China and the West

Arthur Schopenhauer
Quellen, Bücher aus seiner Bibliothek :
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Schulz, Christian. Aphorismen, oder Sentenzen des Konfuz [ID D17673].
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Tchao-chi-kou-eul, ou l'Orphelin de la Chine. Transl. de Stanislas Julien [ID D2005].
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Gützlaff, Karl. Gützlaff's Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf den Frieden von Nankin [ID D832].
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Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über die sogenannte dritte Welt der Buddhaisten. In : Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 2 (1834).
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Turner, Samuel. Samuel Turner’s Gesandtschaftsreise an den Hof des Teshoo Lama [ID D1898].
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Foucaux, Ph.Ed. (1847-1848). Rgy tch’er rol pa ; ou Développement des jeux, contenant l’histoire du Bouddha Cakya-Mouni. Trad. Sur la version tibétaine du Bkah hgyour, et revu sur l’original sanscrit (Lalitavistara). Vol. 1-2. (Paris : L’imprimerie royale, 1847-1848).
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Spiegel, Fr[iedrich]. Anecdota pâlica ; nach den Handschriften der Königl. Bibliothek in Copenhagen. (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, 1845).
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Turnour, George (1799-1843). The first twenty chapters of the Mahawanso : and a prefatory essay on Pali buddhistical literature ; originally pub. As an introduction to the above mentioned portion of the Mahawanso and to the epitome of the history of Ceylon, and the historical inscriptions, printed in the Ceylon almanacs of 1833 and 1834. (Ceyon : Cotta Church Mission Press, 1836).
Upham, Edward (1776-1834) [et al.]. The Mahávansi, the Rájá-ratnácari, and the Rájã-vali : forming the sacred and historical books of Ceylon ; also, a collection of tracts illustrative of the doctrines and literature of buddhism. (London : Parbury, Allen and Co., 1833).
Upham, Edward. The history and doctrine of buddhism ; popularly illustrated. With notices of the Kappooism, or demon worship, and of the Bali, or planetary incantations, of Ceylon. With forty-three lithographic prints from original Singhalese designs. (London : R. Ackermann, 1829).
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Sekundärliteratur
Adrian Hsia : Schopenhauer is the first European thinker who went beyond the borders of the Holy Bible and integrated Indian culture into his philosophical system, thereby also touching cultural China. He freely professed his indebtedness to ‘divine’ Plato, 'incredible' Kant, and the 'holy' Upanishads for the formation of his own philosophy. Each one of us is the product of a certain culture, we even speak its language. However, we can expand out cultural self to include other elements. Schopenhauer did this, and this act does not make him less European or German. However, it does make him less fundamentalistic, because his Eurocentrism includes old Indian wisdom. Consequently, China is automatically placed closer to the centre, particularly because Buddhism, which originated in India, is also recognized as one of the three Chinese religions. Even without taking the books on Buddhism into consideration, Schopenhauer had read a respectable number of books on Chinese culture. In his library, he even had the first Chinese dictionary in English (Morrison, Robert. A dictionary of the Chinese language [ID D1934]). He wrote notes in it. For example, after checking the dates of Buddha and Confucius, he notes that the latter is older that the 'Fo-Lehre' (Buddhist teaching). He was also interested in Morrison’s statement that by examining the meaning of 'Motion and Rest' he came to the conclusion that the Chinese did not have the notion of ‘deity’. Schopenhauer also possessed Confucian canons in several translated languages: the four books of Confucianism (Pauthier, Jean-Pierre Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040]) ; a separate collection of his sayings (Schulz, Christian. Aphorismen, oder Sentenzen des Konfuz [ID D17673]) ; a 'Chi-king' (Shi jing) and a 'Y-King' (Yi jing) in Latin, an interpretation of the same Y-King (Yi jing) and the Latin translation of Mengzi. He also read at least four books in French on and about Taoism, two translations by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Le livre des récompenses et des peines [ID D1937] and Stanislas Julien (Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king : le livre de la voie et de la vertu [ID D2060]) respectively, and two 'mémoires' on Laozi and Tao, one by Abel-Rémusat (Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu [ID D11899]) and the other translated by Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Pauthier (Mémoire sur l'origine et la propagation de la doctrine de tao, fondée par Lao-tseu [ID D6264]. Thus Schopenhauer was quite well equipped to speak of the principles of Confucianism and Laozis Dao de jing. He also read the two Chinese literary works in translation, namely Tchao-chi-kou-eul, ou l'Orphelin de la Chine. Transl. by Stanislas Julien [ID