4Meaning in the World of Spirit

CONDITIONED BY THE interrelation of human capacities with systems of norms, accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things constitutes human being’s basic way of being and mode of being. In the historical unfolding of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, the presentation of things and the directionality of intentions reciprocally interact; the world enters the realm of ideas through this interaction and henceforth becomes being with meaning. As noted earlier, the problem of meaning does not occur to the world in-itself; rather, the source of meaning lies in the historical process of one coming to know the world and oneself while transforming both oneself and the world. Originating from the being of humans and the being of the world, meaning is within and unfolds within humanized reality, but also emerges in the form of ideas. The former (humanizing reality) means that humans transform “Nature in-itself” into “Nature for-humans” through practical action, by means of which the world in-itself becomes being, which is impressed with the mark of human, and which embodies the ideal of human values. The latter (meaning in the form of ideas) is not only being that is known or understood, insofar as it also unfolds into different forms of the world of spirit in the process of being evaluated and being invested with senses of value.

World-Picture: Understanding and Meaning

As far as the form of ideas is concerned, a world of meaning first shows the understandability of being. As objects of cognition and understanding, things in the realm of ideas differ from chaotic and contradictory things without understandability; they are, rather, beings with meaning. Here, in opposition to meaningless absurdity, the meaningfulness of being is first of all the understandable and comprehensible nature of being.

With understandability, a world of meaning first emerges in the form of common sense. In broad terms, common sense could be seen as the various ideas and beliefs that take shape through common everyday activities; such ideas and beliefs gradually accumulated and took shape over the course of hundreds of thousands of years of human history, and they were passed down from one generation to the next. The ideas or beliefs constituting common sense consist of human being’s understanding of the world and the being of humans, but this kind of understanding is not established through theoretical argumentation or reflection; it establishes itself rather in the form of being accepted spontaneously as self-evident without undergoing any proof, and its acceptance usually presupposes social influences and the practices of everyday life. The distinction between common sense and uncommon sense is relative. In the case of the relationship between the earth and the sun, ideas like “the sun rises in the east” and “the earth doesn’t revolve, the sun does” were common sense for a rather long historical period, and moreover, even up to the present moment, these ideas still have meaning as common sense in the domain of everyday life. However, in today’s world, that “the earth revolves around the sun and rotates on its own axis” and that “the sun’s rising and setting is actually due to the earth rotating around its own axis” has also become a matter of common sense among human beings with at least a middle school degree of education. Although this latter kind of common sense includes astronomical knowledge, as a popular idea, it does not require any argument or reflection; it is rather a common belief that is universally accepted by certain groups of people.

As a system of ideas, common sense involves a grasp and understanding of the world. In the form of common beliefs, common sense enfolds the world into an ordered framework, making it capable of being understood and accepted by human beings, which henceforth provides a basis for the unfolding of everyday life. In the horizon of common sense, the world is not a fictional being or an illusion; rather, it presents reality. Philosophical speculations may understand the world as a construction of the mind, but common sense still firmly believes without a doubt in the reality of the various objects it faces in the living world; everyday life practices, including everything from eating, drinking, and communicating to waking up and going to sleep, are all based on these beliefs. Things not only actually exist in the living world, they are also connected to each other in different ways, and for common sense, these connections between things are of a fixed and constant nature. In terms of temporal relations, the different things existing in the past, present, and future always emerge in consecutive order; nothing can ever emerge counter to this order of succession. In terms of the growth of things, planting a melon will not yield a bean, and planting a bean will never yield a melon. Such a determinate belief in the fixed constancy of connections between things constitutes a condition of the very possibility of everyday life and labor.

We can see that in the world of common sense, in spite of the infinite variety and ceaseless transformation of objects and things, there is still the structure of succession between them. To a degree, the distinctive feature of common sense consists in arranging things in an order of succession so that the intangibility of the world and the estrangement of human being from the world can be overcome, enabling a routine form of regular life practices to become possible. This orderliness of succession that common sense reveals makes the world understandable and endows it with intrinsic meaning. Consisting of perceptions, understandings, and identifications of the world, the world of common sense simultaneously appears as the world in the eyes of human being or the world for everyday consciousness. Here, common sense shows a world of meaning in the form of ideas.

Opposed to common sense is science. As is widely known, science has reached a relative maturity in the modern era. As a way of grasping the world, the distinctive feature of modern science lies in its emphasis on mathematical methods and empirical means. To experiment in general is to observe an object under a set of ideal conditions of human selection or arrangement, and to use experiments as a means of research entails grasping the world with idealized means; idealized means always bring to light some aspects of a thing while suspending or ignoring others, which thereby reveals a different world-picture. As for its goal, modern science aims at grasping the world in a mathematical way. As the very complement of the tendency to idealize, which experimental means entail, mathematization has gradually become the objective that science pursues; whether or not an understanding of the world can be summarized in mathematical terms has become the very standard of judgment for whether or not such an understanding is scientific in the strict sense. The mathematized understanding of the world in a sense started with Galileo. As Husserl states: “Through Galileo’s mathematization of nature, nature itself is idealized under the guidance of the new mathematics; nature itself becomes—to express it in a modern way—a mathematical manifold [Mannigfaltigkeit].”1 To mathematize nature means to grasp nature with greater exactitude in terms of quantitative relations and formal structures, which endows the scientific world-picture with another distinctive characteristic.

In contrast to the world in the view of common sense, the scientific view undoubtedly presents a different kind of meaning. As ideas spontaneously accepted and recognized by certain social groups of certain historical periods, common sense grasps the world in a predominantly non-reflective way. In the realm of common sense, the orderly succession and understandability of the world is first based on the repetitive cycles and routine nature of everyday life: Having taken in and arranged the world by means of everyday beliefs presupposes the orderliness and regularity of things themselves and their relation to one another in everyday life practices (it is not without reason and therefore incalculable); the non-irregularity of the world (like the sun rising at dawn and setting at dusk) and the routine nature of everyday life practices (like working when the sun is out and resting after the sun sets) are one and the same thing. Science’s understanding of the world differs from a simple and direct perception of phenomenon by virtue of presenting the means of experimental verification and theoretical argumentation. Science also reveals a world order distinct from that regularity and routine found in everyday experience; rather, it is a framework whose demonstration makes use of theory and logic. Through mathematical models and structures of mathematical symbols, the order of the world gains a unique form of expression in the scientific view as it is verified with rational arguments, mathematical operators, and the like.

As a picture of the world shaped through such means as idealization and mathematization, science is undoubtedly abstract; in contrast to common sense, such a world-picture is already distantly detached from the concreteness of sensibility to a considerable degree. However, in the framework of scientific concepts, mathematical models, and the like, science also reveals the order of the world at a more profound, intrinsic level. Although the scientific picture of the world differs from the concrete sensible world, it endows the world with an understandable form and makes it reveal a specific meaning at the cognitive level by illuminating the properties and necessary laws intrinsic to things. Similar to the form of being presented through the horizon of common sense, the scientific view also presents a world of human understanding or a world that has entered the human sphere of ideas. Even though both pictures of the world refer of course to the same objects at the ontological level, the world as it is understood through common sense and the world as it is grasped by scientific means present different kinds of meaning to human being at the epistemological level: as worlds of meaning differing in form, the cognitive content contained in the world of common sense and that provided by the scientific world differ both in breadth and depth.

While the scientific view of the world generally refers to objects in the empirical realm, the metaphysical view of the world has its own focus. In contrast to science’s way of grasping the world by means of empirical verification, the metaphysical horizon takes a more speculative approach. However, in terms of understanding the world as an ordered system, there also seem to be zones of consistency between them.

Differing from the scientific picture of the world, the metaphysical horizon does not focus on particular domains or specific objects; it is concerned rather with being itself or the world as a whole. Does being as a whole have one origin? By tracing the world back to its basic constitution or by determining the origin of being, whether the source of all things is thought to be water or atoms as it was in the West, or whether it is thought to be the five phases (wuxing ) of qi as it was in the East, the metaphysical horizon enfolds the world into a unified system through perspectives of a different focus. When water, atoms, or qi is thought of as the ultimate constitution or origin of being, all things come into possession of an attribute that unifies them, and the links between them cease to be a confusing mess that confounds all attempts at understanding. The Book of Changes assures that it “simulates the heavens and the earth and that is why it can encapsulate the natural way of change (dao ) of the heavens and the earth.” To encapsulate the natural way of change of the heavens and the earth means to grasp the world as a whole, whose precondition is thinking of the world itself as a being of immanent unity.

Linked to the origin of being is the way of being, which concerns how the world exists. When discussing the connection between all things, Zhongyong (Doctrine of Mean) mentions the following concept: “All things nourish each other (bingyu ) and do not harm one another, their paths are parallel and do not conflict.” Everything in the world co-exists, despite the lack of identity between them; they tolerate one another and develop forms of being that are mutually consistent, rather than mutually exclusive. For those philosophers who propounded the theory of qi monism, such a beneficial and consistent relationship between things is thought of as occurring due to the immanent principle contained in the transformative movement of qi: “Although the qi of the heavens and the earth is condensing and dissolving, aggressing and accepting in its innumerable ways, its principles are reasonable and not absurd.”2 All things arise from qi, The congealing and dissolving of which follows necessary principles; such a process reveals “the order of Nature” (tianxu or tianzhi ) of everything that is happening and co-existing: “In generative growth there is preceding and succeeding, so there is tianxu;3 the big and small, high and low abut up next to one another and shape one another, so there is tianzhi. There is order (tianxu) in Nature’s generation of things, just as there is order (tianzhi) in the generated form of things.”4 In the form of tianzhi and tianxu, the being of things overcomes chaos and becomes understandable. In contrast to the picture of the world that a unified origin would provide, the formation of being expressed through the order of Nature seems to show the metaphysical meaning of the world in a more immanent way.

