind of connection with human being: here, “great beauty” refers to the beauty of nature or a natural beauty differing in kind from a humanized form, which although differs from the kind of beauty that human beings intentionally cut out and assigns to nature, its aesthetic meaning still remains relative to humans. In fact, the very reason the beauty of the heavens and the earth is “great” here is because it agrees with Zhuangzi’s aesthetic standards. It is precisely during the unfolding of aesthetic activity and in the consequent germination of aesthetic consciousness that a sense of beauty finally emerges, which presupposes the transformation of things in-themselves into things for-us.

As the external form of a world of meaning, humanized beings or things for-us first emerge through overcoming the form of being in-itself. It is precisely in the movement from “Nature in-itself” into “Nature for-humans” that the concrete actuality of the world emerges out of abstract being. So, the formation of actuality is the precondition of reality in-itself transforming into the human world, whose constituents are the only beings that truly have actual meaning for human beings. This actuality of being is by no means formless. From the very outset, it is tied to human being’s multifaceted needs and envelops the substantial sense of such values as the true, the beautiful, and the good. In brief, transforming things out of their being in-themselves into being for-humans means impressing the mark of human upon the world of objects, and its profound significance lies in endowing being in-itself with senses of value.

The actuality of being and the significance of values it presents take shape through human being’s cognizing and practicing, which in essence is to say that “Nature in-itself” is gradually freed from the primal state of being in-itself while obtaining humanized form through human being’s active opening up and reforming of the world. As regards the humanization of objects, human being’s most original mode of activity is labor. Labor is at once the direct medium that connects human being to nature and also the basic way in which human being acts upon the world. From the earliest stages of hunting and gathering to modern production with technological means, labor transforms both the world and human being itself. Through the “metabolic interaction [stoffvechsel] between human being and nature”6 labor not only creates values in the narrow economic sense, it also invests the world with meanings and values in vaster dimensions and at deeper levels. Humankind’s activity through the original mode of labor simultaneously expresses human being’s intrinsic creativity and essential powers. In effect, giving objects meaning and value is the very process by which human being objectifies its own creativity and essential powers. So, the creativity and essential powers of human being as such could be seen as the source of meaning. As the actualization of being which consolidates human being’s creativity and essential powers, the humanization of the world expresses its deepest level of meaning as the historical confirmation of human being’s creativity and essential powers.7

As the source of the meaning of the humanized world, human being’s creativity and essential powers first emerge in the form of human capacities. As discussed previously, the relationship between human capacities and human being’s cognizing and practicing is interactive. The historical unfolding of cognitive and practical activity constitutes the precondition of the development and formation of human capacities, but cognizing and practicing as such is likewise inseparable from the condition of human capacities of a specific historical stage, which shows their unity with the actual process of opening up and reforming the world. As the precondition of knowing and practicing, human capacities also constitute the internal conditions of possibility of a world of meaning. The achievement of man recognizing and reforming the world is always conditioned by a specific historical background, which involves different stages of development of human capacities. The degree to which things have been humanized out of the mode of being in-themselves is also identical to the degree to which human capacities have developed. The world belonging to human being was born in the true sense when human being first transcended its instinctual adaptation to the external world and formed its first capacities to reform the world. What differentiates the hunting behavior of humankind from the carnivorous behavior of animals under “the law of the jungle” is human being’s knowledge and understanding of the world, which is concretely grounded in human capacities, and further, concretely integrates with them. In connection with the continuous development of human capacities, the breadth and depth of human being’s transformation of the world is also ceaselessly expanding.

The movement from the Nature in-Itself into Nature for-Humans also stems from human being’s different ideals. Similar to human capacities, ideals are formed in the process of opening up and reforming the world; they embody human being’s ends and demands and are also based on the possibilities provided by the actual world; as still unrealized but hoped to be realized ends, ideals possess the quality of “what ought to be.” After its formation, an end proceeds to continuously guide and constrain cognition and practice, and thus presents a normative function. Directed at reforming the world and creating values, transforming things in-themselves into things for-us also unfolds as a process of realizing ideals, the historical product of which is a world of meaning.

As already mentioned, conscious processes and psychological dispositions manifest human capacities. In this sense, there is a strong relationship between human capacities and the concept of the affective mind (xin ) in Chinese philosophy. As an end, an ideal gives direction to cognition and practice, and meanwhile, by concretizing into projects and plans, an ideal also guides and constrains the process of cognizing and practicing. Thus, ideals are similar to principles (li ) in the sense of what ought to be. As opposed to ideals and human capacities, the world in-itself could be seen as things (wu ) in the broad sense. In the historical unfolding of the unified process of knowing and practicing, the affective mind, principles, and things reciprocally interact, which catalyzes the transformation of things in-themselves into things for-us. Things for-us could be seen as the actual form of a world of meaning. In this sense, the interplay of the affective mind, things, and principles on the basis of practice also constitutes the precondition of the formation of a world of meaning.

As the external form of a world of meaning, things for-us are undoubtedly an overcoming of things in-themselves, but the distinction between the two is not absolute. Although things in-themselves have not yet opened up to human being, this does not mean that they will be concealed in-themselves for eternity. Ontologically speaking, things in-themselves always contain the possibility of transforming into things for-us. So in a sense, they could be seen as potential things for-us. On the other hand, things for-us, as beings that have entered the domain of practice and cognition, have already overcome the state of being in-themselves, but to open them up and reform them does not mean to alter their reality. While obtaining an actual form and significance, a thing for-us still remains in possession of its physical and chemical properties, which do not depend upon human being’s consciousness and activity. These properties that do not rely upon human being obviously qualify as being in-themselves. But, there is no insurmountable gap between things in-themselves and things for-us; rather, there is as it were, an alterable boundary between the two. In the historical unfolding of the process of knowing and practicing, the humanized domain is ceaselessly expanding into the domain of being in-itself. This link between things in-themselves and things for-us unfolds as the continuity between the two. Hegel once stated that “Spirit is presaged in Nature.”8 For Hegel, Nature is the externalization of the absolute idea and constitutes the medium out of which the absolute idea develops toward Spirit. Though this logical deduction is speculative and abstract, if Spirit is tied to the being of humans and the world of things for-us, then the saying that Spirit is presaged in Nature seems also to mean that there is a concrete continuity between Nature and human being, between Nature being in-itself and Nature being for-ourselves. Considered historically, as the subject of meaning, the being of humans ontologically presupposes the being of Nature in-itself. This fact at once determines that human being cannot break the link between what is human and what is natural while emerging out of nature, and moreover, that being for-ourselves is inseparably linked to being in-itself.

In the history of philosophy, we can see different understandings of this relationship between things for-us and things in-themselves. Here, the thought of Immanuel Kant presents an important view. As is widely known, Kant makes a distinction between phenomena and the thing in-itself: the former is tied to human being’s sensible intuition and thus has the character of being for-us; the latter (the thing in-itself) is a rather complex notion. Insofar as it is beyond the phenomenal world, the thing-in-itself qualifies as being in-itself; but on the other hand, in the cognitive domain it is also understood as the origin of sensible phenomena, while in the practical domain, it is supposed to be the metaphysical ground of moral practice, and in this regard, it undoubtedly possesses an aspect of being for-us. With this in mind, Kant seems to have noticed the connection between being in-itself and being for-us. However, at the same time, Kant emphasizes that the phenomenon is different from the true form of the thing in-itself, while holding that the latter is the origin of the former, and in this sense, phenomena are in substance determined principally as things “for-us;” although the thing in-itself is the source of phenomena, it is determined as the object that human being can never reach, so in substance, the whole of its being is determined as “being in-itself.” This dichotomy between phenomenon and the thing in-itself thus separates the dimension of being in-itself from that of being for-us.

