Zhuangzi 2.4 (Part 1) The Fixed Mind

Zhuangzi 2.4, Part 1: “If someone follows the fixed mind…” [1]

夫隨其成心而師之，誰獨且無師乎？奚必知代而心自取者有之？愚者與有焉。未成乎心而有是非，是今日適越而昔至也。是以無有為有。無有為有，雖有神禹，且不能知，吾獨且柰何哉！

If someone follows a fixed-mind and makes it their master, who alone is without a master? [*] Why must (you) understand generation and change and be one whose mind itself selects and chooses (to) have this? A fool can also have (it). [2] Lacking completion in the heart but having affirmations and negations, this is “going to Yue today but arriving yesterday.” It is taking “not having something” and calling it “something.” [3] Having nothing and calling it something, even the Divine Yu cannot understand this. [4] How could I myself endure it! 

師 shī n: teacher, tutor, master; model; v (lit): learn, imitate

成心 chéngxīn n: fixed-mind; adv: intentional; on purpose; deliberate

代 dài v: replace; n: replacements; era, generation

取 qǔ v: take, get, fetch; aim at, seek; adopt, assume, choose

乎 hū similar to 于 in mid-sentence

柰 nài n: crab-apple; v: endure, bear 

[1] There are no passage numbers in the original text. Chinese commentaries and English translations both provide passage numbers, but not always in agreement. After re-reading this passage for this project, I think this discussion on the fixed mind follows more closely with the preceding passage (2.3).

[2] 師 can be a teacher or a master, someone presumably skilled in some art who instructs or guides others. Literary verb usage suggests learning from or imitating an earlier example. This gets at Zhuangzi’s point: if we can regard having a fixed or resolute mind as equivalent to a wise master or teacher, then who doesn’t have a master or teacher? I use the translation “master” to emphasize an unreflective imitation.

[3] 無有為有 wúyǒu wéiyǒu not having something and calling it something; I think it is important to emphasize the linguistic or evaluative aspect of 為 in this context; to look at the absence of something and to regard it the same as having that something.

[4] 神禹 Shén Yǔ the spirit-like Yu; the Great Yu, legendary founder of the Xia Dynasty; tamer of floods.

[*] The modern usage of 成心 refers to intentional, deliberate, or on purpose; “having one’s mind made up,” to act in a certain manner. The mind holds and idea and seeks to act on the idea. In the classical context this might mean a “fixed heart-mind.” The heart-mind “serves” as the “ruler” of the other senses: receiving and evaluating sensory distinctions from the sense organs, and making and evaluating linguistic distinctions in relation to sensory distinctions (including its own emotional and cognitive activity).

As a compound term, 成心 is unique to Zhuangzi in the entirety of pre-Han literature, appearing only in this passage. Zhuangzi’s recognition of the 成心 as a problem is one of the unique aspects of Zhuangzi’s thought. The conflicts that emerge from disputation 辯 of right and wrong (shi/fei) are in part predicated on the cheng-xin, or the inflexibility of thought in the “complete” or fixed-mind.

This is more complicated than simply establishing a position of right and wrong; fixing any linguistic marker obscures the Way. Ordinary usage carves paths through the world establishing linguistic identity (是、彼), establishing proper usage (用) or appropriateness (是、非) and then debating (辯) and holding fast to fixed methods.

This linguistic fixation has important linguistic and ethical consequences, which are explored in other passages through the Inner Chapters. Here are two issues, in brief: (1) the 成心 imposes and holds fixed linguistic terms, obscuring the complex interplay of emerging conditions or possibilities; (2) the 成心 holds fast to binary oppositions, which by their very nature are limited and partisan understandings of complex experience. These fixations prevent the heart-mind from observing the complex fluctuations of experience, the transformations of change, and from responding to emerging conditions.

References/Further Reading:

The Wandering Heart-Mind: Zhuangzi and Moral Psychology in the Inner Chapters | SpringerLink 

Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China - Paperback - Tao Jiang - Oxford University Press (oup.com)

Translation - Analects 2.4 I set my heart on learning.

子曰：「吾十有五而志于學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而從心所欲，不踰矩。」

Zǐ yuē:`Wú shí yǒu wǔ ér zhì yú xué, sānshí érlì, sìshí ér bùhuò, wǔshí ér zhī tiānmìng, liùshí ér ěrshùn, qīshí ér cóngxīnsuǒyù, bù yú jǔ.'

The Master said: "At fifteen I determined (set my will) to study; at thirty I was upright (independent); at forty [I had] no doubts; at fifty I knew I knew heaven's commands; at sixty my ear was obedient; at seventy I could follow the desires of the heart-mind without exceeding the rules."

志 zhì purpose, will, determination

立 lì stand; erect, raise; establish, found; fix, set; determine, decide; become indepdent

惑 huò confuse, mislead, baffle; doubt

命 mìng order, command; written command; will of heaven; fate; lifespan

順 shùn obey, submit, go along with

欲 yù desire, want, long for; intend

踰 yú exceed, transgress; cross over

矩 jǔ carpenter's square, ruler; rule

Philosophy - Zhuangzi and Language

I'm sitting down to write on an article concerning Zhuangzi and language games. This is in response to Hansen's unified theory of language and its consequences for classical Chinese discourse. Hansen's model is a key part of his conclusion that Zhuangzi is a moral relativist, or at best a pluralist, but with no ability to make any discernment that stands as a universal proscription of care.

Classical Chinese philosophy in general seems to assume that people always speak from within positions, or at least, from within contexts. Communication was highly performative (as Fingarette discusses in The Secular as Sacred), and the goal was often the direction or re-direction of human activity.

