Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
President
Yasuo IMAI (Japan Women’s University)

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
Editorial Board
Chief Editor
Morimichi KATO (Sophia University)
Board Members
Mika OKABE (Osaka University)
Fumio ONO (Doshisha University)
Satoshi TANAKA (The University of Tokyo)

Title: E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education
Society of Japan, Vol. 3
Published: November 2018
Republished in New Edition: October 2020
© 2018 Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
ISSN 2435-5364
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japanis published annually by the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan. The Office Address: Division of Basic
Theories of Education, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo Bunkyo-ku,
Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Email: phil.ed.soc.jp＠gmail.com

Contents
Symposium
The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings: In Search for Contact Points
between Primatology, Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo
Juichi YAMAGIWA

1

Summary Report on the Symposium
Nobuo FUJIKAWA
Satoshi TANAKA

12

Thematic Research
Learning to Be Human in East Asia

Confucius’s Concept of Ren and its Application in Education
Zhongying SHIA Way of Becoming Human: Between the Ritualized Body
and a Humanizing Action
Duck-Joo KWAK
Learning to Be Human in East Asia: In Taiwan’s Regard
Ruyu HUNG

18

28

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo

Juichi YAMAGIWA
Kyoto University

1. Introduction
The method of discussing the norms of human society through comparison withanimals has been forbidden for a long time in the world of Western science. It originatesfrom Darwinian Theory of evolution.
Charles Darwin, who proposed the concept of 'Origin of Species' in 1859 andadvocated the concept that different species evolved from common ancestors in the past,
avoided mentioning the evolution of mankind. In the "Descent of man" written in 1871,
he explained that continuity between animals and humans can be found not only tomorphological features but also to intellectual ability and moral character. And since thegorillas and chimpanzees that are most morphologically similar to humans live only in
the African continent, we foretold that fossils of the oldest human ancestors can be foundthere. However, the majority of anthropologists at that time believed that humans had
evolved in Europe and Asia, and they had continued to discover old human fossils in
Europe (ex. Homo neanderthalensis) and Asia (ex. Homo erectus in Java and Beijing).
Such belief led to a large misunderstandings of human evolution. In 1909, old humanfossil was discovered in Britain and anthropologists named it Piltdown man. However it
was a false fossil that skillfully shaped the mandible of the orangutans with those ofmodern humans. For 40 years until 1949, people believed that human evolved in Britain
by the false evidence. In 1964, the discovery of Homo habilis in the Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania finally proved the Darwin's forecast.
On the other hand, the study of human society using evolutionary theory blossomedin "Ancient Society" of Lewis Morgan in 1977. He noted that marriage forms around theworld are reflected in differences in relatives 'names, trying to locate the form of marriage
and relatives of prehistoric times by following the change in relatives' names. Based on
the results, Morgan described the evolutionary pathway from the era of primordial

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J. YAMAGIWA

marriage in which sexual intercourse was prohibited between parents and brothers andsisters, by the appearance of the insect taboo, collective marriage, Punarua marriage
which shares each other's spouse with same- Daughter marriage tolerate sexualintercourse outside marriage, depicted a pathway evolved into the current single marriage.
However, this theory was criticized as a wrong method of dividing the modern family
form into advanced one and late one, and arranging it temporally along the axis ofevolution. In addition, because the greater risks of the idea leading to racial discriminationand colonial rule, and leading to Eugenic thought appeared using evolution theory werepointed out, the opinion that it is dangerous to apply evolutionary theory easily to humansociety spread rapidly. In the first half of the 20th century, rather than exploring theevolution of human society, the focus was on finding universal features in human society,evolutionary theory was applied only to nonhuman animals. There was a trend thatsociety and culture should not be talked about in terms of evolution.
Anthropologists argued that families are common and most basic societal featuresof humans, while avoiding mentioning its origin. However, as a condition for the family
to be established, any scholar raised the presence of the insect taboo., Claude Lévi-Strauss
who wrote "The Elementary Structures of Kinship" in 1949, asserted that exchange orreciprocity is a fundamental principle behind the human society, and suggested that incest
taboo may lead to the lack of women to marry within relatives and facilitate marriage byexchange of women between them.
In the course of these Western academic societies, suddenly, scientific disciplines toapply evolutionary theory to human society and to discuss the evolution of society
appeared. It was Japan that was a frontier in the academic world led by Europe and theUnited States, and it was academic called animal sociology. The fact that monkeys notinhabited in Europe and the United States lived in various places of Japan worked
advantageously, and primatology to learn the continuity between human and animalsociety was fostered. Among them, the family and the incest taboo were regarded as animportant theme from the beginning.

2. Evolution of human family and incest taboo
Kinji Imanishi, the founder of Japanese primatology, declared that society can berecognized for all creatures in his book "The World of Living Things" in the midst ofWorld War II in 1941. He hypothesized that all living things constitute a "species society"unique to each species, by living in a society without prejudice to language andconsciousness, and by having a proto identity that reacts with the same species
Symposium: The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings: In Search for Contact Points between Primatology,
Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo

3

individually. And by interacting with other species in the place where the species lives,
we can assume a "holistic society" consisting of several species, he insisted. This is the
hypothesis before James Watson and Francis Crick found out the replication mechanismof the DNA, which is the universal structure of genes in all living things. Since then allorganisms have been programmed by DNA, making it of common origin was recognized
as a universal fact. Imanishi stated the idea that all the creatures should have differentiatedfrom a common ancestor and could react each other to shape a society or community.
Imanishi dissertation was the theme of the "habitat segregation" phenomenon of aquatic
insects named Hirata mayfly (Schistonota), but during the Second World War he had astrong interest in mammalian society through the observation of Przewalski's Wild Horse(Equus ferus przewalskii) in Inner Mongolia. He started the study on animal society withhis students after the war. Their challenge was to confirm the existence of society andculture in non-human animals.
Imonishi, Junichiro Itani, and Shunnzo Kawamura, who met Japanese monkeys at
Toi Peninsula in Miyazaki prefecture in 1948, had a strong impression in their stunningmovements as a group, and they decided to study on a society of monkeys. By obtaining
phylogenetically close subjects to humans as monkeys, the center of research was
directed towards the evolution of society, leading to human beings. In 1951, Imanishi
wrote "Society before Human Beings", in which, through an overview of the society of
insects and birds, he emphasized the necessity of logic to unite two conflicting socialorganizations such as pair bonds between sexes and a larger group consisting of both
sexes, in order to consider the evolutionary pathway from an animal society to a humansociety. For the first time there emerged human families as a universal unit in a humansociety for the main theme of Japanese primatology.
Primate researchers who succeeded in provisioning Japanese monkeys at Koshimain Miyazaki prefecture and Takasakiyama in Oita prefecture to observe Japanesemonkeys at close proximity, soon found that the social structure of Japanese monkeys
were characterized by linear dominance ranks, leaderships, alliance formation within kingroups, and the pre-cultural ability to propagate newly acquired behavior such as washingpotatoes with water and collected wheat grains by dropping them with sand into sea water.
However, Japanese monkeys were phylogenetically too far away from humans. Imanishi
and others started investigating great apes trying to find clues to social evolution leading
to human beings. They conducted three surveys of gorillas in Africa held in 1958-60. Its
main purpose was to find the original type of the human family in the gorilla society.
Unfortunately, gorillas were not provisioned like Japanese monkeys, and in 1960
the gorilla survey was forced to be interrupted due to outbreaks of independent wars
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J. YAMAGIWA

everywhere in the habitat of gorillas. Based on the results of these insufficient surveys,
Imanishi published a paper entitled "the Origin of Human Families - from the standpointof primatology" on Ethnology Studies (Imanishi, 1961). The gorilla society was depicted
as a "pre-family" in which male enters from outside to gain a young daughter as a spouse,
becoming an interceding son and becoming independent. He proposed four conditions
for the establishment of a human family, 1) the marriage system, 2) incest taboo, 3)
division of labor between sexes, 4) close neighboring relationship, among which heconsidered that the three conditions excluding the division of labor have been sproutly
established in the ape society. Actually, before the survey of gorillas, Kisaburo Tokuda
and Itani reported that mothers and their sons tend to avoid copulation in macaque groups
including Japanese monkeys even in estrus (Tokuda & Itani, 1953). Imanishi thought that
nonhuman primates had already a tendency to avoid sexual intercourse among close
relatives, although this tendency was not established by institution like humans. Masao
Kawai and Hiroki Mizuhara also reported from their survey on mountain gorillas in the
Virunga Volcanoes that gorillas groups extensively overlapped their range withneighboring groups without territoriality (Kawai & Mizuhara, 1959). Imanishi therefore
imagined that "pre-family" of gorillas organize a neighborhood community like humansociety, with keeping close relationships among families having non-territoriality.
This hypothesis became invalid later, because male gorillas unlikely join groups
after emigration from their natal groups (Harcourt et al., 1976). Avoiding wars, Japanese
primatologists led by Imanishi started to study chimpanzees in Tanzania, succeeded inprovisioning chimpanzees in Mahale Mountains and established a long-term research siteat the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Junichiro Itani, who took charge in the surveys
of chimpanzees and hunter gatherers, focused on the similarity of the community called
Pygmy's band and the group of chimpanzees. He proposed "Preband Theory", that theestablishment of a community preceded the establishment of a family in the evolution of
mankind (Itani, 1966). He also pointed out that the group-living primate societies have
two contrasted extremes of male transfer or female transfer from their natal groups toother groups, and hypothesized the evolutionary pathway of primate societies fromelemental society of nocturnal monkeys with solitary nature and territoriality,
monogamous pairs with territoriality, polygynous or polyandrous groups with partly
overlapping home ranges, multi-male and multi-female groups, and finally todifferentiate into matrilineal (female-bonded) or patrilineal (female-transfer) societies(Itani, 1972). In his theory, incest avoidance constitutes the major role in the evolution ofprimate social structures.

Symposium: The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings: In Search for Contact Points between Primatology,
Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo

5

3. Incest avoidance in primates
Avoidance of incest is attained by two different features of non-human primates.
One is a propensity to leave natal groups by one sex, to transfer into other groups without
close relatives, and to breed there. This prevents them to copulate with close relatives in
the groups into which they transfer. Moreover, they do not stay in the new groups for a
prolonged period and leave them before their offspring mature, so that the transferredindividuals may not have the opportunity to copulate with their offspring consequently.
Only males tend to transfer in Cercopithecus monkeys including Japanese monkeys,
while only females transfer in the African great apes (chimpanzees and gorillas). The
former is regarded as matrilineal society and the latter as patrilineal society in primatology.
The latest ancestral society of humans may have the patrilineal features as the African
great apes (Foley & Gamble, 2009; Yamagiwa, 2015).
The other is a behavioral features of primates to avoid copulation with close relatives,
even if they coexist with kin related individuals after maturity. In Japanese monkeys, after
provisioning, or in isolated conditions without any group nearby to transfer, there
observed mature males that had never left their natal groups. Yukio Takahata (1982)
investigated Japanese monkeys at Arashiyama Monkey Park in Kyoto and found out thatmating is avoided within the fourth degree of kinship relations. Since Japanese monkeys
live in a matrilineal society, the degree of kinship relations is based on maternal relations.
The first degree is mother-son, the second is brother-sister and grandmother-grandson,the third is aunt-nephew, and the fourth is cousins. Female Japanese monkeys usuallyform alliance among kin in conflicts, and they have affiliative relationships within the
fourth degree of kin relations from birth. Such affiliation relationships may prevent themfrom sexual interactions. Moreover, Takahata found that a male-female pair formed
through sexual interactions during the mating season gradually developed the tendency
to avoid copulation in the next mating season. Japanese monkeys have the mating seasonfrom autumn to winter in which they form a peculiar proximate relationships throughcopulation. This relationships with the dominant male enables the subordinate females toaccess the artificial foods at the provisioning site, and the followership between themcontinues in the next non-mating and mating seasons. But it consequently leads them toavoidance of copulation irrespective kin relatedness. Based on these observations,Takahata concluded that affiliative relationships may generally prevent Japanesemonkeys from copulative interactions.
Mating avoidance with conspecific kin has been observed in other primate species(e.g., red colobus: Starin, 2001; baboons: Alberts & Altmann, 1995; langurs: Sterck et al.,2005), but found that they do not recognize their kin-related conspecifics inherently
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J. YAMAGIWA(Pusey, 1990). Based on DNA analysis extracting from blood samples in confined troopsof Japanese monkeys and Barbary macaques, they did not avoid copulation with paternal
relatives (Inoue et al, 1990; Kuester et al, 1994). Not biological relations, but intimate
relationships after birth may cause incest avoidance in primates.
Copulation in mother-son pairs is also rare in the great apes (Pusey, 1980; Harcourt& Stewart, 2007; Kano, 1992). In gorillas, copulation tends to be avoided in fatherdaughter pairs (Stewart & Harcourt, 1987). It is not necessary for these males to bebiologically related to daughters; an affinitive relationship between a male and young
female may be sufficient for the avoidance of copulation. Alexander (1970) reported that
copulation was avoided in a male-female pair in which the male took care of the female
during her childhood. Kuester et al. (1994) monitored pairs of Barbary macaques andfound that mating avoidance may occur when more than 3% of daytime is allocated to
intimate caretaking lasting 6 months, irrespective of biological paternity. This implies that
incest avoidance is fostered by intimate social relationships at immaturity, even in
nonhuman primates. Human families are not totally based on biological kin relations, but
are constructed based on cognitive relationships through caretaking after birth.

