Love is a point of common emphasis for the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yang-ming and the phenomenologist Max Scheler. Although ages apart and drawing from different cultural traditions (Wang from Confucius, and Scheler from St. Augustine and Blaise Pascal), both see love as a dynamic movement. What does this movement consist of for each philosopher and what synthesis can one make from both? These are the concerns of this paper.

LOVE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF WANG YANG-MING

In Wang Yang-ming's philosophy, love is found in the concept of jen ( ). Jen is a difficult concept to translate. It has been translated as "benevolence", "kindness", "charity", "compassion", "sympathy", "perfect virtue", "goodness", "true man", "manhood at its best", "human heartedness", "humanity", "man-to-manness", and "love".⁽¹⁰³⁾ Actually, the Chinese character for jen, , is a composite of two Chinese characters, , meaning "man," and , meaning "two". Literally, then, it means two men or something interpersonal. Whereas jen had been a particular virtue, the kindness of a ruler to his people, in the Confucian tradition it has come to designate the primary virtue, the virtue of all virtues, embracing all forms of goodness in man. Confucius once spoke of a thread that runs through all his teachings, namely, conscientiousness (chung, ) and altruism (shu, ). These two are synthesized in a single concept, jen.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

It was Confucius who identified jen with love. When Confucius was asked about jen, he replied, "It is to love men."⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ After Confucius, Mencius put jen and i (righteousness ) together to attach equal importance to both nature and function. It is not that jen is internal and righteousness external; both form one root of the moral life.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ Jen is the universal virtue that embraces all relations, but righteousness is the particular virtue that makes distinctions in personal relationships. Mencius said, "The man of jen loves others".⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ "A man of jen extends his love from those he loves to those he does not love",⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ and "the man of jen loves all".⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ Throughout the ages, the concept jen evolved and developed to mean love, consciousness, impartiality, and unity with the universe.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ But in general, jen is essentially social and active, dealing with what and how man must act in order to be truly man. In the Confucian tradition, only the man who loves is truly man, and thus, jen is "humanity" or the "Man of humanity."⁽¹¹¹⁾ In the words of the existentialist Karl Jaspers, jen is "humanity and morality in one."⁽¹¹²⁾

Wang Yang-ming follows the Confucian tradition of identifying jen with love. "To love is the same as to be humane (jen)."⁽¹¹³⁾ In a letter to Huang Mien-chih, he writes, "nature is emotion before it is stirred, emotion is nature after it is stirred. Jen is love before it is stirred, love is jen after it is stirred . . . to speak of love is also to speak of jen!"⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Wang also quotes a passage from the Doctrine of the Mean which says, "Humanity (jen) and wisdom (chih ) are the character of human nature, and they are the way in which the internal and external are united", identifying love as part of the essence of man. As regards the text of the Great Learning which says, "the way to manifest a clear character consists in loving the people," he opposes Chu Hsi who changed the phrase "loving the people" (ch'in-min, ) to "renovating the people" (hsin-min ).⁽¹¹⁵⁾

For Wang, the steps in the Great Learning, the extension of knowledge and the investigation of things, as well as the sincerity of the will and the rectification of the mind-heart (hsin ), bring out the unity of knowledge and action. But the various steps from the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge to the bringing of peace to the world as found in the Great Learning are nothing but manifesting the clear character.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ The clear character is for him the character of the innate hsin.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ The original hsin, however, is also the Way (Tao, ).⁽¹¹⁸⁾ The Way is also called by Wang "Heaven" (T'ien, ).⁽¹¹⁹⁾ The way or Heaven must be searched for in one's own heart or hsin, and only then will the Way be found anywhere and anytime.⁽¹²⁰⁾ The Way is also nature and destiny, complete in itself.⁽¹²¹⁾ As nature, it is something conferred upon man by heaven, and when man acts in accord with nature, he is following the Way. Innate knowledge is identical with the Way.⁽¹²²⁾ When man cultivates and learns the Way, his innate knowledge, he it educating himself. The cultivation of the Way, however, is done through jen.⁽¹²³⁾

Thus, for Wang, manifesting the clear character which is manifesting the clear character of the innate hsin (by extending one's knowledge and investigating things, making the will sincere and rectifying the mind and heart) consists in loving the people, in jen.⁽¹²⁴⁾

Like a true Confucianist, Wang conceives of jen as a natural universal principle that grows from within. Like Mencius, Wang does not consider Mo Tze's doctrine of universal love as one of jen. Mo Tze propagated the doctrine of loving everyone equally. For Wang, this is contrary to the Principle of Nature. Jen is the principle of unceasing production and reproduction, of growth and regeneration in the universe.⁽¹²⁵⁾ But there is order or gradation in production and reproduction. Because there is order, there is a starting point. When there is a starting point, there is growth, and the growth is unceasing.⁽¹²⁶⁾ For instance, a tree begins by putting forth shoots, then roots, then trunk, branches and leaves. If there is no sprout, there would be no trunk, branches or leaves. The tree can sprout because it has a root beneath.

