CHAPTER IX

THE ROLE OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

WOO KUN-YU

HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

            The concept anthropos conceived as an abstract term does not bespeak any human relationship, whereas the notions of "a human being" or "an individual" bespeak various dimensions of interpersonal relationship. A concrete human being always is twofold, namely, an individual and community with others. The former forms oneself as an independent person, the latter creates society in which every one who is independent by nature is dependent on others. This independent-dependent person constitutes a homo ethicus beyond mere homo naturalis.

            Like any living creature, human nature in its concrete form consists of male and female, man and woman. In ancient Greece, philosophers like Plato emphasized that neither man nor woman alone possess the whole of human nature, each is only a part of the ideal human being.1 According to Plato, love (eros) between man and woman is a natural tendency in which the parts of the original anthropos seek one another2. Thus, the act of eros is a reunion of the human being which in its original status (namely, in the world of ideas) was one. It was divided into two parts only because of the incarnation of the human soul into the sensible world, like one condemned to a prison or entombed after death.3 Hence, the primordial sense of interpersonal relationships as interpersonal love between a man and a woman.

            In the Middle Ages, when Christianity became dominant in the West, people understood that according to the Old Testament woman was a part of man.4 Hence, marriage was elevated to a sacrament in which the couple received the blessing from God through the Church.

            Where the philosophy of Plato saw "eros" as the way back to primordial human nature, Jesus Christ gave his disciples "charity" as the greatest commandment.5 "To love one another" was to be the sign of Christians6 and interpersonal relationships would be the essential way to perfection for all believers.

            In China, although there was neither a Platonic theory about man and woman nor any religious sacrament for marriage, never-theless the origin of man and woman was discussed thoroughly in the Book of Change: "Chi’en-Tao accomplished man, whereas Kun-Tao accomplished woman."7

            The ancient Chinese sages sought the archetype of both man and woman in the primordial substance of Tao; it is only Tao’s different attributes that make the difference in human nature. Tao is the fullness of life; the re-union of man and woman participates in the same living force, which is "the generative act-process without end."8

            But a man and a woman alone do not constitute a family in the full sense -- this lies in their having "numerous heirs". As in Hebraic cul-ture, the Chinese saw begetting numerous children as a blessing from heaven. The ordinary transition from the individual to society is me-diated through the family. Here natural and consanguineous relations play an essential role, but the primary significance of family lies in inter-personal love.

            In Chinese traditional culture, the family system has been ac-cepted and respected throughout most of history. The natural binary force, Yin and Yang, signifies not only a generative dynamism, but also the prototype and example for the human couple: husband and wife. Begetting numerous children symbolizes a virtuous, happy life and is a divine blessing. In ancient China society cannot be understood apart from the notion of family with its consanguineous relations.

            Once when Mencius was asked about humanity and the dif-ference between a human and a brute he said:

Between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; bet-ween husband and wife, attention to their separate function; between old and young, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity.9

For Mencius interpersonal relationships reveal the essence of hu-manity; thus he defined humanity, not from the substantial standpoint, but from that of interpersonal human relationships.

            The virtues of interpersonal human relationship, namely, affec-tion, righteousness, attention to their separate functions, proper order, and fidelity, are often proclaimed by the today’s neo-Confucians:

Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are not infused into us from without. We are cer-tainly furnished with them.10

The remote condition for creating these virtues obviously is inter-personal relationships, without which they cannot be realized.

            Though the moral subject is without doubt the cause of any vir-tuous act, without human relationships as their remote condition there can be no virtuous thoughts, and consequently no virtuous acts. Men-cius’ theory of interpersonal relationship seems closer to the Platonic and Christian traditions than to Kant’s Critiques.

ALIENATION AS A DISTORTION OF

            INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

            After the division of Christendom through the Reformation, there followed a spiritual and religious collapse leading to a rapid secu-larization marked by individualism and egoism. The natural sciences swallowed up all the myths, while individualism undermined all au-thority, both religious and political. When the final goal of human life was placed in doubt, the value system appeared questionable. In rejecting ecclesial community Martin Luther’s "sola fide"11 supported an individualistic personal autonomy.

