Iss3-art6

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation: The Challenge and Caution in Reading Sacred Texts Kenan Osborne, O.F.M. Professor Osborne argues that, unlike philosophies of the West, which deal with eternal ideas, objective reason, and concepts of being, philosophies of the East derive knowledge from action and seek knowledge in the service of action. In particular, reliance on the vocabulary of Western philosophies has blurred translations of Confucian “knowledge-ethics,” while translators of Buddhist texts have improperly distilled abstractions out of their original context of religious practice. The author notes that the resulting failures in communication are often evident in interfaith dialogue.

1. Sacred Texts: A Fusion of Knowledge and Action

S

hun Kwong-loi, in the first of a three-volume series, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, offers some extremely thought-provoking and keenly intriguing comments on methodological and hermeneutical factors vis-à-vis the reading of sacred texts. Although his focus is on texts ascribed to both Confucius and Mencius, he offers insights which easily apply to the reading of sacred texts generally. Shun states very clearly that the early Confucian writers had a predominantly practical concern: Their primary concern was to live the way of life they advocated by embodying its outlook and cultivating the character it requires, as well to convert and guide others to such a way of life through teaching and political participation.1 In this approach, the sacred texts involve both knowledge and action.

Knowledge without action is meaningless, and action without knowledge  ,  

91

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

is hermeneutically sterile. The sacred texts of Buddhist and Daoist writers have a similar orientation: they are practical in content, context and concern. This does not mean, however, that these sacred texts do not present a complexity of ideas which are intellectually well-developed and coherent.

At times, Western scholars who study the Asian sacred texts search for a form of “philosophy” in the texts, which, in some basic way or another, mirrors the forms of Western philosophical writing. This is not a satisfactory approach, since such “philosophical forms” most often are not replicated in other cultural writings. Benjamin Schwartz’s volume The World of Thought in Ancient China is, in my view, an example of this mirroring comparison.2 It is true that Schwartz deliberately uses the phrase “history of thought” rather than “philosophy” or “history of ideas.”3 Still, he states clearly from his introduction onward that there is a commonality consisting of what he describes as “creative minorities,” “transcendental ways” of thought, or being lifted to a “plane of indifference.”4 He speaks of a “sameness” between Confucian views of evil and the views of evil found in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Hebrew scriptures.5 This bias towards a universal transcendental world in which there is indifference because of sameness appears again and again in his volume. More often than not Schwartz uses the Western sources mentioned above as the benchmark for the views of the transcendental, indifferent or ideal issues which he claims to find in the Chinese sources. However, he does not spend adequate time on the basic union of knowledge and action. Knowledge-action, or better, knowledge-ethical living, are continuously united in Asian thought. This unity is not a mirroring of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Hebrew scriptures.6 The Asian interfacing of knowledge and ethical living by its very nature opens the door to “individuality” and “subjectivity.” Yet even these two terms are Western and do not connote precisely what the Asian texts propose. Both to be an individual and to be a subject have implications in Western philosophies that have no counterpart in the Asian way of thinking. The same could be said of the phrase I have just used: “ethical living,” which is only an approximate translation of the Chinese “li.” Li expresses something which finds only a faint echo in Western thinking.

On the other hand, it would be totally erroneous to think that there is neither a philosophy nor a metaphysics in Asian thought simply because their philosophical forms are dissimilar to Western metaphysical genres.

Again, I am using Western terms which do not adequately translate the usual Asian words offered as the counterpart. The issue of Asian “thoughtethics” just mentioned indicates that there is indeed a philosophy, but not a philosophy of “eternal ideas,” “unchanging essences,” or “pure, objective

92

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation

reason.” Philosophical thought and ethical behavior go hand in hand. In Western philosophy, the ontological or metaphysical is given the highest position, and from this ontology or metaphysics ethical behavior is usually deduced. The ethical is a deduction from the ontological, whereas Chinese thought could be better described as ethical ontology or ontological ethics.

