Gonzales, Timothy Joseph C.

4PHL1

Chinese Philosophy

A Philosophical Understanding of Man

Through Kong Zi’s Political Thought
Kong Zi is one of the many influential persons that have ever lived
during the Period of Ancient China, along with Lao Tzu, Mencius and many
more. His thoughts, ideas and teachings are purely concentrated on the role of
man to his family, society and the state where he belongs to, thus he values
the importance of man not just a part of a whole but rather he sees man as a
political and social animal and is in dire need of social interaction to further
discover himself not only through his own efforts, but also gradually
recognizes also the importance of others to aid him in finding his identity as a
person and as a part of the society he is living in.
It will not be a surprise that as we go deeper into his thoughts, we may
always find ourselves in the sphere where man is the center and focus of his
ideas, which is opposed to the idea of westerners, where they begin with the
universal and slowly proceeds into the level of particulars, but for Kong Zi, we
must begin first on the question of “What does it takes to be a man?, “How
should a man view himself on earth?” and the very important question for
him, “How can a man be a man of virtue?” These are only some of the many
questions that Kong Zi has in mind, it is in these questions that we can already
grasp his whole point of creating a number of teachings and lessons, it is very
important for him that a state, country or society can only live in harmony,
peace and solidarity if the essential qualities and characteristics that we are
looking for in a leader are embedded in each of the citizens, and this can only
be achieved if they are to be disciplined, raised and taught in the right way.
In his book, The Analects, we will be drowned and introduced into the
words of Kong Zi himself, as he gives us directions and the path towards the
perfection of our attitude, the transformation of our knowledge into wisdom
and the change of our course and perspective of life into optimism, refinement
of our virtues and the pursuit of legitimate happiness that can turn the tides of
not just being a common man or normal man, but can lead us also to the truth
and discovery of our true nature and identity as a man.
Man as a part of a family
One of the themes that make up the Chinese thought is their great
respect for the importance of family in forming man’s consciousness,
behaviour and actions. As this practice continues to be lived out by the
Chinese in the current era, it is also of utmost importance that we should pay
our tribute to the great master Kong-Zi, who among in all of people valued in
his philosophy the necessity of a man to have a family before becoming a great
servant of the people. It is imperative in his writings that before we can see a
good and honest politician, his formation from a child to a man is a large
factor of what kind of a person will he be in the society, this is of course
depending on how he was raised by his family and the values and lessons
brought up to him by his family.
In the first book of the Analects, he discussed the necessary values that a child
must have, and one of this is filial piety. Kong-Zi said, “A young person who is
filial and respectful of his elders rarely becomes the kind of person who is
inclined to defy his superiors” 1, in this statement of the great master, we can
see that a child who were taught by his parents to practice respect for anyone
especially the elders, were the ones who will develop a deep appreciation to
everyone’s individuality and position in life, for Kong-Zi, it is necessary that
even in his little age, he must already know that his knowledge of the world is
not yet enough compared to the knowledge of those who are older than him,
thus he needs to accept that he still needs some kind of guidance, a large span
of patience and the sincerity of heart to accept his mistakes and his agreement
into the words and advices that are given to him either by his parents or other
older people because he knows these are not just words to complied with or
obeyed, but rather these are also wise words worth of remembering for and
words that will lead him to perform wise actions and decisions whenever he
decides to serve people or become an emperor for his people.
Filial piety for Kong-Zi basically is not just an ordinary trait that can be
developed or acquired easily, but rather it is a trait that comes from the
process of how the child was raised, in other words, it requires process to
possess this kind of attitude of a person, but this process does not only involve
the child himself, thus the child needs teachers who will teach him on how to
acquire this trait and it comes from the guidance of his parents on how they
will conduct to the child the ways on how to acquire this trait. One thing that
we should always take note is that, Chinese philosophy is not fond about
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defining or describing things but rather they are after experiencing and living
out things2 that are trying to defined by the westerners such as the concept of
good, justice and knowledge, for them one cannot truly know the meaning of
such concept if he is not to experience it by himself, therefore it is also by
through experience that a child can know what truly is the value of respect
especially the respect for elders.
Family for Kong-Zi is not just a place where can learn various things, it is
also a place wherein he will mold himself to what he will become in the near
future when he is already old enough to work. It can be observed in many
ways, but one specific moment in the life of a child is enough alone to
determine what kind of a person will he be in the society when the time
comes, it is the event when his father dies and the question would be, Will he
have the will to continue to live out all the teachings and lessons he had given
to him? Or would he depart from the lessons he learned and choose his own
path? Kong-Zi said, “It is only once his father has passed away that the son can
learn about his character by observing his own actions” 3, the answer to this
question can be twofold. He replied, “If the ways of his father are in
accordance with the Way, it would be perfectly acceptable to go his entire life
