Mobility and Intuition: What Does Pre-Qin Daoist Philosophy Reveal about Constructive Postmodernism?

Abstract

Constructive postmodernism is based on the monism of mind and matter, and proposes an organic philosophy which highlights the process and pan-empiricism. Chinese pre-Qin Daoist philosophy on the materiality, dynamism, and information of the Way (Dao) and human intuitive knowledge can be used as the basis for the above-mentioned statements of organic philosophy and pan-empiricism and further answer their unaddressed questions, and can manifest that the pre-Qin Daoist philosophy also has the potential to provide intellectual resources for the discussion of the philosophical mind–matter relationship. This may contribute to the further development of human science and technology.

1. Introduction

The basic ontological foundation of modern philosophy is materialism regarding nature, and the corresponding epistemological foundation is a sensory theory of perception. Philosophy and science interact in many ways, and the relationship between mind and matter has become a difficult issue in the development of contemporary science. Constructive postmodernists argue that modern philosophical views are untenable with respect to many complicated issues. For example, the fact that people have no access to knowledge outside of their own experience complicates the modern theory of epistemology. Constructive postmodernists such as Alfred North Whitehead and David Ray Griffin proposed the philosophy of organism, process thought, and pan-empiricism to solve the problem. In “Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy”, Griffin says, “I primarily take Whitehead’s position as the standpoint from which to characterize the commonalities” (Griffin 1993, p. 3). Thus, Whitehead’s process philosophy and Griffin’s pan-empiricism together form the core of constructive postmodernism. Specifically, constructive postmodernists deconstruct experience and interpret the subject–object unity of space–time in pan-empirical terms, thus constructing a cosmology and epistemology of mind–matter unity. Some studies consider the ontology of constructive postmodernism as empirical metaphysics and empirical ontology (Zhang and Xu 2021; Yu 2012). Specifically, its substance is referred to as the actual entities or events that exist as a flow of energy (Ma 2021). However, there are many specific issues concerning the actual entity that constructive postmodernists have yet to explain1.

Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy and constructive postmodernism arose in response to a similar problem: distrust of empirical knowledge. The Hundred Schools of Thought arose during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, when the Zhou Dynasty was characterized by a breakdown of rites and music (liyue 礼乐) and by the strife of the vassal states. The ritual and music canonical system was too complicated and became hypocritical and external. In response to this situation, pre-Qin Daoism emphasized “have nothing to rely on” (wudai 无待). “Daoism speaks of ‘nature’ as being free, being so by oneself. It is to have nothing to rely on, to be independent. Only the natural man can be regarded as a spiritually independent man, so this is a very transcendent realm. So to speak of Wu Wei (wuwei 无为) implies the idea of nature, and to aspire to be free and easy, one must free oneself from hypocrisy to be natural” (Ye 2016). Daoist philosophy carries the banner of “have nothing to rely on” and expands the pursuit of freedom to the negation of empirical knowledge. The pre-Qin Daoists used the “negative method, the way of negation” (Guo 2017), that is, “loss” (sun 损), to obtain true knowledge. Zhuangzi’s “have nothing to rely on” and Laozi’s “giving up the learning of experiential knowledge” (juezhi 绝智) both conveyed the desire for true knowledge. Constructive postmodernism also rejects empirical knowledge. Whitehead’s philosophy takes as its starting point a critique of modern scientific materialism, which argues that modern science presupposes “simple location” (Whitehead 1925, p. 17) as a precondition for the production of knowledge. This science debases the value of anything it touches, including human freedom. Both pre-Qin Daoist philosophers and constructive postmodernist philosophers have responded to the problem of the untrustworthiness of empirical knowledge with the idea of reconciling the mind–matter dichotomy. According to Prigogine, “on the one hand, he rejects the definition of subjective experience as consciousness, thought, and sensory perception, and on the other hand, he regards all physical existence as an organism with enjoyments, feelings, impulses, cravings, and appetites” (Prigogine and Stengers 1984, p. 94). His aim is to break the boundary between mind and matter that has been drawn by the scientific materialism. Daoist philosophy, on the other hand, uses “Dao” as an alternative term to express a thoroughgoing monism of Dao, which provides a way of thinking to complete the integration of mind and matter. They all aim at dissolving the constraints brought by empirical knowledge, so as to guarantee the integrity and reliability of human cognition, to give meaning to cognitive behaviors, and to guarantee the destination of human values. According to Jaspers, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy took place in the Axial Age. In the three cultural zones of the world from about the 9th century B.C. to the 6th century B.C., “man became aware of himself in the totality of being, and then went beyond himself” (Jaspers 1959, p. 16). These transcendental ideas, including pre-Qin Daoist philosophy, have value beyond time and are rich in intellectual resources that can be used to solve contemporary philosophical problems. Although the above is not enough to prove that there is a direct relationship between constructive postmodernism and pre-Qin Daoist philosophy, it is possible to examine the two in the same vein. As Dongmei Fang 方东美 and Shiquan Cheng 程石泉 have argued, Whitehead’s doctrine is quite similar to the Confucian and Daoist schools of Chinese philosophy (Yu 2006)2. Constructive postmodernism is not perfect in many aspects. Using the ideological characteristics of pre-Qin Daoist philosophy to grasp the shortcomings of constructive postmodernism can make it more perfect and also highlight the superiority of pre-Qin Daoist philosophy.