While seeking transcendence, religions also try to render the world into an ordered system, and so constitute metaphysical perspectives in the broad sense. For instance, although Buddhism does not accept the reality of the actual world, it still attempts to give order to the world under the premise that it is accepted as the state of suchness in contradistinction to the state of illusion. When discussing the phenomenal world (se ), The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana states: “There is no differentiation or sameness in the manifested phenomena of suchness, which can manifest itself freely in the ten quarters of the universe as an infinite number of Bodhisattvas, an infinite number of Buddhas of enjoyment-body, and infinite sublimities, but each variation is neither different from nor the same as the others, so they do not interfere with one another. But to become aware of this is beyond the capacity of the deluded mind who thinks it knows things by consciously separating them, for the reason that these [manifestations] are the effect of suchness freely being in-itself.”5 The things populating the phenomenal world are multitudinous and manifold, but whether they are different or identical, they are mutually co-existing (without interfering with one another) within the horizon of suchness. Hua Yan (Flower Garland) Buddhism’s doctrine of “a world without mutual obstruction between phenomena” further summarizes this relationship of mutual non-interference. Leaving aside their presupposition of a distinction between true and false worlds, their understanding of the world undoubtedly shares something in common with the philosophical view that “all things nourish each other and do not harm one another, their paths are complementary and do not conflict.”

Similar to the world-pictures confirmed by common sense and science respectively, being as it is revealed through the metaphysical horizon is not the same as the form of being as it is originally in-itself; it is rather being as it is understood or being in the realm of ideas. While explaining the perspective of true emptiness, Fa Zang, the great proponent of Hua Yan Buddhism in China, once remarked: “The external world emerges from the mind (you xin xian jing ), the mind emerges from the external world (you jing xian xin ), but the mind does not enter the [external] world and the [external] world does not enter the mind. Continuously attaining this perspective, wisdom deepens in profundity, and so it is called the perspective of true emptiness absorbing the world in returning to the mind.”6 The perspective of true emptiness expresses Hua Yan Buddhism’s understanding of being. Such an understanding affirms a world-picture that is primarily that of the mind, thereby differing from a factual world. When he states that “the mind does not enter the [external] world and the [external] world does not enter the mind,” he emphasizes that the world in the realm of ideas is not actually within the external world, and similarly that the external world does not directly enter the realm of ideas. Of course, Hua Yan Buddhism’s perspective of true emptiness does not go beyond the position that the world is created and destroyed with the mind, but it undoubtedly shows that the world-picture found within the metaphysical horizon is primarily characterized by ideas. By explaining the world and apprehending objects through such concepts as “the order of Nature” and “a world without mutual obstruction between phenomena,” metaphysical horizons endow being with understandability and show the meaning of the world at the level of ideas.

The world-pictures belonging to the horizons of common sense, science, and metaphysics respectively express human being’s understanding of the multiple dimensions of being and reveal different facets of the not unreasonable order that being follows. As stated previously, understandability and order enable the world to become being with meaning, but the meaning of the being of things will differ in correspondence with the differences between the world-pictures presenting it. Taking water for example, according to the world-picture of common sense, water is primarily seen as a transparent, colorless liquid that humans may use for drinking, for the purposes of irrigation, and so on. But according to the scientific picture of the world, water is understood as a form of being constituted out of the bonding of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; furthermore, from the metaphysical perspective, water could be determined as the origin (Thales) or one of the origins (one of the five elements) of all things. We can see that the same object (water) presents different meanings through different pictures of the world. This difference in meaning reveals the different relationships that pictures of the world formed out of ideas may have with actual beings, while displaying the different forms and dimensions through which human being may grasp the world.

From the perspective of common sense to that of science and metaphysics, as being from the perspective of human understanding, world-pictures involve the relationship between consciousness and conceptual form. The world presented in the form of ideas could also be seen as the world of spirit, whose being is inseparable from the consciousness and mental processes of humans. But at the same time, the formation of world-pictures is always accompanied by an ordering of the world through different conceptual forms. The common sense view that the sun moves while the earth stays still, that the sun rises in the east and goes down in the west not only uses such concepts as “the sun” and “the earth,” it also implies a determination of the relationship between the sun and the earth with such concepts as “to move” and “to be still.” The scientific world-picture more specifically presents an ordering of the multitude of things and events found within the empirical realm with the use of physical and mathematical concepts. Metaphysical horizons, in turn, adopt a speculative system of concepts as a way to understand being, and their pictures of the world are thus founded upon such conceptual systems. In the process of shaping a picture of the world, concepts become an actual form of understanding the world by integrating with conscious activity, and the latter simultaneously overcomes simple psychological affections and sensations through the usage of concepts. So, the integration of concepts with conscious activity informs pictures of the world with ideas, and simultaneously differentiates world-pictures from the individual’s ideas by giving them universal meaning. Now, the substance out of which the formation of a world-picture occurs is the affective mind: On the one hand, a world-picture, as being as it is understood, is not a physical object; it is rather a world that exists in the mental domain in the form of ideas. On the other, a world-picture takes shape through such mental acts as understanding, integrating, and determining being. When explaining Zhang Zai’s proposition that “by enlarging one’s affective mind, one can become the substance of the things in the world,” Wang Fuzhi remarked: “Everything in the world is all function, while the principles of my affective mind are their substance (wu xin zhi li qi ti ye ); if one fully exerts the affective mind to the limit (jin xin ) in order to follow these principles without disobeying them, then substance establishes itself and naturally functions in an infinite way.”7 To make the affective mind “become the substance” of everything in the world is precisely to grasp everything through conscious activity; in this way, “everything in the world” does not refer to physical beings in the original sense of beings in-themselves; it refers rather to things as they are grasped by ideas or things as they are experienced by the substance of the affective mind. Here, “the principles of my affective mind” could be seen as a conceptual system or conceptual knowledge internalized into consciousness, which goes on to constitute the ground upon which the substance of the affective mind experiences things. As for things as they are grasped by ideas, the affective mind evidently constitutes their “substance,” for without the affective mind as the substance of things, things would neither have a way to enter the realm of ideas nor to acquire the form of being that ideas have. This understanding of the affective mind as substance, and of the thing as function, shows the role of “the affective mind” consisting of “principles” in the formation of a picture of the world. As for its actuality, consciousness as well as its active connection with conceptual systems constitutes the internal ground of possibility of a world of meaning in the form of ideas.

The substance of a world-picture is the affective mind, which doesn’t mean that pictures of the world exist merely in the private domain or psychological world of the individual. As being in the form of ideas, world-pictures possess meaning, which is indeed relative to human being, and moreover, in correspondence with the different ways of grasping the world, that is, via common sense, science or metaphysics, the meaning of a world-picture also appears differently to different individuals; that said, these meanings certainly bear no similarity to the alleged meaning of a so-called private language, which would reside solely within the consciousness of a particular individual.8 The meaning of a world-picture has an actual form of existence, which not only presupposes the understandability of the world, but also the inter-subjective understandability of meaning itself, which is grounded in the union of “the affective mind” and “principle.” As explained previously, “the affective mind” as the “substance” of a world of meaning does not refer simply to individual ideas, for by virtue of fusing together with a system of concepts, it contains principles that are universal. Here, principles involve the universality of logic at the level of form and the universal attributes of being at the level of content; both in different senses make the inter-subjective understandability of world-pictures possible.

The inter-subjective understandability of world-pictures also reveals the openness of the latter. This openness then in a much broader sense reveals the interconnectivity between world-pictures. Considering their concrete form, those different world-pictures mentioned previously actually envelop different senses, but this does not mean that those views are entirely unrelated or that there are unbridgeable gaps between them. In fact, even though different world-pictures express different relationships of human being to reality, in terms of their origin, they are rooted in the same world: in the historical process of accomplishing the self and accomplishing things, what human being faces is the same actual world that has transcended the form of being in-itself; “actual” here at once refers to reality and the overcoming of original being in-itself. With the affective mind as the substance of world-pictures, the latter develop and take shape as the different ways human being grasps the world. However, as we have already analyzed, as the internal “substance” that shapes world-pictures, the affective mind contains universal principles (including conceptual content and logical form) by virtue of fusing together with systems of concepts; this universal dimension of ideas simultaneously makes possible the communication between different systems of ideas. While having the same actual world as an origin provides the ontological ground for the interconnection between different world-pictures, the universal principles contained in ideas (the affective mind) intrinsically protects their interconnection as ways of grasping the world.

The Domain of Values

A world-picture reveals human being’s understanding of being. Through different world-pictures, being is presented in meaningful forms in the event of understanding. In terms of ways of grasping the world, the meanings presented through world-pictures are first linked to the question “What is it?” Although world-pictures envelop many aspects of meaning, as human being’s understanding of being, they are what the world presents to human being from different perspectives, and so most immediately correspond to the question “What is it?” In effect, what human being understands the world to be is precisely to say, from another perspective, “what” the world “is” from human being’s perspective. But interconnected to the question “What is it?” is “What does it mean?” which directs a world of meaning in the form of ideas into the domain of values.

