The Aristotelian mean and Confucian mean

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 337-354

  Yu, Jiyuan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO   (United States)

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EID: 61049378092     PISSN: 03018121     EISSN: 15406253     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1540-6253.00087     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Aristotle usually uses two Greek words for the "mean": meson, and mesotês. The translations of these two terms differ. The Loeb takes mesotês both as "mean" and "mean state," and meson as "mean." The Revised Oxford Translation (ROT) puts mesotês for "mean," and meson for "intermediate." Yet L. Brown contends that to render meson as "intermediate" fails to capture the normative use of this word, which means something like "intermediate and correct" or "appropriate." Brown chooses to translate meson as "mean," and mesotês as "mean state" (see "What is 'The mean relative to us' in Aristotle's ethics?" Phronesis [1997]: 79 n. 6). In my quotations, which are based on the ROT, I put both meson and mesotês as "mean," and then mark which Greek word is used
2. Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 36
3. Jonathan Barnes claims that "Had Aristotle written a third ethical treatise, the celebrated Doctrine would not, I conjecture, have appeared in it" (see his introduction, in J. A. K. Thomson, trans., The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics [London: Penguin, 1976], p. 26
4. cf. also Rosalind Hursthouse, "A False Doctrine of the Mean," Aristotelian Society Proceedings [1980-1981], 57-72)
5. Aristotle explicitly remarks, "In respect of its substance and the account which states its essence it is a mean, with regard to what is best and right it is an extreme" (Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 1107a6-8). This passage indicates that the mean becomes an extreme in doing the best and right thing. Aristotle also emphasizes that there is not such a thing called the mean within a virtue or a vice (1107a22-3)
6. In English translation, "the mean" is a rendering of both zhongyong and zhong. In the quotations of Confucian classics (translations are my own, unless otherwise noted), I use "the mean" throughout, but will denote which Chinese word is used
7. Wing-tsit Chan claims that "In the Analects, Chung-Yung [zhongyong], often translated as the 'mean,' denotes moderation" (see his A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963], p. 96)
8. Probably because of his belief that this is not significant, he surprisingly omits selecting, in his Source Book, the crucial paragraph of Analects 6:27, quoted at the beginning of this article
9. Analects 13:23
10. When his most beloved discipline, Yen-Wei, dies, "in weeping for him, the Master showed extreme grief. The disciplines who were with him said, 'Master, your grief is extreme.'
11. Am I? If I do not feel extreme grief for this man, for whom should I feel?' " (Analects 11:9) Apparently Confucius does not think that a moderate response under this circumstance is appropriate. Indeed, Confucius names the person who is principle-less and tries to please everyone as "the village worthy" (shanyuan) and condemns such a person as "the thief of virtue." (Analects 17:13)
12. Richard Bosley takes it to be sufficiency (see "What is a mean? - The question considered comparatively and systematically," Philosophy East and West 36, no. 1 [1986]: 3-12)
13. Kanaya Osamu regards it as "a model of thinking" that harmonizes the opposite extremes (see "The Mean in Original Confucianism," in Chinese Language, Thought, and Culture, edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe [La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1996], p. 92)
14. Most scholars of Confucian philosophy might not have a problem with this approach, since The Mean is one of the Four Books (four most fundamental Confucian texts, taken together as a whole by Zhu Xi. The other three are the Analects, the Mencius, and the Great Learning. Nevertheless, this is not without controversy. Wing-tsit Chan seems to suggest that the mean in the Analects and the mean in The Mean are different when he writes that "In the Analects, chung-yung, often translated the 'Mean,' denotes moderation but here [in The Mean] chung means what is central and yung means what is universal and harmonious. The former refers to human nature, the latter to its relation with the universe...." (see Source Book, p. 96)
15. Kanaya Osamu splits The Mean into two halves and suggests that the first half but not the second should be discussed together with the Analects (see his "The Mean," p. 83)
16. There are two opposing views on this point. In X O. Urmson's understanding, Aristotle's virtue or excellence of character is "a mean or intermediate disposition regarding emotions and actions, not that it is a disposition towards mean or intermediate emotions and actions" (see "Aristotle's doctrine of the mean," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, edited by A. O. Rorty [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980], p. 161). In other words, it is the inner mean, or the mean disposition that is Aristotle's primary interest. Urmson accordingly seeks to interpret the mean disposition independently of the mean expressed in emotions and actions. The contrasting view holds that virtue is a mean state, not because it itself is a mean of something, but because it aims at the mean in passions and actions or is the state of an agent who is disposed to aim at the mean (see Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], p. 59
17. and Charles Young, "The Doctrine of the Mean," Topoi 19 [1996]: 94). According to this reading, when one interprets the doctrine of the mean, the focus should be on the mean in passion and actions
18. James Legge's translation of this passage goes like this: "While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the mind may be said to be in the state of EQUILIBRIUM. When those feelings have been stirred, and they act in their due degree, there ensues what may be called the state of HARMONY" (see Legge, Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean [1893; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1971], p. 384)
