philosophical movement called "Study of the Way," often known as
Neo-Confucianism. One of the most distinctive features of many of
these new ways of thought being formulated at the time was an
increased interest in metaphysics, usually influenced by the Classic
of Changes (Yijing). Zhang's most significant contributions to Chinese
philosophy were primarily in the area of metaphysics, where he came up
with a new theory of qi that was very influential. He is also credited
with differentiating original nature and physical nature, which was to
become a key concept in the most prominent Song philosophers, the
Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi). Ethically, his most influential
doctrines were found in the brief essay "Western Inscription," where
he propounded the ideas of being one body with all things and
universal caring. After his death, most of his disciples were absorbed
into the Cheng brothers' school and his thought become known primarily
through the efforts of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, who honored
Zhang as one of the founders of the Study of the Way.
1. Life and Work
Zhang Zai is also known as Zhang Hengqu, after the town where he grew
up and later did much of his teaching. He was born in 1020 and died in
1077. As a youth he was interested in military affairs, but began
studying the Confucian texts on the recommendation of an important
official who was impressed with Zhang's abilities. Like most of the
Song philosophers, Zhang was initially dissatisfied with Confucian
thought and studied Buddhism and Daoism for several years. Eventually,
however, he decided that the Way was not to be found in Buddhism or
Daoism and returned to Confucian texts. This acquaintance with the
other major ways of thought was to have significant influence on
Zhang's own views. According to tradition, around 1056 Zhang sat on a
tiger skin in the capital and lectured on the Classic of Changes. It
may have been during this period that he first became acquainted with
the Cheng brothers, who were actually his younger cousins. After
passing the highest level of the civil service examinations, he held a
series of minor government posts.
In 1069 Zhang was recommended to the emperor and given a position in
the capital, but not long after he ran into conflict with the prime
minister and retired home to Hengqu, where he spent his time in
retirement studying and teaching. This was probably his most
productive period for developing and spreading his own philosophy. In
1076 he completed his most important work, Correcting Ignorance, and
presented it to his disciples. "Western Inscription" was originally
part of this longer work. That same year he was summoned back to the
capital and restored to an important position. However, in the winter
he became ill and resigned again to try to convalesce at home. He
never reached home, dying on the road in 1077. Zhang was awarded a
posthumous title in 1220 and enshrined in the Confucian temple in
1241. Many of Zhang's writings have been lost. Zhu Xi collected
selections of Zhang's writings in his anthology of Song Study of the
Way known as Reflections on Things at Hand. His most important
surviving works are probably his commentary on the Changes and
Correcting Ignorance.
2. Metaphysics
Zhang Zai's metaphysics is largely based on the Classic of Changes,
especially one of the commentaries, "Appended Remarks," traditionally
attributed to Confucius. According to Zhang, all things of the world
are composed of a primordial substance called qi. Qi is sometimes
translated as "substance," "matter," or "material force, but there is
really no term in English that can capture its meaning for Zhang. Qi
originally meant "breath" and is a very old concept in Chinese
culture, particularly medicine. For Zhang, qi includes matter and the
forces that govern interactions between matter, yin and yang. In its
dispersed, rarefied state, qi is invisible and insubstantial, but when
it condenses it becomes a solid or liquid and takes on new properties.
All material things are composed of condensed qi: rocks, trees, even
people. There is nothing that is not qi. Thus, in a real sense,
everything has the same essence, an idea which has important ethical
implications.
Zhang believed that qi is never created or destroyed; the same qi goes
through a continuous process of condensation and dispersion. He
compared it to water: water in liquid form or frozen into ice is still
the same water. Similarly, condensed qi which forms things or
dispersed qi is still the same substance. Condensation is theyin force
of qi and dispersion is the yang force. In its wholly dispersed state,
Zhang refers to qi as the Great Vacuity, a term he adopted from the
Zhuangzi. He emphasized that though this qi is insubstantial, it still
exists, and thus is very different from the Buddhist concept of
emptiness. Whereas Buddhists argued that the fact that everything
changes shows it has no essence and is unreal, Zhang argued that the
very fact that it changes proves it is real. Everything that is real
is composed of qi, and since qi always changes, anything real must
change. Although the Great Vacuity always exists, the particular qi
that is dispersed into the Great Vacuity at any time is not the same,
which allows Zhang to assert both that qi always changes and the Great
Vacuity always remains. There is no such thing as creation ex nihilo
for Zhang, an idea he attributes to both Buddhists and Daoists.