Even postmodern philosophers, who eschew any form of overarching being, have some form of finite metaphysics and finite transcendence, on the basis of which an ethics, perhaps, can be derived. This is very clear in the writings of Martin Heidegger. Postmodern scientific thought also moves in this finite transcendent way, as one sees in the explanations on spacetime, on relativity and on the uncertainty principle.

Stephen Hawking presents us with an example of this finite transcendence. He notes that “before 1915, space and time were thought of as a fixed arena in which events took place.”7 He goes on to state: Space and time are now dynamic quantities: when a body moves, or a force acts, it affects the curvature of space and time—and in turn the structure of space-time affects the way in which bodies move and forces act. Space and time not only affect but also are affected by everything that happens in the universe. Just as one cannot talk about events in the universe without the notions of space and time, so in general relativity it became meaningless to talk about space and time outside the limits of the universe.8 In Hawking’s use of the term, “universe” is an example of finite or relative transcendence. Within this finite yet transcendent universe, coordinates such as space and time, or better, space-time, operate. Were one to speak of a different universe, one would speak of a different space-time. An example of ethical behavior in this scenario would be stated in terms of ecological ethics. On the basis of space-time in this particular universe, one can derive ethical behavior for the use or misuse of space-time and of all other components within this particular space-time. The very term “universe” indicates an all-inclusive finite or relative transcendence. In the West, then, ethics is generally a derivative of some form of ontological transcendence. This is different from the knowledge-ethics unity found in Chinese thought.

Postmodern thinkers have deliberately formulated a deconstruction of the central problematic of contemporary Western philosophy, which is the epistemological and ontological divide of subject and object. These same thinkers have produced a variety of onto-epistemological reconstructions of human knowledge which intrinsically involve subjectivity, temporality (space-time), language and individuality. Their re-visioning of the  ,  

93

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

subject-object relation is also not mirrored in the “subject-object”— another case of badly transposed Western terms—in Chinese thought.9 Only in a few postmodern philosophical positions is there an ontoepistemology with practical or ethical dimensions, but even in these instances, the ethics is more derivative from the onto-epistemological structures than internal to them.

By contrast, Confucian thought is primarily a union of knowledge and action, and this must be taken into account in any hermeneutical elaboration on the sacred text and in any translation of the sacred text.

2. The Contours of Confucian Philosophy Confucius certainly molded Chinese civilization in a general way. Chan Wing-tsit notes: It may seem far-fetched, however, to say that he molded Chinese philosophy in particular—that he determined the direction or established the pattern of later Chinese philosophical developments—yet there is more truth in the statement than is usually recognized.10 Confucius gave to Chinese philosophy its humanistic foundation, but he also, as Chan elsewhere notes, “formulated some of its fundamental concepts . . . the rectification of names, the Mean, the Way, Heaven, and ren (humanity).”11 With Chinese philosophers who have lived and written during the last hundred years, these same issues of Confucius are still fundamental. Kang Yu-wei (1858–1927) united the fundamental concepts of Confucius with the actions of political reform. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) joined Confucian ethics to his political ideology. Chang Tung-sun (1886– 1962) stressed the basic Confucian stance that knowledge and action are intimately related. Fung Yu-lan, who was born in 1895, is undoubtedly the most important contemporary Chinese philosopher. Even though he clashed with the Communist government, with the result that he had to revise several of his philosophical positions, he was clearly Confucian, or better neo-Confucian, and morality played a major role in his presentation of knowledge-and-ethical-action.