without changing them. If they are not in accordance with the Way, though,
why does he wait three years to change them?” 4, even though Kong-Zi has a
high regards for the importance of family as the primordial foundation of the
morality of a man, it is not acceptable for a son to completely abandon his
rationality as a free individual capable of looking what is right and best for
him. It is in these cases or events where the notion of respect for the elders or
filial piety might be put into question, the limitation of respect must be drawn,
sons/ daughters might have the right to question the authority or decisions of
their parents when it comes to the advices, behaviour and actions they are
showing to their children. For example a father gambling every day or
drinking alcohol every day, it would be foolish not to question this kind of
habit that is being exhibit by the father, therefore the value of respect is still
being given there but only in the extent that he is your father, and not already
to the fact that you are willing to follow his every action that he will do. Kong-
Zi would like to notify us that the concept of good starts from the very actions
of our first teachers in life and that is our parents, they are supposed to be our
mentor and master when it comes to the art of knowing what is good and
what is not, however, if our parent’s actions do not comply to what we think is
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good and right, we must also develop the initiative to do what is right or even
tell our parents in a respectable manner, what we think is right since a man of
virtue cannot be truly a man of virtue if he tolerates injustice and bad things to
happen so it is also our obligation as sons/daughters to not just be the
apprentice or student of our parents but also we can be the proper mentors
for them if in the situation that they are misguided or have been put into the
wrong track.
Kong-Zi again has brought us another important lesson regarding from
the statement that I had just mentioned, it is when some sons act with their
utmost sincerity of heart to obey and follow the commands of their father, but
then, after their father had passed away, some would go in a different path
that their father taught them to be, in this Kong-Zi said, “When his father is
still alive, the son is not able to act as he wants because he must obey the
father’s commands”5, this statement of Kong-Zi is a statement that goes to the
sons/daughters who waited a lot years for their father to catch out his last
breath, and then once their father had died, they would go in an opposite path
in many different ways, it may be a change on their attitude, behaviour or the
worst case that can happen is that a complete transformation of their identity
such as from a virtuous son or man to a bad son or man or from a gentleman
to a petty man. Kong-Zi would like to point here the importance of filial piety
not only as temporal virtue but rather an attitude that must be retained in
eternity, a man cannot be called a man of virtue if he only pays his respect to
his parents under the condition when they are only physically present, but
rather a man who can be rightfully called an embodiment of goodness and
benevolence is the man who pays his respect both to his parents by his
continuous pursuit of what is good and by the cultivation of the lessons that
he had learned to them. Nourishment, I should say is the goal of Kong-Zi for
the sons/daughters to always remember and must also be a part of their
identity as a person as they continue to grow, it is in the practice of nourishing
of our ideas and experiences in life where we will be able to succeed in
furnishing or should I say, a way of perfection of ourselves, also, maybe it is
true that our past cannot define us what we are right now, but our past should
remind us of our mistakes yesterday, and these mistakes and wrongdoings
that we have committed should become the ultimate source of our reason to
further nourish and cultivate ourselves for a better person.
As we can see, no man can be born with a pure heart, a man needs to
take the wheel of his own, he holds his fate, and it is within his grasp of what
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kind of life will he be having, but all of these can only be possible if he is able
to recognize that he is not yet capable of doing everything, he understands
that he needs guidance, advices and lessons to learn from and so he welcomes
the wise words of his parents and elders to bring him over into the path of
success.
An ideal man is an ethical man
After we have examined what are the necessary qualities that a child
must possess before he can be integrated into a large community such as the
society, However, his holistic formation as an individual does not end there,
perhaps the qualities that he have just learned when he was in his younger
days are the necessary and initial steps to begin with, all of these qualities will
serve as his strong foundation throughout in his journey of pursuit of the good
things that the world has to offer, therefore, man should not be always
contented and be satisfied on the knowledge that he has, since this is where
the rise of ignorance can begin.
As we what we have just discussed about the Chinese thought, the
knowledge about what is good should not just stay in the person’s
consciousness or mind, but rather it must be performed or be seen into his
actions, for if the person has a knowledge on how to be a virtuous man but his
actions do not coincide on what he has on mind, it would be a complete waste
of knowledge and time to know such thing.
Doing what is good is very different from knowing what is good, thus for
Kong-Zi, he puts more a heavy weight on the person who has the will to do
what he thinks is good, but he did not totally disregard the importance of
knowing what is good, in this he said, “The gentleman is not a vessel.” 6 This
statement of Kong-Zi tells us not to linger very long on either knowing or
doing what is good; we must put both of our efforts in mastering the art of
executing these two. Some people have stayed long enough in knowing what is
good that they have already forgotten that performing acts of kindness and
goodness to others is the sole purpose of why we exhaust ourselves in reading
