Intentionality of Cheng(誠): Toward an Organic View

[Abstract]

[1] The notion of intentionality has been in the center of the debate between dualism and physicalism quite some time. Dualism insists that intentionality is the mark of mental phenomena which separates humans from other animals whereas physicalism roughly claims that whatever there is is either physical or reducible to some physical state. Which is more plausible? Two positions seem to be laden with difficulties. Is there any other possible alternative? This paper tries to show that the notion of cheng(誠) intentionality is such a candidate.

[2] 'Cheng(誠)' means moderation, rectitude, propriety, equilibrium, lack of prejudice, objectivity, honesty, sincerity, devotion, being respectful, honoring, truthfulness, true heart, making it true, being careful about one's words. On the surface, the word seems to mean many different things. I would like to offer 5 propositions in order to arrive at an interpretation of cheng(誠) that I hope will render the notion more clear, coherent, and illuminating. The notion of cheng(誠) was highlighted in The Doctrine of the Mean(中庸, Zhong yong),1) one of four Confucian texts. My reading of the notion is based on the texts like the following: "cheng(誠) is the way of heaven whereas the practice of cheng(誠) is the way of the human(誠者 天之道也, 誠之者 人之道也)"; "cheng(誠) is the first and the last of all things; if there is no cheng(誠) then there is nothing(誠者 物之終始, 不誠 無物)".

2.1 The cheng(誠) of an entity is the power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others.
2.2 'Mind' refers to the ability of not a single kind of entity but to that of all entities of complex degrees in processing information.
2.3 cheng(誠) is a power of mind not only of human but also of all other things.
2.4 If evolution reflects a history of species of what is better fit
then history represents an evolution of life forms of what is intelligent and just.
2.5 Cheng(誠) is realizing what can be the best in a given situation
in which a subject is involved with its surroundings at the time.

[3] I want to argue that Cheng(誠) intentionality may have a reason to replace physicalism. First of all, physicalism requires many notions to survive as a system: reduction, supervenience, the closure principle, and causation, among others. But these notions assume that there are at least two kinds of language, mental and physical. For example, in order to reduce a mental concept to a physical one, there must be some parallel, if not isomorphic, structure between the mental language and the physical language. If one has to allow such a structure then isn't so-called "phyicalism" a disguised form of dualism? If reduction is real in one direction so must it be in the other. If reduction is to be real, first the reducer and the reduced must be real as well.
Suppose that physicalism is granted. One question among many is concerned with the relation of logic and nature. Is a rock purely an aggregate of material elements? How is the rock different from a rose which should be another aggregate of material elements? One is naturally inclined to admit that rocks and roses are constituted differently. But exactly what is the difference between the two consittutions? When they expand, contract, or grow aren't they in a type of informational states?
Physicalism faces another challenge. It can be stated as follows: if the body is a product of evolution, so must be the mind. One may be tempted to deny the consequent in the conditional. Then how could he or she remain intact without having to deny the antecedent? Of course there is one option for the physicalist. It is to deny the reality of the mental. Is there any other possibility?

[4] There seems to be two versions of the informational view of the world. One is that everything humans see and experience is a text to be interpreted. This may be called "an epistemic version" which has been developed eventually from the Kantian transcendental theory of knowledge. The other is that anything which exists in the world, whether it be sand, a plant, or a bird, constitutes a system which interacts informationally with systems of other things.2) A stone or a flower receives a variety of appropriate in-put from its surroundings and gives relevant out-put. This is "a processing version" which I would like to focus on. For I came to believe that this version allows a clear explanation of the continuity of humans and all other things in the world.
One question is what is the structure of these informational states which make rocks and roses different. Shouldn't we allow that they are programmed differently, that they possess a different logic? Then, are the programs and logic of these things physical or mental? Is a phyisicalist prepared to say that they are material?3)

Daihyun Chung
Ewha Womans University, South Korea
chungdhn@ewha.ac.kr