            Though the constitution of society is founded on families, tribes, folks and nations, etc., its most fundamental elements are individuals and their families, of which society is constituted. But as society stands much higher even than family, one must leave home and country be-cause of social, agricultural, commercial and technological changes. In a commercial society consanguineous feeling diminishes leading to anguish and insecurity.

            Even without the effects of modernization there would still be alienation from a sense of family, neighborhood and country.12 But on entering modern society the individual faces a change from inter-personal contacts to mass-group activities. This has a number of mo-dalities.

            First, the technological succeeds the agricultural, so that mo-dernization seems almost equivalent to technologization with its impli-cations for development and progress. Thus, the advent of science and technology not only created commercial cities, but brought about an alienation of the sense of family and of the rural sense of belonging, which had perdured since distant ancestors. Living in a crowd deprives one of his or her sense of self-identity.

            The resulting confusion of values, doubt regarding tradition, and general helplessness in life recall not only Nietzsche’s "um-wertung",13 but the many behavioristic theories. These maintain that there is no psychological difference between a human being and a brute, but that all is determined by environment, and hence is deeply influenced by science and technology14. This denial of human freedom is the cancer in modern spiritual life.

            (Indeed, the alienation of interpersonal relationships may be worse in China than in the Western world. The latter developed tech-nological and commercial society in a gradual manner: one can trace its origin to the Olympic games. In contrast, as China had stressed agriculture and despised commerce,15 modernization came so sud-denly that people were not psychologically or technologically prepared to make appropriate adjustments.)

            In the Renaissance and the Enlightenment many thinkers had addressed problems of the cosmos and of human beings, but over-looked the most important philosophical problem. They paid great attention to sense experience and to the empirical, from which they built up as their Welt-anschauungen: the three stages of knowledge of Auguste Comte16 and the theory of evolution of Herbert Spencer.17 Auguste Comte’s positivism denied traditional philosophy and religion, and maintained the importance of natural science. Scientism not only reacted passively against traditional spiritual values, but employed logical processes to separate "ought" from "is" (Sollen and Sein), thereby tearing asunder the whole fabric of traditional culture. Karl Popper’s Open Society18 is a typical example: Parmenides’ insight that "Thinking and being are the same’19 is neglected and Mencius’ theory is considered false.20

            Second, in the political order thinkers like Nicolo Macchiavelli21 and Thomas Hobbes22 stressed external power and neglected the interpersonal love which binds people together. Thus, though the dis-tortion and decline of interpersonal relationships is caused mainly by technological development, it reflects also changes in socio-political constitutions such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract theory.23 In such self-alienating modernization, democratization can-not find a higher point in which to harmonize or attenuate the contrast between interior anguish and exterior changes.

            Thirdly, individualistic thinkers could not accept that the primary goal of marriage was the generation of children. Hence, the concept of family became narrower: filial piety and parental love lost their function or were narrowed in scope.

            Inner alienation creates a conflict between the individual in him-self and his relationship to others. In concrete social life it must be asked how a modern human being can possess simultaneously a two-fold nature, i.e., independent individuality, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, dependence on others? This question, which long disturbed human history reached its modern apogee in the twin deve-lopments of extreme individualism and of extreme collectivisms; their cold war could confrontation marked the end of the twentieth century and probably the end of modernity as an adequate paradigm for future progress.

SOLIDARITY

            Recently, solidarity has been proposed as a promising com-promise. This would not leave human nature in its original, naive status. The relation between the individual and others should not be left to natural impulses, not should an artificial mixture of the two be attempted. Rather, solidarity would raise persons above the stage of nature, beyond merely naive impulses and enable them by intelligence and freedom to select what is a duty (or "ought") in accord with the moral law and its obligations. From the viewpoint of solidarity this higher stage is the place not of the homo naturalis, but of the homo ethicus. Here the phenomenological epoch would be very useful in bracketing naturalistic intuition in favor of the moral categories. This does not mean that the homo ethicus dares to act against the natural law, but that he stands above nature and builds a moral world that goes beyond the merely natural and secular.

