EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science
Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E At Home in Virtue Notes taken on November 24, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
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virtue
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a disposition to behave in the right way in a particular type of situation
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to perceive the situation in the right way
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virtues are domain specific
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specific Confucius virtues
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1. filial piety
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the virtual of being a good, obedient child
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a suite of actions and emotions that instruct how the child should act in relation to the parent
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actions: serving, obeying
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emotions: respect, deference
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domain: obedience toward parents
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2. trustworthiness
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domain: relations with friends, professional peers, and superiors, matching of words with actions
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become trustworthy and reliable
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3. courage
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inherited from the Zhou dynasty
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more has to do with courage in battle
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Confucian understanding is more social courage
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unafraid to say the right thing
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domain: situations involving risk
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proper perception
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striking a balance between timidity (not enough courage) and rash (too much courage)
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knowing when a situation requires you to do something courageous and when it doesn't
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4. Goodness (ren)
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very general and hard to understand
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the virtue of having all the other virtues in the right proportion
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the virtue of being a good human being
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also sometimes translated as "humanness" because of the etymology
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the general virtue of being a fully realized Confucian gentleman
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perfection of harmony of lesser virtues
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balanced, using virtues appropriately as to keep them out of conflict
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the virtue of when to know when to exercise the other virtues at the right time and in the situation
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the complete person
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you have all the virtues and you have them where they should be, they are perfectly balanced
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when virtues come into concept you know how to balance them in behavior
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Confucius is leery of calling anyone ren
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how does one get it
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the way of the Zhou Dynasty
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practice ritual
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read the Classics
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do music
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external vs. internal goods
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Alasdair MacIntyre
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internal goods
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something that is realized only through the practice itself
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joy of chess
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you can only appreciate through the practice itself
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music
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sports
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Goodness
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external goods
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can be realized in other ways
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you want a child to come to like playing chess
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you might tempt them by using external goods
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candy
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money
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eventually the child will appreciate the game for internal reasons
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we should be motivated to do the goods for internal purposes not external
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not for money
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appreciate the meaningfulness of the Confucian way
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it's hard to judge if someone is a Confucian gentleman since want counts is if they appreciate the goods internally
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psychology
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intrinsic motivation
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you are motivated in the absence of any external reward
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out of curiosity
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playfulness
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satisfaction
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extrinsic motivation
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doing it for money
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if you give people for doing things, they value it less
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can impair your ability to appreciate the internal goods of the practice
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you should become intrinsically motivated
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the Confucian path to joy (Le)
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diagnostic
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indicates one has come to appreciate the internal good of Confucian practice
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makes you independent of external goods
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Analects 7.13
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Eating plain food and drinking water, having only your bent arm as a pillow, certainly there is joy to be found in this! Wealth and eminence attained improperly concern me no more than the floating clouds.
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Jen We is often displayed as someone who has Le
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Civilization and human nature
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Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents
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Kultur und Sein Unbehagen
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Unbehagen: uncomfortable and being creeped out
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Freud says nature is horrible
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we were never secure, constant fighting
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in civilization, we are also never satisfied
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we learned to sublimate our desires
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when one writes an article critiquing rival's intellectual position
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Freud would say what one really wants to do is kill that rival and take his spouse
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but you aren't able to do that anymore, so one says something clever and biting at a conference
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there is some satisfaction in this but not as much as the original fulfillment of the desire
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this is the tragedy: we are always living on this thin soup of sublimated desires
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Confucian model:
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we are not stuck being Unbehagen all the time
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we can learn to be at home
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"at peace" (an)
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the gentleman is at home in virtue
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we can take joy in civilized nature
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corrected:
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absense
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absence