Directed at understanding, the question “What is it?” is primarily linked to cognition; relative to this, the question “What does it mean?” primarily concerns evaluation, which is specifically directed at what relationship of value there is between human being and beings. As for its actual form, a world of meaning is not just the form of being of that which human being understands; it also has the meaning of confirming the relationship of value that stands between human being and this form of being. While explaining the meaning of the term jue [awareness—trans.], Fa Zang put forward the following interpretation in his commentary on The Huayan Sutra: There are two kinds of jue, one is awareness as enlightenment (juewu ), which refers to non-discriminating wisdom (lizhi ) illuminating truth; the second is awareness as observing, which refers to discriminating wisdom (liangzhi ) observing conventional phenomena. The term “jue” here first expresses a form of consciousness in the context of Buddhism. However, we also see a general view upon a world of meaning already infused in it: so-called awareness as observation focuses more on the aspect of understanding the world, whereas awareness as enlightenment refers more to an instantaneous comprehension and realization at the level of values. Suspending the horizon and standpoint of Buddhism pervading it, as the dual meaning of the form of consciousness (jue), this union of awareness as observation and awareness as enlightenment reflects the interconnection between the questions “What is it?” and “What does it mean?” in a world of meaning.

Wang Fuzhi deals with this issue from another perspective. While analyzing and defining the affective mind (xin ), he remarks:

We must say that only the affective mind-set of being humane and righteous can be the conscience. If we only say “affective mind,” then it is only awareness of things and affairs; it must be humane and righteous for it to be conscientious. For the affective mind to be virtuous, it must simply be empty, aware and not confused so as to be the bearer of all principles and the responder to all affairs, but as such it is merely not wicked and only capable of corresponding to the good, while not necessarily being good as such. One must cultivate one’s moral tendencies in order for the affective mind to maintain and ensure that the principle of what is humane and righteous is not lost.9

Here, Wang Fuzhi distinguishes between two forms of the affective mind, that is, the affective mind-set of being humane and righteous and the affective mind of awareness: the affective mind-set of being humane and righteous shows an axiological orientation or conception of value that contains “the principle of the ultimate good.”10 Awareness is then the capacity to know and understand, but simply grounded in the affective mind of awareness, although one may still be able to grasp principles and cope with affairs, one still has no way of making the affective mind ensure the development of what is good at the level of values. This is to say that the world of spirit can only acquire senses of value when it is also grounded in the affective mind-set of being humane and righteous. Wang Fuzhi’s opinion undoubtedly takes notice of the link between a world of meaning and consciousness of values, and in some sense, it could also be seen as an extension of the theory of the affective mind as fundamental substance and of the world of spirit (the things that have entered the realm of ideas) as function.

To reiterate, a world of meaning has senses of value, which are inseparably tied to evaluating. Values express the relations things have to human needs, ideals, and ends, and such relations are concretely determined and confirmed in the act of evaluating. In the process of cognizing, the world presents itself as an understandable scene, and in the process of evaluating, the world shows what is of significant value for human being. So, a world of meaning at the level of values could also be seen as the world of valuable interest or a world-picture invested with senses of value.

At the theoretical level, though the questions “What is it?” and “What does it mean?” differ in terms of content, they both concern a being that differs from a form of being in-itself. When one poses such questions, the being one places oneself within or faces is already humanized. Humanized being is also concrete being, and one of the meanings of this concreteness goes as follows: the object does not only contain those properties and qualities concerned with the question “What is it?” but also the properties investigated by the question “What does it mean?” A pure fact does not include all of the properties of the thing: it leaves out the multitude of relationships in which the thing is involved as well as the multitude of properties these relationships invest in the thing, and so remains abstract. In the form of humanized being, things are not only identical to themselves, they are also related to human being, and so contain different meanings for human being. As for the relationship of the thing to human needs, this relationship and its meaning are characterized by possessing a value, which is not an external or subjective addition: as the determination of humanized being, relationships of value and properties of value are both actual. In actual being, factual properties are inseparable from properties of value; the true and concrete nature of things themselves consists in the union of the two.11 This union of facts and values also constitutes the ontological ground of the interconnectedness of world-pictures both at the level of cognition and at the level of evaluation in the world of valuable interest.

There are different cases of evaluation confirming a relationship of value. When the thing’s properties already fulfill human needs or when the identity between the thing’s properties and human needs already becomes apparent at the practical level, evaluation unfolds as a real affirmation of this relationship of value or properties of value; when the thing’s properties merely could suit human needs or when the thing’s properties are only potentially of value, then evaluation confirms this value in the form of an expectation. Before the thing is evaluated, the possible properties of value that a thing may contain are only the properties of the thing in-itself. It is precisely through the act of evaluating that such properties are finally confirmed as properties with value. In this act of evaluating, forming a consciousness of values and investing a world of meaning with values constitute two sides of the same process. Therefore, a world-picture, as being that is understood, presents things in the form of ideas, but a world of meaning, which human being forms in the act of evaluating and investing things with value presents things in the form of ideas as well.

With the aim of confirming the value of some thing, evaluation is first rooted in the relationship between the thing and human being’s needs, and among the variety of human being’s needs, the need to survive is the most fundamental: “. . . mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.”12 In other words, satisfying the needs of survival is the precondition of satisfying other needs, and what is of significant value emerges in correlation with this precondition. As far as the natural objects of the world-pictures pertaining to cognition and understanding go, as things, they first present the different meanings corresponding to the question “What is it?” but starting with the relationship of value between object and human being, the thing presents meaning in correlation with the question “What does it mean?” When defining water, fire, and other such things, the shangshu states: “Water and fire are what the people need to drink and eat; metal and wood are what the people need to stimulate productivity; earth is the resource which nourishes the lives of all things. These are for human use.” Here, the expression “for human use” mainly emphasizes the meaning that things like water and fire have for human survival, while eating and drinking, stimulating productivity, nourishing the lives of all things, and the like are different expressions of this “use.” Taking water as an example, as opposed to understanding the meaning of water through its molecular structure (H₂O), water in the aforementioned case is defined from the perspective of needing to eat and drink, which invests the meaning of water with a sense of value. Broadly speaking, when people affirm the meaning that minerals and forests have for human beings, the meaning here is likewise grounded in such a relationship of value.

Of course, the confirmation that the act of evaluating gives to a relationship of value happens mainly at the level of ideas: in the act of evaluating, the senses of value that beings have are presented at the level of ideas. From the realization of such ideas to their actual verification, the meaning of values is always inseparable from living practice and work. The meaning water and fire have for human thirst and human appetite, for instance, can only be actualized through such activities as using water to steam rice and using fire to cook food; the “use” of minerals for human beings can only be actualized through mining, smelting, and other forms of labor. So, the realization of the meaning of values at the level of ideas is different from the actualization of this meaning at the level of practice, which reveals the difference between the ideal form and the actual form of a world of meaning.

The meaning of values at the level of ideas is rooted in the needs of human being, but is also based on the ends, ideals, and values of human being as well. What kind of value a thing will present to human being remains inseparably bound to what kind of ends, ideals, and axiological principles human being finds worthy to accept. Taking social reality for example, evaluations of its reform and transformation always correspond to the values that humans uphold. In the last years of the Spring and Autumn period (chunqiu ) in China, society underwent intense vicissitudes, and in the eyes of the main thinker of this time, Confucius, this transformation first of all meant “the collapse of ritual propriety and the fall of literate culture,” that is, it presented a negative meaning and a destructive value. The evaluation Confucius makes of social transformation here is founded upon his affirmation and appraisal of the system of rites and ritual, which shows his ideal of value and valuing orientation. The reason the social transformation of the Spring and Autumn period presented such a negative meaning to Confucius as representing “the collapse of ritual propriety and the fall of literate culture” lies in the conflict it engendered with the valuing orientation he upheld (in protecting the ritual system). Here, the meaning that being presents to humans is consistent with the values humans uphold.

The connection just noted between the meaning of being and human being’s consciousness of value is demonstrated much more concretely in the domain of ethics. As the very being of the social sphere, the relationships between moral subjects are first of all actual ethical relationships. As a social relationship, an actual ethical relationship transcends individual consciousness. However, whether the ethical nature of such a relationship or of the subjects involved is or is not confirmed depends entirely on the existence or non-existence of moral consciousness. When discussing the relationship between intentions and things, Wang Yangming states this:

What issues from the affective mind is intention (yi ). The fundamental substance of intention is cognizance (zhi ), and wherever intention is directed is a thing. For example, when intention is directed at serving one’s parents, then serving one’s parents is a “thing.” When intention is directed at serving one’s ruler, then serving one’s ruler is a “thing.” When intention is directed at being-humane to all people and feeling love toward things, then being-humane to all people and feeling love toward things are “things,” and likewise, when intention is directed toward seeing, hearing, speaking, and acting, then each of these is a “thing.”13

As that which “emanates from the affective mind,” “intention” belongs to the individual’s inner consciousness. Cognizance (zhi ) for Wang Yangming here refers to conscientiousness (liangzhi ), which when taken to be the fundamental substance of intention stresses the ethical connotation of “intention.” With cognizance as its fundamental substance, intention differs from psychological ideating as a moral consciousness with a sense of values. Moreover, “a thing” here differs from a being in-itself. A being in-itself is always beyond human consciousness (never having entered the sphere of human cognition and practice). A thing, as that at which “intention is directed,” has already been affected by consciousness and thus has already entered the sphere of consciousness. That “intention is directed at a thing” is the very process of intention focusing on an object as the object’s meaning is presented to human being. For humans who lack a moral and political consciousness, parents, rulers, and people are merely beings in the biological sense. Only when intentions with a sense of morality affect such objects do parents, rulers, and people appear to the subject as parents, rulers, and people in ethical and political relationships, and hence gain ethical and political meaning. By presenting ethical meaning, objects overcome their externality in relation to ethical consciousness and are brought into the realm of ideas, the concrete form of which is a world of meaning. As physical objects, the being of things does not depend on human being’s consciousness of values, but as beings in a world of meaning, their presence is inseparably tied to human values. As Wang Yangming points out, for individuals who lack moral consciousness, the relationship between parents and offspring does not have any moral meaning.