            This special, higher status fits well with the Chinese ethical culture which often rises about the law of objective nature. In Chinese daily life, especially in conversation, logical criteria often do not fun-ction; subjectivity plays a much greater role than objectivity in Chinese linguistic usage. Thus the Westerner would be surprised in speaking with a Chinese not to receive a positive answer to the question: "Are you not a Chinese?". This illustrates that Chinese take the person to whom they speak as the Gegenstand, rather than the objective Tatsache: hence, "Yes" follows only a positive sentence, while "No" follows negative sentences. This shows the interpersonal relationship to be much more important than any objective truth or logical rules.

            In western philosophy objective truth is the main concern of epistemology. Before the birth of Husserlian phenomenology any sub-jective concern was considered ideological, or even empty or non-sensical. In China, however, because of its moral orientation, sub-jective sincerity weights always more heavily than objective truth. It has been said that "Sincerity is the way of heaven. The attainment of sincerity is the way of man."24

            In daily conversation it would be often asked, "What is your noble name?" instead of the simple question "What is your name?" If your name actually is noble or great due to your ancestors you still have to answer in the following form: "My humble name is Chen." Wit-hout doubt the family Chen is a very great and famous family in China; that is an objective fact. The moral virtue of "sincerity", however, forces you to humble yourself. In the same sense if asked, "From which great city do you come?" the answer should be "I come from the small city of Shanghai," though this is contra-objective. When your age is asked, you should answer, "I live 40 years in vain."

            The interpersonal relationship is therefore neither scientific nor objective, but belongs to "Li" (Ritus), which is the norm and rule for any interpersonal relationship. Here "Li" means also sincerity as the way of heaven and of humans. "Li" stands over all science, logic and epis-temology; it is metaphysical and exists originally in the world of ethics. One who lives with "Li" is called Chun-tzu as an individual, and Shen-jen as a member of society. He is homo ethicus, in contrast to homo naturalis; obviously he is a homo supernaturalis.

            It has been said, "When accomplishments and solid qualities are blended equally, we have Chun-tzu (the man of virtue)."25 Here the accomplishments belong to the cultural sphere, whereas the qualities belong to self-cultivation in a moral sense. Both are the qualities of "Li".

            "Li" remains in a spiritual milieu in which sincerity takes the place of truth and makes life an art. The act of conversation like "My humble name is Chen" or "I come from the small city Shanghai" decorates vulgar expression with cultural quality; it is a thing of beauty. Moreover, all the virtues which come from the interpersonal relationship, such as benevolence, righteousness, piety, love, fidelity, etc., are good in a moral sense. Here sincerity, beauty and good meet together (verum, bonum, pulchrum convertuntur).

VIRTUES

            The various traditional virtues which come from "Li" are not con-trolled according to modern logical norms. In all sectors of philosophy the logical distinction between "is" (Sein) and "ought" (Sollen) has come to mean that "is" is real whereas "ought" is ideal; the former has a sound foundation in existence, but not the latter. Hence, if the moral problem is dealt with according to the epistemological rules of true and false, right and wrong, moral values would be reduced and ultimately lose their bases. Mencius’ theory about virtues, which comes from the various interpersonal relationships, is grounded, however, not only on "ought" but also on the fact that all human beings by nature possess the archetype of such virtues. This archetype is a fact with both "is" and "ought" in its innermost core.

            Benevolence, righteousness, propriety and knowledge all come from this innermost core and are used by Mencius to express hu-manity:

Anyone who lacks of the feeling of commiseration is not human; and who lacks the feeling of shame and dislike is not human; and who lacks the feeling of mo-desty and complaisance is not human; one who lacks the feeling of approving and disapproving is not hu-man.26

According to Mencius, humanity and virtues which come from the interpersonal relationship are one and cannot be divided.

            Given this two-fold human nature, Mencius and all ancient Con-fucians did not deal so much with the individual alone, but paid much more time and effort to the discussion of interpersonal relationships. The communal or social dimension of human nature is the main problem for their philosophizing.

            In comparison with homo naturalis, homo ethicus can be called the "ought". But homo qua homo is prior to such division into a two-fold human nature. The logical division of "is" and "ought" is posterior to human nature which per se consists of both the individual and one’s relation with others. To lack either would render the human being imperfect.