Relative to this duality in Kant’s philosophy, is the emphasis of other philosophers, who stress the being for-itself dimension of the humanized world. Here, Wang Yangming’s theory of mind is representative. As far as the relation between mind and things goes, Wang Yangming famously remarks “wherever intention is directed is a thing.”9 Things here are not beings in-themselves. Beings in-themselves are always beyond human consciousness (unaffected by the subject). A thing, as wherever intention is directed at, is already a being, whose being is affected by consciousness and thus has been brought into the conscious domain. “Wherever intention is directed is a thing” does not mean that consciousness constructs a physical world in external space-time, it means rather that the substance of the affective mind invests a being with meaning through its own externalization (the act of intending), thereby constituting the agent’s world of meaning. Wang Yangming insists that the constitution of a world of meaning is always inseparably of human being’s doing, and because of this, he proposes that “there are no things outside of the affective mind,”10 which obviously does not give needed commitment to the being in-itself of the world.

A similar tendency can be found in pragmatism. One of the basic features of pragmatism is the tendency to understand beings in connection with values. This standpoint undoubtedly notices that an account of an actual being cannot omit specifications of value, and in a sense, the ontological meaning of pragmatism lies first of all in underscoring that the actual form of things cannot be severed from their significance of value. However, while pragmatism affirms that concrete things envelop determinations of value, it simultaneously diminishes if not neglects entirely the independence of things or the being in-itself of things due to the strength of its commitment to the connection between human being and things (the humanized dimension of things). The following point made by James clearly demonstrates this: “When we talk of reality ‘independent’ of human thinking, then, it seems a thing very hard to find . . . It is what is absolutely dumb and evanescent, the merely ideal limit of our minds.”11 Here we can see in pragmatism a sort of mutually exclusive relationship between the being in-itself dimension of things and the being for-us dimension of a world of meaning. So, this standpoint obviously stands before the impossibility of truly reaching the actual form of being.12

In modern philosophy, this understanding has emerged repeatedly, cloaked in different forms. Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, for instance, which he takes to be the origination of all other ontologies,13 is another. Fundamental ontology focuses on Dasein; as opposed to the first cause or the ultimate whole, Dasein is first of all the being-there of human being. For Heidegger, opening up being presupposes an elucidation of the being, who human being is. As human being’s mode of being, Dasein exists for the sake of the being, which in each case is its very own, and any understanding of being is itself a determination of being of Da-sein.14 Heidegger attempts to overcome traditional metaphysics and its forgetting of being through analyzing Dasein as the process of being-in-the-world. The so-called forgetting of being at once refers to both the neglecting of the historical process of the being of humans and one’s slinking away from one’s own being-there in transcendent speculations about being. Heidegger’s standpoint here shows that the question of being is essentially tied to the conditional setting of one’s own being. Compared to the tendency of traditional metaphysics to determine being either through the reduction of being to its first cause or through seeking the ultimate being, the approach of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is undoubtedly different. However, while affirming that the meaning of being is undiscoverable when separated from the being of humans, Heidegger seems to unfittingly overemphasize the nature of the world as being for-us: he attempts to construct the entire architecture of a world of meaning upon Dasein, understood as the conscious agent tied to such affects of spirit as care and anxiety, which more or less restricts the domain of meaning to experiences of individuality. To determine a world of meaning in such a way as this fails quite evidently in terms of concretely ascertaining the nature of being in-itself. A similar tendency can be found in Jaspers. As an existentialist, Jaspers likewise prioritizes the question of being. However, for Jaspers, being is equated with consciousness, which the following statement shows: “To analyze existence is to analyze consciousness.”15 Even though existence here is first linked to the being of humans, the meaning of the world for Jaspers is only given by humans. Therefore, behind his equating of existence with consciousness is his equating of a world of meaning with consciousness as well.

Although contemporary analytic philosophy differs from the speculative philosophy of Heidegger and Jaspers in terms of philosophical form in a variety of ways, there is no shortage of aspects in common that the latter share with some representatives of the former. Differing somewhat from early positivism’s rejection of metaphysics altogether, later developments of analytic philosophy show the germination of a concern for the question of being. When Goodman discusses the problem of the being of the world for instance, he proposes the view that “what there is consists of what we make.’ ”16 For Goodman, we make versions, and true versions make worlds.”17 This making of which he speaks here is not a reforming of objects in a practical way; it is rather tied to consciousness and symbolic activity. To use his own words, “The worldmaking mainly in question here is making not with hands but with minds, or rather with languages or other symbol systems.”18 It is clear that making in this context is never anything but the making of a world of meaning out of the consciousness and symbolic activity of human beings. The world or form of being made thereby is therefore solely being for-us.

As opposed to the previous tendency, naïve realism is concerned with the being in-itself of the world. In Chinese philosophy, the thought of Wang Chong is representative of this tendency. In terms of the relation between humans and nature, Wang Chong establishes his theory on the side of nature. “Nature” in his philosophical theory is again said in opposition to human being, where nature means being in-itself. According to Wang Chong, the Cosmos has its own operational laws and human activity cannot have any substantial influence upon this process: “The Heavens and the Earth combine energies (tiandi heqi ), and things are contingently born out of it. Thus, plowing, weeding, sowing, and planting is undertaken intentionally, but the growing or failing to mature of the plants is a contingent result of Nature.”19 Here, plowing, weeding, sowing, and planting are originally human being’s way of acting upon and transforming nature with the intrinsic aim of making things in-themselves accord with human needs (to provide humans with the resources they need to survive), which simultaneously implies endowing objects with the nature of being for-us. However, for Wang Chong, whether or not things grow does not depend on the “intentional undertaking” of plowing, sowing, and so forth; it unfolds rather as a natural process, and in this sense, whether or not things mature, it still is a matter of being in-itself. As opposed to human activity, the transformation of objects in-themselves is always a matter of nature: “Thus the way of Nature is spontaneous, spontaneous and not deliberate, the two [yin and yang] are ordered to couple, they meet together and suit one another, such that when human affairs are initiated, the energies (qi ) of Nature are already there.”20 Prior to human effort, nature already operates according to its own means. In other words, human activity has in no true way impressed the mark of human upon objects in-themselves; even though the world enters the domain of practice and cognition, it still does not qualify as being for-us. Similarly, the condition of one’s own being is also exhibited as a process of being in-itself: “That a human life has become rich and noble—this is the cultivation and maturation of the initial gift of the spontaneous energies of nature that make such a rich and noble life so powerful.”21 Based on the spontaneous energies of nature, that is, the properties of being in-itself, whatever state one might happen to find oneself in, one never finds oneself beyond the unfolding of the determination of being in-itself. According to this view, human being is also presented to oneself as being in-itself.

These viewpoints just mentioned present different aspects of the two one-sided understandings of a world of meaning, from the side of being in-itself and from that of being for-us. Overcoming the skew of each side presupposes an affirmation of the double-sidedness of the world of meaning (simultaneously being for-us and being in-itself), but also concerns human being’s different attitudes toward the world. With regard to the relation of human being to the world, Hegel distinguishes between the practical and theoretical attitudes with which human being treats nature: “In man’s practical approach to Nature, the latter is, for him, something immediate and external.”22 Understanding Nature as something external determines “the practical attitude toward Nature . . . to use Nature for our own advantage, to wear her out, to wear her down, in short, to annihilate her.”23 As for the relation between being in-itself and being for-us, the practical attitude is expressed as making the object be of use for human being, that is, as overcoming the primordial being in-itself of the object, endowing it with the nature of being “for-us.” By contrast, “[i]n the theoretical attitude toward Nature (a) the first point is that we stand back from natural objects, leaving them as they are and adjusting ourselves to them.”24 In general, although grasping the object in a theoretical way also involves “the human perspective,” proceeding from the human perspective in the process of knowing always demands continuously overcoming the limitations that come along with this perspective, so as to represent the object as it is. The human perspective expresses the “for-us” dimension of objects in the theoretical relation, whereas “letting them be as they are” includes a confirmation of their being as it is in-itself.