A world of meaning emerging in the form of a world-picture first concerns human being’s understanding of being: through such a picture, the world is mainly understood as some form of being. By comparison, a world of meaning in the form of values is more closely tied to the life practices of human beings. As a form of ideas infused with senses of value, the ethical world of meaning is intrinsically related to ethical life. To give objects ethical meaning simultaneously means to act upon things in an ethical way. The flip side of this is that an ethical way of practicing or doing stems from an ethical consciousness of values. It is precisely in this sense that Wang Fuzhi insists: “Filial piety is not an affair that could be qualified in simple terms (wu ke zhi yan zhi shi ), rather what motivates it is solely the affective mind.”14 As a concrete form of moral practice, the practical activity of “filial piety” itself has no fixed model or mechanism; its motivating force comes from the inner mind’s recognition of moral meaning. In other words, ethical practice (filial piety) is tied to the ethical mind. When, furthermore, Wang Yangming determines the nature of “intention” he expresses a similar idea from another perspective: “Intention is never suspended in a vacuum (yi wei you xuan kong de ). It is always connected with some thing or affair. Therefore if one wants to make one’s intentions sincere, one should rectify it right in the thing or affair at which one’s intentions are directed.”15 Here, what is to be rectified (ge zhi ) refers to the embodied practice of moral action. Intentions focus on objects and thereby give beings in-themselves ethical meaning (parents and offspring in a natural blood bond become objects in the ethical sense). This ethical meaning of objects is then corroborated by moral practices like serving one’s parents and respecting one’s elders. Here, ethical consciousness fuses together with ethical life. These viewpoints notice from different angles that in the world of value the genesis and formation of a world of meaning is inseparably bound to the practical life embodying this meaning.

The value and meaning found in the ethical realm are concerned more with what is good, and aesthetic activity also pursues what is good, but in a different sense of the value “good.” Here, the axiological dimension of a world of meaning is also effectively embodied in aesthetic processes. In another respect, similar to the ethical world, the aesthetic world intrinsically involves the genesis of meaning as well, but in the latter, this concerns the production of works of art and the appreciation of beauty. Whether or not a being presents a sense of beauty and what sense of beauty it presents does not just depend on the physical properties of the object. In reality, what answers such questions may hold depend on one’s aesthetic capacity, aesthetic ideals, aesthetic taste, and aesthetic standards. An aesthetic object is not a being in-itself; it only presents a sense of beauty to subjects with an aesthetic capacity and aesthetic consciousness. As Marx aptly remarked: “the most beautiful music has no sense for the unmusical ear.”16 Here, the metaphor of the unmusical ear refers to a lack of aesthetic capacity. For those who exist in this condition of being, the genesis of aesthetic meaning is inconceivable. Now, aesthetic capacity is linked to aesthetic consciousness, which opens up a broader horizon. Aesthetic consciousness more specifically constrains the presentation of aesthetic meaning in terms of whether or not things will present aesthetic meaning at all and what kind of aesthetic meaning things can present. In the poem “Birdcalls Echo in the Ravine,” Wang Wei writes:

Man idles, Osmanthus flowers fall,

The night is still, the spring hills empty.

The moon comes out, startles the hillside birds,

Whose calls echo and echo in the spring ravine.

In this poem, Wang Wei mentions several things—flowers, the moon, hills, a ravine. These things could be viewed from different perspectives: one could view the flowers from the perspective of botany; one could look at hills and the ravine from the geological perspective or observe the birds from the zoological perspective. Much simpler still, one could just see these things as the familiar things they are in everyday life. Viewing, looking, and observing through such perspectives, objects mainly present the attributes and properties, which correspond to such perspectives. However, in the eyes of the poet, man idling and the drifting fall of the flowers, the stillness of the night and the emptiness of the hillside, the moon coming out and the startled flight of the birds, the trickling of the ravine and the startled birdcalls all intertwine, constructing a poetic picture that differs both from the scientific view and the scene of everyday life. Here, objects of the scientific and everyday perspectives present a different sort of aesthetic world: the same mountain, moon, flowers, and birds transform into another world of meaning (the poetic world) in the human mind (the world of ideas). As the precondition of this transformation, the aesthetic eye itself is grounded in the inner aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic ideas of the poet.

Rooted in aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic ideas, the genesis of meaning is directly linked to human being’s imagination, affects, and experiences. In his “On the Absence of Sentiments in Music,” Ji Kang makes a distinction between the sound of music and the sentiments of grief and joy: “Hurrying up and calming down (caojingzhe ) is the work of sound; sorrow and joy is subject to one’s emotional state.”17 Sound generates the difference of calming down and hurrying up; an emotional state generates the difference of sorrow and joy. There is no distinction between sorrow and joy in sound itself. That sound may give human being a sense of sorrow or joy springs chiefly from the workings of human being’s inner emotional state:

A sorrowful heart is hiding within, and only emerges after confronting an agreeable sound (yu he sheng er hou fa ); an agreeable sound bears no likeness to it, so the sorrowful heart is the agent (zhu ). So, a heart of sorrow, which has agency, emerges to the level of awareness because of an agreeable sound, which bears no likeness to it—this is only due to sorrow itself.18

In brief, music acquiring the meaning of being either sorrowful or joyful is inseparable from one’s own emotional experience; emotion attaches to music, and then sorrow or joy emerges. Ji Kang’s viewpoint here takes notice of the link between the aesthetic meaning of music on the one hand and the emotional passion and aesthetic experience of human being on the other. Of course, Ji Kang goes too far in believing that “the affective mind and sound are clearly two distinct things,”19 which without a doubt overemphasizes the division between the affective mind and things. In fact, the genesis of meaning implies the intrinsic unity of the presentation of things and the directionality of the intentional will. So, while affirming the directionality of intentional states, Ji Kang fails to give an adequate account of the presentation of things.

In the aesthetic dimension, humans may construct different aesthetic worlds through varying compositions of scenery and things, by means of meshing scenery and emotional states. In the poem “A Journey in Jiankang after Dismissal from Prefect of Hezhou,” Liu Yuxi writes:

Autumn rivers so clear, and forceless,

Cold Mountain at dusk, heart sunk in thoughts.

From official duties unbound, gauging not the journey’s length,

On pilgrimage to every temple built in the age of Southern Dynasties.

As physical phenomena, “clearness” and “force” are two different properties, but they mesh together within the autumn river through the poet’s imagination. The clearness and forcelessness of the autumn rivers illustrate the autumn scenery of the river flowing unhurriedly, lagging against the rocks, making one associate this with the idle free time of the official’s life, which hints further at the snags and potholes impeding the ascent of the official’s career. The cold mountain at dusk gives one a sense of frigid stillness. In contrast to the complicated noise of the bustling human world, the poem provides more of a contemplative space, but the “heart sinking” into the mountain shrouded in dusk intrinsically suggests that this idleness is not true idleness: it shows that here to journey along mountains and autumn rivers is not to recede from the world and forget human affairs. Even though the temples dating back to the Southern Dynasties seem to stand for something far removed from the human world, as a figure for Confucians, the poet is still preoccupied with the idea of benefiting the world. In this aesthetic imagery, humans, things, and scenery are recomposed through the imagination, which constructs a world of meaning that expresses the poet’s unique experience and feelings. A similar view could be seen in the following poem by Wang Wei:

The spring’s gush chokes the shaky hold of rock.

The sun shines through the cold green pines.

The water springing forth against the bank of precariously layered rocks emits a choking bellow; the sun glares through the pine forest, casting a cool hue upon the scene. Springs and rocks themselves are not living, but they are linked to a choking bellow with emotional implications; sunlight originally symbolizes warmth, but here it appears in a cool color with a depressing emotional hue. Through anthropomorphic associations, the lonely silence, the frigid mountains, and one’s own thoughts fuse together, by virtue of which the external scenery of water and mountains acquires internal aesthetic meaning.

