Episode 18: Neo-Confucian Metaphysics

This Is The Way: Chinese Philosophy Podcast

Much of the technical philosophy of Confucianism was developed by sophisticated thinkers that came well after the time of Confucius, starting in the Song dynasty. This episode is our first devoted to the foremost of these "Neo-Confucians," Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200 CE). To help us with this introduction, we are joined by special guest Stephen C. Angle, one of the leading scholars of Neo-Confucianism.
Consider a boat: it’s the nature of a boat to move more easily over water and not over land, and there is greater harmony and order in using boats this way than in trying to drag them across roads and fields. We can also make better sense of boats as waterborne vehicles than as land-based ones. Why are all of these things true of boats? Zhu Xi’s influential view is that we must ultimately posit the existence of an intangible entity or source that he calls “Pattern” (li 理) to explain these sorts of facts, not just about the nature and orderly use of boats, but about the nature and value of human beings, human life, and so much more. Join us for a discussion of Zhu Xi's metaphysics of Pattern. Topics that discuss include the following: it's implied position on the fact-value distinction, holistic vs. individualistic approaches to value, and the senses in which Zhu’s worldview does (and does not) call for something resembling religious belief.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.
Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.
We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.
Our guest:
Stephen C. Angle

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website
Want to skip to episode's primary philosophical issue? Go to
- 10:57: preface to today's discussion, or
- 15:54: part II

Fejezetek

1. Part I -- Introduction (00:00:00)

2. • Preface to today's topic: what‘s Neo-Confucianism? (00:10:57)

3. Part II -- Zhu Xi's Metaphysics (00:15:54)

4. • Introducing Stephen Angle (00:15:55)

5. • Introducing Neo-Confucianism (00:22:50)

6. • Zhu Xi's account of Pattern (Li 理) (00:27:24)

7. • Today's featured passage (00:30:33)

8. • What would motivate someone to believe in Pattern? (00:31:39)

9. • Is the goal of "understanding Pattern" wholly subordinate to ethical goals? (00:35:25)

10. • Discovering Patterns through "investigating things" (gewu 格物) (00:40:01)

11. • Why Patterns aren't just products of human artifice (00:42:12)

12. • Zhu's holism: "Pattern is one, but its manifestations are many" (00:45:27)

13. • Why we can't just grasp Pattern through introspection (00:54:35)

14. • Pattern's relations with qi 氣 ("vital stuff") (00:56:59)

15. • Does Pattern have causal power? (01:02:45)

16. • Pattern makes things intelligible and explainable to humans (01:05:11)

17. • Debates about direct vs. indirect methods of discovering Pattern (01:07:49)

18. • Why Patterns must be internal -- naturalness and the possibility of wholehearted and transformative knowledge (01:09:18)

19. • Does belief in Pattern require religious faith? (01:14:15)

20. • Closing question for our guest (01:24:56)