In contrast to the practical attitude’s overcoming of the being in-itself of things, the theoretical attitude proves to be an overcoming of the “for-us” dimension, which humans give things. In an extended sense, it seems that we may be able to distinguish the mode of being in the practical relation from the mode of being in the theoretical relation: although both involve the relation between being in-itself and being for-us, the focuses and tendencies of the two are actually not the same. Directed at the unity of being in-itself and being for-us, a world of meaning is in some sense the union of the mode of being in the practical relation and the mode of being in the theoretical relation.25

As the actual mode of being, a world of meaning is not only constrained by both the practical and theoretical attitudes as it is also linked to many concrete factors and relations as well. If we were to use Aristotle’s theory of four causes here, the formation of a world of meaning involves a formal cause, a material cause, a final cause, and an efficient cause. The formal cause here could be extended to include conceptual and theoretical forms, including the theoretical systems and frameworks through which and in which we explain and reform the world as well as the plans and projects that they lead to; the material cause includes the world of things or objects used; the final cause includes ideals of diverse forms; the efficient cause may be understood concretely as human practical activity. Directed at the humanization of being in-itself, opening up and reforming the world prove to be two sides of the same process. At the conceptual level, opening up the world involves explaining and understanding, which is expressed in different conceptual and theoretical systems; this explaining of the world is at once grounded in practice and also constitutes the precondition of reforming the world further. As the unity of being in-itself and being for-us, a world of meaning is not “being” generated out of “nothing”; it is essentially the world of objects affected and reformed by human beings. Without the material cause (the world of things or objects), a world of meaning would be merely the prospect of abstract ideas. At the same time, transforming Nature in-itself into Nature for-humans unfolds concretely as the process of transforming ideals into actuality. Ideals that are actually possible and that embody human ends have an intrinsic guiding effect upon the process of humanizing the world out of the primordial state of being in-itself. While the conceptual mode of explaining the world involves principles in the sense of “necessary” reasons, human ideals are principles of “what ought to be”; the two are interconnected and regulate the process of reforming the world in different ways. As for its actuality, affecting and reforming the world is always inseparable from human practical activity: whether it is explanations of the world transforming into reformations of the world or ideals transforming into actuality, humans acting practically is always the actual efficient cause.

What is of particular interest here is practical action, which constitutes the efficient cause of the genesis of a world of meaning and exhibits an originative nature and synthetic function overall. The latter (its original and synthetic nature) is shown first of all in making communication between the world of objects (material) and conceptual systems (form) possible, and furthermore overcomes the contingency of the link between them. Considered purely at the material level, a humanized form is somewhat contingent in relation to materials. For instance, the form “table” is by no means a necessary determination of the material “wood,” since “wood” could be used to make a table, but it could just as well take on other forms such as doors and windows or others still (it could be burned in a forest fire or rot and decay naturally). However, through human practical action, an intrinsic link is slowly established between “wood” and “table”: in the process of refining wood with the form of “table” as an end, the relationship between “wood” and “table” is already no longer contingent. At the same time, human practical activity links human being’s idealization (final cause) and human being’s actualization (efficient cause) together: it is through the medium of practice that purposes and ends surpass the realm of ideas and merge into the actual process of reforming objects. We can see that the practical action of human beings both constitutes the internal efficient force driving the formation of a world of meaning, and in a deeper sense, provides the intrinsic precondition for the unity of the formal cause and material cause as well as the efficient cause and final cause.

In the history of philosophy, those philosophers who were mainly concerned with reason and universals tended to emphasize the importance of conceptual form (formal cause) while neglecting or forgetting the actual world of objects (material cause). Plato determined ideas as the true beings. For him, the world of ideas is the world that truly has meaning. However, while affirming the authenticity of ideas, Plato isolated ideas from the world of objects, seeing the world of objects as so many copies of ideas. The world of ideas from this perspective is obviously an abstract form of ideas, lacking actuality. Other philosophers gave being in-itself ultimate meaning, thereby eliminating the humanized form of being from “Nature for-humans.” Wang Chong shows this tendency in his understanding of the relation between humans and nature. He saw nature and the mode of being of the social sphere as the unfolding of the determinations of objects in-themselves, which omits human being’s reforming and acting upon the world. As far as actual form goes, when a thing in-itself enters the process of cognizing and practicing, it is always marked in different ways by some kind of human impression, and this “humanizing” of the object is simultaneously the process through which human being invests the object with forms of meaning (including conceptual and theoretical forms of explaining the world); to neglect this would be to one-sidedly emphasize the role of the material cause and turn a blind eye to the concrete role the formal cause plays in reforming the world.

There are similar tendencies to skew the issue in terms of the relationship between the final cause and efficient cause. Those philosophers who stress the meaning of one’s own being give more consideration to the purposive determination of human being. Early Confucians, for instance, claimed: “Human being is the affective mind of the Heavens and the Earth.”26 The essential meaning of this proposition lies in highlighting the axiological status human being has in the cosmos, implying that human being is simultaneously an end in-itself. However, in later medieval Confucianism, the specifications of human being’s worth was one-sidedly reduced to the dimensions of the affective mind and human nature: while emphasizing that human being is the affective mind of the Heavens and the Earth, they gave axiological priority to the attainment of inner sagehood in the sense of consummating the spirit of the Confucian scholar. Here, the internal end of refining oneself and becoming sincere gradually inhibited the historical end of “adding nourishment to the cultivation of the Heavens and the Earth,” so the practice of reforming objects was repeatedly suspended. In modern philosophy, existentialism in some sense shows a similar tendency. From Heidegger’s authentic being to Sartre’s being for-itself, the meaning and purpose of the being of humans was repeatedly underscored. However, regardless of whether it is an issue of recovering authentic being from a fallen state of being in the case of Heidegger or an issue of moving toward being for-itself from the state of being in-itself in the case of Sartre, the realization of the meaning of being is still divorced from the historical practice of transforming the world and is understood predominantly as a transformation of consciousness or ideas. While the traditional school of affective mind and human nature focused on the axiological goal of cultivating morality while neglecting the actual deed of acting upon the object, existentialism seeks either the authentic mode of being or the mode of being for-itself but under the pretext that human being’s reforming of the world is suspended. Both schools weaken the efficient cause (concrete historical practice) with the final cause in different ways.

In contrast to these approaches, modern scientism shows yet another tendency. Following the triumphant march of progress in scientific technology, scientism is filled with an optimistic belief in the ability of science to reform the world. The power of science is exhibited concretely in the process of humans conquering Nature. The propagation and approbation of technology is always accompanied by the demand to transform and conquer Nature, which is identical to what Hegel deemed the practical attitude of treating Nature, and affirming that technology can conquer Nature entails a commitment to practice. Now, technology originally presents the being of humans with a form of means, the meaning of which lies in providing the development of human freedom with more extensive conditions and possibilities; however, while believing in the power of technology to transform the world, scientism is often unclear concerning the intrinsically valued end of this process, and to varying degrees sees the development of technology itself as the sole end. As far as the relationship between human being and science goes, this tendency cannot prevent scientific alienation: the loss of balance between humans and Nature in the modern age and the increasingly obvious ecological crisis we face demonstrate this; as for the process of transforming Nature in-itself into the Nature for-humans, this implies dispelling the final cause by praising the worth of the efficient cause.

In brief, in the process of humans opening up the world and reforming the world, the externality of objects is gradually overcome, and things in-themselves start to become actual. Connected to this is the transformation of Nature in-itself (tian zhi tian ) into Nature for human being (ren zhi tian ) whose deepest implication is the genesis of meaning and value. By giving Nature in-itself actuality and value, human being simultaneously transforms Nature in-itself into a world of meaning. Conditioned by human being’s cognitive and practical activity, this process unfolds as the interplay of the affective mind with things and principles and the reciprocal interaction of the four causes—formal, material, efficient, and final. In actual fact, these two interactions themselves interlace and fuse together as well: the material cause is akin to things, whereas the formal and final causes are similar to principles or reasons and the efficient cause, which includes cognitive and practical activity, not only concerns things and principles but also the affective mind, whose contents are human capacities. As different phases of the historical process of transforming Nature in-itself into Nature for human being, these aspects themselves present an intrinsic unity, and this unity not only exhibits and confirms the nature of a world of meaning as being for-us by endowing being with actuality and value it also overcomes the abstract form of a world of meaning by affirming the in-itself dimension pertaining to it.