Qi begins dispersed and undifferentiated in the Great Vacuity and
through condensation forms material things. When these material things
pass away, their qi disperses and rejoins the Great Vacuity to begin
the process again. What looks like creation and destruction is just
the never-ending movements of qi. These processes of condensation and
dispersion have no outside cause; they are just part of the nature of
qi. Zhang wholly naturalized the workings of qi and rejected any idea
of an anthropomorphic Heaven that controlled things. While the Classic
of Changes talked of the workings of ghosts and spirits, he
reinterpreted these terms to mean the extending and receding of qi
from and back to the Great Vacuity. It is all a naturally occurring
process.
Unlike later thinkers like the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, the concept
of pattern (li, also translated as "principle") is not that important
in Zhang's philosophy. While in the thought of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi,
pattern is a transcendental universal that exists outside of qi, Zhang
denied there was anything outside of qi. He seems to use pattern to
describe the actions of qi condensing and dispersing, and for the
pattern actions should fit to be moral. It certainly has none of the
importance for Zhang that it did for some of his successors. Zhu Xi
criticized Zhang for this, saying that qi was not enough to explain
the workings of the universe without pattern as well.
3. Human Nature and Ethics
Mencius's belief that human nature is good, and his theory of qi
allowed him to come up with what became the definitive Song answer to
a classic problem in Mencius' thought: if human nature is good, what
makes people bad? Zhang's solution involved positing two ways of
looking at nature: the original nature and nature embodied in qi.
Zhang claimed original nature exists forever in unchanging perfection,
as opposed to material things which decay and die. This raises the
question of what original nature consists of, since Zhang has claimed
that everything is qi and qi always changes. He is not very clear on
this point, but he apparently identified original nature with the
undifferentiated qi of the Great Vacuity. When qi condenses to form
human beings, each somehow retains some of the character of the unity
of the Great Vacuity (or Great Harmony, as he sometimes calls it).
This is the original nature, and that is what is good.
However, human beings also have a nature embodied in qi, which Zhang
calls physical nature. Being ordinary qi, physical nature changes,
eventually dissipating upon death. Zhang theorized that the physical
nature obscures the original nature, preventing it from being
fulfilled, and this is what causes people to stray from the path of
goodness. At one point, he stated that if clear yang qi formed the
greater part of physical nature one's moral capacities would function,
but if turbid yin qi dominated, material desires would hold sway.
However, it is unclear whether he meant all yang qi was clear and all
yin qi was turbid, and he often seems to attach no particular moral
weight to whether qi is primarily yang (dispersed) or yin (condensed).
As we are all different individuals, we all have slightly different
physical natures. Some people are naturally bigger and stronger, some
are more generous, some are wiser. This is all a result of the
particular endowment of qi that makes up the individual, and since qi
condenses into things without cause or direction, there is no reason
an individual has the particular physical nature he starts out with:
it is just a matter of chance. What is important in terms of moral
cultivation is there is also the potential to transform one's physical
nature and fulfill one's original nature.