Precisely because of the surprising similarities between pre-Qin Daoist philosophy and constructive postmodernism, there have been some studies related to this topic, but these studies are still not specific. Dongmei Fang 方东美 compared constructive postmodernism with Chinese philosophy, including Daoist philosophy, earlier3. Dongmei Fang introduced Whitehead’s “organism” to explain the metaphysics of Chinese philosophy. He observes that the main drawback of Western philosophy is dualism, which is compensated for by the “holistic” Chinese philosophy, and argues that Chinese philosophy has much to share with Whitehead’s process philosophy (Fang 1980, p. 248). However, he has not yet discussed Daoist philosophy and constructive postmodernity in more detail4. This issue has also been discussed in Ames’s study of Daoist philosophy. Ames reads the Way through the lens of Whitehead’s process philosophy, which emphasizes process. He believes that the most important characteristics of The Way are activity and creativity (Ames et al. 2003). In addition, Ames points out that the pre-Qin Daoist philosophers considered truth to be “situated experience” (Ames and Cui 2015), a combination of experience and emotion, but does not elaborate on this, nor does he address the issue of private knowledge as a response to the constructive postmodernist argument.

Some other scholars have also discussed this issue in bits and pieces. Tingguo Zhang 张廷国 argues that “the unification of fact and value within ‘process’ is where Whitehead fits in with Chinese Daoism in the construction of cosmology” (Zhang and Dan 2008). Whitehead’s view of the generative process as a subject echoes the connotations of Zhuangzi’s On Making All Things Equal 齐物论 and is an attempt to bridge the attempts of fact and value. According to Yingmin Chen 陈英敏 and Fengqiang Gao 高峰强, from the perspective of practical significance, both process philosophy and traditional Chinese Daoist culture can inspire us to think about the “ecological crisis” and “social, political, economic, and justice issues” (Chen and Gao 2009). The research of Xianghai Li 李翔海 and Zhu Jin 金珠 preliminarily discussed the similarities between constructive postmodernism and Daoist philosophy, and put forward the view that both constructive postmodernism and Daoist philosophy believe that the world is an organism. However, there is no specific discussion on the comparison of various concepts proposed by constructive postmodernism with Laozi and Zhuangzi (Li and Jin 2004).

An in-depth study of the above unresolved issues can help to further refine constructive postmodernism. Specific questions unaddressed by constructive postmodernism include the following: If the world is a mobile organic whole, what is its substance (understood as the actual entity)? What are the dynamics of this mobility? If the world is a subject–object unity, how can one differentiate between oneself and the world or even know oneself and know the world? What are the characteristics of such knowledge? There are no scholarly articles that attempt to use pre-Qin Daoist philosophy to address the specific problems of constructive postmodernism mentioned above, which are rather important. As representatives of Chinese pre-Qin Daoist philosophers, Laozi and Zhuangzi show many similarities in their thinking with constructive postmodernists5. By discussing the Way and its corresponding epistemology, Laozi and Zhuangzi put forward many more specific ideas on the issues related to organicism and pan-empiricism6, which can provide an Eastern philosophical perspective for the still-developing constructive postmodernism, and also demonstrate the potential for Chinese pre-Qin Daoist philosophy to provide intellectual resources for the philosophical mind–matter relationship.