Charles A. Moore recalls that the Chinese philosophical tradition “has been distorted out of all proportions” by many Western scholars because they were misguided in their selection of texts, whether these were ancient texts, popular texts or literary texts.12 Recently, for example, Western scholars have been very interested in the naturalism and skepticism found in the writings of Wang Chong (27–100?). In spite of his popularity among

94

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation

contemporary Western scholars, Wang Chong is not a major figure in Chinese philosophy, whereas a writer who has not been very popular in the West, Wang Bi (226–249) has had a tremendous influence on Chinese philosophical thought. An abundant use of Wang Chong’s works creates a distortion of Chinese philosophy. The neglect of works of Wang Bi also distorts the Western understanding of Chinese philosophy. Wang Bi, who belonged to the school of Neo-Daoism, which was very influential during the Wei and Chin dynasties,13 raised the level of Chinese thought to that of metaphysics. Han thought was primarily concerned with cosmology and cosmogony, but Wang Pi went beyond the realms of names and forms to ultimate reality, namely, original non-being [ben ti].14 Wang Bi also preferred to focus on the fundamental principle (tian li), rather than on the destiny decreed by heaven (tian ming). This is a major anticipation of Neo-Confucian thought, particularly that of Wang Yangming.

In Wang Yang-ming (1472–1529), the emphasis was not merely intellectual, but intellectual-moral. Intellectual investigation of things is itself ethical, for by such intellectual investigation one brings about good and removes evil. Thus the unity of knowledge and action is strengthened in Wang Yang-ming’s thought. As we saw above, right action was the goal of early Confucian philosophy, and thinking and acting well were almost always placed together. Wang Yang-ming identified them as one: “Knowledge is the beginning of action and action the completion of knowledge.”15 (Chan Wing-tsit adds to this: “No one really knows food unless he has tasted it.”16) Particularly in his book Da Xue Wen (Inquiry of Great Learning), Wang Yang-ming stressed the fundamental interconnection of thought and ethical living. In 1508, at the age of thirty-six, Wang Yang-ming reached a turning point in his life. The phrase “xin ji li” became central to his thought. Lee Hsin-yi notes: “Wang Yang-ming attempts to internalize the moral quest by claiming that the heart-mind (xin) has possession of all moral principles (li). He asserts that xin and li are one and the same (xin ji li).”17 A few years later, Wang Yang-ming formulated his second discovery: zhi-xing he-yi (the unity of knowledge and action). “He advocates the unity of knowledge and action precisely so that people may understand that ‘when a thought is aroused, there is already action.’”18 Finally, Wang Yang-ming made a third discovery: zhi liang zhi (the extension of one’s knowledge of the good). He took over from Mencius the expression “liang zhi,” which

 ,  

95

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

means “the inborn capacity to know the good,” and he united this to “liangneng,” the inborn ability to do good. Wang Yang-ming wrote: The knowledge of the good (liang zhi) which is present in the mindand-heart (xin) may be sagehood. The learning of sages lies precisely in extending [and realizing] this knowledge of the good. The worthy man is he who extends it with some effort. The fool or good-for-nothing is he who hides himself from the truth and refuses to extend it.19 Lee cites Tu Wei-ming: “Liang zhi should be understood as the innermost and indissoluble reality of man. It is also the ultimate reason why the inner sage in each human being can never be completely lost.”20 All of the above describes a basic contour of Confucian thought: the unity and identity of mind-heart and ethical behavior. We are back to Shun Kwang-loi’s point in the passage quoted at the beginning of this paper: that there is a predominantly practical concern in Confucian thought. Shun argues, however, that the sacred texts are by no means devoid of any basis for intellectual scrutiny. Indeed, the study of sources and political contexts are the only valid area of interrogation. Nor can one say that approaching such sacred texts in an intellectual way is intrusive to the very mindset of the authors. There is clearly a legitimacy to the intellectual study of the sacred texts, even though the authors did not intend to produce the kind of intellectual text which contemporary Western scholars consider basic.21 Whenever a text involves a union of thinking and doing, the issue of “subjectivity” enters into the picture, and for this reason, some hold that the purity of doctrine is called into question. Once again, though, the very term “subjectivity” has Western implications not found in Asian thought.