4. From incest avoidance to Incest taboo
In fact, it has been known for a long time that intimate contact in early childhood
also leads to repelling sexual intercourse in humans. Edward Westermarck (1891) pointed
out that men and women in an intimate relationship since childhood have a tendency to
avoid sexual intercourse, in "The History of Human Marriage". However, this theory wascriticized by Sigmund Freud (1910), who created psychoanalysis in the same era, as it is
not necessary to ban as a taboo if suppression of close relatives sexual intercourse isnatural procurement. For Freud, the earliest sexual excitations of youthful human beings
are invariably of an incestuous character due to the inherent nature of the foundation of
the “Oedipus complex”. Even then this theory was criticized and ignored by sociologists
and anthropologists.
However, in the latter half of the 20th century, as the researches on the communityof Kibbutz in Israel progressed, some reports came to support Westermarck's hypothesis.
Kibbutz is an organization that separates children from their families and raises them in
a community, but it became clear that men and women, who grew up in the same Kibbutz,
did not get married as expected and that they tended to marry other Kibbutz origin(Shepher, 1971). In addition, Arthur Wolf (1970), who investigated household
registration records from Taiwan, found that intimate childhood association promotes
Symposium: The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings: In Search for Contact Points between Primatology,
Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo

7

sexual aversion. Women who are forced to marry a childhood associate bear fewer
children than those who marry a stranger. They are also more likely to divorce or avoid
their husbands in favor of other men. Based on this case, Wolf (1995) concludes thathuman beings, like other primates, have intimate relationships during early childhood
avoiding sexual intercourse. As a result of these reports in succession, the theory ofWestermarck revived and is now called "Westermarck effect".
Why the Westermarck effect on primates had to be normalized to taboo in humans.
It should have been caused by growing population size with forming a community
including several families. In nonhuman primates, the mean group size is positively
correlated with the ratio of the neocortex size to other parts of the brain. This is called the“social brain hypothesis,” which proposes that social complexity is the driving force forincreases in brain size (Dunbar, 1996). Considering that the human brain has also evolved
as such a "social brain", since the brain has started to grow two million years ago, thebrain capacity increases about three times, the brain of modern human fits 150 people forthe suitable group size. This agrees with the average size of bands in contemporary
hunter gatherers. In other words, human beings have rapidly increased the population
since farming and livestock began 12,000 years ago, but they had lived for as long as 150
population groups at the most for many years during the life of hunting and gathering.
The number of 150 people is a community including 10 to 20 families. The society
with this multi-level structure has never been recognized even by the great apes. That is
because the principles of families and communities have conflicts sometimes. Withinfamilies kin-related people do not demand return, while in communities members usually
have duties according to roles for cooperation. Due to these conflicts, gorillas form asmall family group, and chimpanzees form a large community without segregation offamily groups. An exceptional example is Hamadryas baboons living in grasslands
within a multi-level society, in which small polygynous groups aggregate to form a large
band or troop and females transfer within bands. The lack of competitive food resourcesin grasslands may prevent females from forming kin-based coalitions, and the highpredation pressure may lead to frequent association and alliance formation among malesof different polygynous groups (Barton et al., 1996). Adding to these ecological factors,
sexual coercion including infanticide may have promoted cooperation among kin-related
leader males of different groups and facilitated modular society (Grueter et al., 2012).
When early hominids extended their range into open land, they may have faced the sameproblems as papionins in promoting a multi-level social system (Yamagiwa, 2015).
The first possible human family in the Homo clade is assumed to be a community
in which several monogamous and polygynous groups associate loosely. Females
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J. YAMAGIWA

transferred between groups within or between communities, and males dispersed fromtheir natal groups but remained in a community to cooperate with kin-related males. A
community with substructures of various compositions had a tendency of fission-fusion
for different daily tasks (Aureli et al., 2008). Increased animal foods in their diet facilitatedencephalization, and early weaning and subsequent delayed maturation promotedcooperative breeding and division of labor for provisioning their offspring. Thesechanges in life history and feeding technology led to a multi-level community structurein which several families cooperated with each other in diverse tasks of subsistence(Yamagiwa, 2018). This formation might have been resilient against severe conditions inarid areas and enabled Homo erectus to expand their distribution out of Africa.
However, in order to maintain a breeding group called families and to organize thecommunities they gathered, it is necessary to weaken the repulsion among small familygroups like gorillas, or to establish regulations on promiscuous sexual interactions suchas chimpanzees. When families and communities become unit of marriage, accepting
bride or son-in from outside, opportunities for unrelated men and women to live together
may increase. It is necessary to set norms on sexual interactions to keep autonomy of thefamily as a breeding group. If a wife wishes to have sexual relations with her husband’s
father or brothers, or a husband does in the same way, the couple will not be able to forma sustainable bond.
Our ancestors should have used the tendency of incest avoidance called“Westermarck effect” inherited from nonhuman primates for making these norms. Kinrelated members tend to avoid sexual intercourse due to affinity relations formed in earlychildhood. Both parents-in-law and in-law daughter or son were also regarded in such
relationships, during which they created a norm to prohibit sexual intercourse in theextended family through marriage. The norm that intimate relationships among kin do
not lead to sexual relationships opened the way for couples to coexist with other family
members without having sexual trouble. Without these norms, our ancestors could not
create a community including multiple families.
However, as the community expands in size and the movement of people between
community increases, independence of families as breeding groups is hardly maintained
only by prohibition of incest. Therefore, it seems likely that cultures and customs
developed to hide sexual intercourse from the public place and to restrict sexual
expression to private places. Nevertheless, people suffer from sexual troubles including
violence in modern society. Human society is not yet able to control the sexualinteractions, in which sociality and creativity unique to humans may be embedded.

Symposium: The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings: In Search for Contact Points between Primatology,
Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Quest for the Origin of Incest Taboo

9

References
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Alexander, B.K. (1970). Paternal behavior of adult male Japanese monkeys. Behaviour,36, 270-85.
Aureli F, Schaffner CM, Boesch C, Bearder SK, Call J, Chapman CA, Connor R, Di
Fiore A, Dunbar RIM, Henzi SP, Holekamp K, Korstjens AH, Layton R, Lee P,
Lehmann J, Manson JH, Ramos-Fernandez G, Strier KB, van Schaik CP (2008)
Fission-fusion dynamics: New research frameworks. Curr Anthropol 49: 627-654.
Barton, R.A., Byrne, R.W., Whiten, A. (1996). Ecology, feeding competition and social
structure in baboon. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 38, 321-329.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: Murray.
Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London:
Murray.
Foley, R., Gamble, C. (2009). The ecology of social transitions in human evolution. In
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences,364, 3267-3279.
Freud S. (1918) Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages
and Neurotics. New York: Moffat, Yard. (Original work published 1913)
Grueter, C.C., Chapais, B., Zinner, D. (2012). Evolution of multilevel social systems in
nonhuman primates and humans. International Journal of Primatology, 33, 10021037.
Harcourt, A.H., Stewart, K.J., Fossey, D. (1976). Male emigration and female transfer inwild mountain gorilla. Nature 263: 226–227.
Harcourt, A.H., Stewart, K.J. (2007). Gorilla Society: Conflict, Compromise andCooperation Between the Sexes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Imanishi, K. (1941). The World of Living Things. Kobundo, Tokyo. Translated by
Pamela Asquith et al. (2002) “ A Japanese View of Nature” , Routledge, London and
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Imanishi, K. (1951). Society before Human Being. Iwanami, Tokyo.
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Ethnological Studies, 25, 119-38. (in Japanese)
Inoue, M., Takenaka, A., Tanaka, S., Kominami, R., Takenaka, O. (1990). Paternity
discrimination in a Japanese macaque group by DNA fingerprinting. Primates
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31(4): 563-570
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Itani, J. (1966）Social Structure of Chimpanzees. Shizen 21 (8). (in Japanese)
Itani J. (1972). Social Structure of Primates. Seitaigakukoza, vol. 20, Kyoritsushuppan(in Japanese)
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Kawai M, Mizuhara H. (1959). An Ecological Study on the Wild Mountain Gorilla(Gorilla gorilla beringei) -Report of the JMC 2nd Gorilla Expedition 1959-.
Primates 2: 1Kuester, J., Paul, A., Arnemann, J. (1994). Kinship, familiality and mating avoidance in
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Feierman (ed), PEDOPHILIA: BIOSOCIAL DIMENSIONS, New York:
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Shepher, J. (1971). Mate selection among second generation kibbutz adolescents andadults: Incest avoidance and negative imprinting. Archives of Sexual Behavior
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Tokuda, K., Itani, J. (1953). The monkey at Koshima: Sexual Behavior. Nihondobutsuki
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Westermarck, E. (1891). The History of Human Marriage. London: MacMillan.
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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

Summary Report on the Symposium

Nobuo FUJIKAWA
Osaka University
Satoshi TANAKAThe University of Tokyo

1. Summary of the Symposium “The Future of Inquiry into Human Beings” andReport Outlines
Reports on the symposium’s topic were submitted from three different research fields:
primatology, anthropology and philosophy of education. Speakers included professor
Juichi Yamagiwa, president of Kyoto University, who has conducted his research on
gorillas in the field of primatology, professor Naoki Kasuga of Hitotsubashi University,
who has led the “ontological turn” of anthropology and its further development in Japan,
and professor Satoji Yano of Kyoto University from the field of philosophy of education(titles omitted below).
Yamagiwa calls for a reinvestigation of the incest taboo, which has been thought tobe peculiar to human beings and which as shaped the characteristics of human society.
He suggests this via focusing on the relation between physical characteristics and social
structure to seek out the reason for incest avoidance observed in primate society.
Kasuga’s critical consideration of the Ida ritual of the Umeda people in Papua New
Guinea as analyzed by anthropologist Algred Gell, presents the possibility of an“asymmetric and bidirectional analogy” between the two fields of everyday life and ritual.
Thereby, he also presents a possibility to transform today’s anthropology since theadvocacy of the “ontological turn” into what can be called “ontology” in the original
sense beyond an anthropology that “follows the natural sciences blindly” (for example
anthropology of Algred Gell or Victor Turner).
Employing a critical anthropological perspective, which launches a re-inquiry intoSummary Report on the Symposium

13

what makes human beings human, Yano traces back the intersection point between
primatology and anthropology to Jean-Jaques Rousseau, and points out the importanceof “self-consciously staying on the borderline of the binary opposition” of humanbeings/animals, culture/nature, and adult/child. Here, the task of education is thetransmission of the proper art of “how to close or open” this borderline.

2. Outline of Discussion
The discussion following these presentations included a Q&A session first between
presenters and then between presenters and the floor.
The first question by Kasuga was directed at Yamagiwa: How can primatology
explain the “neither distant nor near“ relationship with exchange partners in exchange
and marriage relations within “primary” human society? Yamagiwa’s answer: Unlike
other Primates, the relationship with one’s descent group is maintained even after
marriage in the case of human families and communities, and this functions as bond
between different groups. At the same time, “cross cousin marriage” is located on theboundary between cutting and keeping of the relationship with descent group. Kasuga
also asked if and to what extent it is possible to talk about early human beings by drawing
analogies to chimpanzee troops. To this question Yamagiwa answered that it is impossible
to talk about early human beings by drawing analogies to chimpanzee society, becausemonogamic society comes from society where notable swelling of sex skin is notobserved whereas this physical characteristic is notably observed in chimpanzee society
characterized by promiscuous sexual-marriage relationship. Yano asked Yamagiwa to tellhis views on the difference between learning and education from the perspective ofprimatology. Yamagiwa’s answer was that in order for education to take place, certain
behaviors need to be displayed: educator and educand understanding the knowledge
disparity between them and the educator teaching the educand even if it leads to loss of
his/her own profit. According to Yamagiwa, such behaviors may have developed in theevolution process of human beings because of an over-development of our ability tosympathize with others.
Next, questions were directed at Kasuga. Yamagiwa asked him on his views on thelimits of our ability to merely use visible things (as base-analog) in analogy, or theasymmetry between invisible and visible things in analogy. Kasuga suggested that naturalsciences are thought to search for patterns (visible things), whereas human and social
sciences take up intention (invisible things). But in fact both of them are connected to
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each other: Similar to researchers in the human and social sciences, a physicist sees whathe/she intends to see and understand what he/she intends to understand. Yamagiwa also
asked Kasuga why symbols do not remain at the level of simple analogy in rituals, butrather are extended toward flamboyant decoration. Also, what meaning does this have forhuman beings? As to this question, Kasuga gave his opinion in reference to Gregory
Bateson supposing that play sets the logical level in a different, meta-, or excess
dimension. Human culture’s characteristic of extending analogy in this way comes fromsuch play.
Then, Yano asked Kasuga whether an anthropologist as an observer of the Ida-ritual,
which establishes a passageway and traffic between the world of everyday life and theworld of ritual by analogy, adds another layer of analogy from the outside. As to thisquestion, Kasuga gave the example of anthropologist Marilyn Strathern. Strathernattempted to save anthropology out of the so-called “crisis of representation” into whichanthropology had fallen in the 1970s by adding one analogy to another and thereby also
trying to describe the chain movement of analogy in observation targets. Yano also asked
Kasuga how the possibility for human beings to understand other cultures is explainedby the analogy concept. As a response, Kasuga mentioned that anthropology has
attempted to represent local knowledge on the one hand, and tried analogy on the other
hand in order to understand other cultures. Marcel Mauss made one such attempt in his
article “The Gift”. Here, Mauss tried to make invisible things visible by means of analogy,
using broad concepts of “gift” and “money” – concepts, which might not even exist
within target populations.
Finally, questions were asked for Yano’s presentation. Kasuga, citing ‘The Lives ofAnimals’ in John Maxwell Coetzee’s novel “Elizabeth Costello”, asked Yano about his
views on the dangers accompanying the crossing of the boundary to de-humanizing.
Yano replied to this with reference to his own previous studies on animal picture books.
Acknowledging differences between feral child, feral man and savage, who are locatedat the boundary between human and non-human, and the inherent violence that lurks indiscussing them all together, Yano explained that it is his attempt to make an inquiry into
commonalities and issues which do not come into view until we dare to discuss themunder the common theme of ‘boundary line’. Then, Yamagiwa cited Junichiro Itani’s“Discourse on Equality” in which he criticizes Rousseau’s feral man having no influence
from others and asserts an evolutionary stream from ‘original equality’ through‘transcendental inequality’ to ‘conditional equality’. He asked Yano about his opinion onsuch thought that human beings are unequal with regard to their bodily properties, butalso have directionality to produce equal society by adding a variety of conditions
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Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Summary Report on the Symposium

15(observed even in play of Japanese macaque). To this Yano remarked that he did not givehis presentation along Rousseau’s “Discourse on Inequality” and suggested theimportance of reconsidering the way of connection from animal world to human worldalong Itani’s argument. Further, Yamagiwa pointed out that Yano did not discuss sexuality,
despite it being one of the important conditions for society’s construction, as well as oneof the important moments of boundary crossing between child and adult. Yano admitted
that Yamagiwa’s comment positively “shocked” him, recognizing that unlike adults whointeract with children every day, the tradition of philosophical and pedagogical thought(except for Sigmund Freud and others in his line of thought) has regarded and excluded
sexuality as animal affair.
Moderator Tanaka asked if “sympathy”, which Yamagiwa mentioned in his
explanation of the difference between learning and teaching, is a sort of analogy.
Yamagiwa answered that it is analogy, which is carried out “in a temporal gap”. This
analogy is formed by either the teacher or the person taught on the basis of the image ofthe latter’s grown-up condition. Further, Tanaka asked both Yamagiwa and Kasuga if
analogy (analogia) between creature and “invisible” god has been taken into
consideration in primatology and anthropology. Yamagiwa expressed the following
view: Since human beings have come to control the night by use of fire and mutuallycommunicate analogical illusions created in the night’s darkness by means of symbols
including language and gesture, they acquired an ability to express something like god
which does not exist in reality. Kasuga suggested as his imagination the possibility thatto feel someone’s intention in the night darkness and an adult pointing a finger to call achild’s attention to something are related to each other. In addition, Yano pointed out theimportance of inventing various ways to draw boundary lines, especially since Europeanand American thought based on monotheism has drawn clear, uncrossable boundary lines
between god/human/animal, whereas in Japan the crossing between the three has been
regarded as possible. Tanaka asked further whether the Japanese way of drawing
boundary lines and Rousseau’s “pity of all living beings” (handout, p.7) overlap. Yanosuggested the possibility of a new way of thinking by returning to “St. Paul’s Christianity”
as a classical source of “cosmopolitanism” (handout, p.6) and start a re-inquiry as to its
importance, which is different from Henri-Louis Bergson, who extended the thought of“cosmopolitanism” and reconsidered its possibility, no matter whether that can be called
Japanese way of thinking. Further, Yamagiwa asked Yano how pedagogy understands
our current state of transition in which science and technology change the ways of
producing human life and thereby have the potential to make the realm of sexuality,
which has been regarded as important for society’s construction, more ambiguous. As to
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this question, Yano suggested the necessity to cross swords with the dimension ofreligious thought and to accept knowledge of advancements in leading fields of scienceand technology to contrive various teaching tools according to learners’ growth stages,
because it is religion that has dealt with questions on the boundary line between life anddeath as well as between before-birth and birth.
Following the panelists’ discussion, the discussion was opened up to the floor.
Itakura (Waseda University) pointed out the following three points: First, those who
discussed the boundary line between animality and humanity in the eighteenth century towhich Yano pays attention attempted to destroy the realistic meaning and importance ofChristianity, and were situated within dynamics between god, human, and animal,
because they thought that unsettling the boundary line between human and animal would
lead to an unsettling of the boundary line between human and god. Second, in relation to
the problematique which Yamagiwa pointed out concerning Yano’s argument, despitesexuality being the most important theme in and after the fourth chapter of “Emile”, thatis in its two thirds, pedagogy established in academism in response to teacher training in
the nineteenth century has interpreted and used this book by ignoring most of this part.
Third, Rousseau’s theory of “great cosmopolitan souls” is located within the context of
his criticism of the lost of ability to sympathize with other’s pain among large parts ofpeople in society in those days and therefore understanding this as aim just as Yano didleads to an overvaluation of Rousseau.
Yamagiwa’s response to Itakura was that in his opinion eighteenth century
discussions of natural law centered on how humans, not god, are able to create society
within the natural law. Therefore, not only god but also animals did not appear there. Also,with regards to the issue of sexuality, Yamagiwa expressed his opinion that sexuality
occupied a very important position in “Emile” in relation to “telling lies”. After that, Yano
explained that he took up the theory of “great cosmopolitan souls” with reference to thecontext which he developed in the second half of his presentation.
Then, Atsushi Suzuki (Oita University) asked Yamagiwa for his opinion on the ideathat the animal world is in principle characterized by high birth and death rates, whereas
in the human world fecundity became useless due to advancements in science andtechnology, so that also in education as well as pedagogy a discourse on considering
human maturity (adulthood) as intellectual maturity instead of sexual maturity wasproduced. To this, Yamagiwa presented his opinion that if machines could substitutesexually mature bodies for reproduction, the physicality of human beings would
gradually become insignificant (even though we do not know how this might change
taboos). This could lead to discrimination against those who have not reached certain
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Anthropology, and Philosophy of Education