As forms of meaning infused with values, the aesthetic and the ethical constitute inseparable worlds. The aesthetic form of meaning is not only embodied in the outpouring and expression of the individual’s emotion, it also plays a role in other aspects of life. Confucianism found the link between aesthetic activity and “cultivating human being” (the cultivation of ideal character). According to Confucius, “to civilize [human being] through ritual and music” is the way to cultivate human being (chengren ).20 This implies cultivating one’s sentiments and one’s temperament through aesthetic activity. Confucius stresses very much the role of aesthetic activity in the process of cultivating human being, advocating: “to stimulate [yourself] in the Odes (xing yu shi ), take your stand in ritual propriety (li yu li ), and refine yourself in music (cheng yu yue ).”21 That is to say, virtuous character is cultivated through education in ritual propriety and music. Confucius himself, upon hearing the music of Shao, “did not notice the taste of meat for three months,”22 by which he meant that his spirit had transcended natural desires (the pleasing of the organism through food and drink) and was cathartically purified in the aesthetic realm that the music evoked, thereby heightening the inner strength of his character. Xun Zi also observes the particular role played by artistic aesthetic activity in the process of refining one’s character. According to Xun Zi, by correcting behavior, music plays an important role in the process of transforming human nature: “The depth to which music touches the human soul and the celerity with which it transforms human being is profound.” “Music is that which the sages enjoy and it is capable of refining the hearts of the people. It [music] affects humans profoundly, its movement changes the spirit and current of society.”23 As a form of art, music can reverberate and resonate in the soul and purify the spirit, and is thereby capable of reforming the moral constitution of human beings. Here, the interest of the beautiful and the intention of the good embody distinct but interrelated worlds of meaning, whose concrete form is the unity or mutual enjoyment of the beautiful and the good.

The pursuit of the good and the beautiful is directed toward ideals based on actuality. Differing somewhat from this pursuit in spiritual tendency is the ultimate concern, which is closely related to the religious domain. Religions presuppose the transcendence of beings such as gods or God and undoubtedly have external forms of expression, as in religious organizations, religious rituals, and religious architecture. However, from the internal perspective, religion is substantially tied to the human world of ideas. When discussing religion in his later years, Kant once stated “religion is conscientiousness.” “To have religion, the concept of God is not required.”24 Conscientiousness primarily involves the immanent world of the human spirit, whereas God is transcendent in relation to human being. For Kant, only the former constitutes the substance of religion. The actual form of the religious world of spirit also unfolds as a world of meaning possessing senses of value. Affirmatively speaking, religious ideas always imply a yearning and hope for a transcendent realm; negatively speaking, this implies a rejection of the being of reality or the being of the common human world. To this attitude or standpoint correspond the different meanings this world presents: within the religious horizon, the being of reality and the common human world chiefly present negative meaning, while the transcendent realm seems to present a positive, eternal meaning; and it is out of this contrast between the two that religion develops its own world of meaning.

Of course, in some forms of religion, the boundary between this world and the other transcendent world is not so clearly demarcated. Worthy of mention here is Chan Buddhism. As the sinosized form of Buddhism, the Chan tradition does not make a dichotomy between this world and a world beyond. This of course is not to say that Chan Buddhism sees the world to be the same always and everywhere. For Chan Buddhism, the distinction between a Buddha and all living beings lies in the difference between being enlightened (wu ) and being caught up in an illusion (mi ): “To hold on to a previous deluded thought (qian nian mi ) makes one ordinary (fan ), but the next thought if enlightened (hou nian wu ) makes one a Buddha.”25 “Hence we know that without enlightenment, a Buddha is no different from other living beings. With enlightenment, even in a single instant of thought, all living beings become the same as a Buddha.”26 Consistent with this is the distinction between the being of this world and that of the other world, which requires the enlightenment of the mind [as the substance of the world]. If one realizes that one’s mind is Buddha, one can reach the Western Region (Pure Land, Paradise): “If the mind is absolutely pure, the Western Region is not far away.”27 As different forms of the internal world of ideas, “deluded” and “enlightened” express different understandings of the being of humans and the being of the world, and also contain different value orientations; “a Buddha” and “the Western Region” thus express the different meanings that the world presents to the human being after enlightenment. Attaining enlightenment also involves the use of wisdom as its precondition: “Using wisdom to see things, neither holding onto nor rejecting anything, this is the way of realizing human nature and becoming Buddha.”28 “Wisdom” here expresses the perspective of Buddhist teachings. In this way, according to Chan Buddhism, the difference between the transcendent realm and actual beings as well as that between this world and the other world is relative to the different perspective of those human beings. By changing the world of ideas, including certain concepts of value, and “using wisdom to see things,” human being makes the same being present different meanings: as soon as one has awakened from the deluded state, one can experience oneself as Buddha; as for the mundane world, as soon as it is seen from the perspective of the detached mind, it may appear as the pure land of the West. Here, this transformation of how being is presented in the Buddhist horizon corresponds to a change of values and unfolds substantially as the reconstruction of a world of meaning.

From ethics and aesthetics to religion, a world of meaning is invested with many senses of value. In connection with the active role of a valuing consciousness, the genesis of a world of meaning involves the agent’s meaning-giving activity and has as content the presentation of the meaning of objects: the object presenting some kind of meaning to the subject and the subject giving this object meaning is one and the same process. In the ethical domain, an object appearing not simply as an ordinary biological entity but as a being that is given ethical meaning is always inseparable from the subject simultaneously seeing the object as a being that should be treated with ethical principles rather than with biological ideas. There is a similar relationship to be found between the aesthetic object and the aesthetic subject and between the object of belief and the believer. This union of presenting meaning and giving meaning is identical to the fusion of presentation and intention into one.29 Internal consciousness focusing upon things makes the presentation of the thing’s meaning become possible, while the presence of the thing enables intentional activity to gain actual content. The union of the presenting of meaning and the giving of meaning could be seen as a further demonstration of this interaction.30

Similar to the nature of a world-picture, although a world of meaning infused with senses of value remains tied to human being’s experience and perspective, it is not just limited to the realm of individual consciousness. As one of the preconditions of the genesis of a world of meaning, there is also a universal dimension to values and to a consciousness of values, of which Mencius gave an account early on. For Mencius, the affective mind always possesses “what is common” (tongran ), which includes “principle” (li ), and “what is righteous” (yi ). “What is it that all affective minds have in common? It is a sense of principle and what is righteous. The sage is the first to come into possession of what is common to all affective minds. Therefore moral principles please our affective minds as beef and mutton and pork please our mouths.”31 “Principle” and “righteousness” here pertain to values. As what is common to all affective minds, they are intrinsic to the human mind as human being’s consciousness of values, and commonality here means universality. This universality of a consciousness of values enables the world of meaning, which it permeates, to possess an inter-subjective openness. To say that principle and righteousness “please our minds” is to emphasize that this consciousness of values with universal content can be commonly understood and accepted by different subjects. Of course, as an actual process, this accepting presupposes that this consciousness of values itself embodies the common historical needs of a specific age, and moreover implies the background of inter-subjective communication and interaction between subjects in the process of practical life.

As the forms through which a world of meaning emerges, pictures of the world and interests of value present inseparable worlds. Although a world-picture mainly refers to the question “What is it?” it is still always invested with different degrees of value regardless of whether it is scientific, metaphysical, or a form of common sense. In fact, “the truth” linked to “What is it?” still expresses a value in the broad sense. Likewise, although an interest of value is first of all tied to the question “What does it mean?” it also implies some understanding of “What is it?” From the moral domain to the aesthetic sphere, from the actual pursuit of what is good and beautiful to the ultimate hope of the transcendent plane, values are always inseparable from some understanding of the world. This interrelation of pictures of the world and interests of value presupposes that their foundation is originally the same actual world and demonstrates that the two questions concerning meaning, “What is it?” and “What does it mean?” are by no means strictly separable.

The World of Spirit and the Human State of Mind

As the union of presenting meaning and giving meaning, the meaning of both pictures of being and values of being more directly involve the domain of the object: whether we are considering what it is that a thing presents itself as being to humans (What is it?) or what a thing means for humans (What does it mean?), both questions concern the meaning possessed by the object. Now, returning to one’s own being from the being of things, the investigation of the meaning of objects leads one further into the concern for the meaning of one’s own being. When one reflects upon why in the end one exists, one’s concern focuses on precisely the meaning of one’s own being, and linked to the self-investigation of the meaning of being are different forms of the world of spirit or states of mind (jingjie ).

As the history of thought shows, the term jingjie used in the previous context first came from translations and interpretations of Buddhist canons.32 In the Buddhist discourse, a state has a division between inside and outside, and thus it is said that external and internal states are of the mind’s acting.33 The external state of being refers to the world of phenomena arising out of causation. In Buddhism, this sense of a state originates from the mind and lacks reality: “The state is non-being (jingjie shi wu ); it is only an appearing from one’s own mind (wei zixin jian ). I say that unenlightened here is only the affective mind itself: in seeing various external things, the affective mind clings to them as being or non-being. Therefore, the wise do not see the state.”34 Because the external state arises from the affective mind but is unreal, it is impossible to enter the Buddhist realm of wisdom. Master Wu Ye of the Chan tradition also remarks: “Every state is originally of itself empty and null. There is no phenomenon that is obtainable. The deluded do not get this and are confused by the state. Once confused by the state, he remains in the endless circle of samsara.”35 The state here also refers to external being. For Chan Buddhism, clinging to this external world means being lost in confusion, in an unenlightened state. The internal state opposed to the external state concerns a certain state of mind or level of spiritual attainment, which the mind achieves by transcending worldly consciousness. In the conclusion of the Huayan yicheng jiaoyi fenqi zhang, Fa Zang specifically points out the difference between this state and “states of affairs” (shi ): “Only the state of wisdom is not a consciousness of states of affairs, which serves merely as an expedient means to understand the single vehicle.”36 “A state of affairs” is an empirical phenomenon, and although the state of wisdom, which transcends worldly consciousness, cannot be grasped through empirical phenomena, illustrating “a state of affairs” to explain the state of wisdom is a convenient form of explanation for the unenlightened. This differentiation of the state of wisdom from “a state of affairs” shows the internality of such a state, and furthermore, confirms the meaning of this state of mind as a positive mentality.37 On this note, Hui Neng concludes: “Those who understand the method of absence-of-thought will experience the states of all Buddhas.”38

Accompanying historical evolution, using the word “state” to express a world of spirit gradually spread beyond the bounds of Buddhist discourse. In “Occasional Verses at the Hall,” Bai Juyi writes that “the leisurely state in which I lived my whole life could be exhaustively expressed in five characters.” Here, “state” has the meaning of a state of mind. In the poem “Remembrance of Bygone Days,” Lu You mentions the concept of state:

Happenstance to live among humans, a stretch ages long;

Only afterthoughts spot the madness of being young.

