Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence.
Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledge-the subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditions-as all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.
"Ziporyn takes on the deepest issues and most difficult texts from a millennium and a half of Chinese thinking, and offers exciting new ways to make sense of both individual texts and the tradition's broader concerns ... Whether read separately or together, these two volumes are among the most provocative and tightly argued works on Chinese philosophy to appear in many years, and richly repay the effort it takes to learn to see through the lens of coherence." -- Dao
"...Ziporyn's two volumes on 'oneness and difference' represent a well-argued and highly sophisticated attempt at understanding Chinese metaphysics on its own terms ... I recommend these two volumes unconditionally to the reader." -- Kai Marchal, Philosophy East & West
"...constitute[s] the first comprehensive attempt in any Western language to explore the meaning and history of the difficult term li prior to the Song period ... Ziporyn displays a tremendous knowledge of difficult philosophical texts such as the commentaries to Daoist classics by Wang Bi and Guo Xiang as well as primary texts and commentaries of the Buddhist Tiantai and Huayan traditions." -- Monumenta Serica
Brook Ziporyn is Professor of Chinese Philosophy, Religion, and Comparative Thought at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of several books, including The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang and Ironies of Oneness and Difference: Coherence in Early Chinese Thought; Prolegomena to the Study of Li, both also published by SUNY Press.
5.0 out of 5 stars I love this bookReviewed in the United States on 26 March 2017
I love this book. Ziporyn's work is fantastic. In particular, the section on "Ironic Coherence" in the DDJ and Zhuangzi is one of my favorite accounts of classical Daoist Philosophy. I wont give a thorough/scholarly account of the book here but it is a five star book for sure!
beginning, and hence it took me a long time to understand what Ziporyn meant by
the term “irony, ” since this certainly is not what common wisdom understands by it.
In many places the reader gets the impression that for Ziporyn “irony” means what
others would call “paradoxical, ” and sometimes I thought that it would be a good
recommendation to any reader to simply read “paradoxical” whenever Ziporyn
uses the word “irony. ” Conventionally, irony means to say something but to mean
its opposite, often with the intent to criticize someone else or oneself. This is not
what neither Laozi nor Zhuangzi do; both of whom are quite explicit about the dif-
ficulties of the use of terms such as dao. Indeed, one may argue that the hidden
element that is characteristic of irony in many definitions is completely lacking in
these two texts. I do believe that there is irony in ancient China. Examples of this
may be found in Sima Qian’ s criticisms of Emperor Wu of Han whom he praises
for things that are obviously not good. But I have to confess that I have never
read Laozi or Zhuangzi as great ironists. On p. 141, Ziporyn again shows what
he means by irony, when he says that the Daoist use of dao is an ironic use of the
older term. According to him, this usage is closely equivalent to someone who is
looking out of the window at a rainstorm and saying, “Oh, great weather for a
picnic. ” Of course, in the Western tradition there is also Socratic irony. Yet, it is
my impression that the Daoist use of dao is not ironic even in that sense. I have
the feeling that Daoist thinking does not really fit Ziporyn’ s example. Yes, dao
first may have meant a proper “method” to do something, and, as we all know,
Laozi does say that the best method has no definable method. But is this irony?
In the introduction to his second book, Ziporyn again explains what he means by
“irony.” Speaking of the fact that the most all-inclusive totality is necessarily incoher-
ent he says that the ultimate intellibility of any definite identity must be questioned.
“I call this ‘ironic’ because it means that any attribution of identity can only be
meant ironically, since all of them depend on relation to a context that is itself necess-
arily incoherent, such that every coherence is itself necessarily incoherent …” (p. 18).
Again I would say that this is not really how I would understand the word “ironic.”
This was the first problem that made reading the book so difficult to me. As
suggested before, this obstacle can be overcome by simply speaking of a tradition
of the “paradoxical” instead of the “ironic.”