Summary Report on the Symposium

17levels of intellectual development, but it could also lead to feedback of our physicality.

3. Summary
The fact that Japanese primatology started with the application of sociological methods
to Primates research and that findings from Primatology have given sociological research
new suggestions makes us realize that the history of these disciplines is one example of“asymmetric and bidirectional analogy” (Kasuga). Also, in the parts on primate society
analysis in his books, Yamagiwa conducts a careful search for “patterns” by paying
attention to many exceptions, and develops daring opinions in those sections that discuss
human society. Could this be an expression of his “intention” toward analogy, whichcrosses the boundary line between animal and human? Further, the connection between
Yano’s argument of “self-consciously staying on the boundary line of the binary
opposition between human and non-human beings” and Kasuga’s argument of“asymmetric and bidirectional analogy” is very strong. We can also see this from thematerial, which Yano distributed entitled “Personification and Contra-Personification as
Subjects of Thought concerning Boundary Line”.
As mentioned at the beginning of this symposium, its purpose was to “provide achance to take an academic deep breath through knowing new tendencies in humansciences adjacent to pedagogy”. The topic contained the risk of dispersing the discussion,
but it was in large measure thanks to the presenters’ thoughtful attention to theme
selection that the discussion was focused on some central topics. Especially, theproceeding of the symposium benefitted largely from Yano’s discussion of points ofintersection between primatology, anthropology and pedagogy in the first half of thesymposium. Allow us to use this opportunity to offer our thanks to the presenters.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

Confucius’s Concept of Ren and its Application in Education

Zhongying SHI
Beijing Normal University
Abstract
Confucius was a great philosopher and educationist of ancient China, the founder of Confucianism.
Ren (仁) is the central concept of his philosophical and educational theory, and a main topic of his
discussions with different disciples. Three sayings are of the most importance for the essential of Ren.
The first one is “to love others”, which is the guiding principle; the rest are “do not impose on others
what you yourself do not desire” and “to help others to take their stand in so far as he himself wishes
to take his stand, and get others there in so far as he himself wishes to get there”, which are thestandards for action. From a methodological view, sympathy is the basic way to practice Ren.
Confucius’ these comments upon Ren are of great significance for modern education. They inspire us
to reflect upon the human nature in education, the value judgment in education and the role ofsympathy in moral education and development.
Keywords
Confucius, Ren, Human Nature, Moral affection, Value Judgement in Education

1. Introduction
Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) was a great philosopher and an educationist ofancient China. A great amount of ancient books survived after his edition. He was thefounder of Confucianism and the earliest private school in China. His contribution to thepromotion of culture and education was so great that for about 2,500 years, he has always
been admired by Chinese people and the Temples of Confucius were built in different
places. Many people came to sacrifice him in festivals. During the process ofmodernization in the 20th century, Confucius suffered from many criticisms, some ofwhich were irrational and even of personal insults. While, criticisms cannot always cover
the great contributions he did to our state. Recently, there appears a renaissanceCorrespondence:
Zhongying SHI, Beijing Normal University, Email: szying@bnu.edu.cn

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movement of the Chinese traditional culture and people of different social levels became
interested in Confucius. The Analects (論語) is widely read nowadays in China.
In his philosophy, the concept of Ren (仁) is of the most importance. Some scholars
even call his philosophy the philosophy of Ren. While, people’s opinions diverge on how
to interpret this concept. One reason contributes to this phenomenon is that Confucius’statements of Ren vary with the contexts of his discussions with his different disciples;
another reason is that scholars after him, including Mencius (孟子), ZHU Xi (朱熹),WANG Yangming (王陽明), KANG Youwei (康有為) offered different interpretationsof Ren in different backgrounds, which make the literature on Ren expand greatly. This
article will try to re-analyze the concept of Ren based upon a close reading of The
Analects, in order to clarify the essential of Ren and reveal how it can be applied toeducation of nowadays. I do hope this article could interest those scholars from Japan andother countries.

2. The Essential of Ren
According to LIU (2008), Ren, as the central concept of Confucius, appears 109
times in The Analects. Considering that The Analects consists of only 11,705 characters,
it is fair to say that Ren is very important for Confucius. Ren appears directly and also
indirectly; sometimes in Confucius’ discussions with his disciples, sometimes in
Confucius’ comments upon other people, historical or contemporary. One of the direct
examples is that, “Fan Ch’ih(樊遲) asked about Ren. The Master said, ‘love your fellowmen’” (12:22; LAU, 1979, p.116).1 While, it also appears indirectly when Confucius
commented upon some other issues, like “the Master said, ‘It is rare, indeed, for a manwith cunning words and an ingratiating face to be of Ren” (1:3; Lau, 1979, p.59).
However, Confucius never clearly defined what Ren is, no matter in direct or indirect
way. This makes some people feel very hard to understand the concept of Ren. Someeven claim that Ren is mysterious. Sometimes, it looks like one of the moral requirements
and sometimes it seems to be equated with morality.
While, the concept of Ren is never beyond our comprehension. We can still
understand the essential of Ren, if we closely read Confucius’ great amount of statementsof it. Wittgenstein told us that “the meaning of word is its use in the language. And themeaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer” (PI: 43; Wittgenstein,1

All the translation of The Analects in this article is basically from the Penguin Classics Edition (1979), translated by D.
C. Lau, an excellent bilingual scholar from Hong Kong.

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1958, pp.20-21). Though never giving us a definite definition of Ren, Confucius did tell
us what kind of behavior can be called Ren and what cannot in particular situations. We
can still find a way to understand the essential of it, if we give our attentions to thosedistinctions made by Confucius.
Three paragraphs are worth attention, since they contains Confucius’ directstatements on Ren. The first one is that, “Fan Ch’ih(樊遲) asked about Ren. The Master
said, ‘love your fellow men.’” (12:22; LAU, 1979, p.116) This is a summary statementof Confucius about Ren. To love ‘fellow men’, which refers to others, is compared with‘to love yourself’. Ren is the emotional connection between me and others. To be a manof Ren is to hold strong affection to others. The next paragraph is that, “Chung-kung(仲弓) asked about Ren. The Master said, ‘When abroad behave as though you werereceiving an important guest; when employing the services of the common people behaveas though you were officiating at an important sacrifice. Do not impose on others what
you yourself do not desire. In this way you will be free from ill whether in a state or in anoble family’” (12:2; LAU, 1979, p.112). Confucius’ this statement consists of threestages: the first one is about how should people behave in their daily lives in accordancewith Ren, to show respect to others; the second one promotes the standards of behavior
up to an abstract ethical principle which means that never force others to do what you
yourself do not desire; the last one is about the result of the behavior of Ren, which would
never bring resentment whether in a state or in a noble family. However, the time
Confucius lived was a time of resentment because of the dramatic social changes. Herethe last paragraph that needs our attention is that “when answering Tzu-kung(子貢),Confucius said, ‘a man of Ren helps others to take their stand in so far as he himself
wishes to take his stand, and gets others there in so far as he himself wishes to get there.
The ability to take as analogy what is near at hand can be called the method of Ren’”(6:30; Lau, 1979, p.85). Ren means sympathy, which would help yourself and others toachieve their goals. “Help others to take their stand in so far as he himself wishes to takehis stand, and get others there in so far as he himself wishes to get there” was comparedby Confucius with “do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire”. If the latter
one is of the negative Ren, which refers to what you should not do; the former one is of
the positive Ren, which refers to what you should do. Confucius’ concept of Ren consistsof these two closely related parts. More than a strong affection to others, Ren is also an
action which shows your sympathy to others and your effects on others.
If the credo of ancient Greek philosophers was “the love of wisdom”; comparatively,
Confucius’ philosophy was “the love of people”. The term people here refers to others.
While, since everyone exists as “the other” to anyone else, “to love yourself” was also
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generalized and contained in this believing. In this sense, Mencius defined Ren as “thepeople”2. A person who pursue this virtue with his whole life can be called a man of Ren;this kind of action can be called an action of Ren; and politics of this kind can be called
the politics of Ren; our society can be called “back to Ren” if everyone lives inaccordance with Ren and makes a community of love.

3. Confucius’ Advice on How to Practice Ren
As stated above, Ren, the core concept of Confucius, is basically “the love ofpeople”. It contains two principles of sympathy: 1, do not impose on others what you
yourself do not desire; 2, Help others to take their stand in so far as he himself wishes totake his stand. However, Ren still seems difficult to reach in our practice, though not
absolutely impossible. Confucius’ discussions with his disciples can be seen as his advice
on how to practice Ren.
Firstly, Confucius hoped that everyone should use their subjective initiatives tobehave in accordance with Ren. Ren is like seeds which have already existed ineveryone’s heart, not only those talented ones. Since Ren is closely related to our attitudes,
affections and moral concerns to others, it comes out in anyone’s heart and can beachieved by anyone. As Confucius said, “is Ren really far away? No sooner do I desire it
than it is here” (7:30; Lau, 1979, p.90). He also believed that the practice of Ren requires
no special ability. “The Master said, ‘I have never met a man who finds Ren attractive ora man who finds non-Ren repulsive. A man who finds Ren attractive cannot be surpassed.
A man who finds non-Ren repulsive can, perhaps, be counted as Ren, for he would notallow what is not Ren to contaminate his person. Is there a man who, for the space of asingle day, is able to devote all his strength to Ren? I have not come across such a man
whose strength proves insufficient for the task. There must be such cases of insufficientstrength, only I have not come across them’” (4:6, Lau, 1979, pp.72-73). However,Confucius did required more upon the elite than upon common people. As one of his
disciples, Tseng Tzu (曾子) said, “A Gentleman must be strong and resolute, for hisburden is heavy and the road is long. He takes Ren as his burden. Is that not heavy? Only
with death does the road come to an end. Is that not long?”(8:7, Lau, 1979, p.93) In Tseng
Tzu’ view, a gentleman has the responsibility to practice and carry forward Ren.
Confucius even said that, “When faced with the opportunity to practice Ren do not give
precedence even to your teacher” (15:36; Lau, 1979, p.137). This saying reveals
2Interestingly, Ren (仁) and People (⼈) pronounce the same in Chinese.

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Confucius’ encouragement to his disciples to practice Ren in their coming days and it isinteresting to compare it with Aristotle’s famous saying that “Plato is dear to me, butdearer still is truth”.
Secondly, Confucius emphasized the restraint of desire, and he put the observanceto the rites as an important act in political life. According to him, those selfish desires,
including lust, avarice, and greed for power, are the worst enemies of Ren. Xun zi(荀子),a Confucian philosopher after Confucius analyzed that, once the selfish desires went outof control, they would expand crazily and dominate our attitudes, affections and value
judgments, make us the slaves of our desires. It would break our sympathy to others andthe community we live in. Based upon this, when Yen Yuan(顏淵) asked about Ren, theMaster said, “To return to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self
constitutes Ren. If for a single day a man could return to the observance of the rites
through overcoming himself, then the whole Empire would consider Re to be his.
However, the practice of Ren depends on oneself alone, and not on others” Yen Yuan said,“I should like you to list the items.” The Master said, “Do not look unless it is inaccordance with the rites; do not listen unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not
speak unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not move unless it is in accordance withthe rites” (12:1, Lau, 1979, p.112). The restraint is not equal to elimination. To restrain
our desires is to keep them in control, not evolving into a disastrous ending. In this sense,“to overcome the self” in Confucianism is different from “to destroy the desire” inBuddhism and “to eliminate the desire” in Daoism. In Confucius’ view, one should
restrain his desires to the extent as not to violate the rites. One should not look, hear anddo anything, as long as the rites do not allow. No doubt that the rites here refers to theRites of Zhou(周礼), which represents the ideal society for Confucius.
Thirdly, Confucius emphasized that the persistence to practice Ren is very important.
Since Ren comes from everyone’s heart, it is never something too difficult to achieve forcommon people. Nevertheless, Confucius admitted that to persist on Ren is of difficulty.
He praised his disciple Yen Hui (顏回)3 that “in his heart for three months at a time Huidoes not lapse from Ren. The others attain Ren merely by fits and starts”(6:7; Lau, 1979,p.82). A gentleman like Yen Hui could persist on Ren for three months, while common
people just did it occasionally. Hence, those who want to become a man of Ren, should
practice consistently, reflect and restrain himself during his whole life. “The Master said,
3

Yen Hui (顏回) and Yen Yuan(顏淵) was actually the same person. Hui was his first name. In ancient China,
only people in higher position could call others in their first names. Therefore, Confucius could call him “Hui”.
While, Yuan is his courtesy name(字).