2. The World Is a Mobile Organic Whole

2.1. The Way Determines the Characteristics of the Cosmos

In cosmology, Whitehead opposed the long-held materialistic mechanism in Western philosophy and instead advocated an organic mechanism (Yu 2012, p. 12). This idea, along with the subsequent more detailed discussion of the organic world, provides a vantage point of view for further reflection, by which we can better understand how the parts of the organic whole share the activity and the connectedness, and why pre-Qin Daoist philosophy can help with this. Whitehead argued that human knowledge is a combination of objective experience of the external world and individual intuitive feeling. In the external world, the objects that constitute our immediate concrete experience are called an “actual occasion”, which consists of Objects and Events. An Event denotes the fundamental existence of the external world, and the Object denotes the characteristics of the Event. The Object is a thing that can be recognized by perception, such as a table, a chair, or a dog. An Event extends over a period of time. There are two characteristics of an actual occasion. The first is that the world is an interconnected organism that can creatively evolve forward. The actual occasion has the “given” for the past, the “subjective character” for the present, and the “superjective character” (Whitehead 1925, p. 170; 1929, p. 87) for the future. In other words, the actual occasion contains past, present, and future, with the past pointing to the present and the present to the future. In the process of creative evolution, the external world moves forward with the intention of creative evolution, and the present of each time period contains the information left behind by the past and the telos of evolution toward the future, which is the direction of the present toward the future (Yu 2012, p. 12). The actual occasion has the information and motivation for the world to generate itself, like an all-powerful stem cell that can grow into any tissue as needed. The second characteristic of the actual occasion is the unity of time and space. Because time is an extended relationship between Events while space is an extended relationship between Objects, we live in a durable space–time unity.

Constructive postmodernism reinterprets space–time by extracting the two elements of the actual occasion, that is, information and dynamics, arguing that the world of Objects is a mobile organic whole. However, that is all constructive postmodernism has said on the issue. Questions such as why the world is an organic creative evolution of information and dynamics and what the operative laws of the mobile world are remain to be solved. Daoist philosophy explains the characteristics of the organic world more specifically by specifying the Way. On the whole, the pre-Qin Daoist philosophy considers the world to be dynamically balanced, and to be a space–time unity. Specifically, the Way provides information and motivation for the creation of entities. The pre-Qin Daoist philosophical perspective further answers the above questions.

In general, first of all, Daoist philosophy argues that nature is an indivisible organism and that the basis for the organism’s complete self-sufficiency is the Way. This is mentioned in many chapters of the Daodejing (also known as Laozi). At the beginning of Daodejing, we read: “When there are not [now] names, it [the Way] is the beginning of the ten thousand kinds of entities. When there are [already] names, it [the Way] is the mother of the ten thousand kinds of entities” (无，名天地之始；有，名万物之母) (Chapter 1)7 (Chen 2017, p. 73). This describes the Way as the basic substrate of the creation of the cosmos as fundamental matter which provides the information of creation. When the Way is implemented downward to form things, it becomes a visible and tangible being. Guying Chen 陈鼓应 quoted Anshi Wang 王安石 as saying, “The Way comes from the not names, so it can always exist in the form of the nameless and appears to be unfathomable; the Way manifests in the names, so it can always exist in the form of the named and we can see its image.” (道之本出于无，故常无，所以自观其妙。道之用常归于有，故常有，得以自观其徼) in his Laozi’s Current Annotation and Translation (Chen 2017, p. 6) to illustrate that the Dao provides all the information for the occurrence of something or nothing. As Shuye Tong 童书业 describes the Dao, “So everything as matter is derived from the abstract concept Dao” (Tong 1982, p. 114). All things in the world are born from the same source, with different forms but the same origin. “Both emerge from a common [origin] but they have different names” (同出而异名) (Chapter 1) and are gathered into formed objects and dispersed into vital breath, an indivisible organism. For the same reason, in Chapter 40, it is said that “The entities of All Under Heaven have [their] life in [the realm of] Entity, but Entity has [its] life in negativity.” (天下万物生于有，有生于无) (Chen 2017, p. 226). Then, as for the Way, the origin of all things, what form does it take? In Chapter 25, Laozi says: “There is a thing that completes out of the diffuse. It is born before Heaven and Earth. Vacant it is, alas, still. It stands alone and does not change. It travels all around but is not in danger. One might take it for the mother of Heaven and Earth.” (有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，独立不改，周行而不殆，可以为天下母) (Chen 2017, p. 169). In its state of being nothingness, the Way itself is infinitely harmonious and complete, a self-contained and simple whole. Shuye Tong童书业 said this “non-existent existence” is complete and independent, “similar to the Absolute Spirit” (Tong 1982, p. 115). It is silent and invisible, but full of vitality, the prototype of the organic world that will be born out of it. “The Way as a thing is vague, ah, diffuse, ah. Vague, ah, diffuse, ah, [is the Way], [still,] in them there is an image. Diffuse, ah, vague, ah, [is the Way], [still,] in them there is an entity. Secluded, ah [is the Way], distant, ah, [still,] in them there is an essence. [If] their essence is verily truthful, there is credible [evidence] in them” (道之为物，惟恍惟惚。恍兮惚兮，其中有象；恍兮惚兮，其中有物。窈兮冥兮，其中有精。其精甚真，其中有信) (Chapter 21) (Chen 2017, p. 156). This is precisely the state of the Way of nothingness as a whole. In this state of being nothingness is the life force that forms everything, which is the “essence” (精)of “in them there is an essence” (其中有精). The tangible world that emerges out of the Way will have the characteristics of the Way as a whole.