It might appear at first glance that this observation might nullify much of Hansen's argument - after all, if we're already speaking form within a perspective, doesn't that mean that the issue of relativism doesn't accurately apply? But Hansen's argument is more complicated than this. His claim that Zhuangzi is a relativist is compatible with the idea that language begins as a performative and socially contextualized practice. This is, I assume, encapsulated in his idea that Chinese language functions as a complex set of input and output.

The real challenge is that Hansen seems to regard any use of language as an act of "discrimination," the act of using language to differentiate objects within the world. In classical Chinese we would refer to this as bian 辯, which is closely related to the process of sense discrimination (bian 辨). And any act of discrimination is made from within a perspective, based on the intrinsic constitution of the xin 心 (heat-mind) of the organism in question. So, this means language is a process of socialization and programming, hypothetically infinitely complex in variability, but serving the basic function of differentiating objects and describing the kinds of activity suitable for their interaction and treatment.

Hansen's argument is that Zhuangzi and the Dao De Jing both question the efficacy of this model of language as a means for guiding human behavior. They reject the idea that language can be used as a tool for providing shared standards of discourse. Zhuangzi questions it based on the manner in which every usage of language is made from within a perspective, and that perspective is in part based on the intrinsic dispositions of the agent. These dispositions organize language into a framework of activity, which Hansen claims is dao.

IF we grant all of Hansen's assumptions, this argument does make sense. However, I think we can challenge his model on a few important points.

First, it's not apparent that the only function of language is input-output. Zhuangzi's ability to use language to disrupt closed perspectives suggests that (in Hansen's computer-based model of the heart-mind) language can also be used to "reboot" the heart-mind. Zhuangzi very clearly and emphatically states the importance of clearing out the heart-mind, and allowing spirit (qi 氣) to move through all the organs. This is more than simply communicating another perspective, but seeks to therapeutically treat a function of the heart-mind.

The question is, is this perspective simply another form of input and output? It might be, but if so it would require making a distinction between exchanges that happen internally versus exchanges that happen externally. Hansen wants to avoid "mentalism" in his interpretation, but in doing so he seems to avoid any discussion of the internal mechanisms of the xin. And the text makes several mentions of the difference between internal and external, and of the importance of not allowing the external to enter the body and disrupt the internal. It also suggests the importance of treating the internal as well as the external, because dangers can come from both directions.

We see here that this model actually challenges two important aspects of Hansen's model: the idea that all language is simply input/output, and his model of the heart-mind as simply a collection of dispositions.

I want to develop this critique by demonstrating how Zhuangzi notes several different ways that language can be used. The challenge is to show that these ways of using language do have efficacy across perspectives, and that statements made from one perspective aren't simply attempting to overwrite distinctions made from another perspective. I think this can be shown in the text, as I think that Zhuangzi uses language to remind us of its limits, and that recognizing those limits actually creates the freedom necessary to use language in ways that help promote sorting out the changes of yin and yang.

In other words, it means the purpose Zhuangzi's ethical ideal of nourishing the xin is so the xin can better navigate the fluctuations of yin and yang. This ideal emerges from within Zhuangzi's own perspective, but it also seems important to any agent or organism. If the xin is the factor that determines the subjectivity of the agent, then it seems clear that Zhuangzi's perspective is relevant to any organism or agent that makes discriminations. In this context, it appears beneficial to any organism to engage in the kinds of particular actions described towards the xin, and to learn how to let the xin wander, and facilitate emptiness and wandering.

Philosophy - Language, Desire, and Society

One element I like about east Asian philosophy in general (and here I'm thinking in particular of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism), is the recognition of a complex relationship between language, desire, and social performance.

In the case of the Zhuangzi, the Zhuangzi clearly recognizes how human behavior involves making distinctions that are not initially based in rational reflection. According to the Zhuangzi, men's spirits are constantly trembling, moving in the directions of their desires, and becoming entangled in strife and conflict. Desires actually lead to discriminations, and these discriminations are then unified under a term (an action performed by the heart-mind, which is responsible for "tallying" together the distinctions of the sense-organs). These words then become markers for not only what things are, but how they are useful to the speaker. They function as demonstrative expressions, pointing out something from its environment; as representations (often seen in the ideograms), and finally also as significations of meaning, where meaning is often codified according to how the object is supposed to be used, or how the object functions within a system of relations. These categories agree with Cassirer's distinctions on symbolic form, which provides a useful method for looking at how Chinese language is used.

This does not mean that language is simply emotivistic: rather, it means that language functions in a complex set of relationships, relationships that are in part shaped and understood through language. So, instead of simply saying "tree good!" language *often* (but not always) is used to identify objects and make use of objects within a habituated network of relations. I suspect that further reading in semiotics would help articulate this model more accurately, and I should probably look at the writings of Charles Pierce. In any case, the idea of structure doesn't require that these structures be permanent; but it doesn't mean they simply happen overnight, either. Language, as a complex system of meaning, is a complicated set of relationships that develop over long periods of time, and is passed (or replicated, depending on your view) not only from generation to generation, but from conversation to conversation.

So, where does that leave us? If language isn't simply emotivism, then is it deterministic? Are we doomed to surrender to the network of utility relations as described in words and habituated through living practice and social habits? I should hope not, based simply on the fact that the above theory relies on an unstated assumption: that meaning occurs through usage. And because of this, we are able to identify how we use language, how we use words in individual contexts, and to change. As discussed by the Zhuangzi, words are not simply blowing breath, they have something to say. This is despite the fact that words are not fixed, nor is it always clear what words depend on for their saying anything. However, at least with the Zhuangzi, it seems clear that wordplay, puns, jokes, and unfamiliar uses of language are all part of disrupting established habits of language.