Wang Chong

This article is about the philosopher. For the director, see Wang Chong (director) .

Wang Chong ( Chinese  王充 , Pinyin Wáng Chōng , W.-G. Wang Ch'ung , * 27, † around 97) was a Chinese philosopher during the time of the Han dynasty , who developed materialistic and rationalistic teachings. His only surviving work is the Lunheng ( Chinese  論 衡 , " weighing up theories").

Life

After some quarrels, Wang Chong's ancestors moved to Zhejiang Province , where he was born , after some quarrels (his great-grandfather was said to have been a bully who even indulged in violent acts during a famine - his ancestors seemed generally known for their hot temper) . He lost his father at an early age and was considered very precocious and talented. He received his first lessons at the age of 6, and at 8 he went to a public school. He studied very diligently and later studied in Luoyang . His main teacher was the historian Ban Biao . He read a lot, but he was poor and could only afford a few books. So he often walked into the marketplace and shops and read the books that were on sale. In this way he acquired a great deal of knowledge and developed a passion for discussions, which should bring him some difficulties in his later civil service career. After completing his studies, he returned to his homeland and led a rather lonely life as a teacher. He slowly began to work his way up the career ladder, but had some difficulties because of the aforementioned desire to discuss and his disobedience to the authorities. The highest office he held was that of sub-prefect in Anhui in AD 86 - but he ended his career two years later, probably for health reasons. He also tried several times to attract the emperor's attention, but he did not succeed either with proposals to fight a famine or with his pamphlet against alcoholism . The emperor only became aware of him very late on a recommendation from a friend of Wang Chong; however, he had to decline the position offered to him because of his poor health. In his last years he also wrote a book on macrobiotics, which, however, has not survived. He died around AD 97, the exact date is not known.

philosophy

Wang Chong is difficult to assign to a particular philosophical school or direction. Feng Youlan - one of the most important Chinese philosophers of the 20th century - placed him “in the tradition of the late-man 'old text school', although he - a skepticist and iconoclast that he was - also occupies a somewhat isolated position from the from he did not leave Confucianism unscathed. He was repeatedly celebrated as a particularly progressive, 'materialistic' figure. " Wimmer describes him as a critic of tradition and a naturalist and says that he" cannot actually be called a skeptic, at least not in the sense that they do Term used in Greek philosophy for Sextus Empiricus or for Pyrrhon von Elis . "

Tradition and other philosophers

At the time of Wang Chong, belief in ghosts and superstitions was widespread. and mystical interpretations of Confucianism, which had become the state religion, were also the order of the day. He wanted to fight against this and tried to find natural explanations for natural phenomena. He also criticized other philosophers and only developed his own philosophy in the Lunheng through criticism of other thinkers and of traditional opinions . In this sense he was almost a kind of eclectic, he had read many philosophers and scholars, took up some of their theses, and criticized others.

Starting point of his philosophy

Even if Wang Chong was critical of the tradition that has been handed down, he remained primarily bound by terminology. He draws on the distinction between yin and yang and on the concept of qi . Qi can be translated with breath, breath, life force, energy, fluidum (perhaps similar to the ancient Greek pneuma ), and Qi is in everything that is. Yin (the coarser fluid, water, earth, etc.) and Yang (the finer fluid, fire, sky, etc.) develop out of the chaos, the original fluid is thus split into two substances.

Forke describes his philosophy, which at first glance may seem like a dualism , as a materialistic monism , since it materializes everything, even fate, which has a special position, and compares it with the philosophy of Epicurus and Lucretius in European antiquity , as well as that of the Charvakas in India.

Heaven and Earth

Heaven and earth are the starting points of Wang Chong's thinking. The sky is nothing strange and diffuse, it has a certain distance to the earth, which is why it also appears as if it is curved. In reality it is flat and revolves around the earth from east to west, whereas the earth remains rigid in its position and forms the center of the universe. The movement of the sky is an emission of the heavenly fluid and happens spontaneously.

Spontaneity is very important in Wang Chong's conception. Movements of nature are not guided by anything, they happen spontaneously. There is no conscious activity of nature.

"By the fusion of the fluids of Heaven and Earth all things of the world are produced spontaneously, just as by the mixture of the fluids of husband and wife children are born spontaneously"

In the Chinese tradition, heaven was often worshiped as a kind of deity, given human attributes, and worshiped. For Wang Chong he is just a substance and he rejects all anthropomorphisms . In general, the human being is indeed the noblest living being, but only one living being among many, and he was neither created out of intent, nor is the world specially set up for him.