Nevertheless, Chan Wing-tsit writes: “Actually, Wang [Yang-ming]’s theory is entirely subjective and confuses reality with value.”22 I will come back to this issue, but first I would like to recall an actual situation which had enormous influence on the issue with which this article is concerned, namely, text, hermeneutics and translation.

3. The Approach Taken by Brian Houghton Hodgson, Eugène Burnouf, and T. W. and Caroline Rhys Davids The approach that these four scholars took to issues of text, hermeneutics and translation became the standard for Western scholars researching Asian sacred texts during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Joseph Cheah presents the picture in the following way.23 Houghton Hodgson collected numerous Sanskrit and Tibetan manu-

96

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation

scripts, and eventually, in 1837, he sent some of them to Eugène Burnouf, and other manuscripts were sent to libraries in France and Britain. Burnouf, a renowned scholar of Sanskrit and Pali, analyzed these texts while remaining in France. In 1844, he published Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme indien. This volume had tremendous influence on European and American Buddhist scholars, and in a very strong way on T. W. Rhys Davids, Caroline Rhys Davids and Max Müller. Philip Almond comes to the conclusion that by the middle of the nineteenth century, the locus of textual Buddhism was situated not in the Orient, but in the Oriental libraries and institutions in the West.24 The effect of this situation on the Western intellectual world was the belief that only through the “pure” analysis of Buddhist texts, with no distraction by Buddhist rituals and prayer, lifestyles and practices, could one arrive at the true meaning of Buddhism. The texts, apart from practice and ethical behavior, were what contain the clearest meaning of Buddhism. As a result, a truer Buddhism existed in the libraries of Paris and London than in the temples of Sri Lanka, Nepal and Tibet. At least, this was the view of these scholars and the many other scholars they influenced.

Shun addresses this same concern, but from a different standpoint. First, he realizes that an author’s account of a Confucian text may indeed go beyond the text itself. When a contemporary author discusses the views expressed in the older text, he uses his own contemporary language that already embodies a conceptual apparatus alien to the early thinker. This is not simply an imposition of Western ideas on the text; it is also the imposition made by contemporary Chinese scholars, with their mindset and terminology, explaining a Confucian text by utilizing current Chinese thought patterns. However, Shun says, this is really not the major problem.25 Second, even for a contemporary author to attempt to clarify the text by making connections which the text itself does not explicitly make is not, Shun argues, the basic problematic.

The plausibility of the account depends on a variety of considerations internal or external to the text. Considerations internal to the text include the extent to which the account makes sense of different parts of the text, the degree of simplicity of the account, its lack of ad hoc elements, and perhaps also the plausibility of the thinker’s views as presented by the account.26 The external considerations which Shun notes include, in his judgment: how well some contemporary authors understand the relevant language based on texts of the same period of time; the extent of these  ,  

97

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

authors’ knowledge of the thought-patterns, presuppositions and frameworks in place at the time of composition of the older text; as well as whatever practical concerns which these authors may have faced at the time of writing. Shun’s point is that many factors enter into the validity or invalidity of a contemporary author’s writings about an ancient sacred text. The imposition of alien presuppositions and frameworks is not by itself sufficient to call the contemporary author’s interpretation into question. The problem is far more complex.27 These methodological issues are of major importance for the interreligious dialogues that are conducted by various contemporary religious leaders and scholars. There is a need for such scholars to sit around a table and dialogue with each other. Western religious scholars (i.e., theologians) tend to focus on the intellectual objectivity and, therefore, the credibility of sacred texts. When one brings in the issue of value, morality and ethical behavior, these same scholars sense a presence of subjectivity, which they would prefer to place in parentheses.