Likewise, the love between the father and son and between elder and younger brothers is the starting point of the human hsin's spirit of life. From here it is extended to the humanness of all people and love for all things.⁽¹²⁷⁾ Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of the practice of jen.⁽¹²⁸⁾

Mo-tzu's doctrine obviously has no starting point. It makes no distinction in human relationships and regards one's own father, son, brother as being the same as a stranger.⁽¹²⁹⁾ There is no order in human relationships.

Going back to the analogy of the tree, "if the tree is to grow, the many branches must be trimmed when it is young. Likewise, if jen is to become eminent, the love of external things must be eliminated when the student first begins to learn."⁽¹³⁰⁾ Jen demands that one does not run after exalted positions,⁽¹³¹⁾ that one's mind be broad and impartial and identified with the Principle of Nature, wiping out selfish desires,⁽¹³²⁾ and that one share the good with others.⁽¹³³⁾

A man of jen must involve himself with others. To discard human relations is to build up a mind-heart of selfishness.⁽¹³⁴⁾ Jen is the natural principle that is refined and clear without any selfish attachment. For Wang, the man who detaches himself from others is unworthy, a man without jen. Jen stresses the responsibility of man towards his fellow man. To be a man of humanity is to be self-effacing, to be a non-ego. The man of jen is naturally humble. And "humility is the foundation of all virtues, while pride is the chief of all vices".⁽¹³⁵⁾

To be selfless is to be one with all things.⁽¹³⁶⁾ The man of jen regards Heaven and Earth and all things as one body.⁽¹³⁷⁾

Jen for Wang is not only a personal virtue to be realized by man, but a metaphysical principle as well. It is a principle of regeneration;⁽¹³⁸⁾ the whole universe works because of the presence of the man of jen. When the Way is cultivated through jen, the original substance of hsin is restored and equilibrium and harmony exist. When equilibrium and harmony exist in the heart of man, proper order prevails in the universe and all things attain their full growth and development--there comes about a full development of nature and fulfillment of destiny.⁽¹³⁹⁾

Jen is manifesting one's clear character, and

To manifest the clear character is to bring out the substance of the state of forming one body with Heaven, Earth and the myriad things, whereas loving the people is to put into universal operation the function of the state of forming one body. Hence, manifesting the clear character consists in loving the people, and loving the people is the way to manifest the clear character.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾

So, the man of humanity or jen forms one body with all things. But since there are principles in this union, there exists necessarily some relative importance in man's love for being. The man of humanity loves both animals and man, but he tolerates butchering animals in order to feed man. Given the choice between parents and strangers and with only meager food in hand to survive, he prefers to save his parents first rather than a stranger.⁽¹⁴¹⁾

Similarly, in the Great Learning, Wang finds a natural order in the exercise of jen. Righteousness is this order, and following this order is propriety. Understanding this order is wisdom, and following it from beginning to end is faithfulness.⁽¹⁴²⁾

In any case, the man of jen regards all things as one body,⁽¹⁴³⁾ as his body. It is as if "the whole universe is inside my room!"⁽¹⁴⁴⁾

But how is this possible? How can the human hsin (of the man of jen) and things form one body when the bodies of men are different from each other and differ also from those of animals and plants?

According to Wang, this can be answered from the point of view of the "subtle incipient force of their mutual influence and response."⁽¹⁴⁵⁾ Because "man is the mind and heart of Heaven and Earth"⁽¹⁴⁶⁾ and man becomes mind by the clear intelligence of his innate knowledge, the whole universe is filled with this clear intelligence. Men are separated only by their physical forms and bodies, but

my clear intelligence is the master of heaven and earth and spiritual beings. If heaven is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its height? If earth is deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to look into its depth? If spiritual beings are deprived of my clear intelligence, who is going to distinguish their good and evil fortune or the calamities and blessings they will bring? Separated from my clear intelligence, there will be no heaven, earth, spiritual beings, or myriad things, and separated from these, there will not be my clear intelligence. Thus, they are all permeated with one material force. How can they be separated?⁽¹⁴⁷⁾