The Meaning of the World of Everyday Life

A world of meaning does not concern external objects divorced from the “being” of humans. As far as the being of humans goes, the primary point of concern should be the world of everyday life. Similar to being in the world of objects, the world of life also has the facet of being in-itself or being natural. This can be deduced from the following facts: as individuals with life, human beings must undergo metabolism, which is a natural process. However, human being is not just a biological entity in the natural sense. While transforming Nature in-itself into Nature for-humans, human being continuously gives human life a civilized or humanized mode of being, which makes a world of meaning take shape at the level of everyday life.

From the philosophical perspective, everyday life is first of all tied to the reproduction of the individual’s own being,27 the basic form of which is the unfolding of ordinary practices or daily routines. Daily routines are primarily directed at maintaining and prolonging life, such eating, drinking, and having sex. Eating and drinking broadly refer to those everyday activities that satisfy the needs of the organism, which are the basic conditions of possibility of the individual’s life; sex is an everyday activity based on the relation between the sexes, which constitutes the precondition of prolonging individual life. Of course, the everyday activities that maintain life are not limited to eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse, but they are a typical display of the relationship between everyday life and the being of individual life.

As the conditions of possibility of the continuity and being of individual life, activities or relations such as eating, drinking, and fornicating undoubtedly have a primordial quality of being natural or being in-itself, which belongs to “the wild” (ye ) as opposed to “the civilized” (wen ); here, humans share something in common with animals. However, in the process of realizing the humanization of Nature, humans continuously civilize these kinds of activities or relationships out of the wild state. Eating and drinking, for instance, have the direct function of eliminating thirst and hunger, but there is however a substantial difference pertaining to the concrete way in which these functions are realized. In earlier stages of history, humans mainly used their own hands, nails, and teeth to grind raw flesh as means to slake thirst and eliminate hunger, which is a way of eating and drinking that does not fundamentally differ in kind from that of animals. However, as humans learned how to use fire, and design tools such as knives, forks, and chopsticks as means for eating and drinking, the everyday way of being of humans was radically altered in an important way. As Marx put it: “Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nail and tooth.”28 This difference is first of all the distinction between cultured or civilized (wen ) and natural or prehistorical (ye ). To use one’s hands, nails, and teeth to tear up and grind up raw meat in order to eliminate hunger is still akin to the instinctual behavior of animals, but to use such means as knives, forks, and chopsticks to eat cooked food is an expression of the evolution of civilization.

With the aim of human survival, eating and drinking blends in with a much broader social life, and the different ways of eating and drinking mark the different degrees of civilization of ways of life. Confucians noticed the importance of this early on. The Confucians repeatedly affirmed the rites (li ) to be the social, political, and ethical institution of norms, and for Confucians, the rites most directly concern eating and drinking: “The emergence of rites (li ) starts with eating and drinking.”29 The rites involve the order of society, a civilized way of behaving, and eating and drinking in accordance with a ritual code concretely expresses the order of society and the civilized way of life. Precisely because of this, the Confucians determined eating and drinking in a variety of ways:

When a youth is in the attendance of an elder at a meal, if the host gives anything to him with his own hand, he should bow to him before eating it. . . .30 If a youth is in the attendance of and drinks with an elder, when the cup of spirits is brought to him, he rises, bows, and goes to receive it at the place where the spirit-vase is kept. . . .31 And (the bridegroom) should make a feast, and invite his friends in the district and neighborhood, and his fellow officers—thus giving its due importance to the separate positions (of male and female) . . .32 He regulated (also) the observances for the collateral branches of his cousins; associating all their members in the feasting. He defined their places according to their order of descent; and differentiated them in accordance with what was proper and right . . .33 When (the Master) was eating by the side of one who had mourning rites in hand, he never ate to the full.34

These examples illustrate that the activity of eating and drinking already involved the whole order of descent from elders to youth, the friendships binding a village, and the communication of emotion between relatives within a clan and between other clans, which already transcends the simple act of filling the stomach and eliminating thirst and hunger. It was understood as the form through which the wild was converted into the civilized. For Confucians, the main point that makes wen (culture/civilization) differ from ye (the wild and barbaric) lies in the former’s embodiment of the way of humans (rendao ). The Book of Rites traces eating manners back to ancient times, when, it claims, people did not yet understand how to use fire to cook food: “They knew not yet the transformative power of fire, but ate the fruits of plants and trees, and the flesh of birds and beasts, drinking their blood, and swallowing [also] the hair and feathers.”35 From the perspective of the way of humans, this way of consuming obviously has negative meaning. By contrast, “the [way of] eating in today’s world is due to the way of humans being well refined.”36 Here, “the way of humans” is said in opposition to the “the way of Nature” (tiandao ) in that it differs from the natural or primordial form of being; this difference is linked to the way in which being is humanized through the defining of places in accordance with the order of descent and differentiating persons in accordance with what is proper and right. To be “due to the way of humans being well refined” here means that the human way of eating transcends the natural (ye ) form and expresses a form in harmony with civilization (wen ).

The mode of being that harmonizes with the way of humans is exhibited at a more intrinsic level as living with dignity. Eating is originally a means of maintaining life, but if food is obtained in such a way that involves losing or damaging the dignity of human character, then one may reject this food. The Book of Rites preserves the following record:

During a great dearth in Qi, Qian Ao had food prepared on the roads, to await the approach of hungry people and give it to them. [One day], there came a famished man, looking as if he could hardly see, his face covered with his sleeve, and dragging his feet together. Qian Ao, carrying with his left hand some rice, and holding some drink with the other, said to him, “Poor man! Come and eat!” The man, opening his eyes with a stare, and looking at him, said, “It was because I would not eat food given [to me] with the words ‘Poor man! Come and eat!’ that I have come to this state.” Qian Ao immediately apologized for his words, but the man after all would not take the food and died.37

The phrase “Poor man!” here expresses the pitiful address of the high to the lowly; the offering of food linked to this form of address comes with the intention of a generous hand-out, which obviously shows a lack of adequate respect for human character. To reject the food handed out implies linking the act of eating food to maintaining the dignity of human character. Here, eating is no longer simply the instinctual activity of maintaining life; it is now linked to the confirmation of the intrinsic dignity of the human being as human; in order to maintain one’s own dignity one must even be willing “to die rather than eat.” As far as the relationship between the being of life and the dignity of human character goes, the old man’s position first expresses a concern for the dignity of human character; this is a tendency, that, if not suitably enforced, could lead to the inability to adequately affirm the intrinsic value of living beings. However, with regard to grading the status of everyday life, eating, as one of its most basic forms, acquires another humanist meaning by transcending the natural or primal form of life.

As stated previously, at the level of everyday life, there is a link between the maintenance of life and the continuation of life, and in correlation with this, eating is consistent with the sexual relationship between man and woman. The difference between the sexes is first a natural difference, and the relationship between the two sexes has a primordial or natural quality from the very beginning. The practice of having multiple spouses in primitive ages shows that the relationship between men and women was akin to that between animals of different sexes. However, consistent with moving from an instinctual way of eating to eating in a human way in accordance with the way of humans is the relationship between the sexes transforming from “barbaric” to “civilized.” In the state of nature, man and woman communed sexually without order, that is, it was consummated chaotically and without refined distinctions. By establishing the institution of marriage, however, distinction and order between man and woman gradually prevailed. The Book of Rites explains this in the following way: “Those rites of marriage are to exhibit the separation that should be maintained between males and females. Generally speaking, rites are to prevent the rise of disorder and confusion, and are like the embankments which prevent the overflow of water.”38 The rites of marriage embodying the form of civilization permeates into everyday life, which enables intercourse between male and female to move out the natural state of disorder and indifference into the state of social order, by virtue of which everyday life transcends its natural significance through the acquisition of humanized (civilized) meaning.