19. I think this translation misses two significant points. First, to translate zhong as "EQUILIBRIUM" cuts off the direct relation between this passage and the doctrine of the mean. Second, to translate fa as "stirring" obscures the relation of this term with "shooting," with which fa is usually associated. The significance of the second point will become clear shortly. Wing-tsit Chan's translation here is basically the same as that of Legge. However, the translation by Y Fu and Z. He, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean (Beijing: Sinolingua Press, 1996), is as follows: "When joy, anger, sorrow and happiness are not revealed, they are zhong, in the mean. When they are revealed, they are he, in harmony" (p. 97). This rendering still misses the second point I made above regarding fa, but it correctly puts zhong as "the mean."
20. This position goes back to Zheng Xuan, quoted by Kong Yingda in his Liji zhengyi (The Correct Meanings of the Book of Rite). The interpretation is supported by the earliest Chinese etymological dictionary, Shuowen jiezi, which lists "to use" as the basic sense of yong. In Chinese, the character for "to use" sounds the same as yong
21. This is held by Cheng Yi (1033-1107), a founder of neo-Confucianism, and is reported by Zhu Xi in his preface to Zhong Yong Chang-Zhu. James Legge seems to adopt this position when he translates the mean (zhongyong) in Analects 6:27 as "constant mean."
22. This is Zhu Xi's position, and is endorsed by Tu Wei-ming in his Centrality and Commonality (Albany: State University New York Press, 1989). Centrality and commonality are respectively the translations of zhong and yong. There is also the lexicon meaning of yong as "ordinary." In The Mean (chapter 13), we read: "Earnest in practicing the yong virtues, and careful in speaking about them." Here, yong should be understood as "ordinary." When Zhu Xi and Tu use yong as commonality, they tend to emphasize that the cultivation of virtue in Confucianism is not a mysterious process; it is in daily and ordinary human affairs. However, yong in this sense is frequently taken to be derogatory. For instance, a mediocre person is called yongcai (ordinary material). To a certain extent, it is the focus on this sense of yong that the mean is easily understood to be moderation
23. W D. Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen, 1964), p. 206
24. Also, Eudemian Ethics 1220b29: "In all things the mean relative to us is best."
25. Translation is from D. C. Lau, Mencius (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984)
26. Ross, p. 205
27. cf. also Hursthouse, p. 71
28. "[I]t is difficult to see how there would be anything intermediate about Intermediacy [= what I call the "outer mean"] if it were defined as Appropriateness. Fortunately there is a plausible alternative: Intermediacy is not defined as Appropriateness, but Appropriateness is the standard which, when met, produces Intermediacy" (J. David Blankenship, "Commentary on Charles M. Young's 'The Doctrine of the Mean,' " Topoi 15 [1996]: 102). But Blankenship does not explain why, when the standard of Appropriateness is meet, the outer mean must result
29. On Aristotle's side, see, Peter Losin, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (1987): 330-331, although he uses the metaphor of medicine to explain the origin of Aristotle's mean. On the Confucian side, D. C. Lau translates Analects 11:16 as "Shih overshoots the mark," although the literal version should be that "Shih goes beyond the due mean."
30. Osamu, p. 91
31. S. R. L. Clark, Aristotle's Man (London: Oxford, 1975), pp. 84-97
32. Young, p. 94
33. Blankenship, pp. 104-105
34. Urmson, p. 160
35. Aristotle himself seems to hold the trinitarian scheme too strictly, however; he attempts to carry out an architectonic project to mold mechanically a trinitarian scheme for each particular virtue. As is well discussed, this project runs into numerous difficulties. Indeed, Aristotle himself openly acknowledges the difficulty at some point. For instance, he says that justice is a mean state, but is "not in the same way as the other virtues" (NE 1133b32-2)
36. Cf. also NE 1106b16-7, 1107a2-6, 1108a31, 1109a22. Earlier in this article I mentioned that there has been a debate regarding whether Aristotle's primary interest is in the inner mean or the outer mean (cf. note 10). The remark that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean becomes the compelling reason for the position that the inner mean depends on the outer mean, and is thus derivative (see Young, p. 94). But this reading does not square with Aristotle's view that an action is virtuous only if it is issued from the inner mean. Only when what is in question is the formation of virtue does it make sense to say that the inner mean is dependent upon the outer mean. For Virtue as a mean state is cultivated out of the practices of the mean feelings and actions (1105b9-11; cf. 1103a31b5). That is, a mean state is cultivated by doing what is mean. When Aristotle says that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean, however, the context is not about the formation of virtue, and the doctrine of the mean does not seem to be about the formation of virtue as the inner mean
37. The Book of Rites, chapter 28
38. For a more detailed discussion on this issue, see Jiyuan Yu, "Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle," Philosophy East and West 48, no. 2 (1998): 323-347
39. The Confucian theory of the mean has an additional dimension that the mean is also the Dao (Way) in the world. The mean is not only the supreme virtue, but also "the great foundation of the world" (The Mean, chapter 1), that is, the Dao of Heaven. In contrast, Aristotle in his theory of the mean does not associate ethics with cosmology. Aristotle instead claims, based on his view that moral virtues are related to social habits, that the mean is relative to us. This contrast involves the relation between ethics and cosmology in Aristotelian ethics and Confucian ethics. An appropriate discussion of this contrast is beyond the scope of this article. For some related discussion, see Jiyuan Yu, "The Moral Self and the Perfect Self in Aristotle and Mencius," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 28, no. 3 (2001): 235-256
40. Yu, "Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle," p. 323