It is clear from the passage above that Wang considers man the mind of the world. Without man there would be no world to speak of and vice versa; men exists because there is a world of which to be mindful. True, the world may have physically existed since great antiquity, but "why should it be that if my clear intelligence is gone they will cease to exist?"⁽¹⁴⁸⁾ Wang answers this question in a rhetorical manner, Consider the dead man. His spirit has drifted away and dispersed. Where are his heaven and earth and myriad things?"⁽¹⁴⁹⁾

The man of jen, then, treats all things as if they were his own body. Concretely, this means that the suffering and bitterness of the great masses are the diseases and pain of his own body. He shares with all men a universal sense of right and wrong, shares their likes and dislikes, regards other people as his own person. Like the ancient sage-emperors, he himself feels the good that others do and senses that he himself has fallen into evil when he sees others do evil. He regards other people's hunger and misery as his own; and when one person's condition is not so well adjusted, he feels as if he himself had pushed the other into a ditch. He does not do these things purposely to win the praise of others but because he has devoted his effort to extending his innate knowledge of the good.⁽¹⁵⁰⁾ For the man of jen, there is no distinction between self and other, or between self and things. Like the body of a person which does not distinguish the functions of the eyes, ears, limbs, the man of jen regards all things as part of himself.⁽¹⁵¹⁾

This movement of forming one body with all things is for Wang spontaneous and not deliberate, for after all, jen is inherent in one's nature, in one's hsin.⁽¹⁵²⁾ Consequently, the man who does not realize jen in his life not only alienates himself from others and nature, but also alienates himself from his own true humanity. He is the man who exercises cunning and selfishness; manipulative, he sticks to his personal desires.⁽¹⁵³⁾ By having selfish desires, he obscures the original substance of his hsin which originally contains everything. Losing the original substance of his hsin, he loses everything.⁽¹⁵⁴⁾

LOVE AS MOVEMENT IN MAX SCHELER'S PHILOSOPHY

The heart is for Scheler the most important sphere in man's life for "where his `heart' is attached, there, for him is the `core' of the so-called essence of things".⁽¹⁵⁵⁾ In fact,

Whoever has the ordo amoris of a man has the man himself. He has for the man as a moral subject what the crystallization formula is for the crystal. He sees before him the constantly simple and basic lines of his heart running beneath all his empirical many-sidedness and complexity. And heart deserves to be called the core of man as a spiritual being much more than knowing and willing do. He has a spiritual model of the primary source which secretly nourishes everything emanating from this man. Even more, he possesses the primary determinant of what always appears to surround and enclose the man: in space, his moral environment; in time, his fate, that is the quintessence of possibilities belonging to him and him alone. Nothing in nature which is independent of man can confront him and have an effect on him even as a stimulus, of whatever kind or degree, without the cooperation of his ordo amoris.⁽¹⁵⁶⁾

For Scheler, "our heart is primarily destined to love".⁽¹⁵⁷⁾ More than anything else, love is the primordial act of the heart and is more original than knowing and willing:

What we call `knowing' . . . always presupposes this primal act of abandoning the self and its conditions, its own `contents of consciousness,' of transcending them, in order to come into experiential contact with the world, as far as possible. And what we call `real' or actual presupposes the same subject with the realization of something, while this act of willing presupposes an anticipatory loving that gives its direction and content. Thus, love is always what awakens both knowledge and volition; indeed, it is the mother of spirit and reason itself.⁽¹⁵⁸⁾

Both knowing and willing presuppose a prior act of the heart, the act of love understood as the "tendency to go outside of oneself in order to participate in another being."⁽¹⁵⁹⁾ Love is the foundation of any "knowledge of being or any willing of content" and for all morality and ethics, judgmental acts, norms, rules of actions, units of goods, mores and customs.⁽¹⁶⁰⁾

What is Love for Scheler?

First of all, love (and hate) cannot be reduced to feeling-states in the presence of objects of representation and thought.⁽¹⁶¹⁾ A feeling-state is passing, and moreover, it is a reactive response. Love is not a mere reaction to an already felt value.⁽¹⁶²⁾ This is the mistake of Kant: he makes love an inclination, as if love were mere sensible feelings and as such cannot be commanded.⁽¹⁶³⁾ True, there is a spontaneity in love, but this spontaneity is not a mere reaction.