Zhang had a deep faith in the potential for human improvement. Like
earlier Confucian thinkers such as Mencius and Xunzi, he believed that
moral development was a matter of effort, not ability. In a departure
from his metaphysical views, where he held that qi changes naturally
with no particular rhyme or reason, he claimed that the human heart
has the capacity to alter one's own qi. One can change one's physical
nature in order to fulfill one's original nature. If that were not
possible, goodness would be a matter of chance, being born with the
right kind of qi. Zhang said that only the qi of life span, which
determines whether one dies young or lives to an old age, cannot be
changed. This was Zhang's attack on longevity-oriented Daoists, who
taught techniques that promised to increase one's life span or even
confer immortality. Undoubtedly, part of the goal of Zhang's theory of
qi and physical nature was to refute Buddhist and Daoist
teachings.Many Song and Ming thinkers, such as Zhu Xi and Wang
Yangming, identified desires as one of the main obstacles to moral
development. Zhang Zai was no exception to this trend, which was also
probably due to Buddhist influence. The issue of how to moderate or
channel desires had been discussed in Chinese philosophy at least
since Mencius and Xunzi, but while the earlier Confucian tradition had
emphasized finding the proper outlet to express desires and not
letting them entirely control one's actions, eliminating desires
entirely never seemed to be a real option. In Xunzi's case, at least,
he clearly denied it was possible to get rid of desires. Eliminating
desires was a main focus of Buddhism, on the other hand, and this view
of desires was adopted by many of these Study of the Way philosophers.
These thinkers focused mainly on what we might call sensual desires.
The desire to be a good person was naturally not a cause for concern,
but desires for fine clothes, good food, and sex were seen as
interfering with one's original nature. Zhang used the term "material
desires," identifying them with physical nature, so they had to be
overcome to return to one's original nature. Desires somehow arise
from the interaction of yin and yang that produces material objects,
though Zhang is none too clear exactly what this process is. The
fundamental point is that following one's desires is giving into
physical nature and regressing farther and farther away from original
goodness.
Overcoming the desires of physical nature, one progresses toward
original nature, or the heavenly within, as Zhang also put it. In
"Western Inscription" Zhang illustrated this ideal state. Putting
aside selfishness, one comes to understand the essential unity of all
things. All things are formed from the same qi, and ultimately we all
share the same substance. This was to become Zhang's most famous
ethical doctrine, the idea of forming one body with all things. As
Zhang wrote in "Western Inscription, "That which fills the universe I
regard as my body." Everyone has Heaven and Earth as their father and
mother, and thus everyone are brothers and sisters. Caring for others
is like caring for one's own family. Zhang further wrote, "Even those
who are tired, infirm, crippled, or sick; those who have no brothers
or children, wives, or husbands, are all my brothers who are in
distress and have no one to turn to." Though there are some precedents
for this idea of brotherhood in earlier Confucianism, it sounds much
more like the great compassion of Buddhism or the Mohist idea of
universal caring—Zhang even uses the same term (jian'ai). In response
to a question about this apparent slide into Mohism, Cheng Yi admitted
that "Western Inscription" went a little too far, but still defended
it as going beyond what previous sages had discussed and being as
meritorious as Mencius' idea of the goodness of human nature. Later
thinkers recognized "Western Inscription" as Zhang's greatest
contribution to the Study of the Way.
4. Moral Education and the Heart
Presaging Zhu Xi, Zhang emphasized the role of education in moral
development. Education was the way one transformed one's qi and
overcame physical nature. Following earlier philosophers such as
Confucius and Xunzi, Zhang insisted that learning should always be
directed toward moral cultivation, which in his case meant returning
to one's original nature. Knowledge was not important for its own
sake, but for its contributions to moral character. Despite this,
Zhang's own interests were fairly wide-ranging, and he was especially
interested in observing and explaining natural phenomena such as the
movements of the stars and planets. Nevertheless, he tended not to
emphasize this kind of scientific study in his writings on education,
which focused on ritual and the classical Confucian texts. Compared
with his contemporaries, Zhang placed more importance on the study of
ritual. He believed ritual derived from original nature, and following
it helps one hold onto original nature and overcome the obstructions
of physical nature. Zhang's interest in the Classic of Changes has
already been mentioned, and he also recommended studying the other
Confucian classics, the Analects, and Mencius. In contrast to some
later Study of the Way philosophers, he did not put a lot of weight on
histories, considering them inferior to the classics for helping
people transform their qi.