In the form of marriage, the relationship between man and woman is no longer restricted to having biological meaning at the level of the way of Nature; rather, it simultaneously presents social meaning at the level of the way of humans. The tradition of Confucianism found great importance in this. When discussing the rites of marriage, The Book of Rites asserts: “The ceremony of marriage is to be a bond of love between two families of different surnames, securing services in the ancestral temple and the continuance of the family line. Therefore, the exemplary human being sets a great value upon it.”39 Here, the “two surnames” no longer merely refer to the two sexes; rather, it involves different families and members of society, while “the ancestral temple” and “the family line” manifests the historical connection between prior and posterior generations. Here, the integration of man and woman is nested into a background of social interaction and historical transmission, which invests it with broader socio-historical meaning as the relationship between the sexes transcends the natural meaning of simple erotic feeling.

As one of the basic relationships embedded in everyday life, the relationship between man and woman in a more profound sense represents the degree to which human being has removed itself from being in-itself (Nature in-itself) in the movement toward being for-us (being humanized). Marx once illustrated this process concretely:

The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. In this natural relationship of the sexes man’s relation to nature is immediately his relation to man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to nature—his own natural function. In this relationship, therefore, is sensuously manifested, reduced to an observable fact, the extent to which the human essence has become nature to man, or to which nature has to him become the human essence of man.40

When the relationship between man and woman is still based on instinctual desires or drives, in effect, it possesses no dimension that truly transcends nature. By extension, when a wife is merely taken to be an object of commerce or possession, the relationship between man and woman remains stuck at that level opposed to human nature, that of objectification in the form of being natural. Marx speaks of this as the human essence becoming nature to man. The relationship between the two can only truly manifest the “human essence” and transcend the natural dimension, when this relationship has acquired a civilized and egalitarian form.

In correspondence with civilization pervading everyday life, the latter simultaneously possesses the meaning of linking and communicating nature to society. Everyday life, linked to the means of satisfying natural needs metabolic and sexual, is also not limited to Nature, since it is given a humanized form of being; as this double nature makes everyday life transcend Nature in-itself, to some degree it also enables nature and society to communicate. As far as the being of humans goes, this communicating and linking is the ontological precondition of the unification of human being’s inborn nature and moral nature and of human being’s vital sensibility and rational essence. It is precisely this original linking of nature and humans in everyday life that grounds the capacity of inborn nature to develop into a moral nature, and as human being’s moral nature overcomes inborn human nature, hostility toward the latter is also avoided, so as to prevent the alienation of human nature. At the same time, the humanized dimension of everyday life is also expressed in many ways through learning customs, conventions, and traditions as well as acquiring common sense; from procuring food and dwelling space to engaging in social interactions, the effect of customs, common sense, conventions, and traditions can always be seen. According to their substance, even though customs and common sense differ in terms of their intrinsic content, they are both the consolidation of human being’s understanding and grasp of the world in the course of the historical development of the species (transcending individuals); furthermore, they are also the accumulation of the accomplishments of culture and civilization. When discussing the origin and function of rituals and rites, Xunzi remarks:

Therefore ritual propriety is cultivation. The superior human being achieves the cultivation of ritual propriety and enjoys the distinctions in rites. What is meant here by distinction? That the noble and the base are ranked (guijian you deng ), that elders and youth are differentiated (zhangyou you cha ), that poor and rich, unimportant and important may be weighed (you cheng zhe ).41

Here, so-called “cultivation” points to the fulfillment of everyday human needs, that is, “to cultivate human desires, and provide for human needs.”42 A code of rites originally belongs to institutionalized and standardized forms of civilization, but for Xunzi, a code of rites is inseparably linked to the fulfillment of everyday human needs from the outset; the function of rites—to establish an ethical social order—arises from the aforesaid link (to be good at distinguishing rites presupposes accomplishing the cultivation of ritual propriety); this expresses the link between what is natural and what is human. Historically speaking, with customs, traditions, and common sense as regulative principles, everyday life continues itself while also enabling the previous accomplishments of civilization that have consolidated and accumulated in customs, common sense, conventions, and traditions to be transmitted to posterior generations. Therefore, while ensuring the historical succession and transmission of culture, everyday life also transcends Nature in-itself and more concretely connects the natural and the human.

Based on the communication of the natural and humanized dimensions of being in everyday life, human being’s separation from this world is overcome to some extent. As the enactor of the world, human being exhibits a different tendency in opposition to the world of objects, and social differentiation, which the division of labor engenders, furthermore entails the possibility of the separation of human being from human being. Both the separation of human being from the world of objects as well as interpersonal distance give human being a sense of estrangement and alienation in relation to this world. So, the relationship between human being and the world could be quite distant. By comparison, in everyday life human activity involves external objects but also involves imprinting the mark of humanization and society everywhere, and the two are by no means mutually exclusive. Similarly, even though the relationships found among humans are never lacking in tensions and conflicts, everyday life as a whole—from living together with family members to affiliating with friends and neighbors—never ceases to demonstrate the affinity between humans. The integration of human being with the world of objects and interpersonal harmony enables humans “to be” in the world as if they were at home. This sense of being at home cancels out and overcomes the distance and estrangement between human being and the world, while simultaneously providing individuals with the ontological ground to identify with this world and accept it.

At the metaphysical level, to identify with this world not only means accepting and blending into this world, it also means affirming the true reality of this world. For the individual, objects in the world of everyday life are the most immediate and real beings. As far as consumption goes, the everyday actions of clothing oneself, eating, and procuring dwelling space do not involve virtual things, but real objects, which each fulfillment of a human need confirms. Philosophers who have fallen into speculative fantasies may deny the reality of the world in a mystical state, but as soon as they return to the world of everyday life, they will be constantly reminded that the various resources human beings need to survive are not ideal beings. Granted, this verification of life is different from the verifications provided by rational arguments, but it gives one grounds to confirm the reality of the world in an experiential or common sense way. Similarly, in the everyday world of communication, the agent of communication and the process of communicating really do exist in this world; with language as well as the body, tools, and behavior as mediums, inter-subjective relationships, though easily concealed, present their reality time and again; even virtual connections in the internet age ultimately require real subjects and inter-subjective relationships as their foundation and actual support. Although the individual’s grasp of being in everyday life is spontaneous and pre-reflective in nature, life in its everydayness, with its immediate authenticity, provides the individual with the initial grounds upon which a vivid sense of reality concerning this world can be formed.