Out in public saying things, seeding these regretful pangs;

Verses welling up from drink, lost in fog by dint of sleep.

The tortoise swallows countless fish and becomes the whale;

Immeasurable earth fills the valley and flattens the hill.

This state of getting old leaves no trace of youthful days;

Looking at ropes of incense smoke bending around the curtain.

Here what is expressed is the thoughts and consciousness of the poet’s august years. At this time, the poet lacks the sharpness of his youth. He is aged, now with no shortage of weariness toward the world; by “this state of getting old” he means a condition of spirit quite different from that of youth. The concept of “state of mind” developed even broader connotations through the writings of philosophers living during and after the Song and Ming dynasties. When discussing the substance of the mind, Zhu Xi ties the vacuity of the fundamental substance of being to a state: “Although the fundamental substance of the affective mind is inherently always empty, how could one even see such a state now that it has been covered over by one’s selfish desires for such a long time? Thus, the sage must propose rectifying the affective mind, but in order to correct the affective mind, one’s intention must first become sincere, and to become sincere, one must first extend one’s knowledge. One must first put one’s efforts to uses following this order, and then one may acquire the uprightness of the affective mind and recover the emptiness of the fundamental substance of being, which is of course not a day’s labor.”39 As the specific way of being of the fundamental substance of the affective mind, state of mind here is also meant in the sense of a mentality. For Zhu Xi, to attain such a mentality, the substance of the affective mind must put in the effort of extending knowledge, of becoming sincere in each intention, and of rectifying the affective mind, which unfolds as a long process (it is not a day’s labor).

Wang Fuzhi analyzes this term “state” from the perspective of perfecting virtue: “ ‘Resting content with humanity (an ren )’ and ‘performing humanity without obstruction (li ren )’ are always states of perfected virtue.”40 In The Analects, Confucius claims: “The humane rest content with humanity, while the wise perform humanity without obstruction.”41 For Wang Fuzhi, these two constitute states in the cultivation of virtue. Of course, from the perspective of perfecting virtue, a state of mind can be expressed in different modes; as long as one has merely the distinction of the high honor of wealth from the poverty of low stature on one’s mind, one’s state never surpasses the limits of this realm: “Therefore, solely exercising one’s efforts with the intention to distinguish oneself in wealth and honor against the lowliness of base stature, one merely struggles to separate states (duan jingjie ), and as the latter marks the extreme limit of one’s reach, one never passes to the limit of heavenly principles and natural laws.”42 On the contrary, if one perseveres in upholding the humane way (rendao ) without at any time going contrary to what is humane, one may enter another state: “having reached the state of ‘the superior one who betrays humanity not even for the interval of a meal,’ whose state naturally distinguishes itself, remarkably harmonizing with heavenly principle.”43 Here, the distinction between states involves the distinction between high and low in terms of virtue, but also the difference between forms of inner spirit.

As we move from Zhu Xi to Wang Fuzhi, the concept of “state” comes to focus more upon the level of spirit and ideas. As the being of ideas, a state of mind could in the broad sense be seen as a world of spirit concerning a much broader horizon of consideration. Mencius makes the following statement: “Everything is already completely there within oneself (wanwu jie bei yu wo ). To examine oneself and be sincere, there is simply no greater joy.”44 What Mencius means here by “everything is already completely there within oneself” is not that the external world is already inside the individual in physical form, but rather that it exists as a world of meaning at the level of ideas: in the expanding of horizons, the imagining of reasons, and the deepening of internal experiences, “I” grasp the world as a whole and realize its meaning, by virtue of which everything enters “my” world of ideas. The relationship between the two is like that between the world “truthfully being” and the human being “sincerely thinking”: “to be truthful is the way of Nature; to think sincerely is the way of humans.”45 Here, the world opening up “to me myself” and the openness of “I myself” toward the world, the world presenting meaning “to me” and “I” comprehending the meaning of the world blend into one, and the genuine affective experience of this state of spirit is accompanied by an internal spiritual joy that goes beyond that pleasure of the senses—this is what Mencius means when he states: “To examine oneself and be sincere, there is simply no greater joy.” This “joy” that is reached by means of taking the world in through an open perspective such that its meaning is deeply comprehended is precisely what is meant by a state of mind. On this note, Wang Fuzhi stresses: “Mencius, under the pretext that ‘everything is already completely there within oneself,’ states that ‘to examine oneself and be sincere, there is simply no greater joy;’ how outstanding is this state indeed!”46

This consistency between a state of mind and the world of spirit can also be discovered in Zhang Zai’s theory of “the greater mind.” When discussing the relationship between the internal mind and external things, Zhang Zai points out:

If one expands the affective mind, one can grasp the substance of things under the rule of nature; things are without substance, so the affective mind reaches outside (xin wei you wai ). The affective mind of the average human does not expand beyond the narrow limits of what is perceived or heard. The sage fully exercises the capacity of human nature to the limit without letting what is perceived and heard exhaust the affective mind; in the sage’s view of the world, there is not a single thing that has nothing to do with oneself (wu yi wu fei wo ). This is what Mencius meant when he said that fully exercising the affective mind to the limit is to know human nature, and to know Nature itself. Nature itself is so infinitely great there is nothing beyond or outside of it; so, an affective mind, which has an outside beyond its limits (you wai zhi xin ), is unable to converge with the affective mind of Nature itself.47

To “expand the affective mind” is to expand the horizon of spirit; this horizon differs from what is perceived and heard at the level of the senses. The object of perception at the level of the senses is the external form of particular things, whereas the object of the spiritual horizon is the meaning of the world. Thus, to grasp the substance of things under the rule of nature is precisely to transcend particular things or a finite form of being so that one may grasp and experience the meaning of the world as a whole. The statement “there is not a single thing that has nothing to do with oneself” is thus similar to the previous proposition made by Mencius that “everything is completely there within oneself.” Here, that which envelops everything under the rule of Nature is the affective mind that expands to the point where nothing is outside of it. This mind unfolds as the world of spirit transcending the finite in pursuit of the infinite.

As the being of ideas, a state of mind or the world of spirit exhibits different forms. In fact, Mencius, Zhang Zai, Zhu Xi, and Wang Fuzhi each confirm the difference between higher and lower states of spirit in their respective understandings of the world of spirit. Feng Youlan affirms this in a much clearer fashion. For Feng Youlan, since people have different understandings of the universe and human life, their states of mind diverge as well: “People can have different degrees of awareness of the universe and human life. Because of this, the meaning of the universe and human life is not the same for all human beings. All humans have some degree of understanding of the universe and human life, and because of this, the different kinds of meaning the universe and human life has for humans, constitute the kinds of states of mind that humans may have.”48 As a world of meaning in the form of ideas, state of mind or the broader world of spirit encompasses different senses and distinct levels; different senses correspond to the differences between the ethical world, the aesthetic world and the religious world; different levels correspond to the different degrees to which spirit can rise and develop. In ordinary speech, we say that a state of mind is either high or low, which expresses different levels of the world of spirit. These differences in the world of spirit not only concern the different depths of understandings of the world in the cognitive dimension but also the different standpoints of evaluation of the world in the evaluative dimension. Feng Youlan’s term “awareness” seems to envelop both dimensions.

In the process of being-in-the-world, the different senses of the world of spirit, which correspond to the different modes of being humans may attain, show human beings different meanings of what it is to be. In actuality, human being undergoes different stages of development, and so human life is a multifaceted process. In the different facets of these different developmental stages of human life and of different lives, the world of spirit encompasses different contents, both normative and adaptive. Normative here means guiding human being’s way of being-in-the-world and improving one’s state of being. To be adaptive is to arrange a process through which to survive, which is manifested in everyday practices. As the form through which the production and reproduction of life is realized, everyday life constitutes an important facet of the being of humans, and although the mentality that suits everyday life emerges spontaneously, it still has its own meaning. Confucianism’s proposition that dao is to be found in everydayness (riyong ji dao ) affirms this. At the same time, different individuals value and pursue a great diversity of life goals, and behind this diversity of orientations are different mentalities. If these different mentalities do not happen to substantially conflict with the axiological principles manifesting the broader tendency of historical development, they all show their respective meaning for the being of humans. In brief, in the process of growing, one should both affirm the development and cultivation of one’s mentality and also respect the diversity of mentalities.