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Confucius’s Concept of Ren and its Application in Education

23‘Wealth and high station are what men desire but unless I got them in the right way I
would not remain in them. Poverty and low station are what men dislike, but even if I did
not get them in the right way I would not try to escape from them. If the gentleman
forsakes Ren, in what way can he make a name for himself? The gentleman never deserts
Ren, not even for as long as it takes to eat a meal. If he hurries and stumbles one may be
sure that it is in Ren that he does so’”(4:5, Lau, 1979, p.72). This saying means that agentleman should always be with Ren. His daily life should be in accordance with Ren,even in troublesome or dangerous situations.
Fourthly, Confucius emphasized the function of learning in understanding andpracticing Ren. As we know, Confucius himself loved studying very much. He learnt
from books, and also those of different occupations in the society. “The Master said,‘Even when walking in the company of two other men, I am bound to be able to learn
from them. The good points of the one I copy; the bad points of the other I correct inmyself’”(7:22, Lau, 1979, p.88). Though only a few people could be called Ren,
Confucius numbered three historical persons. “The Viscount of Wei(微子) left him, theViscount of Chi(箕子) became a slave on account of him and Pi Kan(比干) lost his life
for remonstrating with him. Confucius commented, ‘there were three men of Ren’”(18:1,
Lau, p.149). All of them lived in the time of King Zhou(紂王, ?–1046 BC), who was thelast king of the Shang(商) Dynasty and also one of the most famous tyrants in Chinese
history. Wei was King Zhou’s brother, but chose to leave the government; Chi and Pi Kan
were King Zhou’s uncles and never gave up criticizing his policies. Finally, Chi was put
into prison and Pi Kan was killed. They enjoyed Confucius’ praise probably because theydared to correct King Zhou’s ruthless doings, even making the supreme sacrifice. Anotherhistorical figure that Confucius praised was Kuan Chung(管仲, 720 BC ?–645 BC).
“Tzu-lu(子路) said, ‘When Duke Huan(桓公) had Prince Chiu(糾) killed, Shao Hu(召忽) died for the Prince but Kuan Chung failed to do so.’ He added, ‘In that case, did hefall short of Ren?’ The Master said, ‘It was due to Kuan Chung that Duke Huan was able,
without a show of force, to assemble the feudal lords nine times. Such was his Ren. Such
was his Ren’(14:16, Lau, p. 126). Owing to Kuan Chung’s efforts, Duke Huan could berecognized as the Hegemon by other states, which avoided a lot of probable wars thatwere disasters for common people. This met Confucius’ requirements of politics of Ren.
Besides, when “Tzu-kung asked about the practice of Ren. The Master said, ‘A craftsman
who wishes to practice his craft well must first sharpen his tools. You should, therefore,
seek the patronage of the most distinguished Counsellors and make friends with thegentlemen of the most Ren in the state where you happen to be staying’”(15:10, Lau,
1979, p.133).
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Fifthly, Confucius made some other important statements when talking about thepractice of Ren. For example, he said that “being good as a son and obedient as a young
man is, perhaps, the root of a man’s Ren”(1:2; Lau, 1979, p.59). It means that Ren always
begins with those very trifles in our daily lives. He also said that “It is rare, indeed, for a
man with cunning words and an ingratiating face to be of Ren”(1:3; Lau, p.59). Our inner
affections, respects and concerns, rather than those “cunning words and an ingratiatingface”, constitute Ren. In some other places, Confucius said that “of neighborhoods Ren
is the most beautiful. How can the man be considered wise who, when he has the choice,does not settle in Ren?”(4:1, Lau, 1979, p.72) It shows that a harmonious society
contributes a lot to the growth of a person of Ren. It was also believed by Confucius that“the man of Ren reaps the benefit only after overcoming difficulties. That can be calledRen”(4:22; Lau, 1979, p.84). A gentleman of Ren would always prefer to overcome any
difficulties if that is required by Ren and seldom consider about the benefits he can get.
All those sayings become a supplementary part of the essential of Ren, and makeConfucius’s concept of Ren of richer contents and higher operability.

4. Ren’s Application in Education
Based upon the analyses above, Confucius’ Ren is neither an isolated virtue, nor ageneric term of all the other virtues. Ever since Mencius, Chinese People tended to put“Ren, Justice, Proper Rite, Knowledge and Integrity(仁,義,禮,智,信)” 4 together.
However, unlike other moral virtues or Five Human Relationships( 五 倫 ) 5 ofConfucianism, Ren does not refer to any particular ethical relationship between people.
Ren is neither a generic term of other virtues. To achieve Ren is not like a game ofcollection of other virtues, which would make the concept of Ren very demanding.
However, Ren is never isolated from others, rather they have very close and innerconnections. Confucius once said that, “what can a man do with the rites who is not ofRen? What can a man do with music who is not of Ren?”(3:3, p.67) It means that Ren
plays as the essential of all the rites and music. It is also the source of all the virtues andbenevolence. Without Ren, without the sympathy and concerns to others, neither can one
understand all the virtues nor practice those virtues and become a man of morality.
Modern Chinese philosopher FENG You-lan (馮友蘭) has commented that “a man of

45

Sometimes, Integrity(信) is not included here.
The concept of Five Human Relationships was propounded by Mencius, which refers to five fundamental
relationships between people: King-Subject, Father-Son, Elder-Younger brothers, Husband-Wife and friends.

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25

Ren is a man of public spirit. However, he will show his affections and concerns to others.
Whether a man is of justice is only about whether he has the public spirit. While, theconcept of Ren is more than that. Ren contains an emotional feeling to others. This isabout the nature of man in his moral behaviors. Therefore, CHENG Yi (程頤) said that
Ren is the public spirit embodied in people’s feelings. And ZHU Xi said that the core of
Ren is about people” (Feng, 2007, pp.118-119).
Confucius’ concept of Ren influenced the Confucianism theory and Chinese
people’s sense of order in their daily lives greatly. Mencius applied it into politics andemphasized the significance of the common citizens in the state. When talking with KingHui of Liang(梁惠王), Mencius said that, “what is the point of mentioning the word
‘profit’? All that matters is that there should be Ren and Justice”6(1: A: 1; Lau, 1970,p.49). He held a view that “the Three Dynasties won the Empire through Ren and lost it
through cruelty. This is true of the rise and fall, survival and collapse, of states as well. An
emperor cannot keep the Empire within the Four Seas unless he is of Ren; a feudal lordcannot preserve the altars to the gods of earth and grain unless he is of Ren; a Minister ofa Counsellor cannot preserve his ancestral temple unless he is of Ren; a Gentleman or a
Commoner cannot preserve his four limbs unless he is of Ren. To dislike death yet revelin cruelty is no different from drinking beyond your capacity despite your dislike ofdrunkenness” (4: A: 3; Lau, 1970, p.119). According to this, Mencius made his famous
claiming that “the people are of supreme importance; the altars to the gods of earth andgrain come next; last comes the ruler” (7: B: 14; Lau, 1970, p.196). Its influence continues
until now. Confucius’ concept of Ren has been widely applied into different aspects ofChinese society, including our ethics, business, education and medicine. People resent
those who make profits through deviating from Ren. On the contrary, those who sacrifice
their lives to pursue Ren are always respected and admired.
Confucius’ Ren is also of great importance in education.
Firstly, it inspires us to think about some fundamental problems in philosophy andphilosophy of education, which includes “what is the nature of human being?” “Howdoes a man reaches maturity?”. Particularly about the nature of man, different
philosophers have offered different ideas from a very ancient time. In the west, answers
have come as “reason” (Aristotle, Descartes), “naturalness” (Montaigne, Rousseau),“culture” (Ernst Cassirer, Eduard Spranger), “labor” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels),“play” (Schiller, Johan Huizinga), or “economic man” (Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall).
6

All the translation of Mencius is also basically from the Penguin Classics Edition (1970), translated by D. C.
Lau.

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Z. SHIFor Chinese philosophers, some defined the nature of human as good; some as evil; some
said there exists neither goodness nor evilness; some said that goodness and evilness are
mixed together. While for Daoism, the nature of human should be in correspondence with
the Nature. Compared with them, Confucius did not offer a very clear proposition on it,
and he just said that “men are close to one another by nature. They diverge as a result of
repeated practice” (17:3; Lau, 1979, p.144) which means that the natures of different
people are very close to each other. The sympathy in his Ren also suggests that there exist
some fundamental feelings, attitudes and value judgments that can connect our humanbeings. For Mencius, this became the standard to tell the difference between human andbrutes. He said that “slight is the difference between man and the brutes. The common
man loses this distinguishing feature, while the gentleman retains it. Shun( 舜 ) 7
understood the way of things and had a keen insight into human relationships. He
followed the path of morality. He did not just put morality into practice”(4: B: 19; Lau,
1970, p.131). Modern Chinese scholar QIAN Mu(錢穆) also agreed that “a society
cannot be built without Ren; human beings cannot last long without a society; education
cannot exist without a time that is long enough. Therefore, Ren is the source of our humanculture and a common human nature across different cultures.” Since Ren is such acommon human nature, it will normally define the maturity of human beings. “To
become a man”, is some kind of mission that one needs to accomplish in correspondencewith Ren, rather than a natural result.
Secondly, Ren tells us the importance of sympathy in education. In my opinion, in
the western philosophy of moral education, no matter in virtue ethics, deontologicalethics, utilitarianism, or in the school of values clarification, the moral affection has
always been ignored. Compared with the western philosophical tradition founded upon
logos, Confucius’ concept of Ren is not exactly a theory abstracted based upon logics. It
contains a great amount of affections, showing one’s respect, concerns, forgiveness,
responsibilities and hopes to others. A man of Ren acts not only according to someprinciples, but all to his inner emotional feelings. In private and public lives, the idea of“to love others”, the principle of “do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire”
and “to help others to take their stand in so far as he himself wishes to take his stand, andget others there in so far as he himself wishes to get there” are founded upon sympathyof our human beings. Sympathy functions as a mental mechanism which connects us
with others and adjusts our behavior. As Adam Smith said, “and hence it is, that to feelmuch for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our
7

Shun, also known as Emperor Shun, was a legendary leader of ancient China.

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benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce
among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their wholegrace and propriety”(Smith, 1801, p.38). The lack of sympathy, or the lack of Ren, might
be one key reason why the ethic knowledge and action separate and inhospitality
dominates our society.
Thirdly, the concept of Ren makes us reflect upon the value judgment in our modern
education. Modern education developed with the modern society, which is basicallyfounded upon individualism, utilitarianism, scientificism and performancism. Itemphasizes the priority of individual, utility, intelligence and performances. Comparedwith this tradition, Confucius’ concept of Ren emphasized the priority of others, moral,
harmony and the development of human nature (see Chen, 2015, pp.36-74). Therefore,
it will help us to solve those problems, like the conflicts between people because ofindividualism, the inequality in our society because of the extreme utilitarianism, theoppression upon human spirits because of scientificism, and the ignorance of thedevelopment of human nature because of performancism. It will lay a foundation for
personal development, a harmonious society and a collaborative development of humanbeings.

References
Dewey, John (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Feng, Youlan (2007). A New Treatise on the Nature of Man (新原人). Beijing: SDX
Jointed Publishing.
Lau, D.C. (trans.) (1970), Mencius. New York: Penguin.
Lau, D.C. (trans.) (1979), The Analects. New York: Penguin.
Li, Zehou (2004). Notes on The Analects. Beijing: SDX Jointed Publishing.
LIU, Zhaowei (2008). On The Analects. Beijing: People's Education Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. (2010). Not For Profit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Qian, Mu (2009). Culture and Education. Beijing: SDX Jointed Publishing.
Smith, Adam (1801).The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: A. Strahan.
Wittgenstein, Luddwig (1958). Philosophical Investigations. (Trans.) Anscombe, G. E.
M. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

A Way of Becoming Human:
Between the Ritualized Body and a Humanizing Action
Duck-Joo KWAK
Seoul National University

1. Ritual Proprieties for self-cultivation and East Asian humanities
What does it mean to cultivate ‘humanity’ in education? How is it supposed to beconnected to ‘humanities education’? Humanities education in schools or colleges is
expected to cultivate humanity in youngsters. But what does ‘humanity’ mean here?
Different traditions may respond differently. When I was in a junior high school, theschool textbook for moral education specified three types of the educated: a man of goodcharacter, a man of deep knowledge, a man of high fame. I was taught that the ‘man ofgood character’ deserved genuinely to be called the educated. (As a young adolescent, it
was really touching to discover this.) When Koreans say that they expect the school tocultivate ‘humanity’ in youngsters, it usually means the formation of ‘good character’.
And the core of good character is considered to be the disposition to conform to social
norms, i.e., obeying teachers and the elderly and knowing how to behave in relation toother people of a different status, a disposition associated with the essential Confucian
virtue of ‘jen’(仁), namely, benevolence or love of others.
This sense of good character is the basis of ‘the noble man’(君子, junzi), the moral
ideal of Confucianism, which has dominated the minds of Korean people since theestablishment of the neo-Confucian Chosun dynasty in the 14th century. But the ultimate
purpose of the noble man is to become a sage who discovers ‘his Way(道, tao). And thediscovery of the Way is pursued through self-cultivation, which is to be practiced by two
different, yet complementary pedagogical approaches: bodily mastery of ritual proprieties
and book-reading.1 Simply put, Confucian education in Chosun dynasty can be said toconsist of two stages with two distinct approaches to self-cultivation: embodied
1

Here book-reading refers to studies of the following four classical texts of Confucianism: the Analects of Confucius,
the Mencius, The Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean.

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character-building through the Elementary Learning(小學) and understanding ofprinciple(理) through the Great Learning(大學). The former was supposed to cultivate
the basic Confucian ethics of conduct by inculcating in young people ritual propriety,namely, proper ways of behaving as a human being (Han, 2001, 31). The latter was
expected to motivate them to pursue the ultimate meaning of becoming a human throughstudy of classical Confucian texts.
In the formal school curriculum in Korea today, the studies of the classical texts arelong gone, having been replaced by modernized humanities curriculum from the West,which is usually centered on modern academic subjects, i.e., math, science, history andlanguages. Along with this change, the educational power of Confucian ritual proprieties
as social norms appears to have been gradually reduced in the minds of modern educators
in Korea. But what seems often to be unnoticed by them is the fact that, as Roger T. Ames
says (1993, 149), “the expression and performance of the body, like other Confucian
preoccupations such as the practice of ritual, the playing of music, the writing ofcalligraphy or the composition of literature,” was a critical “medium for self-articulation”
for the Confucian educated. Thus, even if young Korean students today are taught
modernized subject-matters in school, their embodied educational experiences are still
greatly influenced by informal school culture that is pervasively Confucian, if not
dominantly. This means that the kind of humanity to be developed through the official
curriculum tends to be at odd with the kind of humanity encouraged for young people
through the hidden curriculum. For example, when Martha Nussbaum claims that thehumanities education in this globalizing world should aim at educating youngsters as‘good citizens’ who have, among other capacities, a capacity to care about others, nearand distant, with genuine concern, as well as a capacity for critical thinking to raise a
dissenting voice in a given society (2010, 45-46), we Korean teachers may find it
appealing as a world-spirit, yet without having it affect the way we lead our lives.
My underlying concern here has to do with the fact that the idea of ‘humanity’ in
the Confucian sense is often found to be at odd with the idea of humanity assumed by themodernized school curriculum. Some qualitative gap between the two kinds ofhumanities can often be experienced by young students under the modern school systemin east Asia. To put it in a more dramatic way, the modern education system in east Asia
forces them to live in the Confucian body with the western mind resulting in their selfhood
being seriously split or fragmented. I think that we as educators need to pay due attention
to this phenomenon and take seriously how the Confucian body is formed since the latter
was traditionally considered critical to Confucian self-cultivation as the educational ideal.
Korean educationalists’ apparent lack of appreciation of the educational power of
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D. KWAK

Confucian ritual proprieties (禮, li) for modern education may have to do with theirmodernist prejudice, which regards Confucian rituals as outmoded, being susceptible tomisuse as a means of social control. This prejudice prevents them from seeing how theConfucian ritual proprieties as social norms have in fact shaped and reproduced thedistinctive social body of modern Koreans through schooling. Resonating from
Foucault’s work on the role of disciplinary power in the formation of the modern subject,
I want to problematize progressive educators’ alleged characterization of the Confucian
practice of ritual proprieties as a form of mental indoctrination or behavioral conditioning,
either through repetitive drills or the effective states induced by group engagement. Whatis often neglected in this view are more subtle and ambivalent effects of the ritual on ourbodies in education, especially from participants’ perspective. By over-simplifying thefunction of Confucian ritual as social control, we may end up depriving ourselves of oneof the most powerful educational inheritances that could be a way of empowering young
people to be active cultural agents.
This paper will introduce an alternative view on the function of ritual, termed areality-thesis formulated by Catherine Bell (1953-2008), an outstanding American
scholar in religious studies, 2 to show how ritual can be better understood from theeducational perspective. And then I will make use of this reality thesis to reinterpret the
way Confucian ritual works in forming our social body. This is intended to free ourselvesfrom the politically charged modernist criticism of Confucian ritual and to see if it could
be in fact the very source of modern subjectivity, which is usually thought to be repressedby the ritual.

