Mencius and Early Chinese Thought.

• Author: Geaney, Jane M.
• Position: Review

By KWON-LOI SHUN. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. 295. $45.

Although "ethics" does not appear in the title, Kwong-Loi Shun's Mencius and Early Chinese Thought is an analysis of ethics in the Mencius. Shun's goal is to "further our understanding of the Confucian perspective on the ethical life" (p. 8). His painstakingly careful presentation of passages of Mencian ethics certainly achieves this aim.

The book is the first of a projected three-volume set. It is to be followed by another, similarly philological, volume and a final volume devoted to philosophical issues. Shun's topics include yi (tentatively glossed as "propriety") and its relation to hsin (heart/mind), hsing (tentatively glossed as "nature, characteristic tendencies"), self-cultivation, and the ethical ideal. The bulk of Shun's work involves an impressive amount of research and systematic line-by-line analysis. In the case of disputed passages, he supplies a thorough exploration of optional readings, accompanied by copious notes on other scholars' opinions.

Shun's method is one of the few things in this book that seems questionable. He privileges interpretations that either make Mencius (the person) as coherent as possible or that make the text itself an argument for a single (not necessarily as coherent) position. But since language is social, an interpretive method must maximize coherence over a whole period of use, not just over a single text. Shun's approach risks making the Mencius coherent at the expense of other texts in the period. Yet, in some cases, it does produce interesting readings. For instance, in his interpretation of 6A: 1-3 and 6A:4-5, Shun's reading accounts for "all stages of the debates," which presumes the debates are related. Thus, although he admits that the debates about hsing in 6A: 1-3 do not appear to be about the relationship of yi to the heart/mind, Shun reads them in light of the debates about the internality of yi in 6A:4-5. The result is a surprisingly consistent reading of these passages, although it does have one drawback. According to this interpretation, Kao Tzu's claim that yi is external means that yi is imposed on hsing, hence hsing itself is not good. However, as Shun notes, contrary to expectations, the reverse does not quite apply to Kao Tzu's view of the internality of jen. That is, according to Shun, the fact that Kao Tzu thinks that jen is internal does not necessarily mean it belongs to hsing (since this could...