A similar hesitation concerning value, morality and ethical behavior can be found in the highly influential educational philosophy of John Dewey (1859–1952). He presented an instructional framework which focused on knowledge. If young people are taught clearly and objectively about issues, then and only then will they be able to derive a judgment as to what is good and what is better, what is bad and what is worse. Do not teach values; teach knowledge, for only through and with a clear intellectual understanding will students understand critically what values they choose to implement in their life. Dewey’s legacy remains within the framework of education in the United States. We see this whenever the public school system senses that the divide between religion and state has been threatened. Religious values do not allow students to think “objectively.” Since most American children, teenagers and young adults attend public schools, they are overtly and covertly sheltered from the intrusion of values, particularly religious values. Knowledge is paramount, since knowledge will allow a student to select or discard values which are not in tune with intellectual objectivity.

Since the reintroduction of Aristotle into Western thought from the eleventh century onward, and since the publication of René Descartes’s Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Western philosophy has been fixated on pure objectivity. Only with the advent of the postmodern era—a contemporary Western event—have things begun to change. This does not mean that the divide of state and religion has been discarded, since many postmodern thinkers reject religious thought. They do so, however, not on the basis of “objective knowl-

98

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation

edge,” but on the basis of their stand of the relativity of all authority, whether religious or nonreligious.

In Chinese philosophy and thinking, however, the relationship between knowledge and action has always been of major importance. Wing-tsit Chan, in his chapter on Cheng Yi, states that Cheng Yi “merely says that true knowledge will lead to action, but does not say that action leads to knowledge as Wang [Yang-ming] does.”28 Even though Cheng Yi implies that action or ethical behavior is partly derived from knowledge, he nonetheless remains in the Chinese tradition of considering knowledge and action to be in intimate relation. The pure objectivity found in Aristotle and Descartes would be hermeneutically meaningless to Cheng Yi. 4. Knowledge-Ethics and Current Interreligious Dialogue Notwithstanding the strong Asian relationship between knowledge and action, contemporary interreligious dialogues tend to favor the dimension of knowledge. More often than not, it is the Christian scholars who stress the priority of knowledge. Western scholars are very much at home sitting around a conference table and discussing the meaning of this text or that text, Christian or otherwise. This occurs even when Western Christians from different denominations get together for an ecumenical conference.

Luther and Thomas Aquinas are paired off: why does one express this religious theme in form A, while the The stress on knowledge, or other expresses the same religious theme in form B? I myself have been part of many such dialogues, confer- on the intellectual, is ences and focus groups.

Some Asian scholars tend to “Westernize” them- causing current interselves, stressing the knowledge side of their religious world. Perhaps they wish to appear as “learned” and religious dialogues to falter. “intellectual” as their Western counterparts. Perhaps there are other reasons as well. Some Asian scholars interpret the sacred texts in a very objective manner. They present at great length the meanings of many key Chinese words and phrases, such as li (ethics), ren (humanness) and xue (learning). I have asked some of my Korean students to explain to me the meaning of han (roughly, shame, pain, suffering, etc.). Several of them have spent over one-half hour attempting to present a clear description of the word.

All of the above lead to the conclusion, which one might call my thesis here, that it is precisely this stress on knowledge, or on the intellectual aspects of religious groups, that is causing current interreligious dialogues to falter.  ,  

99

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

Let us consider some “knowledge” problems which give rise to this situation of imbalance: First, the use of Western philosophical terms, not as part of translation but as part of interreligious dialogue, causes confusion. Shun specifies such terms as “deontology,” “consequentialism” and “practical reason”;29 all are excellent terms in Western philosophy, but their use in interreligious discussion nuances the dialogue in an unhealthy way. Sometimes they are simply stated, with hermeneutical ease, as if everyone at the table both knew what the terms mean and saw some connection between their Western use and an Eastern issue. Only a few people would say, “Hermeneutically, that word is for us meaningless.”

I would offer the term “being” as a telling example of this confusion.