D2005], a French and a German translation of Hao jiu zhuan. Last, but not least, Schopenhauer also read a general description of China (Davis, John Francis. The Chinese : a general description of the empire of China and its inhabitants [ID D2017]). In addition to the above books, we must also add Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff's History of the Chinese empire in German (Gützlaff, Karl. Gützlaff's Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf den Frieden von Nankin [ID D832]), from which Schopenhauer quoted in his short essay titled 'Sinologie'. The essay is a curious piece of work. We shall analyse it under three aspects. In the same manner as Schopenhauer was critical of the vanity of the Anglican missionaries to convert the Hindus, who, in his opinion, were more knowledgeable than any other people in ontological matters, he criticised the Catholic Church, including the much praised Jesuits, of trying to converting an ancient culture to a relatively new religion. In their fervour, they only thought of finding traces of their religion in the ancient culture of China, thereby ignoring completely the difference between the Chinese and Christian civilisation. The European culture, being derived from Judaism, is theistic, while the three Chinese religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism), are neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. In this connection, we know that Schopenhauer did not think the terms ‘atheism’ and ‘pantheism’ are logical and admissible, because both terms presupposes the existence of God.
We know that Schopenhauer began his reading on Indian philosophy, through the influence of Friedrich Majer, in 1813/14, and quite a respectable number of books on Brahmanism and Buddhism can be found in his personal library. Last, not least, his essay has a long footnote providing the most important publications on Buddhism of his time. However, the fact that he thought, like the earlier German philosophers such as Hegel, Herder, and Kant, that Tibet was the capital of the 'Buddhaistischen Kirche' indicates the incompleteness of the knowledge at that time. On Taoism, there was even scantier information. Even though Schopenhauer had two books on Laozi by Abel-Rémusat, it is not established when he had read them. It has been established that he had read Stanislas Julien’s superior translation immediately after its publication in 1842. He even used a sentence from the book to serve as motto to the 'Supplements to the Fourth Book' of his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. The motto, which was taken from Julien's comments, reads : "Tout les hommes désirent uniquement de se délivrer de la mort : ils ne savent pas se délivrer de la vie". Schopenhauer also possessed the book by Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Panthier, comparing Laozi's teaching with Upanishads and concluding that they are compatible. Because Schopenhauer's approach to Asia began with Hinduism and Buddhism, we can assume that he found his way to Taoism via the Indian philosophy.
Nevertheless, Schopenhauer was European, it would be more natural for him to view the world from the Christian perspective. However, because of his perception of the historical world as a place of suffering of such an intense kind which made the invention of hell superfluous, he had a natural inclination towards India's philosophy of suffering. With such a non-European connection, his perspective became less Europe-centred. Already in the first part of his major work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, he mentioned the Chinese philosophy of Y-King [Yi jing] and its accompanying antipodes Yin and Yang with Pythagorian theory in one breath. It constitutes the third of the four objective systems. He also compared the same antipodes with the natural philosophy of Schelling and his school who pointed out the polarity was a fundamental law of 'fast aller Erscheinungung der Natur'. Schelling was, of course, only 13 years older than Schopenhauer, while Yi jing is ancient. The highest praise was reserved for the Vedas as the fruit of the highest wisdom which is crystalized in the maxim: 'tat twam asi'. The essence of this formula Schopenhauer equates with Immanuel Kant’s postulate of practical reason. The truth has, of course, to be disguised as myth, in this case the transmigration with the teaching of nirvana in which there are no 'Geburt, Alter, Krankheit und Tod'. This myth of nirvana came to Greece from India or Egypt and were received with great admiration by Pythagoras and Plato. This does not contradict his other conviction, that Buddhism has the highest 'Gehalt an Wahrheit' under the 'Schleier der Allegorie'. It was not without satisfaction that he concluded that his teaching coincides with that of Buddhism without being influenced by it. Because when the first volume of his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was published in 1818, there were hardly any publication on Buddhism except a few articles in the Asiatic Researches on the Burmese branch of Buddhism. Buddhism was, according to Schopenhauer, the oldest, largest, and truest religion because it teaches that the existence of the world is a result of our sins.