books and documents to know the different concepts about certain things
such as good, freedom and justice, through the course of our education and
the daily experiences in our lives.
It is not also good for us to be always in the dimension of actions and
experiences, it must also be accompanied by certain ideas that can lead us to
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the perfection of our actions and thought, thus, Kong-Zi would like to imply
the importance of having education, since it is through education where our
thoughts of the world, society and our understanding of the nature of man,
will be more clear and at the same time, our actions and deeds will be in the
path of virtue if we have the right kind of thoughts to begin with.
Kong-Zi’s wise words would like us to work not just a stagnant man, but
invites us to a life, capable of being flexible in instances that we are required
to. It connotes that the path towards a virtuous life is not easy what it seems
to be, it requires a lot of dedication, determination and patience. For a man is
neither dedicated nor patient in learning the lessons in life, ignorance will be
always the cause of his downfall. Cowardice to act what is right, may also lead
a man to astray in the direction of the pursuit of goodness. It reflects the two
problems imposed by the two approaches towards pursuit of knowledge
conducted by the westerners namely Dogmatism as for the problem of
Rationalism and Scepticism as for the problem of the Empiricism, thus it is
highly recommendable for us to avoid in becoming either of these two, but
rather we must extend our limitations and push ourselves up to the very last
step and that is to achieve the experience and to live in a good life.
It is also very important to note that being an ethical man or virtuous
man is not just manifested by in his activities alone, it can be also seen on the
way he interacts with others and do the ideas that he had learned, cultivated
and nourished throughout the years can be truly manifested in his actions and
speech towards others? Kong-Zi stated, “Only one who is good is able to truly
love others or despise others.”7 An ethical man therefore for Kong-Zi, is one
who realizes that he needs the help of others, one who realizes that by
interacting with others is also the way of goodness because I care and think of
others condition and welfare and that I am not the only who owns this world
but rather I also recognize the presence of other human beings and in this
recognition of their presence, I develop an attitude that we need to
communicate and interact with each other to develop a sense of harmony,
friendship and love with each other. An ethical man is a man who loves his
neighbour in the way also on how he loves himself, he loves the existence of
other individuals because he sees them not as a hindrance to his needs or
wants, but rather he sees them as a companion to every problem that life has
to offer, he loves them with sincerity and does not uses them in his own
private interest. The reason why Kong-Zi insists on the existence of another is
crucial and pivotal to the existence of an individual is that because it is
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through others where we can learn various things about life, and it is through
by communicating with our neighbours, friends and other people where we
are enlightened to other things that our knowledge cannot get through.
Kong-Zi would like to exemplify the necessity of a mutual relationship
with the other individuals through a constant communication and interaction
with them, since it is where our value of good, justice, freedom and respect
come from. It is when we have a constant dialogue and talk to other persons
that we learn various things from ourselves, for example, When another
person approached us and asked us for a direction but then you were told by
your parents to never respond to a stranger because he or she might be just
pretending to ask a question and then will just lure or trick you for he or she
to rob you, and so you follow that rule told by your parents, but then the
stranger got mad at you for the reason you never responded to her question
and looked at way in a different direction, soon after that, you were bugged by
your conscience and decided to follow, from there you have observed that the
lady is still asking the very same question that she had just asked you to other
persons, but one person carefully tells her that exact direction where she
needed to go and so, you followed her trail and there, all your thoughts about
her are wrong all the time, since you were shocked and surprised that you
have just seen the lady really went to the place that she had asked you for. In
this moment, we can see that not all lessons about good or evil and injustice or
justice can be found in the four corners of our room and house, many of the
things that we needed to learn requires and calls us to have a personal contact
with other human beings so that they can too, awaken us from our ignorance
into the question of what is good and right? And shed more light into our
knowledge and reason as human beings geared towards an ethical life.
Man as a political figure
I have noticed Kong-Zi’s structural pattern on how a man ascends and
approaches towards a better man, first, he situated man on its basic need, and
that is human interaction and affection that would come from his parents.
This is the stage wherein the man tries to become a social being; this is the
time in his life where he becomes capable of recognizing the physical
existence of others, the next stage however, which is the ethical stage, has
more a deeper implication and brings a further expansion and wide depth of
knowledge and understanding to man, it is in the ethical stage of man that he
becomes aware of certain concepts like good, morality, justice, duty, and
freedom, such concepts are learned through experience of the reality and
within the people around him and not just confined to the dimension of our
thoughts and consciousness.
The next stage of man is the place wherein he will now be put into a
position bearing bigger responsibilities, and this stage in his life is where
Kong-Zi tells us that the man will be put into test whether he will uphold all
the lessons, teachings and values that he had learned throughout his years of