2. Ritual for Social control or Ritual for Reality-forming?
Ritual practice lies at the heart of Confucianism. In Chosun dynasty, the ritualizationof political, social, and even economic relationships in a Confucian mold significantly
shaped the cultural matrix of the entire society (Deuchler, 2002, 292). On the other hand,according to Bell, “ritualization correlates with and contributes to the restraining effect ofclosed and highly structured societies” (1993, 177), whether they may be premodern or
modern. Bell also holds that a society governed by ritual assumes a fair degree of
2Catherine Bell (1953-2008) is a contemporary American scholar in religious studies, who specialized in studies ofChinese religions and ritual studies. Her book, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (1992, Oxford), is considered abreakthrough-text in religious studies that changed the framework for understanding the nature and function of ritual.
My paper will heavily draw upon her book in understanding the Confucian ritual.
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consensus, whereas another society characterized by the legalistic rule of law and orderassumes much less. Given these descriptions, Chosun society for sure, and modern Korea
to a certain extent, can be rightly considered high ritual societies.3
What was (is) the function of ritual in Chosun dynasty and in modern Korea if there
is any? I am not asking here why Confucianism traditionally takes ritual seriously as away of governing society and educating people, nor how people in Confucian society
justify or explain their ritual practice. This line of internal accounts can be or must havebeen given by many Confucian scholars and specialists (Han and al, 2001; Kato, 2016).
In fact, we can even safely suppose that in participating in ritual, people within the society
more or less know what they do and why they do what they do. My question rather comesfrom a suspicion that they may know what they do and why, but they “do not know what
what they are doing does” to themselves in participating in ritual (Bell, 1992, 108). This
question is first inspired by some post-structuralist perspective on ritual in cultural studies,
which takes ‘the body’ seriously in the account of ‘ritualization’, as in Foucault’s andBourdieu’s works. But my question above in regard to ritual is primarily educational in
the following two senses. First, it is concerned with what is exactly happening to theindividual, especially to her body, when she participates in ritual; this question is
educationally critical because educational practice is supposed to be in the end all about
the (trans)formation of the individual selfhood as a unity of one’s mind and body. Second,
it is concerned with the nature of ritual as a culturally strategic practice for the fusion
between mind and body, individual and society, thought and action, emotion and belief(Bell, 1992, 21). This fusion is exactly what modern educational practice aspires to offer
in the midst of the ever self-alienating and dehumanizing exam-obsessed school culture
in Korea.
One of the dominant accounts about what ritual does to individual participants
engaged in ritual is a repression thesis (Bell, 1992, 172-173). It says that the function ofritual is social control over the participants in the form of socialization. Here socialization
is defined as a matter of transmitting shared beliefs, or instilling a dominant ideology as
an internal subjectivity. In fact, the same understanding of ritual lies behind the abovementioned modern educators’ criticism of Confucian ritual proprieties, such as filial piety
or loyalty to the government, as a disguise for the elite class’s interest and domination
Bell uses the terms, ‘ritual,’ ‘ritual practice,’ and ‘ritualization,’ interchangeably. As following her usage without
objection, which is concerned with ritual in general, I treat without further thought Confucian ritual propriety(禮, li)
as a form of ritual to which her general account can be applied because Confucian ritual propriety as conventional
practice takes a strong formality, fitting the main features of ritual that Bell describes. The detailed discussion of it
will be followed in the next section.
3

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D. KWAK(Shin, 1970). I think this sociological criticism of Confucian ritual is parasitic on a
psychological assumption of the repression thesis: “ritualization is the controlled
displacement of chaotic and aggressive impulses” (Bell, 1992, 173). According to therepression thesis, ritualization is central to any culture as a means to dominate nature, i.e.,
the natural violence within human beings. This thesis treats ritual as an oppressive device
inherently necessary to an ordered society by being repressive of the individual; it pays
attention to how ritual exercises control the individual’s affective state to make themsocial or even moral. What is to be noted here is the thesis’s underlying assumption of
dichotomies between culture and nature, individual and society, (controlled) reason and(chaotic) emotion.
I don’t think this (sociological and psychological) account of ritual is accurateenough to be applied to Confucian ritual, even if it was politically employed that way byoppressive military regimes of the past in Korea. Bell also holds that the social control
wielded by ritual is a much more complex phenomenon than the manipulation ofaffective states or cognitive categories, as described by the repression thesis. She instead
proposes an alternative thesis called a reality-thesis by drawing upon many different
scholars and works in cultural studies, such as Geertz, Douglas, Foucault and Bourdieu
among others (Bell, 1992, 175). According to Bell, ritual does not control. It rather
constitutes a particular dynamic of social empowerment by modeling ideal relations andstructures of values. This thesis views ritual as “a symbolic modeling of the social order,
with this imaging or iconic quality as the basis of its efficacy” (Bell, 1992, 175). With thisuse of the word ‘modeling’, the thesis tries to highlight not how ritual ‘controls’ but how
it ‘defines’ social situations by being presented to social members as a reality to berendered and experienced. I think this reality thesis provides us with a better framework
through which we can more accurately understand how Confucian ritual actually works
from the participant’s perspective. Let me briefly reconstruct how the reality-thesis
explains ritual as a general account of it.
According to Bell, the purpose of ritual practice is the production of the ritualized(social or public) body. But what is noteworthy about this practice is that it does not see
itself doing that, namely, the production of the ritualized body. What is the ritualized body,by the way? Bell says: it is “a body invested with a sense of ritual” (Bell, 1992, 98). And‘a sense of ritual,’ she continues to say, is what we are embodied with as “an implicit
variety of schemes whose deployment works to produce sociocultural situations that theritualized body (of ours) can dominate in some way”. This seems to say that our repeatedpractice of ritual brings to us a variety of schemes that open to us as participants a certain
bodily horizon in which we can orient ourselves in such a way as to make ourselves feel
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that we fit to given situations. How well we are attuned to the given situations is a matterof our practical mastery of the strategic schemes in ritualization. What is to be noted here,according to the reality-thesis, is that ritual’s ability to define an order as the real in both
its internal structure and its limits is a form of control, yet a very unique kind of control
that is not experienced as such by the people involved. In other words, ritual exercise
helps to define as authoritative certain ways of seeing society by deflecting people’s
attention from other ways without their noticing of that very fact (Bell, 1992, 175-176).
How is it possible?
According to Bell, ritual does this job by being deeply implicated with the humanbody. Drawing upon a series of post-structuralist theories that identify the human bodyas a social construction in the image of society and a microcosm of the universe, thereality thesis considers the human body as one’s existential site where the mediation of
the simple dialectical interaction between the individual (perception of the world) and thesocial world (of categories) takes place (Bell, 1992, 94). Thus, it is said that through ritualthe construction of cultural reality focuses on the body, which in turn experiences theconstruction as natural to itself (Bell, 1992, 95); it is the body that makes us not noticewhat the ritual does to us by taking it as natural to itself. This means that ritual grants the
body a critical site for the social construction of reality, and the body is shaped orsocialized by rituals into the social body. Turning to this social body is a key to therelationship of one’s self, society and cosmos. Ritual as modelling this whole process ofsocialization, that is, the transformation of natural body into cultural body, transforms one
sort of man into another sort of man.
Then, how exactly does this happen through the human body? According to Bell,the invisibility of what and how ritual does is possible because ritual naturalizes arbitrary
assumptions of reality, so as to make them look necessary or real to the people involved.
Creating this misrecognition within ritual participants and making this very act invisible
to them are essential to the successful operation of ritual in defining reality. In Bell’s view
(1992, 112), the reason ritual could function in this manner has to do with the way it
communicates with the participants. Ritual communication differs from linguistic
communication in its function in two ways. First, the way ritual expresses its codes or
principles is not discursive but performative as in such speech-acts as ‘promising’ or‘declaration of wedding’. What is distinctive about ritual is not what it says or symbolizes
but what it does things to the people involved in it. Ritual is always a matter of theperformance of gestures and the manipulation of objects. Ritual languages are deeds inthemselves that accomplish things; they operate by showing and creating things to beperceived and interpreted. There is no message to be conveyed; they act upon reality (Bell,
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D. KWAK

1992, 111) and thereby create a situation that supplies to the participants the opportunity
to infer and master the codes underlying the ostensible activity of the rite for their future
actions. Second, this means that ritual communication plays on ambiguities with thesymbolic meanings of ritual codes when it produces model-experiences in theparticipants. Its underlying codes or scheme are not determined enough to instructspecific meanings to the participants; the specific meanings are supposed to be inferredand mastered by them (Bell, 1992, 181). We may describe this (internal and personal)
inference and appreciation as part of physical self-cultivation in the Confucian context.
Thus, we can say that ritual is a matter of programmed learning through activities thatinvolve the participants’ appreciation of codes, principles, and concepts, and theirreproduction in practice and in action. These two strategies of ritual inevitably elude thefull articulation of the work ritual does to the participants themselves; full articulation is
not a medium that can grasp the ritual practice (Bell, 1992, 97 & 114).
Let me pause here to examine more closely exactly how the participants do notnotice the work ritual does to themselves or what is happening to themselves while ritual
does its job. Adapting Bourdieu’s discussion of practice, Bell holds (1992, 98-99) that we
can speak of the natural logic of ritual, logic embodied in the physical movements of the
body and thereby lodged beyond our grasp of consciousness and articulation. The
principle underlying this logic can be made explicit only with great difficulty; they are
rarely in themselves the objects of scrutiny or contention. In other words, for Bell, themolding process of our social body within a highly structured environment of ritual often
does not come up to our inner state of mind. Rather it primarily acts to restructure ourbodies in every performance of our acts themselves. Hence, for example, a required
bowing (to the elderly) in the Confucian ritual does not merely communicate oursubordination to the person we bow to. For all intents and purposes, our practice ofbowing produces a subordinated bower in and through the act itself. Of course,
sometimes on another level within ritualization, such an act of bowing may actually set
up a bifurcation between the external show of subordination and an internal act of
resistance. But in either case, the ritual practice shapes one’s deep ontological orientation
to the social life, involving the setting up of oppositions and differentiation in theorientation, i.e., social oppositions of the elderly and the young or man and woman,
combined with geographical oppositions of right and left or above and below.
Through the privileging of a certain set of categories built into such an exercise ofgenerating hierarchical schemes, a loose sense of totality and systematicity is producedin one’s order of the world (Bell, 1992, 104). This means that ritual’s function in our life,
since it is so deeply implicated with the way our body is oriented, is more ontological
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than social in its nature. In this way, ritual dynamics afford and develop our experienceof order as well as our sense of fit between the taxonomic order and the real world ofexperience, which leads us to find the connection so natural and organic as if it were partof the way things are. Therefore, we can conclude that these structured and structuringexperiences of the world through ritual practice guarantee the reality and value of its
underlying schemes by means of our sense of fit or coherence between the instincts ofthe socialized body and the environment in which it acts.
What we can see here is that ritual does not simply act to bring the social body tothe participants. The participants also actively seek and appropriate the coherence interms of their ontological concerns or social interests, as persons or groups, so as toexperience it as more or less redemptive; this means that they are also empowered by theschemes of the rituals (Bell, 1992, 114-115). This is how, as Foucault’s concept of
micropower well shows (Foucault, 1995), ritual makes the body an arena where more
local social practices were linked to the larger scale organization of power. This is also
how ritual leaves room for the social body to turn into an active cultural agent in the formof consent, negotiation and resistance in the process of internalizing the schemed orderof reality defined by rituals. Bell says it is because the process of internalization of thescheme differentiates the private from the social selves in the actors, involving a
distancing within them of their private and social identities. This distancing is integral towhat ritual does through its elaboration of symbolic meanings, but it can be problematic,of course, if taken too far (Bell, 1992, 217; Butler, 1997, 19). The relationship between
any instance of ritualization and its immediate social reality by means of the participant’s
acts does not seem to be the mere reflection of power of given order but that of theirinterplay. Ritualization cannot be understood apart from the immediate situation, whichis reproduced in a misrecognized or transformed way through the production of ritualized
agents. Thus, we may conclude that, honoring Foucault’s terms (1995, 192 & 194), ritual
does not just control or subordinate the subject, but produces it as well.