More difficult to discuss is my second problem, namely the translation of li as
“coherence” which has been suggested years ago by Willard Peterson in “Another
Look at li 理” (Bulletin of Sung-Yüan Studies 18 [1986], pp. 13-31). His suggestion
has not been taken up for a long time. Instead specialists of Neo-Confucianism dis-
cussed at great length whether the traditional translation of li as “principle” should
be replaced by the word “pattern,” which often seems to be more fitting. What I
would have really liked to know from Ziporyn is whether Peterson’ s suggestion
was simply neglected or whether it was silently rejected because it did not make
enough sense to many specialists. I would have truly loved to see a convincing argu-
ment of why “coherence” should be a better translation for li than other words.
Instead of this, Ziporyn in the introduction to both of his books briefly begins
with a discussion of secondary literature that has influenced him (Chad Hansen,
A.C. Graham, Tang Junyi, Hall and Ames). He says that Fung Yu-lan’ s idea of li
as the Chinese equivalent to the Platonic forms was refuted by others (Beyond
Oneness and Difference, p. 22). I have to confess here that I belong to those who
still prefer Fung Yu-lan’ s Platonic “ideas” for li to “coherence” in many contexts.
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On the other hand, what I did like very much in Ziporyn’ s second book was the
summary of Tang Junyi’ s argument put forward in yuanli 原理 that stressed the
notion of “to divide or make a border” (p. 27). But at the same time, I am quite
sure that it was not Tang’ s intention to say, as Ziporyn does, that li always means
“coherence between a set of disparate items, which necessarily includes both nonhu-
man reality and human responses to that reality (desires and cognitions)” (p. 28).
Ziporyn criticizes Duan Yucai for stressing the aspect of “separation” in the charac-
ter, but he again does not really argue for “coherence” instead. He simply apodicti-
cally states that this is the correct meaning: “Li would then mean ‘second-order
coherence between found coherences in the world and coherent clusters of human
evolution’” (p. 30). One may or may not believe this.
Brook Ziporyn, quoting Peterson (and later Hall and Ames) who was (were) con-
cerned with Neo-Confucianism, is convinced that Chinese thought basically is about
coherence or interconnectedness of everything with everything (pp. 38ff). I do not
disagree. Actually this is the old idea of J.J.M. de Groot for which he had coined
the term “Chinese Universism” (one could have credited him for the idea somewhere
in this book), and I do think that Ziporyn is right to stress the paramount impor-
tance of this concept. Yet, the question for me is whether li is actually the right
term to argue for it. I wonder whether a sentence such as 仁愛之理也, taken by
myself at random from Zhu Xi’ s famous “Ren shuo” 仁說, does actually mean:
“Being humane is the coherent form of caring for something” (or in Ziporyns
sense: “the form that makes other things cohere”), “being humane is the principle
of caring for something” or “being humane is the ideal/normative form of caring
for something. ” These are three quite different things. Maybe li means all of this,
but in my opinion what Sinology should do is to start a discussion of this
problem and make an attempt to explain plausibly why one translation is better
than another.
Yet, Ziporyn does not really like to argue for his own choice: He rather tries to
convince his reader by repeating the word “coherence” as often as possible. On
p. 145, of Ironies of Oneness and Difference we find the following sentence: “The
emergence of the coherence and the incoherence, these opposites, are aspects of a
single event. Every coherence (name, value) has a double meaning: it names both
the coherence and the ultimate incoherence with which it is coherent, and it is this
coherence (togetherness) of the coherence and the incoherence that alone makes
any coherence coherent (intelligible).”
Let me give some more examples for this, all of them taken from Beyond Oneness
and Difference. In the second chapter of this book Ziporyn summarizes findings
made in Ironies of Oneness and Difference. On p. 55, he translates from Xunzi:
That which knows things is human nature [ren zhi xing]. That which can be known is
the coherences of things [wu zhi li]. If we seek to know the coherences of things with
this human nature which is able to know, without any point of consolidation or resting
point …, then even if one continues to study all one’ s life one will never get all of it.
Even though one may string together coherences numbered in the millions, it will
never be sufficient to go through all the changes of the ten thousand things …
I am not convinced at all that this text speaks about the coherence of things when it
uses the word li, as it mentions the difficulty to know millions of li. Fung Yu-lan’ s
BOOK REVIEWS 443
Platonic forms or “ideas” actually seem to fit much better what Xunzi wants to say.