Second, the characteristic of the organic world is dynamically balanced. As an organism, the world born out of the Way advances itself in a dynamically balanced manner. Zhuangzi refers to this organic balance as making all things equal (qiwu 齐物). In the Discussion On Making All Things Equal 齐物论 (the content quotes hereinafter from Zhuangzi only annotated with the title of the article), it is stated that “Their dividedness is their completeness; their completeness is their impairment. No thing is either complete or impaired, but all are made into one again” (其分也，成也；其成也，毁也。凡物无成与毁，复通为一) 齐物论8 (Chen 2016, p. 67). The dispersion of anything and its constituents will definitely generate new things, and the generation of any new thing will definitely cause some damage to the original thing, destroying the original state. The creation and destruction of objects are interdependent, just like the trees in the forest and daily necessities made of wood, which, in the final analysis, are the different forms of existence of the Way. This is the reason why Zhuangzi says: “For this reason, whether you point to a little stalk or a great pillar, a leper or the beautiful Xishi, things ribald and shady, or things grotesque and strange, the Way makes them all into one” (举莛与楹，厉与西施，恢诡谲怪，道通为一) 齐物论 (Chen 2016, p. 67). All kinds of differences and divisions between them are negated in the Way. In the same manner, the story of “three in the morning and four at night” (zhaosanmusi 朝三暮四) (Chen 2016, p. 67) also vividly illustrates the idea of dynamic balance and the reunification of the One. The monkey keeper fed the monkeys peaches, promising them they would eat three peaches in the morning and four peaches at night, and all the monkeys were furious, so the monkey keeper changed his promise to four peaches in the morning and three peaches at night (zhaosimusan 朝四暮三), and all the monkeys were joyful. There is no difference in the essence between the two abovementioned methods of feeding, but the monkeys changed their state of joy and anger because of the difference in appearance. In modern social life, people rely on their senses and are concerned about the differences in formed materials; their emotions are moved by them, and disputes arise out of this.

The sage “harmonizes with both right and wrong and rests in Heaven the Equalizer” (和之以是非而休乎天钧) (Chen 2016, p. 67). According to Guying Chen 陈鼓应, “Heaven the Equalizer” (tianjun 天钧) is the natural change of all things (Chen 2016, p. 70). Feng Youlan 冯友兰 pointed out that “rests in Heaven the Equalizer” (xiuhutianjun 休乎天钧) means “conforming to the natural changes of all things” (Feng 1982, p. 205). Fuguan Xu 徐复观 said it means: “To integrate one’s own wisdom into Heaven the Equalizer and the shafts of the way (daoshu 道枢)” (Xu 2020, p. 353). Xianqian Wang 王先谦, a Qing dynasty scholar, called it “Things and I each have their own way” (物与我各得其所) (Wang 1987, p. 17). The “three peaches in the morning and four peaches at night” and the “complete or impaired” (成与毁) are changes in the appearance of things. Underneath the appearance, it is the reaction of the human being that is the key to realization. One should realize that human beings and things are one and the same, and that the changes in things reach a “vast equality” (Fang 2011, p. 318) in a system of interplay and intermingling, without fundamental differences. People today should consider whether the different appearances from the smallest individual to the largest cosmic nature are really worthy of our joy and anger.

Furthermore, Daoist philosophy likewise considers the world as a space–time unity. Neither Laozi nor Zhuangzi ever treat a moment as a separate slice of time, while time is embodied in the growth and changes in states of objects.

Even while the ten thousand kinds of entities all act at once, I [as opposed to others] by way of this [emptiness and stillness] perceive that to which they return. Generally speaking, while the entities are of unending diversity, each one of them returns to its [common] root (Chapter 16).