Schopenhauer had moved his centre to India, it could be called an Indian-centred Eurocentrism, if such a construct is possible at all. From his centre, he built bridges both to Christianity and to China. However, he was aware that the Indology was still at its beginning, and he compared the Sanscrit scholars in Europe to high school students learning Greek. The knowledge of Chinese among the scholars was ever more inadequate, and he was particularly unhappy with Abel-Rémusat's work. Using the works he considered more reliable, some of which we have seen above, he gives us a concise picture of China as he understood it. The original cult of the Chinese, according to Schopenhauer, was devoted to the blue sky in winter and the earth in summer, besides a number of possible natural phenomena of which each is controlled by a genius. However, he correctly noticed that benefactors to the Chinese people could be deified. Then there was also the private cult of one's own ancestors. There are also three public religions. The first he identified as 'Taossee', i.e. religious Taoism, founded by Laozi, which he characterized as the 'Lehre von der Vernunft', the inner world order or innate principle of all things. Schopenhauer's source was Stanilas Julien's translation of Dao de jing. With Julien, he opined that the teaching of Tao, which is given as the way to salvation, to redemption of the world and its miseries, agrees with that of Buddhism. Schopenhauer correctly notes that the priests and the religion of Taoism were not popular and respected. What he did not know was that there was a philosophical school of Taoism as well which, lacking all religious aspects, constitutes the metaphysical structure of the Chinese culture. As a matter of fact, this Chinese metaphysics can be used as a bridge to approach his own philosophy of 'Vorstellung' and 'Wille' which we shall attempt to demonstrate later on. The second Chinese teaching is, of course, Confucianism, which he characterized as a political moral philosophy without any metaphysics. He found this quite boring. Finally, there was Buddhism, Schopenhauer’s favourite. Here he became eloquent and gave all kind of information. He was full of praise and he was especially impressed by the fact that Buddhism prospered without support from the state. He also appreciated the peaceful co-existence of all three teachings, influencing and permeating each other. This characteristic is evident in the saying that the three teachings are really one. These three religions were neither monotheistic, nor polytheistic. At least, Schopenhauer opined, Buddhism was also not pantheistic. Incidentally, neither was Confucianism or Taoism. The above was all Schopenhauer said about the Chinese culture. He was apparently only interested in its religious part. His knowledge of religious Taoism was minimal, he was not interested in the teaching of the Confucian school, although unknowingly, he shared one of its principles, namely, 'zhen ming', i. e. to call a theory by nothing but its proper designation. Schopenhauer demand of 'zhen ming' was a outburst against those contemporary philosophers whom he identified as philosophical jokers who discussed atheism, pantheism, and cosmology in reference to Spinoza.
The enthusiasm of Schopenhauer for 'Tchu-Fu-Tse' knew no bounds, he thought the Chinese philosopher expressed exactly the ideas which he himself presented in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Immediately he began to profess his innocence that he did not and could not have plagiarised from 'Tchu-Fu-Tse' because the article he quoted was published eight years after his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. He used a German article on the same Chinese philosopher to check the correctness of the English one and came to the conclusion that one confirmed the accuracy of the other, even though he thought the German Sinologist did not understand the Chinese text too well. Thus his essay on Sinology ends with a dissatisfactory note and the hope that some Englishmen would publish more of the above.
Even though Schopenhauer never took up the subject again, we will attempt to interpret his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung from a Chinese perspective, but not using 'Tchu-Fu-Tse', but Taoist metaphysics which was also, at least partially, the source of the former.