Correlative Thinking Represented by the Terms “Lei” (類) and “Ran” (染) Found in the Xunzi and the Lüshi Chunqiu
Author: Masayuki Sato
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This article is a part of the author’s comparative study of the political philosophies found in the books Xunzi and the Lüshi chunqiu (LSCQ), which is also known as Mr. Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals. The author assumes that there are some key ideas that facilitated the common socio-political discourse during the unification of the Chinese world. This article focuses upon three of these ideas: (1) the way of argumentation known as “correlative thinking”; (2) the concepts of “lei” (類) which means “kind” or “category”, “ran” (染) which means “to dye”, and “jian” (漸) which means “to soak”; and (3) the idea that “the same kinds of creatures/things/phenomena attract each other”, and “the happenings of auspicious and inauspicious events” from the perspective of a correlative relationship between the heavenly and human spheres.
From the basis of comparative conceptual analysis, this article aims to persuade readers with regard to the following three points. Firstly, in many past studies, the correlative thinking in the Xunzi and LSCQ was previously understood as a kind of mutual affection, or “ganying” (感應). However, from the perspective of correlative thinking, the term “gan” (感), meaning “sense” or “to feel”, is not used in these two texts. Secondly, these books explain the reason why there is retribution for good and bad deeds, as well as the sources of good and bad luck via the principle: “the same kinds of creatures/things/ phenomena attract each other.” While there was no further development of this argument in the LSCQ, the Xunzi explained that self-cultivation is imperative for living a better life in a world determined by such a principle. Thirdly, although the Xunzi and the LSCQ both admit that there are situations in which individuals are prone to be affected by this principle of attraction, these two books also suppose that it is nevertheless human effort that decides whether a course of events will turn out to be good or bad.
In sum, the way of thinking characterized with the principle “the same kinds of creatures/ things/phenomena attract each other” permeates the worldview found within both of these books, and this became the foundation for the idea that human beings are all the same. It is this element that had facilitated the discourse for the construction of a “world-wide empire” which would theoretically embrace all of humankind.