Aesthetic and Moral Appreciation of Nature in Philosophical Traditions of China - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 42

4.2 Intellectual Intuition and the Knowledge of ch'i

In the fi rst part, I examined the meaning of ch'i from the metaphysical and aesthetic
dimensions. In this part, I explore the meaning of ch'i from the epistemological
dimension by answering the question: how do the Chinese people know ch'i ?
According to the Chinese philosophers, ultimate reality can be known through intel-
lectual intuition. By intellectual intuition, I mean our innate capability to directly
grasp the ultimate reality. Compared with the dominant rational way of knowing in
Western philosophy, Chinese philosophers depend on intellectual intuition to know
things outside of us. Some of them believe that the knowledge we obtain through
intellectual intuition is equal to and even superior to what we gain through the
senses and refl ective mind. Intellectual intuition can be acquired in different ways
based on Confucianism and Daoism.
For Confucianists, we can have intellectual intuition if we are persistently culti-
vating humanity. The Chinese character for humanity is jen which is “not only the
innermost sensitivity but also an all-pervading care” (Tu 1985 , p. 163) Tu Wei-Ming
considers the “unfolding of humanity” as the self-disclosure of ultimate reality. The
Confucian way of knowing the ultimate reality is best illustrated in the following
passage by Chang Tsai.

By enlarging one's mind, one can enter into all the things in the world [to examine and
understand their principle]. As long as anything is not yet entered into, there is still some-
thing outside of the mind. The mind of ordinary people is limited to the narrowness of what
is seen and what is heard. The sage, however, fully develops his nature and does not allow
what is seen or heard to fetter his mind. He regards everything in the world to be his own
self. This is why Mencius said that if one exerts his mind to the utmost, he can know nature
and Heaven. Heaven is so vast that there is nothing outside of it. Therefore the mind that
leaves something outside is not capable of uniting itself with the mind of Heaven.
Knowledge obtained through one's moral nature does not originate from seeing or hearing.
(Chan 1963 , p. 515)
To enlarge one's mind is to fully develop our moral nature, which is character-
ized by the innate capability to be sensitive to other forms of life. If we fully develop
our ability, we will be able to embrace all things in the world in a caring way. In
other words, we can identify ourselves with everything in the world. In terms of our
fully developed moral nature, we can have intellectual intuition, which enables us to
understand the ultimate reality of the world.
In contrast to Confucianism, Daoism stresses emptiness, which is the ideal struc-
ture of the mind, which is characterized by no-structure. In other words, emptiness
is both a state of mind that is devoid of all the knowledge we get through sense
experience and rational argument. With emptiness in the mind and the body, we can
directly understand the ultimate reality. Chuang Tzu calls this ability of direct
understanding shen , which is often translated into English as “spirit.” In terms of
spirit, T'ang Chun-I ( 1967 , p. 273) gives an excellent defi nition that it is a function
of mind which “meets the things in their changing process with intuitive and sym-
pathetic understanding but without attachments.” The belief that emptiness of the