3. Cultivation of the Ritualized body as a Way of Self-cultivation;a Case of Confucian Ritualization
How can this general account of ritual be applied to Confucian ritual in particular?4
Bell (1992, 220) summarizes several features common to all forms of ritualization: 1) strategies of differentiations
through formalization and periodicity, 2) the centrality of the body, 3) the orchestration of schemes by which the4

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D. KWAKIn what follows, I will try to make use of the reality-thesis to see the extent to which
Confucian ritual can be understood as a social practice that shapes the social body in theform of self-cultivation that could create an empowered subject. Confucianism,
especially neo-Confucianism, is a highly sophisticated system of rituals. It is not an
exaggeration to say that Confucian education is all about rituals, i. e., learning how toobey or conform to rituals in one’s actions on every level of everyday life. But what
exactly does ritual (禮, li) refer to in the Confucian context? First, it refers to
institutionalized forms of rites, which people usually tend to take as a tradition, i.e.,
periodic or celebratory rites of royal courts or ancestral worship ceremonies as a set offormal procedures. Second, Confucian ritual (li) more commonly means some patternsof overt behavior of actions that are instructed on the way we carry our bodies and makephysical gestures, as well as a set of specific rules of conducts that prescribes our roleperformances, roles such as a king, a father, or a son. Lastly, li can be described as a setof more general rules of conduct that govern one’s personal relationship with others, suchas reciprocal respect, loyalty or good faith, which is almost synonymous to what we call
today moral norms of action (Han, 2001, 16).
Let me give you some examples for these:
Do not listen with the head inclined on one side, nor answer with a loud, sharp
voice, nor look with a dissolute leer, nor keep the body in a slouching position.
Do not saunter about with a haughty gait, nor stand with one foot raised. Do not
sit with your knees wide apart, nor sleep on your face (The Elementary Learning,
3:2:2, trans, Lee, 1999, 135)
When he was in the carriage, he did not turn his head quite round, he did not talkhastily, he did not point with his hands (The Elementary Learning, 3:2:7, trans.
Lee, 1999, 140)
Parents are sometimes liable to faults and mistakes. Then the child must try tocorrect them, using, however, only the mildest and most indirect of means. If theparent refuses to change ways, the child must wait and try to correct them again
only after his respect and filial piety please them. Even if the parent is not pleased,
the child must try to correct them not to let him susceptible of dishonor for the
body defines the environment and is defined in turn by it, 4) ritual mastery, and 5) the negotiation of power to define
and appropriate the hegemonic order of the society. I think all these features are also true of Confucian rituals as
conventional practice.
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family. If the parent punishes the child for criticizing, the child is not to feel any
anger or resentment, even if beaten until blood flows. The child must continue totry to please him with high respect and filial piety (The Elementary Learning,
2:1:22, trans. Lee, 1999, 55)
Tzu-kung asked about how friend should be treated. The Master said, “Advise
them to the best of your ability and guide them properly, but stop when there is
no hope of success. Do not ask to be snubbed” (The Elementary Learning, 2:5:4,
trans. Lee, 1999, 108-109)
These passages are all from the Elementary Learning, an anthology of selections fromthe Confucian classical texts, which greatly influenced the way the Koreans oriented
education for their children.5 The Neo-Confucian scholar Chu Hui created this text forthe purpose of fostering specific and concrete modes of behavior that are both practicaland ritualistic (Kelleher, 1989). The first two passages reveal the physical aspects of selfcultivation in young people. Li includes very trivial acts of our everyday life fromsweeping and sprinkling to talking and posing the head. The last two passages touch upon
more subtle manners of conduct as a son and as a friend in learning how to converse withthe elderly and relating affectively with people around us as young people.
Young people are expected to love their parents, respect the elderly, and esteem
teachers. The mastery of all these physical appearances and behaviors prepares them toadvance to the next level, that is, the pursuit of the goal of the Great Learning: cultivating
the self, regulating the family, ruling the country, and finally establishing one’s peace ofmind in the world. The distinctiveness of this educational approach is to make young
people adopt the specific codes of behaviors, i.e., the way they carry themselves, theirfacial expression, and even the tone of one’s voice, just exactly the way the text instructs
us to do up to the level of their becoming part of our unconscious self. This means thatthey are supposed to make them part of their bodily habit without raising any questions;this obedience is critical in building their ‘good character’ as the early development of
5

The Elementary Learning is a text edited in 1187 by a well-known Neo-Confucian scholar Chi-Hui from the Songdynasty in China. But his educational influence on the Chosun dynasty of pre-modern Korea was so vast, pervasive
and lasting that his teaching from the Elementary Learning still remains deep inside of everyday moral psychology
of most of Korean middle-class parents. This text was an important part of the Neo-Confucian core curriculum,
which was taught in official educational institutes in Korea from the early Chosun dynasty until the period ofJapanese colonialism in Korea in the 1900’s. But the educational philosophy and spirit underlying the text is stillwith us in our everyday moral psychology and school culture, even if it has been rapidly disappearing (ordisintegrating) for the last few decades.
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D. KWAKtheir personality.
The significance of the Neo-Confucian teaching from the Elementary Learning
usually lies in its greater attention to ‘the social process’ of building a good character, andhow it can contribute to individual self-development. The high level of specificity ininstructing young people’s physical aspects of self-cultivation, namely, person’s
comportment, dress and habits of eating and drinking as a way of disciplining oneself andreverencing others seems to assume a strong connection between the orientation ofphysical body and moral character. That is, a ritual act itself would somehow empower
them into a good character; the former is considered the mirror of the latter. A person’s
posture and carriage would both reveal his (or her) character and influence upon forming
it. Thus, learning at this stage is not just to master prescribed code of behaviors but also
to internalize the idea that behavioral prescriptions and role models most effectively
inform one’s character. This is why it is extremely important in Confucian education foryoung people to learn how to unconditionally accord their bodily orientations andbehaviors to the specific prescriptions of conducts instructed by the elderly and the text
without reflecting or raising questions on the norms themselves underlying the behavioral
codes. It will form their character by way of shaping their moral psychology, i.e.,orienting their every little emotion and attitude for their everyday situations in accordance
to a set of Confucian norms. On this first stage of teaching, evoking action is more
important than reflection. Here we may say that this process of building a good characteris the very process of shaping the social or ritualized body in terms of reality thesis.
But how convincing is the Confucian assumption of a strong connection between
the orientation of physical body and moral character (of the social body)? It may not be
as convincing as we think it would be for two reasons. First, it seems to be empiricallypossible to conform to the prescribed behavioral norms and rituals without the expectedmoral psychology accompanied. We can pretend to conform to them, if it is necessary. In
fact, most of us who have not reached the level of “the noble man” in the Confucian sense
can be said not to be fully free from this pretension since only “the noble man” cansucceed in finding “the Way” in the sense that his every little act in the everyday life
naturally goes along with the heaven’s Way without involuntary wills on his part. Second,
it is logically possible to conceive another set of behavioral norms and rituals thecommitment to which can lead young people into the individual self-cultivation, or
perfection of one’s character, which is the ultimate purpose of the Confucian education.
In other words, the specific codes of behavioral norms and rituals prescribed by the text
can be said to be arbitrary in connection to the Confucian ideal of self-cultivation; theconnection is not necessary, but contingent. This means that there is no guarantee to make
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39a shift from the former to the latter. Then, what is the point of Confucian ritual as a wayof physical self-cultivation? Or what would possibly facilitate the connection between
them in Confucian education?
It seems that one’s participation in Confucian ritual somehow facilitates theconnection between li and good character. The question is how it does this. At this point,
we may need to call out the reality thesis discussed earlier, and ask: What is ‘the work’
that Confucian ritual does in facilitating the actual connection between them? How doesit do the job? We can say that Confucian ritual does this job by awakening jen(仁,benevolence or love of others) in the participant. This potential answer directs ourattention to the relation between li(禮) and jen(仁) in the formation of the Confucian self.
And Herbert Fingarette, a well-known Confucian scholar, gives us a helpful descriptionof the relation between li(禮) and jen(仁). He says:
Li and jen are two aspects of the same thing. Each points to an aspect of the actionof man in his distinctively human role. Li directs our attention to the traditionalsocial pattern of conduct and relationships; jen directs our attention to the person
as the one who pursues that patterns of conduct and thus maintains thoserelationships. Li also refers to the particular act in its status as exemplification ofinvariant norm; jen refers to the act as expressive of an orientation of the person,
as expressing his commitment to act as prescribed by li. Li refers to the act asovert and distinguishable pattern of sequential behaviors; jen refers to the act as
the single indivisible gesture of an actor, as his, and as particular and individual
by reference to the unique individual who performs the act and to the uniquecontext of the particular action.
Our more familiar Western terminology would be misleading. We are
tempted to go further than I have above and to say jen refers to the attitudes,
feelings, wishes and will… (Fingarette, 1972, 42-43).
Interestingly enough, Fingarette describes li and jen as two different aspects of the samething; li refers to the observable bodily objectification of patterns of conduct, whereas jen
to an act that expresses the orientation of the particular actor as a person who delivers li.
But, as suggested in the last part of the passage, Fingarette keeps warning us that weshould not take li as an overt and objective behavior in contrast with jen as a subjective
inner state, as the dualistic Cartesian mindset in the West often mistakenly conceives thehuman mind. In fact, this is why Fingarette starts with the sentence which says that “liand jen are two aspects of the same thing.”
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D. KWAKBut what does he mean by ‘the same thing’ here? One interpretation could be thatthey are ‘ontologically’ the same thing. What does this mean? By this I mean that they
are interconnected in their origin or derived from each other. Let me explain why this canbe the case by exploring some textual evidence. Confucius says in the Analects in
responding to the question raised by his disciple on how to be jen:
He who can submit oneself to li is jen (The Analects, 12:1, trans. Fingarette, 1972,
42)
When abroad, behave as though you were receiving an important guest.
When employing the service of the common people, behave as though you were
officiating at an important sacrifice.
Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. (The Analects,12:2,
trans. Lau, 1979, 109)
Man of jen helps others to take their stand in that he himself wishes to take hisstand, and gets others there in that he himself wishes to get there. The ability totake as analogy what is near at hand can be called the method of jen (The Analects,
6:30, trans. Fingarette, 1972, 41)
The first passage says that being jen is all about being able to submit oneself to li. Thisphrase sounds surprisingly puzzling to modern ears since it says that all we need to do tobe jen (humane or benevolent) is to obey to the specific norms of actions rectified by li.
But the second passage gives us some clues towards a more intelligent understanding of
the phase. It suggests that one’s observance of li is not a mechanical nor even a practicalprocess; it is a symbolic process since we are supposed to deliver li in a certain manner,that is, an as-if mode. This symbolic process of imagining other hypothetical situations
in delivering li seems to give the practitioner a certain normative orientation, which leads
into being jen. The last passage clearly specifies that being jen can be cultivated by ourability to make the as-if analogy given the situation we are in.
By connecting this to the reality thesis, we can make sense of my claim that li andjen are ‘ontologically’ the same thing. First, as Fingarette holds that jen develops only so
far as li develops (1972, 48), they can be said to be developmentally connected. The more
one practices li up to the point of naturalizing it as part of oneself, the more he or she turns
into being jen or being humane. How? It was said earlier that ritual primarily acts torestructure our bodies in every doing of our acts. By restructuring our bodies, ritual
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41

involves the setting up of the fundamental schemes of the world in us whose deployment
works to produce the ritualized body, i.e., schemes of social oppositions of the elderly
and the young, or man and woman. This means that submitting oneself to li is the social
process of embodied internalization of the underlying schemes of li, which prepares thesocial body with the ability to cultivate jen in it; for the latter is developed with one’s
ability for the symbolic manipulation of the very schemes at given situations. For
example, we cannot have profound and intelligent filial pieties toward one’s parents
unless one has practical knowledge about how to behave in specific socio-familial
relations as well as extensive experiences by participation in the specific social and family
affairs, and the practical knowledge and experiences are made possible only with theembodied schemes of the social and cosmic world. This means that jen is to be developedout of one’s observance of li, which restructures our body with the basic Confucian
schemes of oppositions and differentiations that order the universe and society.
Secondly, being jen by submitting oneself to li is not just a matter of being
familiarized with practical knowledge on how to do things in certain social situations. It
is a matter of being able to attentively appreciate the symbolic meanings of the conducts
rectified by li. More specifically, being jen is deeply related to our ability to attribute someidealized meanings and purposes to the social norms rectified by li, as indicated by the‘as though’ phrases above. It can be described as a personal process of appropriation ofsocial norms rectified by li. Thus, we can say that the observance of li, which equips us
with bodily schemes of social norms, teaches young people not only practical skills on
how to behave; it also evokes some power over them that awakens jen as their
imaginative capability for the idealization of the norms they submit to. Where does thispower come from about li, then?
Third, I think that the observance of li could lead us to actively conjure up
Confucian ritual acts as real because, as the reality thesis says earlier, ritual dynamics
afford and develop our experience of order as well as our sense of fit between thetaxonomic order and the real world of experience. It makes us find this connection sonatural and organic as if it were part of the world. And the very sense of naturalness islikely to create a sense of sacredness in us who deliver li. This means that the successfully
ritualized body, let’s say, the noble man (君子, junzi), would, willingly and repeatedly,
conjure up Confucian ritual acts as real with a sense of sacredness, especially when hehas an organic sense of fit between his instincts of the ritualized body and theenvironment in which it acts. This sense of sacredness can deeply touch the participants
and awaken their sense of jen. Ritual acts can give them an ontological orientation to life
with a fulfilled sense of finding themselves as part of the universe. We can see here that
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D. KWAKli and jen are ontologically inseparable because they depend upon each other ingenerating the ritualized body.
On the other hand, in distinguishing one from the other, Fingarette emphasizes
above the nature of li as a set of patterned behavior and the nature of jen as an act of aparticular person. While warning us not to take them as dualistic, namely ‘an overt actof li’ versus ‘inner mental state of jen’, he seems rather to highlight the social or collective
dimension of li and jen’s special connection to the person who delivers the acts. Thus, we
may conclude that li and jen refer to the same act, but address different dimensions of thesame act: li addresses the social or public dimension of one’s conduct performed by theritualized body, whereas jen the personal orientation or commitment reflected in the same
conduct.
Fingarette further articulates the differences as follows:
Li stresses the act as overt, the series of movement through space and time. As
such, the act is analyzable into segments, into a series of steps, each step aprerequisite for its successor. There is therefore a way to carry out li, but not sowith jen. When we look at action from the standpoint of the actor, we use
categories that do not provide us with complex patterns of action analyzable into
spatial and temporal relationships but with “simple” acts. To put it another way;
to look at an act from the standpoint of the actor is not to shift from outer space
and time, and to look instead into an inner mysterious realm, but it is tocharacterize the act in terms of categories that do not have the same logicalfeatures as the ones that characterize the act as overt behavior (Fingarette, 1972,
49).
Fingarette holds that two different logical features govern li and jen: one analyzable inspatial and temporal terms and the other not so. Even if Fingarette seems to be interested
in articulating the logical differences between them, I am more interested in articulating
how a dynamic shift from li to jen or from jen to li internal to an actor, takes place. This
shift is supposed to take place in the ritualized body, a shift from li as the external
imposition of social norms to jen as the personal appropriation of li, which is key to theformation of good character. Even if we cannot take for granted this shift, practicing li
seems to be the necessary means to be jen. This is why Fingarette holds that practicing li
with persistence is the only way to secure the participant the way to be jen (1972, 51).
Thus, we may conclude that the practice of li facilitates jen by making one embody
the schemes of li in one’s participation in li, and that jen secures and fulfills li by making
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A Way of Becoming Human43

one relive li through one’s active interpretation of the symbolic meanings of the schemes.
Here the relation between li and jen in shaping the ritualized body looks circular. But it is
not an empty circularity; in the process, a human power seems to be created. It is a powerthat emanates from human beings as actors in ritual, and it is directed toward other humanbeings and influences them (Fingarette, 1972, 54). The way this human power is
produced in Confucian ritual could look miraculous or mysterious, especially when one’s
participation in li often looks so mechanical. But the practice of li itself is dynamic andalive if participants try to persist with it in pursuit of jen. It is a way of re-orienting one’s
whole being, living in a new way at every moment of practicing li with an act of jen. If
we follow the reality thesis, we can say that, with this humanizing act at every moment,
one can create one’s reality in a new way where one lives.