Though Zhang recommended reciting and memorizing these books, he still
believed that books were a means to returning to one's original
nature, not an end in themselves. Books functioned like a set of
directions: they could tell you how to get to the destination, but
they should be not confused with the destination. He felt close
reading and textual criticism was not necessary, and getting too
caught up in the meaning of a word or sentence could detract from
understanding the overall meaning. And even in the classics, not
everything should be accepted. Zhang recalled Mencius' criticism of
literal readings of the Classic of Documents and pointed out the
necessity for understanding the classics in light of one's own sense
of what is right. This seems to set up a paradox: a student needs to
study the classics to return to his original nature and know what is
right, but he needs to know what is right to properly understand the
classics.
Zhang resolved this contradiction by positing an innate moral sense in
everyone that he called "this heart," a term he apparently adopted
from the Mencius. "This heart" presumably belongs to the original
nature, and is still present even when embodied in qi, but it can be
obstructed and blocked by the physical nature. Zhang referred to this
situation as the problem of the "fixed heart" blocking "this heart."
The fixed heart means having intentions, certainty, inflexibility, and
egotism. Under these conditions, "this heart" will not function
properly and one will have difficulty understanding the classics. The
learner must get rid of the fixed heart to let "this heart" free. At
times, Zhang suggests that reading books itself helps preserve "this
heart," and it is this heart itself that understands the Way. Ritual
is perhaps more important than books. Zhang once suggested that even
the illiterate could still develop "this heart," but apparently ritual
was indispensable in overcoming the fixed heart.
Zhang also talked of "expanding the heart" and "making the heart
vast." Both these phrases mean eliminating the obstructions of the
fixed heart and putting the heart in a state where it is ready to
understand. He tended to value knowledge apprehended directly through
the heart over knowledge from sense perception. Zhang did not deny the
validity of empirical knowledge, but he believed its scope was
limited. Knowledge gained from sense perception is just knowledge of
things, not knowledge of the Way. Knowledge of the Way is knowledge
gained through the virtuous nature, not through sense perception.
"Knowledge gained through the virtuous nature" is another way of
saying knowledge apprehended directly by the heart, though Zhang seems
to be talking more about a kind of mystic experience than rationalism:
he wrote that understanding of the Way is not something thought and
consideration can bring about.
The goal of moral cultivation was fulfilling one's original nature.
This was Zhang Zai's definition of becoming a sage, the term in
Chinese philosophy for a perfected person. Another term common in
philosophical discourse of the time was integrity or authenticity
(cheng). Integrity figured in some important passages in the Doctrine
of the Mean, which was one of the most important Confucian texts in
Song Study of the Way. Zhang emphasized "integrity resulting from
clarity," which he explained as first coming to understanding through
study and inquiry and then fulfilling one's nature. This could be a
long and difficult process, but if one could persist and make the
necessary effort, one could fulfill one's nature and become a sage.
There was no greater goal for Zhang.
5. References and Further Reading
Very little is available in English on Zhang Zai. The reader is
encouraged to look into general histories of Chinese philosophy,
especially those dealing with neo-Confucianism, in addition to the
works listed here.
* Chan, Wing-tsit. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963.
o Translates a selection of Zhang's works, focusing on
Correcting Ignorance.
* Chan, Wing-tsit, trans. Reflections on Things at Hand: The
Neo-Confucian Anthology Compiled by Chu Hsi and Lü Tsu-chien. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1967.
o This probably contains the most extensive collection of
Zhang's writings in English. Chan includes a finding list to help the
reader find the selections of a particular philosopher.
* Chow, Kai-wing. "Ritual, Cosmology, and Ontology: Chang Tsai's
Moral Philosopy." Philosophy East and West 43.2 (April 1993): 201-28.
o Emphasizes the importance of ritual in moral development.
* Huang, Siu-chi. "Chang Tsai's Concept of Ch'i." Philosophy East
and West 18.4 (October 1968): 247-60.
* Huang, Siu-chi. "The Moral Point of View of Chang Tsai."
Philosophy East and West 21.2 (April 1971): 141-56.
* Kasoff, Ira. The Thought of Chang Tsai. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984.
o This is the only English-language monograph on Zhang's philosophy.
* T'ang, Chün-i. "Chang Tsai's Theory of Mind and Its Metaphysical
Basis." Philosophy East and West 6.2 (July 1956): 113-36.
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