At a deeper level of value, what the world of spirit points to is the meaning of the being of humans qua human. In effect, from the joy Mencius finds in sincere reflection and from what Zhang Zai finds in the expansion of the affective mind to Wang Fuzhi’s state of perfected virtue, in the world of spirit, understanding and grasping meaning leads one further to think about and comprehend the intrinsic meaning of one’s own being. As this book argued in chapter 1, from within the horizon of self-reflection upon the meaning of being, the core of a state of mind or the world of spirit is concentrated within the pursuit of an ideal and the consciousness of a mission. While the pursuit of an ideal corresponds to the question “What can one hope for?” or “What ought one hope for?”, becoming conscious of a mission corresponds to the question “What ought one take responsibility for?” which are both intimately connected to the self-reflective inquiry “What does one exist for?” which shows a deepening concern for the meaning of one’s own being.

While demanding human being to expand the affective mind, Zhang Zai also advocates: “Establish an affective mind for the heavens and the earth, establish a way (li dao ) for the livelihood of the people, continue the line of learning that leads to sagehood, and start a world of peace for all generations to come.”49 This imperative statement expresses the pursuit of an ideal and the inner consciousness of a mission. For Zhang Zai, human being is the affective mind of the heavens and the earth, and the people are the root of society, while the path of learning leading to sagehood embodies the spiritual lifeline of culture, and a secure and peaceful world constitutes the goal of history; the pursuit of an ideal consists in establishing the true value and role of human being in nature, in responding to the aspirations of the people, in prolonging the lifeline of culture, and in realizing enduring peace in the world; human being’s historical mission lies in transforming these ideals into social reality. For Zhang Zai, the expansion of one’s mind is the internal precondition of the world of spirit, and this unity of pursuing an ideal and being conscious of a mission expresses the core sense of “expanding one’s mind.”

The pursuit of an ideal corresponding to the question “What ought one hope for?” also responds to the self-reflective inquiry “What does one exist for?” by providing a worthy purpose. At a broader level, the question “What ought one hope for?” is directed toward accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things: to accomplish oneself means to move toward a more perfect state of freedom through one’s own multifaceted development; to accomplish things means to make things become beings that harmonize with the needs of human nature by means of reforming the world. In the process of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, one gives substance to hopes and ideals and gives intrinsic meaning to one’s own being. Here, the meaning of being is intrinsic first of all because accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things is directed at the complete refinement of both oneself and the human world. In other words, this process manifests and confirms the purposiveness of human being.

Relative to the pursuit of an ideal through the question “What ought one hope for?” is the consciousness of a mission, which is a response to the meaning of the question “What ought one take responsibility for?” Here, one responds by taking up a concern for the meaning of one’s own being in terms of responsibility and duty. As the stipulation and demand of the species or society, responsibility and duty makes human being transcend the finite ends of survival and manifest the essence of humans qua human at the level of social history. Kant states: “Man, as animal, belongs to the world, but, as person, also to the beings who are capable of rights—and, consequently, have freedom of the will. Which ability [hanilitaet] essentially differentiates him from all other beings; men’s is innate to him.”50 “The world” here is attributed to nature in the broad sense; as animal, [human being] is also a natural being. For Kant, the main thing that makes human being transcend nature and distinct from other beings consists in human being’s possession of both rights and free will. In substance, the confirmation of rights presupposes the recognition of the value of human beings, while the intrinsic form of value involves purposiveness: that human being possesses intrinsic value means that human being is an end in itself; in a complimentary sense, affirming that humans possess rights implies seeing humans as purposive beings. This understanding of human being is consistent with Kant’s ethical demand that human being always be seen as an end and not as a mere means. Furthermore, tied to rights is free will. For Kant, free will always involves duties and responsibilities: “How is the concept of freedom possible? Only through the imperative of duty which commands categorically.”51 “The concept of freedom is founded on a fact: categorical imperative.”52 Evidently for Kant, the premise of free will is responsibility and duty; logically speaking, this relation between rights and free will also corresponds to the relation between rights and duties. In summary, as the intrinsic property of human being, which distinguishes humans from other beings, the purposive dimension entailed by rights and the duties and responsibilities entailed by free will express the essence of humans qua human.

Similar to Kant, Mencius also focuses on the attribute of humans qua human: “There is merely a nuance that distinguishes humans from beasts. Commoners do away with it, whereas the superior one preserves it.”53 What is the main thing, which, in the end, distinguishes humans from animals? What in the end is this nuance that the commoner does away with and the superior preserves? When discussing the main characteristic of the superior human being (junzi ), Mencius gives us the following explanation: “What distinguishes the superior from the common is that the superior human being is mindful (cunxin ). The superior human being is mindful in being-humane and observing ritual propriety.”54 For Mencius, the superior one is human being’s completely refined form of being, the one who is the concentrated manifestation of the essential characteristic of humans qua human. The concrete nuance of the superior human being is mindfulness. The content of what the affective mind is mindful of is precisely the inner world of spirit’s reserve of “humanity” and “propriety.” The latter two have the meaning of virtue and express “what ought to be” (the norms that ought to be followed). As a being distinguished from animals, human being ought “to be” in harmony with what is humane and behave in accordance with ritual propriety. What is expressed here is a moral ideal (establishing a world of spirit with moral consciousness) and a consciousness of moral responsibility (that one ought to uphold what is humane in harmony with ritual propriety means that one has the responsibility to abide by moral norms). To be mindful by being-humane and observing ritual propriety is precisely to establish and protect the world of spirit of moral ideals and moral responsibilities. For Mencius, it is precisely this inner spiritual world that distinguishes humans from beasts and makes humans become human in the true sense.

In broader terms, the state of mind of human beings whose core is melded out of the consciousness of an ideal that embodies “What one ought to hope for?” and the consciousness of a mission that embodies “What one ought to take responsibility for?” shows the essential attribute of human being qua human at the level of ideas. As it embodies the essential attribute of human being, one’s state of mind in this sense could also be understood as the human state of mind. From within the horizon of the human state of mind, the meaning of the very being of humans becomes the focus of concern and is manifested in different ways. As far as the dimension of ideals goes, insofar as one is directed at accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, human being affirms itself as an end in itself and one establishes the direction of one’s own being, which invests the being one is with intrinsic meaning; as far as a mission goes, human being transcends the finite end of survival by taking on responsibilities and duties. This reveals the essential attribute that distinguishes humans from other beings, and furthermore, shows the meaning of one’s being from the perspective of one’s way of being and mode of being. These two aspects of the human state of mind are inseparable; this dual sense of the human state of mind can be seen in Zhang Zai’s imperative to “establish an affective mind for the heavens and the earth, establish a way (lidao ) for the livelihood of the people, continue the line of learning that leads to sagehood, and start a world of peace for all generations to come.” On an even broader level, the movement of human being toward a state of freedom through the multifaceted development of the self (accomplishing oneself) and human being’s transformation of the original state of being in-itself into a world that suits human development (accomplishing things) is simultaneously human being’s long sought ideal and unavoidable historical mission.

With the essential attribute of human being qua human as its concern, the human state of mind is the manifestation of the self-awareness of being in a twofold sense: with regard to what kind of being human being is, it means affirming that human being is different from natural beings in correspondence with the distinction between human and animal; with regard to why one exists, it means aiming at accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things as the intrinsic goal of being, which entails the in-depth realization of the meaning of one’s own being. This sense of the human state of mind reveals both the depth of the world of spirit as well as its universality, which transcends the individual. Of course, as a world of meaning in the form of ideas, the world of spirit also encompasses differences of individual character and presents a diversity of forms, but in substance, there is no mutually exclusive relationship pitting the universality of the human state of mind against the individuality and diversity of forms of the world of spirit, that is, an affirmation of the universal determination of the human state of mind does not entail a denial of the diversity and individuality of the world of spirit. In effect, accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, as the concrete aim of the human state of mind, entails that one demands the multifaceted development of oneself, and to develop in a multifaceted way means to overcome the one-sided and undifferentiated nature of the world of spirit and to shape the world of spirit with nuances of individual character and diverse tendencies.

The Human State of Mind and Human Capacities

The actual form of the world of spirit cannot be divorced from the process of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things. This is not only because accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things is the very aim of the world of spirit but also because the world of spirit itself takes shape in the process of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things. From the perspective of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, the world of spirit not only involves the human state of mind but also human capacities. Whereas the human state of mind confirms the meaning of one’s being by directing one toward accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, human capacities provide one with the conditions of possibility of accomplishing oneself in the process of accomplishing things.