(Chen 2017, p. 134)

万物并作，吾以观复。夫物芸芸，各复归其根

(第十六章)

To act (zuo 作) is to move. The growth of plants and the reproduction of animals are acts. The unending diversity designates the prospect of plants. No matter how splendid and rich the scene is, eventually, the plant needs to return to its roots and grow again. The cosmos as a whole advances forward in time, but the act of all things is not isolated from the past and the future; it is a regular repetition, from nothing to something, and then back to the Way as its root; “return means returning to the root, returning to the way” (Guo 2017). Any point in time can be regarded as the whole of time, because at the same point, there are always at the same time things that have not yet developed, things that have developed, and things that are in full bloom. This wholeness of space–time is very similar to Whitehead’s actual occasion, which also emphasizes the wholeness of space–time. The advantage of this is that, compared to the description of actual occasion in process philosophy, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy demonstrates a concrete mobility.

Specifically, first of all, Laozi believes that the Way has the information to create objects. “The Way generates the One. The One generates the two. The two generates the three. The three generates the ten thousand entities.” (道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物) (Chen 2017, p. 233). Chapter 42 describes the journey of the Way to create all things. Guang Sima 司马光 said ”The Way gives birth to one, and all things have a name from the not names” (道生一，自无入有) (Sima 1988, p. 268a) in his work Discourse on DaoDeJing 道德真经论. We already understand that the Way created the world from nothing to being, but we do not know what kind of being this being is. According to pre-Qin Daoist philosophy, the being of the world is composed of information and matters carried by the Way. The Way is the information base of being and contains information about each of the things that make up the world. For example, tables, chairs, flowers, grass, and people are all composed of the Way as the basic material and form their unique appearance through the information it provides. “Once the Unadorned has dispersed, they [the entities] become instruments” (朴散则为器) (Chapter 28) (Chen 2017, p. 183), and when the Way is dispersed, it constitutes all kinds of instruments: “Once the names are there, [I, the Sage] set out to have an understanding about [how to] put a stop [to the ensuing developments]. [Only] having an understanding about [how to] put a stop [to them] is what gets [me] out of danger” (名亦既有，夫亦将知止，知止可以不殆) (Chapter 32) (Chen 2017, p. 198). With all kinds of instruments, there are all kinds of prescribed names, and they are the Way, and have the same characteristics as the Way; if they grow and develop according to these characteristics, they can be perpetuated. In the constructive postmodernist view of the cosmos, one of the components of the actual occasion is the Object, which is a perceptible object with distinctive characteristics. This characteristic of the Way, which provides the fundamental essence and creates information to form all things, fits well with the Object. However, the actual occasion is the initial determination, so constructive postmodernists do not investigate the origin of Events and Objects. Pre-Qin Daoist philosophers, on the other hand, have further answered the question of the creation of the concrete world based on the characteristics of the Way.

Second, the Way is also the driving force behind the development of the world. The defining problematic of the Daodejing is the intention to come into focus and maintain creativity. In Chapters 51 and 5, we get a more direct explanation of this intention of creativity, which is more simply, in this paper, referred to as the driving force behind the development of the world. Ames, Hall and Peng named this driving force “Creative Intent” (Ames et al. 2003).

The Way generates them. What they get is that it nourishes them: As entities it [the Way] lets them assume form. As situation it has them fully develop. That is why there is none among the ten thousand kinds of entities that does not honor the Way and value the receipt/capacity.…That is why the Way generates them [the ten thousand entities] and that what they get nourishes them. And it lets them grow and nurtures them, specifies them and completes them, protects and covers them (Chapter 51).

(Chen 2017, p. 260)

道生之，德畜之，物形之，势成之。是以万物莫不尊道而贵德。……故道生之，德畜之；长之育之，亭之毒之，养之覆之

(第五十一章)

The power of the Way drives the birth, aging, sickness, and death of human beings, and the natural phenomena of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

[The space] between Heaven and Earth is like a drum or flute! [That is,] hollow it is, but inexhaustible [in the variety of sounds it can produce] [the more] it is beaten, the more [sound] comes out of it (Chapter 5).

(Chen 2017, p. 93)

天地之间，其犹橐龠乎！虚而不屈，动而愈出

(第五章)

This power is like the wind in a drum and flute, blowing the fire of natural evolution, seemingly empty and nothing, but with a powerful force that never stops. In contrast to Whitehead’s theory of actual occasion, the Way not only has the function of generating Objects synchronically, but also has the function of promoting Events diachronically. In addition, the infinite power of the Way to generate and drive the world can be compared to the overall direction of the actual occasion. The direction of the evolution from the given to the subjective character and to the superjective character is also similar to the dynamism of the Way. However, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy makes this dynamism easier to understand and more convincing through numerous analogies. Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy provides a basis for the driving energy by attributing it to the Way.

