Intentionality of Cheng(誠): Toward an Organic View

Table of Contents

[1] Intentionality Principle, Divisional or Organic?
[2] A Conception of Cheng(誠)
[3] The Failings of the Physicalistic World View
[4] An Informational View of the World Holistic
Bibliography
Notes


[1] Intentionality Principle, Divisional or Organic?

The notion of intentionality[1] 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 either reducible to some physical states or explainable in terms of some
physical language.

Which is more plausible? Physicalism, on the one hand, is
attractive as a philosophical world view but it raises more philosophical
problems than it solves. On the other hand, dualism is useful in explaining
much of human mental life but is not effective enough in explaining what is
to be an acceptable relationship between mind and matter.

Is there any other alternative? Where can we look for one? We
know that Asian tradition is full of organic world views. I am inclined to
think that one alternative world view may come from this background. This
paper tries to show that the notion of cheng(誠) intentionality is such a
candidate.

I will advance a thesis in this paper that cheng(誠) intentionality is
holistic. The notion is not only applicable to humans but also to other
phenomena. This may seem indistinguishable from physicalism in its
monistic settings. Since I believe that the notion of cheng(誠) is more
persuasive in explaining mental phenomena in evolutionary terms, I would
argue here that the thesis can also be supported by some notions like
that an information is a syntactical structure which reflects physical states
and that the physicalisitic view of the world is not sufficient.


[2] A Conception of Cheng(誠)

'Cheng(誠)' means moderation, rectitude, propriety, equilibrium,
lack of prejudice, objectivity, honesty, sincerity, devotion,
truthfulness, true heart; being respectful, honoring, making it true, being
careful about one's words. On the surface, the word seems to mean
many different things. But this impression may be weakened if one takes a
look at the root of the word. Cheng(誠) consists of two components,
yan(言) and chheng(成). ‘Yan(言)’ literally means language, metaphoric
principle or objective, whereas 'chheng(成)' connotes fulfillment, realization,
or arrival. Yet the notion of cheng(誠) remains a complex one as many
important notions are. 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) is certainly one of some key concepts in
Confucianism as one can see when Tzu Ssu regarded it as the central
theme of Confucian thought. It was highlighted in The Doctrine of the
Mean(中庸, Zhong yong),[2] one of four Confucian texts. Some scholars
interpreted 'cheng(誠)' anthropologically[3], limiting the notion exclusively to
that of devotion, sincerity, existential human being.

But my reading of the text points to a different direction. Two of
many texts which can support my reading are: "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)". Then the notion of cheng(誠) can be translated from the text
inclusively[4] as a notion of integration.[5] The following statement is what
we can arrive at by summing up those ideas in terms of integration:

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.

What is integration? It may be seen from a third person point of
view, taking it to mean 'harmonizing' of two or more others and this is
sometimes called 'syncretism'. But I would, in this context, suggest that
integration is one's own bringing of elements of other systems together
into one's own body or system. The exegesis of the word ‘integration'
from the first person point of view may be seen as 'adjustment' or
'growing'. Integration is not an activity of some third party but that of the
one who attempts it himself. What one may call an "integrator" is
everywhere and all things in the world are integrators which
process informations given by their surroundings. The Cartesian tradition
used to call this integrator "mind" by limiting the scope of its function to
only humans, but the Confucian tradition(性卽理) calls "mind" any agent
that does integrate. This is another element of the notion of cheng(誠)
which can be expressed in the following statement:

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.

The difference between the two traditions is obvious. Cartesian
scholars think that they can see the distinction between thought and
matter. It is possible, they thought, to think that humans can exist without
body but impossible to think that humans can exist without thinking. The
body is contingent on the human but thought is not. They apply this logic
to other things to conclude that the human is a thinking being but other,
non-human things are not. Dualism is thought to obtain thereby. But the
Cartesian modal argument is flawed in that it is only in the actual world that
an embodied person thinks. Is there any criterion of identity to distinguish
persons without bodies who thinks? Confucian students entertain an
organic view of the world, holding a thesis of continuity between human
and all other things.

2.3 cheng(誠) is a power of mind not only of human but also of all other things.
The continuity thesis is strengthened when evolution theory is
presented as an option for the explanation of the origin of species.
Suppose that the theory is taken as a hypothesis. Then, one is forced to
accept not only the evolution of our bodies but also that of our minds. We
are in a position to see that human history is continuous with the histories
of other entities.

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.