This real sense of the world could also be seen as ontological evidence, which simultaneously constitutes the basic precondition of the individual being-in-the-world. Now, the mode of being of everyday life is relative to the process of producing and reproducing the stuff of material life. Even though everyday life in earlier historical ages was tightly intertwined with laboring, in later stages of development, the distinction between everyday life and non-everyday life has become relative. Yet, with the production and reproduction of life as its content, everyday life undoubtedly encompasses features that differ from productive labor. The production and reproduction of life is directly tied to maintaining and continuing biological life, including the revival and conservation of bodily forces, the fulfillment of vital needs, the development of vital capacities, and so on, and important ways and paths through which these goals are realized include leisure and play. As ways of everyday life, leisure and play presuppose a foreshortening of work time. When labor time occupies the majority of human existence, everyday life and labor nearly coincide in terms of time, and so there is no way for leisure and play to become a substantial part of life. In accompaniment with the foreshortening of labor time, humans gradually came into the possession of an increase in surplus time aside from labor, and leisure began to enter the process of human life. In contrast to labor, leisure and play in everyday life present the characteristic of being free. Throughout a rather long historical period, laboring exhibited a two-fold quality: insofar as it exhibits human being’s power to affect and reform the world of objects, it undoubtedly presents the aspect of freedom; yet insofar as it is still pressed with the demands of survival (constrained by the necessities of survival) or suffers under forms of alienation, it has not truly reached a free state. By contrast, insofar as leisure and play presuppose the possession of time that one can control according to one’s own will, they imply some liberation from compulsory survival activity and to a rather large extent transcend direct ends of utility; both exhibit the character of freedom in different ways. As the forms in which it is linked to everyday being, such kinds of freedom differ from liberty in the socio-political realm, and exhibit a more direct and original relationship to the being of humans. When discussing the relationship between human being and play, Schiller once remarked that, “to declare it once and for all, Man plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man, and he is only wholly Man when he is playing.”43 Whether or not a human being is human “in the full sense of the word” only while playing is of course open to debate, but if “in the full sense of the word a man” is understood as the human being who has developed free character, then there is certainly a correlation between human being and play. At the same time, leisure and play are also not just simple diversions insofar as they make possible the cultivation of various interests, the development of character and many other capacities. The cave paintings of early humankind could be seen in the broad sense as active play in the surplus time of leisure beyond labor. As an early form of artistic creation, cave painting also shows human being’s interest in artistic creation, which furthermore exhibits a corresponding capacity. What is important here is that play alludes to the free use and control of time, which is not the same as wallowing around in diversions: when human being is caught up in some amusing activity and cannot pull itself out, human being substantially is controlled by this activity and is incapable of truly entering into free play. According to their original sense, play and leisure, as forms of everyday life, endow the world of everyday life with intrinsic meaning from the perspective of the free state of being of humans and the possibility of the individual’s multi-faceted development.

We can see that similar to the conversion of things in-themselves into things for-us, everyday life taking on the form of a world of meaning is tied to the humanization of nature: this implies that the production and reproduction of life in the natural sense transcends nature and acquires a socialized and civilized form of being. Transcending nature does not, however, entail human being’s total separation from nature. As the concrete form of being, which conjointly involves nature and human being, everyday life simultaneously integrates both the way of nature and the way of humans and enables them to communicate, which grounds the unity of inborn human nature and human being’s moral nature and of human being’s sensible life and rational essence. In the form of leisure and play on the basis of free time, everyday life provides space for the development of human being’s multiple facets and freedom. While things for-us confirm human being’s essential powers by bearing the mark of human impressions, everyday life more directly represents the transformation and elevation of human being’s very mode of being, which is precisely what makes everyday life become yet another form of a world of meaning.

A World of Meaning and Social Reality

As opposed to the world of objects, everyday life shares a closer connection with the social sphere. In fact, some philosophers understand the world of everyday life as the predominant form of social reality.44 However, from a broader perspective, social reality is not limited to the world of everyday life, and possesses much richer and more diverse content. When we transform Nature in-itself into Nature for-humans, overcome the being in-itself of everyday life, and more closely consider the actual form of a world of meaning, social reality becomes an object of the utmost importance.

As the mode of being of the social sphere, the characteristic that distinguishes social reality from natural objects lies first in the formation of the social sphere and its activity, which is always tied to the being of humans. Before natural objects enter the domain of meaning, their determination as being in-itself is their original state: whether we consider them from the logical or historical perspective, in the natural world objects may “exist” beyond the domain of cognition and practice without presenting their meaning to human being; in other words, their being and their meaning may not coincide. Being in-itself, on the other hand, may not be said of social reality: things in the social sphere take shape through and exist within the human sphere of practice and cognition, and therefore, their being and their meaning are inseparable.

In a broad sense, social reality includes everyday life, but if considered at a more substantial level, social reality exists in the form of institutions, organizations, and interacting communities and in their associated activities and modes of being. Everyday life, as the conditions of the production and reproduction of individual life, contains a natural dimension and possesses a diffuse nature of sorts: by contrast, in the form of institutions and organizations, social reality presents socio-historical meaning and is characterized by stability. In regard to its concrete mode of being, social reality in the latter sense (institutions and organizations) involves the economic, political, and legal domains as well as those of the military, education, and culture. In the economic sphere of modern society, we find many kinds of economic organizations such as factories, companies, markets, and banks—from production and transportation to trade and finance. In the political and legal domains, there are states, political parties, and governments as well as their legislative and judicial organs. In the domain of education, we find many classes of education from universities and high schools to middle schools and elementary schools, and even training organizations. In the cultural domain, there are publishing houses, journals, the media, and theatre companies as well as other organizations and institutions such as literary arts associations; in the domain of scientific research there are multiple forms of organizations such as research institutes, peer review journals, and academies.

In the form of institutions and social organizations, social reality is intimately related to the ideals, ideas, and practical activities of human beings. From the macroscopic perspective of social history, there are different understandings of how to locate the ontological status of individuals, groups, ideals, ideas, and material forces; that is, one may stress the role of the individual or highlight the function of the group while another may emphasize the role of ideals and ideas or focus on the function of economic and political activities. But, all confirm the role of human beings in the process of forming and transforming social reality, even if in different senses. This connection between social reality and human being shows a kind of constructivism of social reality, which different theories of society have demonstrated. Social contract theory is worthy of mention here. As a theory of social politics, contract theory first aims at explaining the origin of the state. Taking Rousseau’s contract theory, for example, based on the supposition that human rights are inborn or innate, the origin of the state is understood as the result of the individual transferring his or her rights: a person transfers his or her own right to a political organization that represents the common interest, which then generates the state. Evidently here, the state as social reality is mainly seen to be the product of a compromise (enveloped only in this transferring) and agreement among humans, which as a process entails a certain constructivism.

The contemporary philosopher John Searle gives a more concrete analysis of the constructivist nature of social reality. Searle distinguishes two varieties of facts, that is, facts that are independent of human beings and facts that are dependent upon them: social reality is of the latter variety. As a fact that relies on human beings, the formation of social reality is tied to the act of humans assigning functions. To assign a function is precisely to attach a function to an object, which gives it a corresponding status function. For instance, to give some specific piece of paper a general function such as possessing value, it becomes currency or money, and currency or money is a kind of social reality. Correlated with assigning functions is collective intentionality, which is exhibited concretely in the common acceptance or mutual agreement of individuals in a community. In the case of currency, if some kind of “paper” is assigned the function of serving as money, and this function is collectively recognized and accepted, then it actually becomes money. Searle sees this process as the formation of social reality or institutional facts and emphasizes the constructed nature of social reality.45

Compared to social contract theory, which primarily refers to the macroscopic dimension of society, Searle’s function assignment theory concerns a diversity of institutional facts; but, not withstanding the difference of stress between them, both undoubtedly share much in common insofar as they understand social reality as a human construction. In the form of constructs or constructions, what is mainly emphasized is the role of consciousness or the dimension of self-awareness in the process of forming social reality. Whether it is persons transferring rights or persons assigning functions, both unfold as self-aware and intentionally undertaken activities; and this self-awareness of action is first of all tied to conscious processes: while making a contract presupposes the willing agreement of all parties, assigning a function more directly involves collective intentionality.

As objects of the domain of cognition and practice, the formation of social reality is inseparably bound to man’s self-aware actions. Identical to the broader sense of humanized things, social reality also embodies different human ideals, the formative process of which is always pervaded by human ends, intentions, rational thought, and planning. From political institutions like the state, to concrete objects like money production and efficacy always involve these aspects. This connection between human activity and social reality makes the latter not only exist in the mode of being “for-us” in the general sense, but also endows it with the mode of being self-aware. In this respect, neither social contract theory nor function assignment theory is without due insight.