2.2. The Invariance of the Way Determines the Invariance of the Cosmos

Constructive postmodernism has realized that there is still a certain invariance latent in the organically mobile world, referred to as “pure potentials for the specific determination of fact” (Whitehead 1929, p. 25). It is a pure potentiality for the actual occasion and affects it in two ways: “as for the subject, the pure potential determines its subjective forms” (Yu 2012, p. 13), i.e., the form of the subject’s feeling, such as the emotion when perceiving an external object. In the case of the object, the pure potential determines the object of the external world perceived by the subject, which Whitehead called the ‘datum’ (Yu 2012, p. 13). In general, the pure potential designates the concept of being felt by the subject. However, constructive postmodernist scholars have not yet realized where this invariance originates. Early Daoist philosophers had a more specific explanation for this invariance. According to them, the invariance originates from the Way. Related discussions in pre-Qin Daoist philosophy further answered the question of “What is the certain invariance latent in the organically mobile world?”.

In early Daoist philosophy, this unchanging thing was called the Way. The Way is the cosmological starting point, logically prior to the world of form, and as an essence exists in the world of form. “There is a thing that completes out of the diffuse. It is born before Heaven and Earth” (有物混成，先天地生) (Chapter 25) (Chen 2017, p. 169). The Way precedes the entire cosmos in chronology, and its chronology defines the status of the Way: it will always serve as the foundation of everything. Moreover, “I do not know whose son it is. It is like the precursor of the lord” (吾不知谁之子，象帝之先) (Chapter 4) (Chen 2017, p. 90) emphasizes the importance of the Way in terms of its status as an original and loftier being than the lord. Such a firm and strong affirmation and praise of the Way further establishes its constancy and status as the source of all things. This source is the foundation of the invariance of the changing world. “Vacant it is, alas, still. It stands alone and does not change. It travels all around but is not in danger. One might take it for the mother of Heaven and Earth. I [Laozi] do not know its name. I give it the style ‘way’” (寂兮寥兮，独立而不改，周行而不殆，可以为天下母。吾不知其名，强字之曰‘道’) (Chapter 25) (Chen 2017, p. 169). Laozi believes that, after the creation of the world, the Way “stands alone and does not change” (独立而不改). It will not disappear or change because of the flow and transformation of the organic world but permanently remains in the latter; he also believes that it “travels all around but is not in danger” (周行而不殆) and never stops moving forward, which means that it moves with the world. The Way is the constantly changing world.

The Way is the changing world itself and the common source of mind and matter. The Way creatures not only things but also their Qi (qi 气), which is implemented further down to form human beings, and human beings (including consciousness) are also generated by the Way. The invariance of the external world in Daoist philosophy corresponds to the unchanging object of the subject’s perception in the pure potential, that is, the datum. In Daoist philosophy, the unchanging feeling of men, which has the same structure as that of nature, corresponds to the unchanging form of feeling in the pure potential, also called the form of the subject. Whether it is the datum or subjective form, the invariance comes from the coherence of the feeling subject and the felt object, both of which are essentially the Way. In the mind–body experience, the mind contains the body and the soul, which are connected through Qi (Feng 1994, p. 34). The isomorphism of mind and body through the Way solves the problem of people’s tendency of distinguishing between cognition and emotion.

3. Cognitive Inwardness, Privacy, and Overall Connectedness

3.1. The Cognitive Inwardness Confirmed by the Way

The separation of mind and matter causes the mind to be real but unknowable and the world to be knowable but unreal (Griffin 1993, p. 3). To solve this contradiction, Whitehead proposes that the main activity of the mind in knowing the world is Apprehension (Yu 2012, p. 13). The main content of subjective Apprehension is the intrinsic connection between the perceiver, the form of perception, and the datum. The actual occasion emphasizes the invariance of the world and the important role of subjective perception in cognitive invariance. Further, the actual occasion is the concept underlying apprehension. In contrast to the actual occasion, apprehension emphasizes the perceiver. That is, Whitehead argues that the perspective of the perceiver is an indispensable role in two-view monism. The subjective Apprehension constitutes the actual occasion, so that one actual occasion (past or present) can become another actual occasion (future). It is also in this activity of Apprehension, where immediate experience is combined with past experience, that the external world can exist in its entirety. The pure potential is embedded in the actual occasion by Apprehension. In contrast to the perceiver, the actual occasion as a time–space unity still exists as an object. Thus, this configuration between the actual occasion and apprehension can partly resolve the mind–matter problem. The significance of knowledge through Apprehension is that it allows one to grasp the wholeness and relevance of things. Following in the footsteps of Whitehead’s Apprehension, Griffin proposes pan-empiricism as a kind of epistemology. Pan-empiricism holds that “if all individuals, not just those with sensory organs, experience, there must be a non-sensory mode of perception; and if sensory perception has evolved out of non-sensory perception, it is likely that creatures with this derivative form of perception still retain the more basic form as well.” (Griffin 1993, p. 20). It follows that pan-empiricism has two implications. One is that everything in the world (including objects without sense organs) has experience; the second is that the main source of individual knowledge is a priori intuition and past experience rather than immediate experience in the present. Past experience is an experience that has been integrated by the subject and has the nature of comprehension. A priori intuition and past experience together constitute non-sensuous intuition. Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy not only emphasizes the epistemological approach of synthetical comprehension and intuition, but also proposes ways to improve our ability to know, answering questions such as “What are the characteristics of non-sensuous intuition?” and “How can we promote non-sensuous intuition?”.

Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy urges us to transcend the senses and know things intuitively. Through emptiness (xu 虚) and stillness (jing 静), one can transcend the senses and raise the level of awareness. In Chapter 16 of Daodejing, Laozi writes, “[As the entities’] achieving emptiness is Ultimate, holding on to stillness is [their] core.” (致虚极,守静笃) (Chapter 16) (Chen 2017, p. 134). Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy advocates the state of emptiness and stillness, which is the origin of all things and the best state for all things, including human beings. In the original state, human beings can bring out their instinctive wisdom and cognitive ability. However, real life is complicated and the human mind is affected by the external world. “The five colors let man’s eyes go blind. The five sounds let man’s ears go deaf. The five tastes let man’s mouth go numb. Riding and hunting let man’s heart go wild. [In short,] goods that are hard to get block man’s actions” (五色令人目盲；五音令人耳聋；五味令人口爽；驰骋畋猎，令人心发狂；难得之货，令人行妨) (Chapter 12) (Chen 2017, p. 118). In this chapter, Laozi observes that the mind is disturbed by the control of the senses, and when it is disturbed, it is unable to perceive the real situation of things, so he concludes, “while the further one ventures out, the less one cognizes” (其出弥远，其知弥少) (Chapter 47) (Chen 2017, p. 248). That is, the more you see and hear, the less wisdom you have. Only when the mind returns to tranquility can the level of knowing be improved.

[Only when] not going out of doors [into All Under Heaven one has something] by means of which to cognize All Under Heaven; [only when] not peeping out of the window [to Heavenly phenomenon one has something] by means of which to cognize the Way of Heaven; while the further one ventures out, the less one cognizes. That is why the Sage cognizes without going to [the objects]. That is why the Sage gives [the correct] name to [the objects] without looking at [them]. [In short,] without his acting [on them], he gets [them] completed (Chapter 47).

(Chen 2017, p. 248)

不出户，知天下；不窥牖，见天道。其出弥远，其知弥少。是以圣人不行而知，不见而明，不为而成

(第四十七章)

This chapter directly discusses the cognitive method advocated by Laozi. He believes that if one’s mind and soul are completely outwardly focused and one’s senses are fully engaged in sound and color, one’s thoughts will be complicated and one’s spirit will be cluttered. The so-called “not going out of doors” (不出户) is to allow the individual to reduce the interference of external information when the right mindfulness (zhengnian 正念) is not yet able to suppress distracting thoughts. In addition, Laozi believed that, in order to have true wisdom, people should imitate infants. Infants do not yet know the world, yet they are rich in life force and wisdom. “For the ruler to focus on the breath, to bring about softness, and in this be able to be like a baby-ah! For a ruler to clean and wipe the perception of That-which-is-Dark and to be able to keep it without blemish-ah!… For a ruler to be, during the opening as well as the closing of the door of Heaven, able to be a hen-ah! [For a ruler] to understand [all things going on in] the four directions and be able to [do so] without having a personal interest—ah!” (专气致柔，能如婴儿乎？涤除玄鉴，能无疵乎？……天门开阖，能为雌乎？明白四达，能无知乎？) (Chapter 10) (Chen 2017, p. 108).