As explained in the previous section, the human state of mind first shows the human nature of the world of spirit through the consciousness of an ideal and the consciousness of a mission (duty). Relative to this, human capacities show the actual powers [at work in] knowing and reforming the self and the world. As the conditions of possibility of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, human capacities are not abstract logical forms, nor are they reducible to functions of pure consciousness or simple psychological functions. In the form of the unity of sensibility and rationality, of rationality and irrationality, human capacities are synthetic and concrete, acting upon one’s knowing and practicing from within, and the depth and extent to which knowing and practicing can reach always corresponds to human being’s different capacities. Insofar as they differ from external means by expressing the human being’s essential powers, and differ from abstract logical forms by integrally fusing into the human process of being such that they are the same as the being of humans, they have the meaning of being natural human tendencies.55

However, though human capacities do show human being’s essential powers as intrinsic, this does not imply that their being and actual employment necessarily accord with the direction of human development. Just as the alienation of labor during a certain historical age results in human being’s self-estrangement, human capacities still carry the possibility of alienating themselves into external means or instruments. Since the modern age, accompanying the triumphant song of scientific progress, the horizon of adopting scientific technology to guide development has increasingly pervaded every level and corner of society. In the scientific domain, nature and other beings are first of all dealt with as objects. As science reached maturity in its modern form, this characteristic became increasingly obvious. Heidegger analyzed modern technology in this vein, designating the term “enframing” (Gestell) to express the essence of technology. He states, “Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon which sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve.”56 Enframing means to limit, to fix; it limits and fixes the relationship between man and nature into a relationship between knower and known, user and used, and nature (that is, being in the broad sense) becomes a calculable object because of it. Science and technology are of course not the same, but in no way can the former exist in isolation from the latter; the tendency of technology to objectify being is in a way the mark of the objectivizing characteristic of scientific thinking. In fact, as Heidegger illuminates technology’s objectification of nature, he simultaneously points out the same characteristic of science: “Theory makes secure at any given time a region of the real as its object-area. The area-character of objectness is shown in the fact that it specifically maps out in advance the possibilities for the posing of questions. Every new phenomenon emerging within an area of science is refined to such a point that it fits into the normative objective coherence of the theory.”57Associated with the tendency to objectify is science’s inclination to question and structure the world in a one-sided way, which leads to the forgetting of the very meaning of the being of humans. For the being of humans, of course science proves itself to be more than just negative. In fact, as science opens up the world, it simultaneously provides the process of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things with a much vaster space. However, when the objectifying tendency of thought is directed toward understanding human being, the axiological principle that human being is an end in itself becomes obscured, and as human being is objectified human being also faces the threat of turning itself into a thing. In connection with this is the tendency of the human capacities to be degraded into instruments or tools: as human being gradually objectifies itself, human being’s capacities gradually lose meaning as the intrinsic ground of accomplishing the self and accomplishing things, and are viewed either as being just instruments directed toward some scientific object or as means to reach some scientific or technological goal.

From a broader perspective, under historical conditions in which there are still “relations of personal dependence” and “objective [sachlicher] dependence” as Marx put it, extrinsic fame and gain at odds with the direction of human development become the objects human being seeks; compared to the movement toward freedom, which is a goal of intrinsic value, fame and gain are in essence “things extrinsic to the self.” Zhuangzi once distinguished between “things” and “human nature,” putting forward the following critique, he states: “There is no one in the world who doesn’t alienate human nature through things. Commoners sacrifice themselves for gain, while the knight sacrifices himself for fame.”58 Here, “human nature” refers to the intrinsic attribute of human being qua human, the “things” opposed to this are the objects that are extrinsic to human being; “fame” and “gain” fall under this type. That one alienates one’s human nature through things means that one substitutes the pursuit of things extrinsic to oneself for the pursuit of the intrinsic attribute and intrinsic meaning of one’s own being. As soon as one’s capacities are used mainly just to gain these “things extrinsic to oneself,” human capacities necessarily alienate themselves into extrinsic instruments and means.

To prevent human capacities from degrading into instruments and means concerns not only the dimension of social history but also the dimension of ideas. At the level of social history, it means overcoming the alienation of labor and the self-estrangement of human being by overcoming relations of personal dependence and objective-dependence, and quelling science and technology’s usurpation [of being] in the aspects of guiding values and practice; with regard to internal ideas and the world of spirit, necessary attention must be allotted to the human state of mind. As stated previously, as the concrete form of the world of spirit, the deepest level of the human state of mind is the concern for why one exists (the purpose of life) and of what kind of being one is (the distinction between human and animal), which involves the essential attribute of human being qua human and the meaning of one’s own being. From the doctrine that “there is merely a nuance that distinguishes humans from beasts. The commoner does away with it, whereas the superior one preserves it” to the imperative “to establish an affective mind for the heavens and the earth, establish a way for the livelihood of the people, continue the line of learning that leads toward sagehood, and start a world of peace for all generations to come,” the human state of mind confirms the essential attribute of human being, which distinguishes human being from other beings and affirms the meaning of being in the dimension of human being as an end in itself. With this as its intension, the human state of mind determines human capacities to value the intrinsic dimension of the world of spirit while guiding one in the expression of one’s essential powers in the process of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, so as to prevent their alienation into extrinsic means or tools.

Another aspect is that although the human state of mind includes values, if separated from the human capacities and their concrete manifestation in the process of knowing and practicing, the human state of mind remains merely at the level of ideas, and is easily reduced to an abstract, mysterious, and empty spiritual enjoyment. Historically speaking, Neo-Confucianism expressed this tendency by focusing mainly on the affective mind and natural human tendencies. Although some Neo-Confucians did speak of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, they limited this process to the ethical domain of cultivating virtue, wherein the human capacities are restricted to developing ethical knowledge of what is virtuous, which inhibits the expression of the entirety of human being’s essential powers. Orientated in this way, the human state of mind cannot avoid appearing speculative and mystical. Mentioned previously, although “establishing an affective mind for the heavens and the earth” and other such ideas express the pursuit of a grand spiritual end, when they are severed from the historical process of actually practicing, they remain empty. Huang Zongxi once wrote a critique of the later decadent schools of Neo-Confucianism for abandoning the real activity of managing the warp and woof of the heavens and the earth: they “merely choke the world with a broad theory of establishing a principle for the people, an affective mind for the heavens and the earth and peace for the world. When the time comes to take the responsibility of a minister and serve the country, they blindly open their mouths like their heads are lost in some cloud or mist.”59 This criticism is not without its basis. Neo-Confucians repeatedly defined the so-called pure Confucian scholar as the ideal human character, but the focus of this character is to grasp principles and eliminate selfish desires within the world of spirit, driving the multifaceted development of human being and the actual process of reforming the real world out of the equation. In this abstract world, state of mind is understood to be the individual’s spiritual “enjoyment” (shouyong ). Some figures of the school of mind in the late Ming dynasty associated “the substance of the affective mind” with “returning to silence,” which is a perfectly typical expression of this. Nie Bao, for instance, saw the fundamental substance of the inner mind to be silence, thinking that as soon as the silent foundation is reached one enters the state of essential meaning borne in spirit (jingyi ru shen ): “Fully cultivated in the silent substance of empty alertness without letting a single desire to cover it up is called the state of essential meaning borne in spirit and function is within it.”60 “Fully cultivated in the silent substance of empty alertness” here means developing an inner spiritual state. “Function” here expresses an abstract functioning of spirit severed from the actual process of knowing and practicing, where it is reduced to cultivating the affective mind to reflect inwardly upon itself in some speculative experience. Unfolding the pursuit of meaning solely in a moral realm in total disconnection from the broader sense of the human capacities and their actualization drives the human state of mind into a closed, mystical, and empty space.

A similar tendency is also inherent in Heidegger’s understanding of human being. At the philosophical level, Heidegger’s skepticism concerning the propensity of development of modern science and technology is related to his criticism of traditional metaphysics. As is widely known, in Heidegger, the negative tendency of traditional metaphysics lies in merely focusing on beings and forgetting Being itself. The substantial sense of Being, according to Heidegger, lies in Dasein, that is, the human’s “being there.” This focus on the being of humans undoubtedly includes a concern for the meaning of one’s own being. In effect, accusing science and technology’s tendency to objectify actually echoes his theoretical critique of the forgetting of Being; both do indeed presuppose a self-affirmation of the meaning of Being. However, Heidegger’s pursuit of the meaning of Being is directed toward the authentic self. For Heidegger, after the individual is thrown into the world the individual cannot avoid being-with-others, and this process of being-with makes one continuously discover oneself in existential states and experiences such as care and anxiety but also makes one fall into “the they” (das Man) and lose one’s authentic self. Only in the process of being-towards-death (Sein zum Tod) through the experience of anticipating the arrival of death can one truly become conscious of one’s individuality, singularity, and irreplaceability and thereby return to the authentic self and realize the meaning of human life. This understanding of the being of humans and the meaning of one’s being not only fails to go beyond the realm of individual existence, it is also limited to the experience of the individual mind. In this spiritual experience of existence, human capacities and their actualization are likewise placed outside of the process of being. This direction of thought is in a sense correlated with this accusation of modern science and technology: doubting modern technology logically leads to ignoring the human capacities inside of them; and the abstract, speculative quality of this direction of thought also seems to echo the traditional Chinese theory of the affective mind and human nature.

As far as the realm of spirit or ideas goes, if human capacities were severed from the human state of mind, they would end up with a lack of commitment to intrinsic values and ideals to guide them, which would doom them to become externalized as instruments and means; on the other hand, if severed from human capacities and the actual historical process of employing them, the human state of mind would turn into a mystifying abstraction. Considered from within the horizon of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, the human state of mind and human capacities not only take shape through the process of knowing and reforming the world and the self, but are also directed toward this process in different respects and constitute the internal conditions of its unfolding. Presupposing the unification of human capacities with the human state of mind, human capacities overcome their externalized form and show their intrinsic sense of value by expressing the essential attribute of human being as an end in itself; on the other hand, by fusing into the actual creative act of accomplishing oneself and accomplishing things, the human state of mind transcends the state of abstract agreement and mystical spiritual enjoyment. With regard to the being of humans, while the formation of the human state of mind enables humans to become moral agents in the sense of coming into possession of a worthy purpose, the development of human capacities enables humans to become practical agents in the sense of becoming creators of values, and free character has the historical meaning of concretely integrating the two together. As the concrete unity of human capacities and the human state of mind, this free character gives a deepened sense of value to a world of meaning through one’s own being.