To me, li seems to be the particular form of individual things. On the next page,
Ziporyn again quotes Xunzi, this time with the dichotomy of li and luan 亂.
He translates buli 不理 as “incoherent” and luan as “disorder. ” This is possible
since coherence may be an aspect of a state of order and incoherence one of disorder,
but may we not ask whether Ziporyn does not turn something that is just one aspect
of li into its main component? Moving on I would like to further explore the follow-
ing statement: “The center is the unobstructed Coherence of the beauties of Heaven
and Earth” (p. 68) as a translation for Dong Zhongshu’ s: 中者天地之美達理也.
Possible, but not really convincing. Dong probably rather wanted to say: “The
mean is the most beautiful and most accomplished norm/ideal of/between Heaven
and Earth.” If we use the preposition “of ” to translate the sentence then its
meaning could be, for example: Heaven gives some rain but not too much, Earth
provides us with enough water to moisten our fields, but it does not give rise to inun-
dations, and so forth – with remaining in the mean Heaven and Earth set the stan-
dard, an ideal norm (li), not a coherence. In Han thought, only human interference
leads to disasters of Heaven and Earth. This is de Groot’ s (Chinese) universism.
Human behavior has an influence on Heaven and Earth, it is coherent with them,
but li in this sentence most probably does not mean “coherence” at all. One
would have needed a solid argument for reading li as “coherent” in order to
accept it.
In chapter three of Beyond Oneness and Difference, Ziporyn writes about the
“development of li in ironic texts.” On p. 73, he quotes Zhuangzi 16: “The
ancient practitioners of the Course used placidity to nourish their knowledge …
When knowledge and placidity thus nourish one another, harmony and coherence
grow out of the inborn nature” (知與恬交相養，而和理出其性). I think that
harmony and placidity, he and tian, belong to each other in this passage just as
zhi and li, and that li here has something to do with reason, not with coherence.
This may be open to discussion – but the discussion is open. It is more obvious
that Zhuangzi did not mean “coherence” when he spoke of li in the passage on
p. 78: “From the stopping and the moving creatures were born, and when these crea-
tures form in such a way as to generate a coherence 物生成理 it is called physical
form 形.” Why should this li here mean “coherence”? This is totally unconvincing
to me. I rather think that Zhuangzi wanted to say that as soon as a thing is born
it has its own characteristics, it becomes an ideal form in itself – a translation that
has nothing at all to do with “coherence.” Li here has something to do with the par-
ticularity of things or categories of things (just as Duan Yucai thought). The same
meaning we find in chapter 22 (p. 79) of the Zhuangzi where Ziporyn translates:
“The sage traces the beauty of heaven and earth back and arrives at the coherences
of the ten thousand things” (緣天地之美而達萬物之理). This probably means: “By
tracing the beauty of Heaven and Earth, he is able to understand the characteristics
of all things” (something that, without understanding the main features of Heaven
and Earth, would be very difficult because there are simply too many characteristics
and peculiarities of things to be understood). Here, li is not “beyond oneness and
difference,” but it seems to be about difference alone: The sage is able to do what
nobody else can do, namely to react to all different forms and beings in the
proper way because he has understood the basic principle of the working of
Heaven and Earth.
444 BOOK REVIEWS
I could continue with examples for the fact that li may not mean “coherences” but
“characteristics” in many texts of what Ziporyn calls the “ironic tradition, ” but this
is probably not necessary. I hope the reader gets my point: I am not at all arguing in
favor of a translation of li as “characteristic” or “peculiar, ” but I would have loved to
see in this book that is so abundantly rich with examples – a fact that shows how
extremely erudite its author is – a proper refutation of this understanding of li
and an argument in favor of “coherence” instead of a simple repetition of trans-
lations that without this necessary step will not really convince many readers of
his understanding of the term.