4. Conclusion
This essay starts with a deliberate suspicion about our inheritance of Confucian
ritual, only to reconsider it as a legitimate educational resource for our future generation.
It is attempted not because Confucian ritual is simply ours, but because we realize that
there is no way we east Asians can get away from it: it deeply constrains us, that is,constraining not only the way we see the world but also the way we orient ourselves inlife; it has shaped our whole mode of being. This recognition should lead us to appreciate
more of what is unique about an east-Asian tradition of humanities embodied in ourtendency to obey social norms or ritual formality, which is usually considered negativein contrast with the western tradition of humanities that emphasizes free-thinking or
independent-mindedness.
In making this argument relevant to contemporary schooling in east Asia, one of thebiggest challenges would be to create a form of educational ritual where the circularity
between li and jen is made more dynamic and productive, rather than mechanical androutine. To do so, it seems inevitable that we examine more consciously the implicit
varieties of hierarchical schemes of Confucian norms and see how they could be revisedin such a way as to be compatible with the horizontal schemes of modernity. The schemes
behind any educational ritual need to be reasonably coherent with each other whileloosely connected; otherwise, it would be hard to invite young participants to engage inthe ritual with lived experiences.
Lastly, I want to add that my educational interest in Confucian ritual, which looks
somewhat politically conservative, hides an ambition for a new perspective on education.
In contrast to the view of education in east Asia, which has traditionally taken ritual as
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D. KWAKcentral to humanities education, as well as to the view of modern education in general,
which tend to take ritual as a pre-modern tool for social control, I think that ritualization
can potentially be a good pedagogical tool as the strategic embodiment of schemes for
power relationship that can promote the forces that have been traditionally thought towork against social solidarity or control. Bell’s words below may support this somewhat
seemingly paradoxical possibility for the creation of modern subjectivity that isembedded in east-Asian culture:
It is possible that ritualization itself can generate and deploy such bifurcations of
the self as that described by Durkheim as “two things facing in different andalmost contrary directions.” If so, it would be a feature of ritualization in aparticular historical and cultural setting, a setting in which such schemes would
have some efficacious value outside the ritual (Bell, 1992, 217).

References
Ames, Roger T. (1993), the Meaning of Body in Classical Chinese Philosophy, ed. T. P.
Kasulls, R. T.
Ames & W. Dissanayake in Self as body in Asian Theory and Practice, Albany, New
York: State University of New York Press
Bell, Catherine (1992), Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Butler, Judith (1997), The Psychic Life of Power, Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press.
Confucius (1979), The Analects, tran. D. C. Lau, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press
Deuchler, Martina (2002), The Practice of Confucianism: Ritual and Order in Chosun
Dynasty Korea, ed. B. A. Elman, J. B. Duncan & H. Ooms. In Rethinking
Confucianism, Los Angeles: University of California Press
Fingarette, Herbert (1972), Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, New York: Harper
Torchbooks
Foucault, Michel (1995), Discipline & Punishment, trans. Alan Sheridan, 2nd. New York:
Vintage.
Han, Hyungjo (2001), Principles and Function of the Traditional Confucian Rituals, ed.
By Han and al. in Traditional Rituals and Civic Ethics. Seoul: Chenggae
Kato, Morimichi (2016), Ritual, Virtue, and Education: An Interpretation of Xunxi’s
Philosophy of Ritual, unpublished material for the Zurich workshop on “Learning
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A Way of Becoming Human

45

and Self-Transformation from the Confucian Perspective”.
Kelleher, M. T. (1989), Back to Basics: Chu His’s Elementary Learning in NeoConfucian Education, ed. W. T de Barry & & J. W. Chaffee, Berkeley, Los Angeles:
University of California Press
Lee, Kiseok (1999), trans. The Elementary Learning, Seoul: Hongshin Munhwasa
Nussbaum, M. (2010), Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Princeton:
Princeton University Press
Shin, Seok-ho (1970), “Refinement and reality of Sungkyunkwan in the early
Joseon period”, Daedong Munwha Yeongu Vol 6-7

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 3, 2018

Learning to Be Human in East Asia:
In Taiwan’s Regard
Ruyu HUNG
National Chiayi University
Executive Committee Member, TPES

Part I: A Brief Introduction of Taiwan Philosophy of Education Society (TPES) (臺灣教育哲學學會)First, I wish to thank the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan (JPES) for inviting
me to speak at the Annual conference of the PESJ. As the Executive Committee Memberof the Taiwan Philosophy Society (TPES), I make a brief introduction of TPES. I
sincerely hope that the TPES and the JPES can build a very good collaborative
relationship to improve the research and teaching of philosophy of education in East Asia.
Then I will address my thoughts about ‘Learning to be human’ from the perspective of a
Taiwan’s philosopher of education.
Taiwan Philosophy of Education Society (TPES) was formally founded in March
19, 2016. The goal of TPES is to facilitate the teaching and research in philosophy ofeducation, and to create a professional network among researchers and teachers. Before
the formation of the society, a small group of scholars who taught philosophy ofeducation in universities already did periodical seminars or reading groups for decades.
The scale of these activities was usually small because of lacking funding. With theformal establishment of the society, the TPES is able to do academic activities and publish
journals with support of members and funding from governmental or nongovernmental
sectors.
The first annual conference was held in May 2017. It was a success at the national
and international levels. The number of the overall participants was over 150 and that ofpresented papers around 60. There were international guest speakers and participantsfrom Japan, Australia, the US and Korea. However, compared with PESs in China, Korea
and Japan, TPES has a smaller population. At the present time, the officially registeredLearning to Be Human in East Asia

47

members are between 70 and 80. Although the number of the member is relatively small,
we still manage to publish an official journal of the society – the Journal of Taiwan
Philosophy of Education ( 臺 灣 教 育 哲 學 期 刊 ). It is a rigorous peer-reviewed
publication and publishes two issues a year. The first issue was released in March 2017.
As a newly founded academic organisation, TPES is earnestly looking forward todevelop international collaboration with colleagues and academia of neighbouring
countries – among them, JPES is one the best fellow organisations to work with.

Part II
Learning to be human is the most profound goal for education, particularly in East Asian
cultures. ‘To be human’ or ‘to humanise’ in Chinese is 成人(or 成為人). 人 means‘human’ whereas 成 (or 成為) ‘to be’, ‘to become’, ‘to complete’ or ‘to accomplish’.
In the Confucian tradition, to be human is not only to grow up. The most important point
for a person to be human is to develop moral characters. The highest or noblest moral
virtue is 仁, which is often translated as benevolence. Etymologically the word 仁
means two ( 二) persons ( 人). Benevolence denotes the proper, moral, and right
relationship between persons. A person who has virtues can build the proper, moral andappropriate interpersonal relationship with others. In the Analects, Zĭlù (子路) asked
Confucius about how to become a complete human person. Confucius answered that if
one person has the following virtues, he is qualified to be fully human. These virtues
include ‘the knowledge of Zang Wu Zhong, the freedom from covetousness of Gong
Chuo, the bravery of Zhuang of Bian, and the varied talents of Ran Qiu; add to these theaccomplishments of the rules of propriety and music.’ (Legge 1861, 14.12)1 However,these virtues may change from time to time because Confucius continues to say, ‘But
what is the necessity for a complete man of the present day to have all these things? Theman, who in the view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger isprepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far backit extends – such a man may be reckoned a COMPLETE man.’ (Legge 1861, 14.12)2
Following this, we might ask: what does it mean to be human in the 21st century? For
educators, what does it mean by teaching or learning to be human in modern societies?
In modern Taiwan, the Confucian view of humanity still has a great impact even12

臧武仲之知，公綽之不欲，卞莊⼦之勇，冉求之藝，⽂之以禮樂。(論語, 憲問 14.12)
今之成⼈者何必然？⾒利思義，⾒危授命，久要不忘平⽣之⾔，亦可以為成⼈矣。(論語, 憲問 14.12)

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R. HUNG

though it is centuries-old. Confucian virtues like filial piety for parents (孝親) and respectfor elders (尊長) are still important parts of character education proposed by the Ministryof Education. In addition, some modern or Western values are included in the popular
view. In my view, the mainstream (or official) view adopts a modern progressive andchild-centred education position with a mixture of traditional Confucian ideas. In a certain
sense, the adoption of progressive virtues is to modernise Confucian humanistic
education on the practical level. Let me take the National Curriculum Guidelines of 12Year Basic Education (MOE, 2014) as an example of the official as well as the popular
view to reveal the generally accepted conception of the human being.
The latest official guidelines were announced in 2014 and put into practice in 2018.
According to the fundamental idea of the guidelines, three points are drawn. First, thegoal of the state education is to develop younger generations into autonomous individuals
who can self-motivate and self-teach. Second, individuals are seen as co-existents, or in
Heidegger’s (1962) term, Mit-sein (Being-with), who are living among others. Third, thefinal end of education is to build a harmonious and organic community that everyone
shares with each other. The goals of the official education, in my view, are the beneficiaryof Confucianism and progressivism.
Let us take a closer look. The learner rather the teacher is the key of education. The
child-centeredness of progressive education is recognised in Taiwan’s formal education.
We can find many vocabularies that the national curriculum guidelines share with
progressive education, such as ‘learning by doing’, ‘experiential learning’, ‘integrated
and crossing disciplinary curriculum’, ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’, ‘community spirit
and service’, ‘’lifelong learning’, etc. However, these terms are not simply transplanted
from the West to Taiwan. They have been contextualised and reborn in Confucian culture.
For example, the key difference of the 2014 guidelines from the 2008 edition lies at the
replacement of ‘basic ability’ (基本能力) with ‘core competence’ (核心素養). ‘Core
competence’ refers to the knowledge, abilities and attitudes that are required to develop acomplete human being with adaptability and resilience (MOE, 2014). There are 9
dimensions of the core competence. If we take a careful examination of the contents of
the 9 dimensions of the core competence, we will find concepts entailing Confucian
merits including ‘moral practice’, ‘appreciation of beauty and good’, ‘virtues of knowing
good, doing good, and enjoying good’, ‘friendly interpersonal relationship’, ‘being
altruistic and gregarious’, etc. The self as target of the national curriculum is a person who
is an active individual and simultaneously a gregarious and sociable human being. These
terms are the modern interpretation of the characters of the Confucian self as the
Confucian learning revolves around morality. Learning is to be a moral human being, toThematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

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be good in terms of Confucian ethics. Within the Confucian heritage cultural sphere, tobe a morally good person means to be a good team player of the community, as a moral
vanguard of the society to maintain social solidarity and enable people to live in harmony
and prosperity (Tu, 1988).
In addition to the progressive-Confucian inclination, the guidelines also assume
pragmatic values. Compared with the previous guidelines, a new learning field of scienceand technology is added as a requisite subject in the curriculum from year 7 to year 12(MOE, 2016). The learning field of science and technology includes two main subjects:
information technology and technology for daily life. The aim of this learning field is todevelop students’ ability to use knowledge of science, technology, engineering,mathematics and design in a coordinative way. As the official curriculum guidelines(2016) reveal, preparing students for employment on the pretext of developing logicalthinking ability plays an important role. The human subject targeted by the official
curriculum is a technician, a programmer, or an engineer. More importantly, he or she issupposed to be a fully prepared employee ready for the information industry after
finishing 12 year basic education. Therefore, the human subject aimed for by the official
curriculum, by the government, society or state should be useful and usable. The goal of
the official curriculum is to prepare workforce for business sectors, industry, or economy.
As the official curriculum represents the public educational policy, the public educationis strongly outcome-oriented for producing effective workforce. The outcomes-based
education anticipates to building effective human resources. The human subject then is
reduced as an instrument of industry. This view somehow narrows down and dilutes themeaning of education and humanity.
There have been many criticisms about the outcome-based education with thepreference for cultivating workforce for business or industry (Berlach & McNaught,
2007; Biesta, 2007, 2009; Martin & Alderson, 2007; Lee, 2003; Towers, 1992). I do notmean to reject the demand of ICT workforce and the corresponding response of policy
of formal education. what concerns me is that the concepts of ‘usability’ and ‘usefulness’,and the relatives like ‘practicability’, ‘accountability’, ‘measurement’ and others,
powerfully dominate educational discourse and limit the meaning of humanity as the endof education – if cultivating humanity is the end of education. In modern times, the virtues
valued in the Chinese traditional values of hierarchical society are transformed, someeliminated, displaced, accommodated, or reserved. One thing is for sure, that is,community life and common values are both cherished in the Confucian and progressivepragmatic traditions. Thus the human person in the popular educational papers is targeted
to be a team player. In addition to the pragmatic ideas catering for capitalist marketisation,
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what else can we envision for education and human beings? Can we imagine humanbeings otherwise? Dare we imagine an education for, say, anarchists? Do we dare to
propose an otherwise way of thinking education for human being?
Attempting to imagine the otherwise education, I take the ‘dao-de-construction’approach, which is formed with the inspirations of Daoism and the philosophy ofdeconstruction. Drawing on Caputo and Derrida (1997, p. 79), ‘to explore what [thetradition] omits, forgets, excludes, expels, marginalizes, dismisses, ignores, scorns,
slights, takes too lightly, waves off,’ is the serious way of treating the tradition. And thatis not enough. The deconstructive reading needs to be transgressive, and yet,transgression is ‘a passage to the limit (passage à limites, à frontières), the crossing of awell-drawn border that we all share, giving something straight a new bent or twist’(Caputo & Derrida, 1997, p. 81). In a similar tone, I seek inspirations from the Daoist
philosopher Zhuangzi as he provides abundant insights about the marginalised or thedismissed by the tradition. In many aspects Zhuangzi counters and problematises,
disturbs and deconstruct the normal. Besides Zhuangzi, an American-Taiwanese artist
Tehching Hsieh who displays the remarkable performance art to interfere and unsettle
what has been taken for granted. The Hsieh-Zhuangzian approach offers the daodeconstructive approach to education to be human with regard to the abnormal body.