The evolution theory is apparently an optimistic one. This is
perhaps because it was developed from the view point of the survivors of
that processes. Certainly, there have been struggles and pains in the
processes of evolution. But the wholesome results of the evolutionary
processes in nature is such that survivors have become organically related
with each other. When we come to see nature from this perspective, we
can't help but perceive an eventual harmony in it, perhaps a cosmic
harmony. The notion of cheng(誠) expresses such an internalistic
optimism:

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.[6]


[3] The Failings of the Physicalistic World View

I want to argue that Cheng(誠) intentionality may allow a basis
upon which to build an organic view of the world and, at the same time, to
replace the physicalistic point of view. Why do we need to reconsider
physicalism? There are several reasons.

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.

Physicalism assumes that there is one clear language which is
physical. For an example, many physicalists employ the notion of cause as
one standard whether a certain description is physical or not. If an event is
describable in terms of causation it is regarded as a physical event.[7] In
other words, if an event under a certain description can enter into some
causal relations with other events, then that description of the event counts
as physical.

But this criterion is problematic. For it is impossible to dictate
one causal description to any event or any object. For any description in a
final analysis is an interpretation. For an example, Brutus' killing Caesar
and Brutus' stabbing Caesar may be taken as one and the same physical
event but are given to us under two different psychological descriptions.
To explain why Brutus killed caesar may not be the same as to explain why
Brutus stabbed Caesar.[8] Likewise, as it is well discussed, my turning on
the light and my alerting a thief may be counted as the same physical
event. But my turning on the light causes the room to be illuminated but my
alerting a thief does not.

If there is not a single condition for an entity to satisfy in order to
be physical, could the physicalism be stated in a physical language? If a
physical language is not obtainable what could one think the physicalism is
like?

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?

One further 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? This discussion on the relationship
of the two will continue in the next section.

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] An Informational View of the World Holistic

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 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.[9] 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.

F. Dretske ignores the ultimate difference between representations,
both artificial and natural. The former can be reduced to the latter which,
he thinks, is basic. He is ceratin that human mental content is thus
explained in his naturalistic terms. This representation results from its
dependence relationship[10] with the state of affairs in which it is found. Then
this natural representaion will be seen in human physiology, which is what
he calls a 'proto-belief'. His dependence relationship is eventually found to
be informational.

R.G. Millikan's strategy is evolutionary rather than causalistic.[11]
She thinks that proper functions and their teleology of biological beings
have been determined. That is, when we humans think in the way we do
what is involved in that thinking processes is determined evolutionarily
rather than in some mysterious way. For her, procedures to use
representations are the same as ways to represent and to determine the
representational contents.

D.J. Chalmers[12] goes further than Dretske by suggesting some
form of pan-psychism. Here rocks don't have a system of information
processing and thus have neither consciousness nor experience. But when
rocks are inflated or deflated they are in informational states which include
a system of quasi-consciousness. These may not be phenomenal qualia
but some proto-phenomenal qualia.

These three philosophers[13] have distinct ways of formulating their
own naturalism as to mental content. Their versions of naturalsim are not
fully worked out yet as has been pointed out.[14] But they seem to share the
belief that human intentionality is not a basis by which one can show that
human is essentially different from all other animals. To varying degrees,
I would believe, they are evolutionary, weakly or strongly, in explaining the
issue of human intentionality.

The evolutionary thesis may be criticized in that it is optimistic. For
it appears that human species are placed at the apex of the evolutionary
process. To my mind the appearance is not mistaken. For evolution and
devolution are not some physiological states which are independent of
description. They are rather described from the perspective of the survivors
of evolution. The notion of evolution may not carry with it the explicit thesis
that what has survived is for the better but the implicit thesis that those
which have survived are the fitter.[15]

