Making use of tian in early Chinese thought
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The opposition of tian (translatable as “heaven” or “nature” in various contexts) and ren (“man”, “human”) in modern accounts of Chinese philosophy is loaded with connotations coming from Western philosophical paradigms, especially the opposition nature – culture (and more: transcendence – immanence of tian, whether tian is deity or natural force etc.). On the other hand, in accounts bringing to the fore Chinese (Confucian) perspectives, the term is equally clouded by seemingly well-established concept of “Unity of heaven and man” (tian ren he yi). This paper focuses on those instances in early Chinese texts, where tian clearly means something like “nature” – processes and powers beyond human control but not accessible by sacrifices or other ritual/religious practices, mostly taken from Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and a few other texts. The paper argues that in early Chinese texts, the typical purpose the dichotomy tian – ren serves is not so much an attempt to establish two clearly demarcated realms of “nature” – “culture”, or a “harmony” between them. Instead, the paper reads the analysed sections as a human search for the most effective ways to utilize “nature” (tian) in an assumed shared realm of being. The analysed sections of texts are read as various attempts to offer a solution to the riddle: How to put to human use what is essentially beyond human control (without resort to established ritual practices). |