Love is also different from preferring or placing after because the latter presupposes a plurality of felt values in intention. In love (and hate), only a single value can be given.⁽¹⁶⁴⁾

For Scheler, love is a "movement in whose execution ever new and higher values flash out, i.e., values that were wholly unknown to the one concerned. Thus, this act does not follow value feeling and preferring, but is ahead of them as a pioneer and a guide."⁽¹⁶⁵⁾ In loving, the lover goes out of himself in order to participate in another being of value in the direction of new and higher value or values. In the case of another, "the person of another can only be disclosed to me by joining in the performance of his acts, either cognitively, by `understanding' and vicarious `reliving' or morally, by `following in his foot-steps'"--in short, by sympathy.⁽¹⁶⁶⁾ In this participation the two beings concerned, who are bearers of values, do not become real parts of one another.⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ The spontaneity of love is an immediate intuition into the value of another: we love (or hate) something not "about" or "in" something. This spontaneity is a dynamic movement to seek the perfection of the value proper to the being loved, towards new and higher values. These new and higher values are not produced or made; rather, they are disclosed in the very movement of love itself.

In love and hate our spirit does much more than `respond' to already felt and preferred values. Love and hate are acts in which the value-realm accessible to the feeling of a being is either extended or narrowed. . . . In speaking of this `extension' or `narrowing' of the value-realm given to a being, I do not mean to say that the nature of the act of love is such that it is directed in a `responding' fashion to a value after that value is felt or preferred; I mean, rather, that strictly speaking, this act plays a disclosing role in our value comprehension, and that it is only this act which does so.⁽¹⁶⁸⁾

Why is love a movement for Scheler? Properly speaking, there is no "object" loved, "object" in the sense of a finished static being no longer capable of growth. What is loved properly is the person as a whole or as a bearer of value, unfinished, incomplete, open to potentialities and possibilities. The person is not an object to be observed or looked at. The person is a being to be participated, and in participating in his being, the lover discovers higher values which are "part of his wholeness and constitute his fulfillment".⁽¹⁶⁹⁾ This higher value is the ideal value-essence compatible with the nature of the person. There is indeed the empirical given of the bodily presence of the beloved, but the empirically given is only the density of the whole. The wholeness of the person includes what he can ideally become. To love the person as he is to participate in his becoming. There is thus a movement from the empirical to the ideal. Love is, "the tendency or . . . the act that seeks to lead everything in the direction of the perfection of value proper to it--and succeeds, when no obstacles are present. Thus we define the essence of love as an edifying and uplifting action in and over the world".⁽¹⁷⁰⁾

As a spontaneous movement in the direction of higher values, however, love does not aim intentionally at changing or improving the person. The lover does not demand that the beloved become this or that he does this. The person's improvement is not the prerequisite or condition for loving him.⁽¹⁷¹⁾ Love is "letting the other be", permitting, assisting, promoting him to become his full self.

There is thus a creativity in the movement of love. This creativity is not a production of a thing or values, not a making or changing of something into another. Values in the first place are not created but exist objectively and ideally. The creativity of love consists in the disclosure of new and higher values that would fulfill the person. Love is creative in the sense of enabling the other to be or become as he is.⁽¹⁷²⁾

For Scheler, this spontaneous creative movement of love is infinite. "Love loves and in loving always looks beyond what it has in hand and possesses. . . . This driving impulse which arouses it may tire out; love itself does not tire."⁽¹⁷³⁾ The infiniteness of love demands for its satisfaction an infinite good. Thus, the idea of God thus already underlies the movement of love. Love is:

always a dynamic becoming, a growing, a welling up of things in the direction of their archetype, which resides in God. Thus, every phase in this inner growth of the value of things, a growth which love produces, is always an intermediate station on the way of the world toward God, however distant it may still be from its goal. Every love is love for God, still incomplete, often slumbering or self-infatuated, often stopping, as it were, on its way.⁽¹⁷⁴⁾

There is a certain unity in this infinite spontaneous creative movement of love. This unity consists in the gradation in rank of what is worthy of love. Since love does not produce values, and values form an a priori hierarchy, the movement of love is a recognition of this gradation, and to the extent that man's act of love is in harmony with this ordered rank of values, his love is characterized as true. Love unites man with all that is worthy of love.⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ And all that is worthy of love is one realm.