However, seeing social reality merely as the intentional construction of human beings or as the product of human being’s self-conscious construction obviously fails to grasp the whole substance of the issue. Although humans indeed undertake activities and creations self-consciously in and throughout social history, such activities are never completely isolatable from the unconscious realm of nature. For example, labor, as the basic form of practical activity, presupposes that “He [man] opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces.”46 As the interaction of humans and nature, labor is obviously steeped in the dimension of Nature in-itself. At the same time, human creations are also based on certain conditions, which arise from the free choices of human beings. Marx once remarked on this: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”47 These pre-existing conditions of creativity that cannot be chosen do not just constitute the limitations of creative activity in the negative sense; at a more profound level they reveal another aspect of the creativity that is opposed to constructing self-consciously: these aspects of the conditions of creativity show that social reality is always constituted by a dimension of being in-itself, which makes social reality also manifest itself as a process of natural history.

Historically speaking, although social reality embodies human ideals and human ends, it also reflects the objective needs of the evolution of society. The state, for instance, is such that its formation is not based on the will of the individual or that of the group, nor does the state arise merely out of the rational planning of the few; rather, at a more primary level, its formation is linked to the development of the economy, the transformation of the system of ownership (first, the emergence of the system of private property), society’s differentiation (including the formation of classes), and so on; it is, moreover, the social disparities and conflicts accompanying these formations and transformations that generate the historical need to produce a state. In the same way, the emergence of currency, as an institutional fact, stems from the objective needs of the development of commodity trade relations. The earliest forms of currency did not exist in the form of assigning some “paper” with the function of currency. As a matter of fact, as opposed to some conscious assignment of a function, the emergence of currency was rather spontaneous from the very beginning: when trading things for things no longer suited the needs of the development of trade relations, people spontaneously took some kind of thing or several kinds of things as a universal equivalent, and money developed upon this basis. This spontaneity in the process of historical development reveals the being in-itself of social reality in yet another way.

As mentioned previously, highlighting the self-consciousness of social reality demands emphasizing the function of consciousness or intentionality. From the agreement between the members of society (social contract theory) to the acceptance of collective intentionality (function assignment theory), conscious or intentional action has been given an important role in social reality; in a sense this role appears as intentional recognition. As regarding its external form, intentional recognition is linked to “seeing as.” In Rousseau’s social contract theory, the state is “seen as” the public will or the representative of the General Will, and in Searle’s assignment function theory, some object (such as a specific kind of paper) is “seen as” money or currency through intentional recognition. This “seeing as” based on intentional recognition involves action at the level of ideas; and placing emphasis on this ideal activity means giving it priority.

Relative to intentional recognition is practical recognition. The external form of intentional recognition is “to see as,” whereas practical recognition refers to accepting in practice or to practically “use as.” Although the formation and operating of social reality involves agreement at the level of ideas, it is likewise inseparable from “using as” in practice. As mentioned previously, from the perspective of history, social reality originates from spontaneously “using as,” the actual mode of which is inseparable from practically “using as.” Institutions and institutional facts do not have vital forces in themselves; they only gain intrinsic vitality and actuality when they are in “practical use.” So, in the formation and operating of social reality, intentional recognition and practical recognition are not strictly separable.

We can see that social reality, as the being of the cognitive and practical domain of humans, is on the one hand constructed, but on the other hand, it is also the product of natural history, and thus encompasses the dimension of being in-itself; the formation and operating of social reality simultaneously intertwines intentional and practical recognition. Insofar as it is inseparable from the being of humans, social reality differs from the world of objects; insofar as it confirms itself through practical recognition, it also differs from the world of ideas. In terms of its actuality, social reality at once takes shape through the process of humans cognizing and practicing without ceasing to constitute the conditions of possibility of human cognitive and practical activity.

Corresponding to its actuality, social reality also has its external aspects of form, which are physical. Governments have offices, buildings, and other material means of guaranteeing that orders are carried out; industrial enterprises have their factories, machines, and equipment, which are undoubtedly physical; they distinguish social reality from the world of ideas while endowing the former with the nature of being in-itself. However, the determination of social reality as social reality does not consist in merely encompassing a physical form; at a more substantial level, social reality reveals its intrinsic determination through the being of humans and the human activity of cognizing and practicing. Physical forms are themselves lifeless; they may only acquire vitality through human activity. When we form connections to different forms of social reality, we interact with more than just things without human character, we interact with the humans who give institutions their living vitality. In the actual operating of social reality, there is everywhere and always human participation; human activity is the very precondition of the actualization of their concrete roles. Without physical form social reality would be unable to present its actual external form, whereas without the internal meaning of humanization, social reality would lose its internal life. In its substance, the meaning of social reality springs from the being and acting of humans; in this sense, one could say that the core of social reality is human. When Searle ties social reality to the assigning of functions he undoubtedly grasps this point.

In the form of the unity of physical formations and the humanized contents filling them, social reality presents consistency with things for-us. However, things for-us presupposes the humanization of the natural world and appears as reformed or modified objects; as objective being, things for-us more precisely exhibit the mode of being “instruments.” Social reality differs from the world of objects insofar as it is always immanent to the process of humans interacting and their connections, and human being always constitutes its core. Confucianism once insisted that “the superior human being is no instrument,”48 which is an idea with multiple dimensions; its intrinsic sense lies in transcending the domain of “instruments.” Transcending the domain of instruments first shows that social reality cannot rest simply on things or the world of objects, and means that we must overcome the mere external form that things like instruments present through a grasp of their internal humanized substance.

As for the way in which rituals function, You Zi once laid out a famous argument: “The most valuable function of rituals lies in harmonizing.”49 As argued previously, the “rituals or rites” that Confucians speak of refer to the systematic body of universal norms, including the socio-political institution, which belongs to social reality; “harmonizing” appears as an ethical principle that is manifested in human interactions; considering it negatively, harmonizing demands that tensions and conflicts between humans be assuaged and subdued through mutual understanding and communication; as regards its positive aspect, to harmonize means to strike a concord of mind and power between humans, integrating forces and cooperating. Rites primarily concern the operating of institutions (including the holding of ordinary rituals, the stipulations of hierarchical structure, the carrying out of political orders, and the symbiosis of the rulers and ministers, along with the higher and lower strata), but Confucians linked this operating of institutions to the ethical principle of “harmonizing,” stressing the functions of rituals, the most valuable of which consists in following the principle of harmony and embodying it; here, we can see their understanding of the background of social reality in general and institutional organizations in particular as a relationship of humans, which entails overcoming the external mode of instrumental things by grasping the substantial meaning of the human principle of ritual propriety. “When one says ‘The rites, the rites,’ is it enough to mean by this only presents of jade and silk?”50—such statements explicate this point aptly: jade and silk are external in form, belonging to the world of “instruments;” rituals are not limited to gifts of jade and silk, and mean to move from instruments to human being. This understanding takes notice of the fact that the core of rituals, as social reality, is human being.

It is precisely this human core that contains the meaning of social reality. Things “for-us” at the level of objects are also tied to human being, but as reformed and modified objects, their roles and functions are first grounded in their physical form. By comparison, social reality, the substantial content of which is the being and practicing of humans, is immediately the human world. While things for-us require the cognitive and practical activity of humans as a medium for them to constitute a world of meaning, social reality, as a world of meaning, is internal to this cognitive and practical activity itself, which embodies it. At the same time, the value of things “for-us” lies first of all in serving as means for the fulfillment of rational human needs. Differing somewhat from this, the dimension of ends and the dimension of means fuse together in social reality. So, social reality, as a world of meaning, presents the very characteristic of the world as the human world.