Despite his critical thinking, he did not throw everything that was handed down in the tradition overboard: he believed in fate and predestination, but what he seems to mean by fate is not divine providence, since he does not recognize a higher being either.

Wang Chong cannot fundamentally question the belief in spirits, but he denies the immortality of the soul, denies that people become spirits after death:

“Man receives his life through the seed essences (jingqi), when he dies, these seed essences are destroyed. They can work [only] in the bloodstream. But when a person dies, the blood circulation stops, when it stops, the seed essences are destroyed, when they are destroyed, the body disintegrates, and when it disintegrates, it turns into dust and ashes - how should one Spirit arise? "

Wang Chong was evidently a very astute observer of natural phenomena. He also claimed that the reality is simply sitting in the room and thinking about it, and cannot be understood. Thus, although science in China was little advanced in his day and therefore many of his views may still appear quite naive today, he found some highly interesting explanations for natural phenomena. He meant that rain is not produced by the sky, but that the moisture of the earth rises and becomes fog or clouds and then falls down on the earth: in summer as rain or dew, in winter as snow or frost.

ethics

There is little to be found in the Lunheng on ethics ; Wang Chong probably wrote more about it in one of the lost books.

In his conception, all people are endowed with the same heavenly fluid (they are “filled” with it at birth), but they have it in different quantities. This creates different characters.

The life force encloses the five phases (wŭxíng) of the Chinese natural philosophy: water, fire, wood, metal, earth. These form the five organs of the human body, which are the heart, liver, stomach, lungs and kidneys. These organs in turn are the seat of the five virtues: goodness, justice, adequacy / propriety, knowledge and truthfulness. A smaller amount of life force causes a smaller organ, from which it follows that the corresponding virtue is also less developed. His remarks on the virtues are rather cryptic, but he thinks that cultivating the virtues is better than worshiping any kind of spirits that cannot help us after all. However, it seems that he generally united the Confucian ethics with his system.

With regard to the question often asked in Chinese tradition, whether human nature is good or bad, Wang Chong takes a middle position and points out that the positions of Mencius (man is naturally good) and Xunzi (man is inherently bad) are too extreme. He himself thinks that there are such and such, and that people can change in the course of their lives. In principle, good people can also become bad in the company of bad, and vice versa.

effect

At first he was rather unknown, but then - even towards the end of his life - he was recognized as a great thinker. Whether he really got over the teachings he criticized is debatable. Nevertheless, his thinking was probably a pioneer of the rationalistic, naturalistic and materialistic philosophy, of great importance for the later intellectual China.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Translation of the book title based on Bauer 2001, p. 136
2. ↑ Forke 1962 (1907), pp. 4-8
3. ↑ Bauer 2001, p. 136
4. ↑ [1]
5. ↑ especially Confucius, whom on the one hand he admired, on the other hand he criticized, which earned him quite a bit of criticism - Forke 1962, p. 11, p. 37
6. ↑ Unger 2000, p. 45
7. ↑ Forke 1962, p. 13
8. ↑ Lun-hêng, Chapter III - Spontaneity; Forke 1962, p. 92
9. ↑ Bauer 2001, p. 137f; in Lun-hêng as chapter 15 "On Death" - Forke 1962, p. 191
10. ↑ Hou Jueliang: The ancient Chinese philosophers: The materialist Wang Chong . In: China under construction, No. 4, 1998 . chinatoday.com.cn. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
11. ↑ Forke 1962, p.
12. ↑ Forke 1962, p. 35
13. ↑ Forke 1962, p. 36
14. ↑ [2]

literature

• Lun-hêng. Philosophical Essays of Wang Ch'ung - translated from the Chinese and annotated by Alfred Forke . New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962.
• Wolfgang Bauer : History of Chinese Philosophy. Munich: CH Beck, 2001.
• Ulrich Unger : Basic concepts of ancient Chinese philosophy. Darmstadt: Scientific Book Society, 2000.
• Timoteus Pokora : The Necessity of a more Thorough Study of Philosopher Wang Ch'ung and of his Predecessors, Archiv orientální 1962.
• Timoteus Pokora: The Works of Wang Ch'ung. Archives orientální 1968.

Web links

• History, science and philosophy of the Han period by Franz Martin Wimmer
• Brief overview of Wang Chong's life and work