One can hardly read Western philosophy without some understanding of this term. It is important in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Rudolph Bultmann and Paul Tillich. Although each of these authors uses “being” somewhat differently, most Western scholars speak of being with hermeneutical ease when they talk about Scotus or Thomas, Bultmann or Tillich. If one adds passages from Heidegger, the complications become intricate, but still, even then scholars talk about the term “Sein” (being) in Heidegger in a very facile way. Meanwhile, in the languages of many Asian and African countries there is no term for “being,” and the world-view in these countries is not based on “being.” Western philosophers, on the other hand, have been trained to think philosophically with “being” as the foundation. Western people generally experience and adjudicate their lives, consciously or unconsciously, on a “being-world.”

Another of the causes of confusion is the use of non-philosophical terms, that is, of terms which have technical meanings in philosophy but which are also used in a less focused way in ordinary speech. Shun offers as examples the terms “morality,” “reason” and “autonomy.”30 These three terms are indeed found in philosophical discourse and are used abundantly by ordinary people. Again, more often than not they are used with hermeneutical ease. These terms carry a freight which can easily be quite different from Asian terms used to translate morality, reason and autonomy.

When these terms are used with hermeneutical ease, interreligious discussions often reflect the image of two ships passing at night unaware of each other.

Key religious terms, in my view, are yet another source of confusion.

Terms such as “God,” “salvation,” “sacrament,” “sin,” “revelation” and “church” might be used as translations, but the meaning of the translated terms do not carry the same freight in its original language as the Western terms do. These religious terms, which are both technical terms in theol-

100

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation

ogy and words in the common speech of ordinary religious people, are used with enormous hermeneutical ease. This ease leads us to forget that they might be hermeneutically meaningless for non-Western-religious people.

However, it is not simply a matter of finding certain Western terms which might adequately define or describe certain Eastern terms, or for that matter, finding certain Eastern terms which might adequately define or describe certain Western terms. The point I wish to make is precisely my quasi-thesis stated above, namely, that this stress on knowledge, or on the intellectual aspects of religious groups, is causing current interreligious dialogues to falter.

This statement needs to be framed by the unity of knowledge and ethical behavior we have discussed above. Wang Yang-ming addresses the issue very clearly. From his Chuan-xi-lu (Instruction for Practical Living) we find the following: Only after one has experienced pain can one know pain.

Suppose we say that so-and-so knows brotherly respect. They must have actually practiced filial piety and brotherly respect before they can be said to know them.

The same is true of cold and hunger.31 Many similar statements could be adduced. These, however, will suffice. Experience and knowledge go together; “experience-and-knowledge” is simply another way of saying “knowledge-and-ethical-behavior.” The use of the terms “experience” or “ethical behavior” does not indicate an intellectual description of experience or an academic presentation of ethical behavior. Such descriptions or presentations are already included in the “knowledge” side of the equation. Rather, experience or moral behavior, for Wang Yang-ming, and for the whole Chinese tradition behind him, is the actual doing, actual happening or actual eventing. Within the epistemological framework of knowledge-ethical behavior or knowledge-experience, I do not wish to go beyond the actuality of interreligious dialogue, since what I am arguing here may not pertain to other fields of discourse.

In the religious field of discourse, however, these kinds of statements are of prime importance. All religions deal in one way or another with the experience of the transcendent and the experience of the sacred. All sacred texts are talking “about” the experience of transcendence and holiness. All that we learn from reading, talking, discussing, arguing, explaining is about these experiences. Thus, I may know a lot about another religious tradition, but I do not know the religious tradition unless I experience it in some degree  ,  

101

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M.

or another. The Chinese interpenetration of xin and li or of ren and li means experiential knowledge. Transcendence can indeed be discussed, but only the experience of transcendence within a given religious community allows us to “know” what the religious community means by transcendence. One cannot take an objective and intellectualized description of transcendence and then apply it to various cases or situations, e.g., a Buddhist situation, a Daoist situation, a Lutheran situation, a Greek Orthodox situation, etc. If we “know” transcendence only in this way, we really do not “know” transcendence at all.