Chapter 4 is about “the advent of li as a technical philosophical term. ” Here,
Ziporyn makes use of such texts as the important “Neiye” 內業 chapter of the
Guanzi. Again, I would like to give an example for his translations: “The noble
man controls things and is not controlled by them: This is the ordered coherence
of things that comes from his attaining unity. With an orderly mind within,
orderly words issue from his mouth, and orderly deeds are applied to others,
and it is thus that the world becomes orderly” 君子協定使物，不為物使。得一之
理，治心在於中，治言出於口，治事加於人，然則天下治矣 (p. 113). “This is the
ordered coherence of things that comes from his attaining unity” for 得一之理
really stretches things very far. The sentence seems to be the conclusion of what is
said before, but, as is suggested by the interpunctuation of the Chinese version of
the text that Ziporyn has made use of, the author of the “Neiye” wanted to say:
“If he attains the unifying principle/the ideal form of unity, he has an ordered
mind within, orderly words issue from his mouth etc. ” If there is “coherence” in
this sentence, then in the word yi 一, not in li. What is even more important, the
text stresses the connection between li and “order, ” not with coherence. This is actu-
ally what many ancient texts do.
Or consider the following translation from “Xinshu shang” 心術上 on p. 117: “It
[the ruling string of dao] diversifies their shapes and tendencies, but does not join in/
differ from the different coherences of the ten thousand things” (殊形異勢，不與萬
物異理). Does this not mean: “It is different in form and not the same in its efficacy,
but it is not of a different nature/underlying structure than the ten thousand things”?
Ziporyn quite interestingly points to the opposition of dao and li in Huainanzi
(p. 131). Yet, again the translation of 修道理之數 as “But if you work with the
measure of the specific coherences as rooted in their incoherence” baffled me
although I think I finally had understood that dao for Ziporyn is “ironic” and
thus means “incoherence. ”
In Chapters 5 to 7 on Wang Bi and Guo Xiang, Tiantai, and Huayan, Brook
Ziporyn displays all his knowledge of Six Dynasties’ and Tang thought. I truly
like much of what he has to say there, for example his apt discussion of the term
ti on page 151 as “to fully integrate and present in its completeness” instead of
the usual “to embody.” It is interesting that in this part of the book his attempts
to translate li as “coherence” are much fewer. In Buddhism, Ziporyn does not
seem to find this translation as convincing as in early texts and comes up with sug-
gestions such as “potential” (p. 187), “emptiness” or even “truth. ” On p. 217, he even
refrains from translating li. One is thus somewhat surprised when he comes back to
the idea of coherence in his conclusions to chapter 6 (p. 258).
In addition to these remarks on the nature of this book, I would like to make two
technical points: Unfortunately, SUNY as so many other publishing houses, has
BOOK REVIEWS 445
decided to ban footnotes which makes reading a book full of profound scholarly
erudition extremely tedious. The interested reader always has to struggle his way
back and forth in the book in order to find out whom the author refers to. As the
reader often forgets which chapter he is actually reading and as there are no
headers that tell him which endnote belongs to which page he has too many different
options. This is a time-consuming process that finally disencourages one from con-
sulting the endnotes at all. Secondly, in my discussion above I have quoted only those
translations for which at least some Chinese characters were provided in the main
text. Unfortunately, this has been done in a very unsystematic way. Only very
rarely do we actually find the Chinese text that Ziporyn translates. Yet, as some
readers may struggle with the terminology as I did, these Chinese texts would be
sorely needed in order to understand what the sources actually have to say.
Again, this is a problem which publishing houses have created intentionally
because they do not like Chinese characters. The seriously interested reader is
thus left alone with difficult translations, a fact that makes reading such books dif-
ficult even for the specialist. Is there really a non-specialist readership that wants to
read a book like this in the English language without being interested in the Chinese
original as well?
To summarize, I would once again like to stress what I said right in the beginning,
namely that I was very impressed by the amount of material that Ziporyn has pre-
sented to us in a very erudite way. I do think that this is an important book that will
serve as a basis for our understanding of the historical development of the term li in
the Chinese philosophical tradition although I remain unconvinced by the use of the
terms “irony” and “coherence. ” Yet, I do believe that there are indeed passages in
classical Chinese literature, and especially in the later philosophical Daoist tradition
in which it is very tempting to understand li as “coherence, ” just as suggested by
Peterson and Ziporyn.
HANS VAN ESS
Institut für Sinologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