The human world of course is not just the embodiment of human impressions or the manifestation of human actions; at a much more intrinsic level, it consists in according with human nature. In broad terms, according with human nature means expressing the universal essence of human being, which distinguishes humans from all other beings, and social reality thus constitutes a representation or concrete measure of whether things accord with human nature or not or to what degree things are fitting with human nature. In Confucianism’s discussion about the relationship between rituals and humans, we find this remark: “Although a human who doesn’t observe ritual propriety can still speak, doesn’t he or she still have the mind and sensibility of a beast?”51 “The reason a human is therefore human is due to observing ritual propriety and being righteous.”52 Here, the observance of ritual propriety as a social reality is seen as the intrinsic determination of human being, which distinguishes humans from animals (beasts). In other words, whether or not something accords with ritual propriety becomes the scale that measures whether or not something accords with human nature.

Daoism touches upon this issue from another angle. Here, Zhuangzi’s perspective is worth mentioning. In the debate concerning the distinction between humans and Nature, Zhuangzi gave central status to the existential condition of humans. Proceeding from this, Zhuangzi opposes the equating of human being with a thing or “burying oneself in things”: “Those who have buried themselves in things and who have lost their human nature in social customs are called the people who have been inverted (daozhi zhi min ).”53 “Self” here expresses the mode of the individual person, while “human nature” is the intrinsic determination or essence of human being qua human. For Zhuangzi, as the individual form of human being, the self has priority in relation to things; similarly, as the intrinsic determination of human being, human nature also has a higher value than the customary values of recognition and wealth; as soon as the self dissolves into things or the intrinsic determination of human being is lost in the pursuit of fame and gain, this means the relationship between human being and things as well as that between nature and custom have been overturned or inverted. On the basis of the same premises, Zhuangzi repeatedly insisted that one must “not destroy oneself with things,”54 and “not alienate oneself with things.”55

For Zhuangzi, social reality in the humanized form is not necessarily constituted by beings that accord with human nature. As for rites, music, and morals, although their form carries a humanized nature, the process from which they were derived was not congruous with the mode of being of human-naturalization:

To make humans bow to rites and bend to music, to propagate the principles of humanity and justice in order to allay the affective mind of the world—this is to undo the natural state of the affective mind and the world. There is a natural state of things. To arise from the natural state is to draw a curve or circle without a compass, to draw a straight line or square without ruler or carpenter’s square, to attach things without glue or lacquer or to bind things without strings or ropes . . . Thus, to put it into words, for three generations there hasn’t been a single human being who hasn’t used things to alienate the natural human tendency (xing ). The petty man sacrifices himself for wealth, the man of office sacrifices himself for prestige, the higher official sacrifices himself for family, and the sage sacrifices himself for the world.56

The natural state spoken of here refers to the original form that was never refined or reformed, like squares and circles that are shaped without the help of ruler or compass; the “natural state” of human being is what is fitting with the original form of human nature. According to Zhuangzi’s view, ritual codes and music, moral codes and justice are external standards; to place human being under the yoke of such standards leads to the replacement of the natural human tendency with extrinsic standards, thereby forcing humans to lose the “natural state” of human nature. Zhuangzi’s mistaking the original form of being for the humanized form of being shows a failure to genuinely grasp the substantial sense of humanization, and his critique of rites and music connects social reality to humanized being in the form of a negation: to be grounded in rites and music is necessarily to fall into the inhuman and so is rejected. The logical premise of such a deduction is that social reality ought to harmonize with human nature. While Confucianism distinctly and positively sees harmonizing with human nature as the intrinsic attribute of social reality, Daoism expresses a similar viewpoint in an obscure way by means of negation; of course, there is still an important difference between both viewpoints concerning how to harmonize with human nature in the true sense.57

With regard to the being of humans, the meaning of social reality is inseparable from whether or not something accords with human nature. While the main characteristic that distinguishes social reality from the world of objects lies in its human core, according with human nature endows social reality with the meaning of being at a more intrinsic level. As the intrinsic attribute of a world of meaning, according with human nature could be understood on different levels. Considered in broad terms, humanity and sociality share something in common insofar as harmonizing with human nature means acquiring social characteristics or social properties. But the more substantial and intrinsic expression of human nature lies in human freedom and the multi-faceted development of human potential. As Hegel states, “Nature exhibits no freedom in its existence, but only necessity and contingency.”58 Only with humans is there the demand and capacity for freedom; the development of human nature and the realization of freedom are in terms of content two sides of the same process. Historically speaking, it is precisely in the process of moving toward freedom that human being gradually distinguishes itself from the world of objects, and it is also precisely within this process that human being gradually acquires the essential determination that distinguishes human being from things and natural objects. So, to accord with human nature implies the demand to move toward freedom: whether or not and to what extent social reality accords with human nature is identical to whether or not and to what extent social reality manifests the historical process of moving toward freedom.

Furthermore, as the concrete form of a world of meaning, social reality not only constitutes the representation of humanized nature, it also ensures the movement toward harmonizing with human nature. When discussing the role of rites, The Book of Rites points out: “To value holding to one’s word, cultivating peaceful relationships, and to show kind consideration and courteous compliance so as to do away with quarrelling and plundering: how could this practice possibly reign without observing ritual propriety?”59 Here, “to value holding to one’s word and cultivating peaceful relationships” expresses the positive sense of human beings fostering harmonious relationships among themselves, while “doing away with quarrelling and plundering” expresses the negative sense of eliminating conflicts; both manifest the order of society, and as a social reality, the code of rites is seen as the conditions of possibility of this form of being. Concretely speaking, how do rituals embody this role? The Book of Rites elucidates this further:

The rituals at the court audiences of the different seasons were intended to illustrate the righteous relationship between ruler and subject; those of friendly messages and inquiries, to secure mutual honor and respect between the feudal princes; those of mourning and sacrifice, to illustrate the kindly feelings of ministers and sons; those of social meetings in the country districts, to show the order that should prevail between the young and the elderly; and those of marriage, to exhibit the separation that should be maintained between males and females. Those rituals inhibit the cause of disorder and confusion.60

This passage touches upon different social relationships—between ruler and minister, between dukes, between townspeople, between husband and wife, and so forth—behind these relationships we find such social fields as the political, diplomatic, familial, and so on. For Confucians, each kind of relationship marking the social field needs a specific ritual to regulate it; it is this normative and regulative role of rituals that enable society to avoid falling into disorder. Generally speaking, conflict, opposition, and chaos present negative meaning to humans just as harmonious order better suits the needs of human development; by undoing conflicts and oppositions in the negative sense and by upholding social order in the positive sense, “rituals” provide the conditions for the attainment of a form of being that accords with human nature.

Of course, the movement toward a form of being that accords with human nature unfolds as a historical process, and so the meaning of social reality presents a corresponding historicality and complexity. Considering its actual form of being, social reality itself may manifest the tendency of history and the demands of human development, but may be at odds with the former as well; the Daoist critique of alienating human nature with things and the postmodernist critique of modernity both show different senses of this conflict of social reality with the demands of human development.61 In essence, only a social reality that is consistent with the tendency of historical evolution of and the demands of human development can ensure the advance toward a form of being that accords with human nature. Here it seems some sort of circle is implied: only a social reality that suits the development of human nature is historically rational, while attaining a form of being that suits human nature presupposes the preexistence of this kind of a social reality. However, this circle is not only that of mutual presupposition in the logical sense; it is also a historical interaction in the substantial sense.

With the historical evolution of knowing and practicing as its precondition, a world of meaning takes shape and unfolds into concrete forms of being in different dimensions. Through the transformation of Nature in-itself (the primordial state of being) into Nature for-humans (things for-us), the world of objects overcomes its primordial state and acquires the form of being actual, which is the union of being in-itself and being for-us, the intrinsic attribute of which is suiting human needs; by confirming the creative powers of human beings, social reality exhibits its multi-faceted meaning; the sphere of meaning further infuses the world of everyday life by going beyond the natural form of being of biological survival and reproduction and by endowing the individual with her social and civilized form of being; aiming at a form of being that accords with human nature, social reality is the representation of humanization and ensures the movement toward the humanized form of being. In this formation of a world of meaning the intrinsic union of the actual nature of objects, the essential powers of human beings and the value of being itself are thoroughly manifested.