CONCLUSION

            The understanding of ships by Plato or Christianity does not come fundamentally under the logical division of "ought" from "is". But in philosophical history interpersonal relationship has been much less challenged than has the individual, which has been attacked vehe-mently by both materialism and atheism. They denied not only the existence of God, but also the existence of the human soul. They agree only on the material, and do not accept any supermaterial sub-stance; hence they consider human individuality and independence to be illusory. Consequently, all spiritual values are diminished and perish, leaving humanity equal to brutality. When human nature is no longer human, then human relations are no longer personal and all the virtues of interpersonal relations are nonsensical. Thus the moral, religious and artistic values must all be cancelled.

            The materialistic orientation of the Western world attacks human relationship not directly, but more deeply on the metaphysical ground of personal individuality. In response it is necessary to awaken the arch problem of the spiritual. In the very beginning when all matter was still in chaos, the spiritual force was already immanent within the cosmos.

            This may be mythos, but mythos is the friend of philosophy, as Aristotle once said. No matter how much modern people believe in science, the fact of freedom remains undeniable and freedom in hu-man consciousness gives witness to the existence of a soul. More-over, in the epistemological experience of abstraction one should feel a spiritual dimension in one’s intimate life.

            Man is human because of his intelligence. Its development progresses step by step beyond the body matter and into the spiritual sphere. In interpersonal relations, which are oriented mainly towards spiritual intersubjectivity, the spiritual life of human existence created the history of humankind. This includes not only the natural sciences through which all the necessities of man’s daily life such as food, clothes, home, and transportation advance day by day, but morals, arts and religion which also flourish. All social constructions are under the control of morality for in them human nature is more than a process of scientific technology: artistic and religious feelings lift human nature from the natural to supernatural life.

            Thus, through solidarity and its social and political aspects the human being awakens within him or herself self-conscious to inter-personal relationships. In this it is not only that the individual exist for society, or society for the individual. Rather through interaction from both sides one is not only an individual, but also as a member of the society.

National Taiwan University

            Taipei

NOTES

            1. Plato, Timaeus, 69c.

            2. Ibid., 91a.

            3. Plato, Symposium, 179b.

            4. Genesis II:21-23, Adam’s exclamation: "bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh" symbolized the unity of man and woman.

            5. John, XIII:34.

            6. Ibid., 35.

            7. I-king (The Book of Change), Appendix.

            8. Ibid.

            9. Mencius, Bk III, Pt. I, ch. IV.

            10. Ibid., Bk. IV, Pt. I, ch. VI.

            11. Martin Luther used sola fide to say that one was saved by faith alone, that is, gratuitously by God and not by one’s love or good works.

            12. Cf. Kun-yu Woo, "The Modernization of Confucianism--A Discussion on the Cultural Change from Consanguineous-feeling to District Concern" in Symposium on Confucianism and Modernization, edited by Joseph P.L. Jiang, (Taipei: Freedom Council, 1987), pp. 111-120.

            13. Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, III.

            14. Behaviorism quite flooded the psychological and sociolo-gical sphere. B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity is a typical example.

            15. Lu-shi Chun-chiu, "The Superiority of Agriculture" and Hou Chia-chu, "The Development of Economical Value", papers presented at the "International Conference on Values in Chinese Societies: Re-trospect and Prospect", The Center for Chinese Studies, The National Bibliothek, May 23-26, 1991, Taipei.

            16. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in his three stage theory of the development of human knowledge maintained that theology and philo-sophy are now surpassed by the natural sciences.

            17. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) in his ten volume System of Synthetic Philosophy (1862-96) maintained that everything possesses a tendency to develop and progress through a process of evo-lution.

            18. Karl Popper (1902- ), Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledeg & K. Paul, 1962).

            19. Parmenides, cf. Diels/Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Band I, 12 (Zurich: Weidman, 1966), 28 B 3.

            20. Huang Chin-ming, An Enquiry on the "To Be" and "Ought To Be" (Taipei: Oh-Hu 1985), pp. 5-6.

            21. Nicolo Macchiavelli (1469-1527) maintained that the state is power.

            22. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) saw human beings as wolves to other humans (homo homini lupus).

            23. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) in his Social Contract maintains that the society is for the individual.

            24. The Golden Mean, ch. 20.

            25. The Confucian Analects, Bk. VI, ch. XVI.