Zhuangzi’s Abnormal Body: The Deformed Body
Zhuangzi is taken as one of the most creative philosophers ever. His book Zhuangzi
named after the author is listed in the greatest literary and philosophical masterpieces.
The Zhuangzi text is an anthology, of which is a very unique literary style. It tells a lot ofinteresting, fascinating, and ridicules stories about real and imaginary figures. The most
captivating and unusual figures addressed in the Zhuangzi are the handicapped people,
whose bodies are impaired or deformed. In the ancient society, the handicapped people
are supposed to be the most vulnerable and weakest, and perhaps the most discriminatedand hated. Yet in the Zhuangzi the bodily impairments or weird bodily movements do notcause failure or difficulty to the body-knowing and the fulfilment of the self. Furthermore,
it is the defective or deformed body that a True Human Person (真人) or a Perfect Human
Person (至人) is fleshed out.
The handicapped people that Zhuangzi presents include the Master of the Right (右師), Shu the Deformed (支離疏), Wang Tái the De-footed (兀者王駘), Shen Tújia theDe-footed (兀者申徒嘉), Shú Shan the Toeless (叔山無趾), Ai Táita the Ugly (惡人哀Thematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

Learning to Be Human in East Asia51駘它), Yin Chí the Cripple without Lips (闉跂支離無脤), and Wòn Yan the Goitre (甕盎大癭). These handicapped people, in the public eye, are often taken as worthless,useless, hopeless, miserable, disgusting and repulsive. Yet as Zhuangzi addresses, they
live in the way that is in accord with nature, with dao. Their lives are not as miserable orpathetic as ordinary people thought. Instead, the way they live is so calm, peaceful andcarefree that ordinary people cannot be. These handicapped people do not only live inserenity but also satisfy people in an unexpected way. For example, Ai Táita the Ugly hasa most terrifying and repulsive look but whoever comes near him is attracted by him andloves to stay with his company (Zhuangzi, 5.4; trans. Legge, 1891). Why does the ugly
man have such charms? As Zhuangzi replies, Ai Táita is indeed ‘all-powerful’ (全才)with hidden virtues (德不形). What does it mean by ‘all-powerful’?
According to Zhuangzi, the power is the ability to follow the nature, keep intrinsic
nature pure and intact, and carry out the inner potential to the fullest. Having such a power
is a virtue. To initiate the power needs to work with nature, otherwise there will be
disturbances or conflicts. The Perfect Human Person does not only self-realise but alsoenables other beings to self-fulfil in peace. Due to the power of enabling all beings to be
who or what they really are, Ai Táita the Ugly is therefore esteemed as a Perfect Human
Person.
The handicapped people, who are supposed to obtain help from others, as a matterof fact, are able to give help and support to other normal people. Shu the Deformed is
described as with shocking and extreme deformities: ‘His chin seemed to hide his navel;
his shoulders were higher than the crown of his head; the knot of his hair pointed to thesky; his five viscera were all compressed into the upper part of his body, and his two thighbones were like ribs.’(Zhuangzi, 1.4.7; trans. Legge, 1891)3 Despite of the deformities,
Shu is surprisingly productive. ‘By sharpening needles and washing clothes he was able
to make a living. By sifting rice and cleaning it, he was able to support ten individuals.’(Zhuangzi, 1.4.7; trans. Legge, 1891)4 In this vein, the handicapped person is more
useful and helpful than ordinary people.
Overall, the handicapped people presented by Zhuangzi all go beyond the
expectation of ordinary people. They do not have any indignation at their bodily
deformities, whether these impairment are born or cased by other reasons. Nor do theyseek for repairs, remedies or compensations of their deformities. It is noteworthy thatthese people do not ask help from others but rather provide help to the world. The
3

⽀離疏者，頤隱於臍，肩⾼於頂，會撮指天，五管在上，兩髀為脅。(莊⼦⼈間世, 4.7)

4

挫鍼治繲，⾜以餬⼝；⿎筴播精，⾜以⾷⼗⼈。(莊⼦⼈間世, 4.7)

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R. HUNGhandicapped people, to our surprise, embody Daoist virtues through deformed body toexemplify the Daoist ideal human person. By these characters Zhuangzi poses questions
regarding ethics, aesthetics, and language. These questions are still irritating and thoughtprovoking today. The terms such as ‘handicapped’, ‘crippled’, ‘deaf’, ‘blind’ and others,
are taken as discriminative or too strong, and thus they are replaced by terms like‘disabled’, ‘physically challenged’, ‘visually impaired’, and ‘hearing-impaired’.
However, in Zhuangzi, the disable person becomes the ablest one. The physicallychallenged person does not have difficulty in his life. On the contrary, he does great help
to others. As a matter of fact, those who are with deformities and supposed to be‘challenged’, rebound the challenge. It is us normal people who are challenged.

Tehching Hsieh’s Abnormal Body: The Suspended Body
The stories of deformed body in Zhuangzi can be seen as metaphorical strategy, similar
to what Edmund Husserl (1982) called, époché, or ‘bracketing’. It is to question andsuspend the taken-for-granted beliefs, presuppositions, biases and conventions, and lay
them aside. The stories of the deformity show the body as a thinking method, a powerful
metaphor that breaks the habitual way of thought. The deformed body is able todeconstruct the accepted and so be the ‘body in suspension’. Here I take a TaiwaneseAmerican artist Techching Hsieh (謝德慶) as an example to demonstrate the suspended
body displayed in his performance art. In my way of reading, Hsieh’s body art
intriguingly speaks Zhuangzi’s language.
At the present time Tehching Hsieh is representing Taiwan at the 57th Venice
Biennale in 2017 with an exhibition in Italy. The discussion about Hsieh’s art in this
symposium sounds an unexpected interesting echo.
Between September 1978 and July 1986 Hsieh accomplished five separate
extraordinary yearlong performance artworks. His sixth epic work is a thirteen year plan
which began on 31 December 1986 and came to a close at the turn of the millennium.
For an artist, six pieces of artwork are few. However, as ‘the scale, nature and affects’ ofHsieh’s artworks really display a particular intensity, he is recognised as ‘something of acult figure’ (Heathfield & Hsieh, 2009, p. 11). Especially, his artworks or lifeworks in aparticular sense incorporate Zhuangzi’s unusual body.
Hsieh’s first One Year Performance 1978-1979 (Cage Piece) was to lock himself ina wooden 11’ 6”X9’X8’ cage without any communication with anyone, without reading,writing, listening to the radio or watching television. He remained alone in a strict solitary
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confinement and deprived ‘himself of almost all means of communication and cultural
stimulation’ (ibid, p. 24). During this year, audience members were able to visit Hsieh on
selected days. The artist made no response whatsoever.
The second piece, One Year Performance 1980-1981, is usually called Time Clock
Piece. From 11 April 1980 to 11 April 1981, Hsieh made himself punch a time clock
every hour, on the hour, 24 hours a day for a whole year. Each time he punched, he took
a picture of himself. As he was unable to do the punch-in for 133 times, at last he hadoverall 8,627 mugshots for making a 6-minute movie.
Hsieh’s third lifework, One Year Performance 1981-1982, is generally known as
Outdoor Piece. He spent one year outdoors, not going inside, not entering any building
or shelter of any kind, such as a building, subway, train, car, airplane, ship, cave, and tent.
During this year he took an extreme form of homeless street life. He had a sleeping bag
and a radio set. It is extremely freezing in winter in New York City. Therefore, Hsieh
needed to know about the weather on the radio to prepare himself. Every day hewandered through the streets of Manhattan and depicted his walking route on the map.
In total he created 365 walking route maps.
The fourth piece, Art / Life: One Year Performance 1983-1984, or Rope Piece, wasperformed by Hsieh and Linda Montano from 4 July 1983 to 4 July 1984. These twoartists were tied by an 8-foot-long rope for a year without touching each other.
Hsieh’s final One Year Performance 1985-1986 is the so-called No Art piece. On 1
July 1985 Hsieh embarked on the lifework and announced the inaugural statement that
he would ‘not do ART, not talk ART, not see ART, not read ART, not go to ART gallery
and ART museum for one year’ (ibid., p. 296). He would not do anything related to art.
Compared with his previous works, this piece left very little artefacts except thedeclaration of intent and its initial poster (ibid.). The artist was forbidden to experience or
produce art in any way although this was paradoxically a yearlong artwork. This No Art
Piece was a precursor of the artist’s next as well as the final lifework – Tehching Hsieh
1986–1999 (Thirteen Year Plan).
On 31 December 1986 Hsieh published the statement of the Thirteen Year Plan. He
declared that he would make art during the time without showing it publically. On New
Year’s Day 2000 Hsieh issued his concluding report with two simple sentences: ‘I kept
myself alive. I passed the December 31, 1999.’ He then completely stopped creating art.
Hsieh’s lifeworks can be understood from many aspects. Here I only explore thedimension in relation to the body with deformity in Zhuangzi. The body with deformity
refers to the being that is not concordant with others in a certain way. It suspends ouraesthetics, ethical, cognitive, and ontological judgements. In this view, Hsieh’s body in
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these artworks can be said as incorporating deformity for his suspension of the ‘normal’
way of life. Zhuangzi’s discourse and Hsieh’s practice are different forms ofmanifestation of bodily suspension, which is to deconstruct, undo the taken-for-granted,
the accustomed, the accepted, the established, and the ready-made.
Hsieh’s performance artworks demonstrate a series of undoing the self bydisengaging the body from the comfort zone, locating the body in the place and time thatis out of order. The temporality and spatiality of the body’s kinestics questions andinterrogates viewers. Like Zhuangzi’s handicapped men, the artist interrupts, disturbs andannoys the senses of viewers. And yet, as the artists announces, there is no art but life. Or,
I should put it this way, there is no art without life.
The Cage Piece presents the state of being strictly confined, physically andpsychologically, since the artist was nearly disconnected with the world. There is nointeraction between him and the world. Not giving a word to anyone else, not receiving
a word from other people, Hsieh disengaged himself from the rest of the world except in
the space of the cell measuring 11’ 6”X9’X8’. Within the cell with little space andextremely poor facilities, the artist was imprisoned in the state of heavy material
deprivation. Besides, Hsieh set the rule against contacting with other people. The double
deprivation – mental and physical – minimised the artist’s life to the simplest and purest.
There was no stimulus form outside. The situation was similar to a monk’s retreat, near
monasticism because the worldly pursuits were renounced. At the same time, the artist
lived the animal life. He exposed himself when feeding, sleeping, washing, discharging
urine and excrement in front of viewers. Such exposure deprived him of the humandignity. What then was left in the cage, so to speak, was the self. The self comes to thequestions concerning freedom and restraints, existence and subjectivity, speech andthought, time and space, art and life. The creation of the Outdoor Piece drives the artist
into an extremely deprived and harsh situation and therefore he became disempoweredand disabled in some way. Hsieh’s artworks demonstrate that free spirit would not bebound by any cage or cultural artefact. This works echoes the Daoist philosopher Laozi’s
having nothing but simultaneously relaxing in the beings of the world.
The Time Clock Piece shows rigid serialisation and routinisation of the time. It is a
way of doing time as well as undoing time (Heathfield & Hsieh, 2009). It is doing time
because in daily life ordinary people are not particularly aware of the flow of time. They
only speak, act, eat, sleep and work in the normal pace. At some point a certain accident
makes the moment powerfully impressed, and thus people suddenly and clearly come togrips with temporality. We live most of our life without clear consciousness of the time.
The punch-ins separate and regulate the time flow and thereby make time sensible,
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intelligible and visible. Each punch-in is a registration of time which ‘was accompaniedby exposure, by a capture of his body in the still instant of the photogram’ (Ibid., p. 32).
The invisible yearlong period of time is embodied and condensed in a six-minute movie.
The visualisation of time is to undo time by replacing temporality with spatiality. The
inseparable duration of time is reorganised as a collections of images. The problem: if
temporality is, as Heidegger (1962) states, fundamental to the ontological and existential
construction of Dasein, what being one becomes when he does time by undoing time, or
when he undoes time by doing time?
Hiesh’s artworks encounter viewers with open-ended questions, however, theanswers to which are difficult to define. Hsieh’s fifth and sixth lifeworks confuse theboundary between art and life. In what sense is the No Art Piece an artwork if there is noart, neither imitation, nor representation, in Plato’s term? Is mere living art? Then what is
the nature of art? Nor can we find any trace of imitation or representation from theThirteen Year Plan because the ‘artist’ refused publication of anything during this periodof time. Is the refusal itself an art? This artwork reframes art as an ‘open possibility’(Heathfield & Hsih, 2009, p. 58). Viewers have to seek or construct the answer bythemselves. Moreover, the Thirteen Year Plan Piece paradoxically demonstrates theinvisibility, inaudibility and intactility of art. These qualities (or non-qualities) project
towards Zhuangzi’s chaos – the undifferentiated one. In Zhuangzi (Legge, 1891), chaos
is the ruler of the centred land but he does not have seven orifices to see, smell, breathe,
eat and hear. The rulers of southern and northern oceans drill orifices on chaos to give
him senses. However, chaos dies when seven orifices are made. Hsieh keeps his art frombeing sensed by the public is to keep art in chaos. This work’s not being seen, heard,
viewed, and communicated by others makes it chaos-like. The viewer does not know
anything created during these years. This artwork embodies non-knowledge and non-art
as chaos – something cannot be made sense of.
Overall Hsieh’ body arts with Zhuangzi’s inspiration reminds us that a human being
is a flowing body-subject that travels around various states of being, being born andyoung, being ill and old, being strong and handsome, being ugly and weak, being admired,or being rejected. The states of being alive cannot be exhaustively addressed but only
experienced. No one state can be undergone once and for all.

Concluding Remarks
In what sense can the stories of handicapped people told by Zhuangzi and Hsieh’s body
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artworks enlighten East Asian education that has been committed to standardisation,
credentialism, elitism, and accountability for a long time? Overall, the abnormal body of
Zhuangzi and Hsieh deconstructs the normal human subject, that is, the weird, deformed,
defective, abjected body deconstructs the ritualised, moralised, and respected body. By
doing so, Zhuangzi and Hsieh unsettle the accepted values systems, ideologies, andinstitution of education. They show the possibility of pedagogy of deconstruction because
they both provide ways of ‘crossing the borders, establishing new themes, new problems,
new ways, new approaches to new problems’ (Caputo & Derrida, 1997, p. 7). Education
is not only about maintaining the status quo, but also about creating and opening up new
spaces regarding ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The understanding of
good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehood, reality andillusion, should be examined again and again.
Second, Zhuangzi and Hsieh demonstrate the profound resilience of theextraordinary people who have a free spirit to transcend the ordinary life. Those people
with handicapped, ugly or deformed bodies, or the people who chose to live an eccentric
life, are often detested, excluded and rejected due to their weird looks or outlandishness.
Yet in Zhuangzi the deformities do not limit their potential or creativity. They play a far
more important role than normal people in helping others. Likewise, Hsieh’s performanceart made him rejected when he kept himself outdoors and homeless-like, or disabled
when he alienated himself from anything related to art or the public. However, it isbecause the body is such a bête noiré, who is avoided, and sometimes, rejected andexcluded from the majority. He thus is in solitude. Let us push the idea a bit further. Beingat a distance with people – being alone, or being self – is an alternative way of existence.
Being alone is the first step of practising Zhuangzi’s ‘mind-fasting’ (xinzhai, 心齋) –mind-emptying. In the state of mind-fasting, one is able to hear without ears, and see
without eyes. He is able to be free from sensual interferences and external temptations toattain great serenity.
The juxtaposition of Zhuangzi and Hsieh helps us to examine the meaning andpurpose of education through a lens different from the mainstream one. Whether or not
we accept Nussbaum’s (1998) suggestion that the process of living is all about cultivating
humanity (Todd, 2015), cultivating humanity is surely one of the most important issues
concerning the end of education. Zhuangzi and Hsieh bring a new light to how weunderstand human existence, humanity and education. I do not mean to reject theConfucian-progressive view of humanity as the goal of education. What I mean is thatthe traditional or popular view of humanity and education must be interfered, disturbed
and challenged. With this regard, the alternative ways of human existence andThematic Research: Learning to Be Human in East Asia

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conceptions of humanity will and should be tolerated and included, invited andencouraged. Then we may keep the human mind and future open to possibilities although
there could be dangers and difficulties. Education is not only about peacekeeping, butalso about risk taking. Being a normal body is to be a team player and live safely within
the community whereas being an abnormal body is to live in the unexpected anduncontrollable situation, sometimes alone. However, life can never be rid of changes that
include all kinds of imperfections, problems, pains, accidents, threats, hazards, and so on.
Zhuangzi’s metaphor of deformed body and Hsieh’s lifeworks of suspended body help
us to grasp the profound understanding that learning to be human may be an endlessjourney without definite ends or specific patterns. To be human never completes, neveraccomplishes, never ends.

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan (JPES) for the invitation ofpresenting this paper at the 2017 JPES Annual Conference in Osaka and the support of
the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan (MOST 106-2410-H-415007-MY2).

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