Interreligious dialogue needs to leave the conference tables, needs to leave reading and discussing sacred texts, and needs to fuss over the precise meaning of X or of Y. Knowledge (xin, heart-mind) and living value (li) cannot be separated. This means that when we have left the tables and the discussions, we should enter the area of experience. Generally, in some way or another, this entering into the area of experience is called prayer or meditation or contemplation. It is a “happening” and an “eventing”; it is not a “talking about” nor an “explaining, arguing, defining.” When we move to the area of religious experience, i.e., prayer, meditation, contemplation, we enter into an inter-subjectivity which cannot be “objectified.” The center, the core, the heart of all religious living is not in thought, knowledge, discourse, etc. It is in living, eventing, happening, praying.

As the opening citation from Shun indicates: sacred texts have a “predominantly practical concern.” Knowledge alone cannot even come near to an understanding of knowledge-ethical behavior, heart-mind, unity of knowledge and action, the union of heart-mind to the good. For a genuine interreligious dialogue to take place, immersion is absolutely necessary.

Discussions around a conference table may have a place, but they also can be seen as similar to studying sacred Buddhist texts in the libraries of Paris and London and then claiming that we understand Buddhism. The conference table is the place where religions are “objectively” discussed but where no need is felt to take part in the temple rituals in Sri Lanka, Nepal or Tibet, or in the Christian churches in New York, Madrid or Berlin. When a member at the conference table says: “Let us move from the table and spend some time in meditation,” others at the same table might gasp and stutter, but what the person is saying is, “Knowledge is action: xin ji li.” ❧ Notes 1

Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 6.

102

   

Text, Hermeneutic and Translation 2

Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1985).

3 Ibid., p. 423.

4 Ibid., pp. 2, 6.

5 Ibid., p. 83.

6 Cf. ibid., Schwartz’s discussion on “The Realm of Li,” pp. 67–75; and his “On Jen,” pp. 75–85.

7 Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1992), p. 34.

8 Ibid., p. 58.

9 Cf. Gary Madison, “Hermeneutics: Gadamer and Ricoeur,” Continental Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, vol. 8, pp. 297–98. Madison centers on the lectures given by Husserl at the university in Göttingen in 1904, in which he sees Husserl’s call for a total revision of Western understanding of subject-object as a revision of “the central problematic of Western philosophy.” Madison makes the same claim in the introduction to vol. 8, p. 4.

10 Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 14. This differs from Schwartz’s judgment, pp. 60–61.

11 Chan, p. 15.

12 Charles A. Moore, from the foreword to Chan, Source Book, p. vii.

13 Ibid., pp. ix–x, 292–304, 314–24.

14 Ibid., p. 316.

15 Wang Yang-ming, Ch’uan-hsi lu, in Chan, p. 669.

16 Chan, p. 656.

17 Lee Hsin-yi, “The Notion of Moral Self: The Modes of Thinking of H. Richard Niebuhr and Wang Yang-ming” (master’s thesis, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., n.d.), p. 38.

18 Ibid., p. 44.

19 Julia Ching, trans., To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yangming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 114.

20 Ibid., p. 49.

21 Shun, pp. 5–9.

22 Chan, p. 655.

23 Joseph Cheah, Burmese-Chinese Immigration to California (Ph.D. dissertation , Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., 2003).

24 Cheah cites Peter C. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1–13.

25 Shun, p. 8.

26 Ibid., p. 9.

27 Ibid., p. 10–13.  ,  

103

Kenan Osborne, O.F.M. 28

Chan, p. 558.

Shun, p. 11.

30 Ibid.

31 Chan, p. 669.

29

About the Author Kenan Osborne, O.F.M., has been a professor at the Graduate Theological Union Franciscan School of Theology since 1968. Besides teaching, he was also the president and dean from 1968 to 1985. From 1990 to the present he has been in Asia, particularly China, twelve times. He has given lectures at Fudan University in Shanghai and at Min Jung University in Beijing, and has been part of East-West dialogues at Wuji and Shanghai.

104

   