Bibliography

Chalmers, David J., The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental
Theory, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chung, Daihyun, Embodied Mental Content, Seoul: Acanet, 2001(In Korean).
Confucius(孔子), Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the
Mean(論語 Lun yu, 大學 Da xue, 中庸 Zhong yong, ), tr. James
Legge, Dover, 1971, Clarendon, 1893.
Davidson, Donald, "Causal Relations", 149-162; "Mental Events", 207-224;
both in Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
Dretske, Fred, Explaining Behaviour: Reasons in a World of Causes, MIIT Press, 1988.
Lee, Gyusung, "Sincerety", Wang Sungsan's Philosophy of Becoming,
Ewha Womans University Press, 2002(In Korean).
Lee, Kangsoo, "Philosophy of Human in Zhong yong", Understanding of
Ancient Chines Philosophy, Seoul: Jisiksanupsa, 2003(In Korean).
Lee, Sangun, Life and Learning of Togegye, Seoul: Somoondang, 1973(In Korean).
Lee, Seungchong. "Intentionality and Method(In Korean)", Philosophical
Issues in Korea, ed., Korean Philosophical Association, Seoul:
Chulhakgwa Hyunsilsa, 2000.
Legge, James, "Translator's Introduction" in Confucius, Analects, The
Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, Dover, 1971, Clarendon, 1893.
Kim, Jaegwon, "On the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory", American
Philosophical Quarterly, 3(1966).
Millikan, Ruth Garrett, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice,
MIT Press, 1993.
Park, Jonghong, "Thoughts of Zhong yong", Complete Works of Jonghong
Park, Vol. 3, Hyungsul Pub. Co., 1982.
Searle, John & John Perry, "Intentionality", A Companion to the
Philosophy of Mind, ed., S. Guttenplan, Blackwell, 1994.
Shannon, C. E., "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", Bell Systems
Technical Journal, Volume 27(1948).7-85.
Yoon, Bosuk, "Intentionality and Naturalism(In Korean)", Philosophical
Naturalism, ed., Korean Society of Analytic Philosophy, Seoul:
Chulhakgwa Hyunsilsa, 1995.
Yoon, Sa-soon, "Modern Value of the Confucianist Ideal in 'Realizing Self
and Realizing Others(成己成物)'", Study of Confucian Thoughts,
Volume 26(2006): 5-19(In Korean).


Notes

[1] For contemporary discussions of the notion, see John Searle & John Perry, "Intentionality", A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed., S. Guttenplan(Blackwell, 1994), 379-386, 386-395; Seungchong Lee, "Intentionality and Method(In Korean)", Philosophical Issues in Korea, ed., Korean Philosophical Association(Seoul: Chulhakgwa Hyunsilsa, 2000).
[2]Confucius(孔子), Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean(論語 Lun yu, 大學 Da xue, 中庸 Zhong yong, ), tr. James Legge(1815-1897, Dover, 1971, Clarendon, 1893).
[3]James Legge(1971), Jonghong Park(1980), "Thoughts of Zhong yong", Complete Works of Jonghong Park, Vol. 3, 612, 620, 608-20(In Korean); Sangun Lee, Life and Learning of Togegye(Seoul: Somoondang, 1973, In Korean).
[4] 4) Sa-soon Yoon(2006), "Modern Value of the Confucianist Ideal in 'Realizing Self and Realizing Others(成己成物)'", Study of Confucian Thoughts, Volume 26(2006): 5-19(In Korean); Kangsoo Lee(2003), "Philosophy of Human in Zhong yong", Understanding of Ancient Chines Philosophy(Seoul: Jisiksanupsa, 2003), 103-111(In Korean); Gyusung Lee(2001), "Sincerety", Wang Sungsan's Philosophy of Becoming( Ewha Womans University Press, 2002, In Korean), 240-243.
[5] 5) Professor Kwangse Lee of Kent State University suggested the translation in a conversation years ago.
[6] The notion of Cheng(誠) does not exclude elements of conflicts. It rather requires the process of sharp complains or great earthquakes if necessary before it eventually arrives at the stage of peace or harmony.
[7]Donald Davidson, "Causal Relations", 149-162; "Mental Events", 207-224; both in Essays on Actions and Events(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
[8]Jaegwon Kim, "On the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory", American Philosophical Quarterly, 3(1966): 277-85.
[9]C. E. Shannon, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", Bell Systems Technical Journal, Volume 27(1948).
[10]The dependence relation between representation and states of affiars is not the relation between tokens c and f, but between types C and F. Then, an occurrence of token c indicates a token f but this token indication is not necessary. And the context may affect the indication relation and misrepresentation is allowed. Fred Dretske, Explaining Behaviour: Reasons in a World of Causes( MIIT Press, 1988).
[11]Ruth Garrett Millikan, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice(MIIT Press, 1993).
[12]David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory( New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
[13]Daihyun Chung, Embodied Mental Content(Seoul: Acanet, 2001, In Korean), 169-240.
[14]Bosuk Yoon, "Intentionality and Naturalism(In Korean)", Philosophical Naturalism, ed., Korean Society of Analytic Philosopy(Seoul: Chulhakgwa Hyunsilsa, 1995), 203-214.
[15]A draft of this paper was read at the Seoul Conference of Asian Philosophy , organized by Korean Philosophical Association, June 1-2, 2007 at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea, and this is to be published in 2008 at Philosophy and Culture: Metaphysics, Korean Philosophical Association.

*Daihyun Chung, “Intentionality of Cheng(誠): Toward an Organic View”, Philosophy and Culture: Volume 2 Metaphysics, Korean Philosophical Association, 2007: 33-40.