living. However, let us be critical and open our minds that the word political
here is not just stagnant on the matter of diplomacies, governance and
administration within the government, it might also appear that Kong-Zi
meant here by the word political is when the man had reached already his
maximum height of maturity and he is now compelled to do various things
and activities such as doing your duty as to whatever position you are
assigned to maybe it on the government or just a common people, negotiating
with other people in different communities, or by simply just dwelling in a
proper and nice way with your neighbours, friends and even the proper
management of your own household. Here we can already see, that this stage
welcomes the man into a different dimension, a place where there is a lot of
tasks, challenges, and difficulties that requires not only his knowledge but
more importantly, his application of wisdom as a man, for knowledge is only a
general concept that can be achieved by all, but as to wisdom it has more a
distinctive and unique quality that can only be accessed by a certain individual
if he has the large amount of will to do so and which separates the way he
thinks from the way others think.
One important concept that we should not forget in man whenever he
tries to portray himself as a political figure and role model for his people or by
just living a common life is the concept of duty. Kong-Zi tells us, “Let the lord
be a true lord, the ministers true ministers, the fathers true fathers, and the
sons true sons.”8 This notion of duty is always rooted in filial piety 9, the
question is why are duty and filial piety connected? It is because a man can
only perform his bigger duties in his life when he had successfully fulfilled his
duty as a son or daughter to his parents. The notion of duty does not start on
the time where you are given a position to fulfil rather your strong will to do
any kind of duty is already rooted on how you performed as son or daughter
to your family, instances are some people failed to do their obligations as a
son and daughter to their parents, thus when they are integrated into a
system with a more large set of responsibilities needed to be filled in, they are
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more likely to give up fast or they would have a poor performance since how
will they be able to excel on bigger set of tasks when even smaller duties given
to them are not executed properly? Perhaps, there is something that lacks in a
person which is why he failed to do his duty as a son or daughter to his or her
family, sincerity to do one’s obligation must be the lacking concept or absent
in a person whenever he tries to do his duties as a son or daughter. It means
there should be no distance between what we think, what we say, and what
we do10, in order for us to get enlightened more of what I mean of this, an
example would be when a son was commanded by his father to go into school
and then the son refuses to go school because he is lazy and does not want to
learn, but his father forced him to do so, and then that is the only time when
the child proceeds to obey his father’s wish, but then the contention here is
that, at the back of the head of the child there is an opposition to what he is
doing meaning he will go to the school but not for the sake of learning but
rather just for sake of his father’s command. Sincerity and passion to one’s
duty is perhaps one of the hardest things to comply with especially if the
favour being asked you to do cannot be categorize in any of your interests, but
we must know that being sincere is not just on the level of attaining our wants
but rather sincerity to one’s duty is for the sake for what is right and proper 11.
This only can be realized by the one who is focus and determined to do what
is right, what is right should not be put into one’s standards 12 because
standards are manipulated by our own interests and personal endeavours.
The concept of right, therefore, is to be above these standards, and so, we
must pursuit what is right and proper in every action that we do and by doing
what is right and proper, we become unconsciously sincere of what we are
doing, sincerity to do one’s duty should not be determined by our personal
interests, because these interests might be good or evil, and so may lead us to
a different path.
Lastly, Honesty is the virtue that every man must have in his political
intentions, thoughts, words and actions. Honesty is living up to what one says
one wills do.13, it means we should stick to what we said, thought or have
done. There must be the presence of the consistency in everything that will do
because if we stand firm on what we have just said and done, it means that we
have just sad or done is the right thing to do whereas for other persons who
keep on changing their thoughts and actions after they have witnessed the
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consequences of their actions and what they have just said, is a sign that we
are not doing what is right or we are ignorant of what is right.
The political thought of Kong-Zi to man is always worth remembering
for, my very first glance in his readings put me already into the mode of
questioning his philosophy since the principles and teachings he was trying to
say were very practical and common to the human reason but then after
several reflections on it, I realized that it was not practical at all but rather we
take for granted these principles and so in that very approach of ours towards
these principles, we simply ignore it and have never take a break and simply
just reflect on these principles introduced to us by Kong-Zi. Furthermore, the
philosophical understanding of man of Kong-Zi invites us to carefully choose
our steps little by little because being a man of virtue and an embodiement of
goodness and benevolence takes time and patience.

Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Confucius. The Analects. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2003.

—. The Doctrine of the Mean. 2001.

Secondary Sources:

Cleary, Thomas. The Essential Confucius. New Jersey: Castle Books, 1998.

Rainey, Lee Dian. Confucius and Confucianism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing,

2010.