From the primal atom and the grain of sand to God, this realm is one realm. This `unity' does not mean that the realm is closed. . . . when any sort of love is fulfilled by an object adequate to it, the satisfaction this gives can never be definitive. . . . It is in the essence of the act of love as it fulfills itself in what is worthy of love that it can progress from value to value, from one height to an even greater height. "Our heart is too spacious," said Pascal.⁽¹⁷⁶⁾

In the context of what is said above Scheler talks of correct and false love, of disordre du coeur. A disordre du coeur occurs when the movement of love falls in the wrong direction, when, for instance, what is sought for is not a value but a feeling-state which can only accompany acts of preferring but is not supposed to be intended. The typical egoist is a case in point: instead of experiencing the value of things or persons, he concentrates on his experiencing; as a result, he does not fully experience the thing of value.⁽¹⁷⁷⁾ A disordre du coeur also happens when man "believes he has attained in a finite good an absolutely final fulfillment and satisfaction of his love-drive, . . . a stagnation of his spiritual-ethical development".⁽¹⁷⁸⁾ An example of this is infatuation where "a man is carried away and enraptured by some finite good without regard to his guiding center of personhood".⁽¹⁷⁹⁾

Finally, incorrect love occurs when man goes against the objective rank-order of values.⁽¹⁸⁰⁾ The scale of what is worthy of love for every man is

of such a kind that every object, when its contingency is stripped away and its essence is considered, occupies a completely determined and unique position on this scale, a position to which a completely precise and nuanced movement of the spirit corresponds. If we `fit' this position, then our love is correct and in order; if two positions change phases, if under the influence of passions and drives the hierarchy of levels is overturned, then our love us incorrect and disordered. ⁽¹⁸¹⁾

Hate is the result of this inverse movement: instead of moving to higher values, it seeks lower values or it considers the lower ones as higher. For Scheler, though, hate is founded on love, because "hate is always and everywhere a rebellion of our heart and spirit against a violation of ordo amoris."

The act of hate, the antithesis of love, or the emotional negation of value and existence, is the result of some incorrect or confused love. However rich and various may be the motive of hatred or the state of valuelessness which exacts hatred--every act of hate is founded on an act of love, without which it would lack sense. We can also say that, since love and hate have in common that they do not fall within the zone of indifference but take a strong interest in the object as the bearer of some value, this is primarily a case of taking a positive interest in, of loving . . . .⁽¹⁸²⁾

If the hierarchy of values is ultimately founded on God, the highest value, and of every genuine love is a movement towards God, it follows that hate is a movement away from God. In so far as in the love of God, all that is worthy of love is one, it follows too that hate is an alienation, a breaking away from this unity with all that is worthy of love.

The task of man then is to follow the correct and true ordo amoris, the objective order of what is worthy of love in all things. By recognizing and realizing this in his life, he fulfills his destiny. Destiny signifies the unique place in which the individual can recognize and actualize the objective order of values in his life. Its particular value content has this individual in view; it is, so to say, his "calling". By answering this call, he fulfills his destiny and in doing this he fulfills his personality.⁽¹⁸³⁾

THE MOVEMENT OF LOVE, A SYNTHESIS

Summing up, for both Wang Yang-ming and Max Scheler, love constitutes man's humanity: in the Confucian tradition, jen shih jen ("to love is to be man"). For Scheler, man's heart is destined to love, and love is more original than knowing and willing. For both philosophers, to love is to fulfill one's destiny as man.

If love constitutes man's humanity, and humanity is the dynamic process of personal cultivation, then love is primarily a movement, a natural universal principle of growth.

While there is something metaphysical in this movement for both philosophers, both emphasize the primacy of the interpersonal relationship. Love is an involvement in the other, a going out of oneself. This participation in the other begins for Wang in the feeling of commiseration, whereas for Scheler love can start with sympathy and may also lead to sympathy.

Jen for Wang is moving towards the forming of one body with all things. Jen is also the Way (Tao) and Tao is also T'ien, Heaven. For Scheler, love ultimately is a movement towards the highest good, towards God who unites all in His love.

Both philosophers are aware of an objective order of importance in reality. For both, hatred and selfishness are a deviation of this order, a narrowing and centering of one's potentialities towards one's own ego.

For Wang Yang-ming, however, this objective order of importance is the natural order of relationships. One begins his movement of love with the family, in filial piety and brotherly respect, extending this to the state and finally to the rest of the world. The movement seems to be from the more to the less familiar. The transcendence in Wang's jen is a horizontal transcendence.

For Scheler, on the other hand, the movement of love is a movement towards higher values. Values form a hierarchy from the sensory to the vital, to the spiritual and finally to the holy. Love is a creative movement because in loving new and higher values are disclosed. In Scheler's notion of love the transcendence is vertical or axiological.

If we are to view love as a total movement, then we have to posit both kinds of transcendence; love is both horizontal and vertical movement. In the natural course of life, man indeed starts his experience of love from the family to the community to humanity. Yet, transversing this development is also a gradual awareness of a hierarchy of values, a disclosure of a rankorder of what is deserving of love. This is the richness and inexhaustibility of the experience of love.

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