Things, order, and the resurgence of contingency: Xiong Bolong 熊伯龍 (1617–1670) and his Wuhe ji 無何集

ABSTRACT

In the traditional Chinese conception, ‘things’ (wu 物) serve as the fundamental ‘components’ of order. Moreover, it is through things and their changes that humans can grasp moral and political norms based on the notion of resonance (ganying 感應). This implies that human society and the world of things are necessarily interconnected. In opposition to this view of order Xiong Bolong 熊伯龍 (1617–1670) in his work Wuhe ji 無何集 (Collected Passages on Being without Causes) critiqued the notion of resonance and arrived at a more ‘disenchanted’ approach to ‘things’ by incorporating the idea of contingency from Wang Chong’s 王充 (27–c. 97) philosophical thought. However, Xiong’s view of order full of contingency does not entirely diverge from the traditional mainstream Chinese view, because in his world of thought, a belief in the underlying necessity of a perfect order within the holistic arrangement of myriad things including humans remained.

KEYWORDS:

• Xiong Bolong
• Wang Chong
• Wuhe ji
• things (wu 物)
• contingency
• resonance (ganying 感應)

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Bart Dessein and Dr. Ady Van den Stock for providing detailed comments on the draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Joseph Needham (1956) notes that ‘the key-word in Chinese thought is Order and above all Pattern (and, if I may whisper it for the first time, Organism)’ (p. 281). Needham’s understanding of ‘order’ is influenced by Leibniz and Granet. See Needham (1956, pp. 339, 502).

2. Sarah Allan (1997) states that ‘Heaven and earth are also wu, but they are unlike the “myriad” wu in that they do not reproduce (“generate”) themselves’ (p. 100).

3. Needham uses the Wade—Giles transcription, but I have replaced those terms with the Hanyu Pinyin transcription. Henceforth, in the article, the Pinyin transcription is used for all terms, including some English terms related to Pinyin.

4. See Zhang et al. (1980, 1983), Tang (1980), Sun and Qian (1981), Lu (1981), Jiang (1981), Wang (1982, pp. 287–298, 1992), Luo (1989).

5. See Hou (2011, pp. 23–32).

6. See Tang (1980, p. 18). However, Lu’s (1981) article opposes the views of others. He notes that ‘the Wuhe ji does not provide new ideas and fails to make new breakthroughs in improving the understanding of atheism’ (p. 50). In Lu’s view, Xiong Bolong is not an ‘enlightener’, but a ‘guardian (of Confucianism)’. Lu’s rebuttal does not go beyond the old research paradigm, and his argument still uses the standard of ‘Enlightenment’ to judge the value of Xiong’s thought.

7. Shao’s book Lunheng yanjiu 論衡研究 (A Study of the Lunheng) contains a quite detailed chapter describing the evaluations of the Lunheng over the past two thousand years. As for the positioning of the Lunheng in Qing dynasty intellectual circles, see Shao (2009, p. 209). Prior to Shao, Huang (1990, ‘Preface’, p. 4) has roughly depicted the history of the evaluations of the Lunheng.

8. Yang (1957), in terms of Dong Zhongshu’s 董仲舒 (179–104 BCE) thought, suggests that ‘the belief in natural or divine retribution’ is ‘a deep-rooted tradition in Chinese religion’ (p. 298).

9. Regarding the spread of books on morality in the Qing dynasty, see Brokaw (1991).

10. Lu (1981) has noted that Xiong realized the possibility of using resonance to rebel against the rulers (p. 55).

11. For details on the process of ‘meeting’ between Xiong and the Lunheng, see Xiong (1979, p. 8).

12. The English-translated passages of Lunheng in this article have been revised by the author based on Forke’s (1962a, 1962b) translation.

13. In fact, both Wang and Xiong realized that gaining information through ears and eyes is not sufficient. They, like Xunzi, emphasized the importance of ‘heart-mind’ (xin 心) in the process of gaining information. See Xiong (1979, p. 341).

14. Needham (1956) has cited Wang Chong’s rebuttal (pp. 265–266).

15. Zou Yan’s five-phase theory is recorded in the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals). For the translation of this passage, see Joseph Needham (1956, p. 238).

16. According to Huang (1990), the character shang 商 should be shi 適 which means ‘occasional’ (p. 713).

17. McLeod (2018) points out that understanding Wang’s philosophy in terms of ‘naturalism’ is uninformative. This is because Wang did reject the operation of immaterial entities such as ghosts, spirits, and the efficacy of (transcendent) divination, and held that the patterns of nature in general are the same as the patterns of human life, but these ideas were really no different than most of the Chinese philosophers of Wang’s age (p. 181).

18. Huang’s view is fully espoused by Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962) (1998, pp. 643–645).

19. In addition to ‘luck’ and ‘chance’, there are also ‘time’ (shi 時) and ‘contingencies’ (zao 遭) that convey a similar meaning in Wang Chong’s thought. Regarding the puny difference between them, see Needham (1956, p. 385).

20. Xiong’s quotations have some slight difference from the original text of the Lunheng. For these quotations, see Xiong (1979, pp. 27–28).

21. Regarding Wang Chong’s perspective on the absence of purposefulness in Heaven, McLeod (2018) suggests that Wang Chong’s argument lacks persuasiveness. According to McLeod, Wang used the example of an action of spontaneous generation, the birth of a child from the combination of sperm and egg, as an explanation of spontaneous action. Yet, the generation of children is the act of agents-two people may have engaged in sexual act with the intention of creating a child. Wang neglected an initial intention connected to a relevant action in a chain of causes, so his argument is weak (pp. 192–195).

22. For a detailed discussion on the concept of ‘organism’, see Needham (1956, pp. 286–287).

23. The view linking the Lunheng and the Xunzi was not a single case in the Qing dynasty. Yun Jing 惲敬 (1757–1817) (2010) also noted that the styles of the Lunheng and the Xunzi are similar, and their ideas are close to the orthodox Dao.

24. Wang interpreted the viewpoint in Mencius that says ‘search for it, keeping with the Dao; attain it, depending on destiny’ 求之有道，得之有命 as ‘with a good human nature one can struggle for it, with a good destiny one can obtain it’ 性善乃能求之，命善乃能得之 (Huang, 1990, p. 51).

25. In Needham’s (1956) words, ‘it may turn out to be one of the paradoxes of the history of science in China that individual judicial astrology was founded by the greatest sceptic of them all’ (pp. 384–385).

26. Chan translated the character shen 神 into ‘supernatural’, but according to Needham’s (1956) view, Chan’s understanding may be a little dogmatical (p. 377, footnote c). Also, I revised the word ‘ruler’ to a plural.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by a scholarship from China Scholarship Council, with File No. [202007650031].