Redefining Western and Chinese philosophies as Spiritual Transformation

Abstract

In the 80s, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault described Ancient Greek Philosophy as a “way of life". Using this expression, they wanted to highlight that in Greek Antiquity philosophizing implied a transformation of the person involved in the process. In Athens, indeed, to choose a school of philosophy was first to choose a community and to adopt a number of both intellectual and physical practices. Both historians also show how in each one of the Greek schools, there is a description of the Saint or Sage, Socrates being the unifying figure of these portraits. The purpose of this figure of the Sage was to support students’ ethical effort in self-cultivation.

In recent years, more and more scholars investigating Chinese tradition in the West — Stephen Angle, Carine Defoort, — and also philosophers in China working on their tradition — Cheng Lisheng, Bai Tongdong, — have been using Hadot and Foucault’s expression of “philosophy as a way of life” and their categories to describe Chinese philosophy. In several Chinese Classics, it is possible to identify practices similar to what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” and a description of the life of the Sage as an incentive for readers-disciples to join a process of self-cultivation.

One moment in Chinese tradition can especially echo an understanding of philosophy as a way of life: Neo-Confucianism as developed by Zhu Xi (1130-1200). For Zhu Xi, to read the Confucian Classics was not first a matter of accumulating knowledge but of transformation of the self. Through analyzing, meditating, and practicing the Classics, the student could let his/her intention be transformed and adjust his/her heart-mind to the heart-mind of the Sages from the past, the transmitters of the cultural tools necessary to becoming fully human.