Although both Whitehead and Griffin tried their best to bridge mind and matter, they still defined emotion and content as two opposing elements, and Hengwei Lee 李恒威called the constructive postmodernist account of the mind–matter relationship “two-vision monism” (Li 2012). The pre-Qin Daoist philosophers further explained that emptiness and stillness (xujing 虚静) and focusing on the breath and bringing about softness (qirou 气柔) could improve cognition. In the opening chapter of Zhuangzi’s Discussion On Making All Things Equal (齐物论), he says through Ziqi’s mouth: “Now I have lost myself. Do you understand that? You hear the piping of men, but you haven’t heard the piping of earth. Or if you’ve heard the piping of earth, you haven’t heard the piping of Heaven!” (今者吾丧我,汝知之乎?妥闻人籁而未闻地籁,汝闻地籁而未闻天籁夫) (Chen 2016, p. 37) Perception has only access to the piping of men or at most to the piping of the Earth. Only by transcending perception, by inner realization, by eliminating all preconceived opinions, and by reaching the state of “I have lost myself” (吾丧我) can we have access to the piping of Heaven. The piping of Heaven becomes the piping of men when it passes through the bamboo flute and becomes the piping of Earth when it passes through a particular hole. The vital breath remaining unchanged in this process is the piping of Heaven. Taking the sound of the wind as an analogy, the fact that the wind passes through various orifices is an empirical activity, the piping of earth (dilai 地籁) and the piping of men (renlai 人籁) are changes in the form of objects, and to realize the wind itself is to realize the true nature of the world. To be able to accomplish this realization is to have true wisdom. In the process of experience, one becomes paranoid. This is the “myself” (wo 我) in “I have lost myself” (吾丧我) that Whitehead called the emotion in the subjective forms. The “I” (wu 吾) in “I have lost myself” is what the pre-Qin Daoists call an individual free of paranoia, a state called emptiness and stillness. According to pre-Qin Daoist philosophy, as long as one can be at ease with the times and submit to the changes in form with the appropriate emotions, then one will not have the emotions of joy, anger, sadness, and happiness that are obsessed with one’s own intentions, and one can conform to the information of things and feel the unity of mind and matter, thus obtaining true knowledge. Because mind and matter are the Way, the Way gives birth to Yin and Yang (yinyang 阴阳). The different combinations of yin and Yin and Yang form the Five Elements (wuxing 五行), and thus, all things have forms, which contain different information9. Therefore, each instant of consciousness can contain all the information of the universe.

In The Great and Venerable Teacher 大宗师, a conversation between Master Si and Master Yu discusses something similar. Master Yu “Had some dislocation of the yin and yang and seemed calm at heart and unconcerned. Dragging himself haltingly to the well.” “Do you resent it?” asked Master Si. Master Yu said “What would I resent? If the process continues, perhaps in time he’ll transform my left arm into a rooster. In that case I’ll keep watch during the night. Or perhaps in time he’ll transform my right arm into a cross-bow pellet, and I’ll shoot down an owl for roasting. Or perhaps in time he’ll transform my buttocks into cartwheels. Then, with my spirit for a horse, I’ll climb up and go for a ride.” (Chen 2016, p. 197). Regardless of the changes in his physical form, he is “at ease with the time and in tune with the changes” (Chen 2016, p. 200), that is, the wisest man who is united in mind and matter.

In pre-Qin Daoism, the finite life of human beings and infinite knowledge are an insoluble contradiction. At the same time, human perception is subject to many external conditions and is relative in nature, so only by starting from within and directly experiencing the Way can we gain true wisdom. This kind of comprehension abandons the indifferent and research-based approach to knowing and replaces it with a holistic, comprehensive, reciprocal communicative approach to knowing. In response to the narrowness of modern epistemology, constructive postmodernism incorporates comprehension into the method of knowing, freeing people from overconfidence in the senses. In this regard, early Daoist philosophers showed foresight and one can realize the true knowledge through emptiness and quietness.

3.2. The Private Nature of Knowing and the Communicability of Knowledge Made Possible by the Way

Because of the role of intuition in knowing, the private nature of knowing inevitably emerges. In Whitehead’s later works, “The Concept of Nature”, he further proposed the theory of sense-awareness (Whitehead 1920, pp. 5–13). Constructive postmodernists realize that sense-awareness has two pending problems. One is the problem of reliability and transferability of knowledge brought about by the private nature of cognition. The second is that theoretical explanations such as apprehension, the actual occasion, and uniform of significance, which take bridging dualism as their logical starting point, do not fully disentangle cognition from sense-experience, and thus rely on non-sense-intuition, which is likewise considered unreliable. Whitehead tries to solve the problem of the reliability of private cognition with sense-awareness, and the theory of sense-awareness emphasizes the uniform of significance together with the actual occasion to solve the problem of the contingency of private cognition. Sense-awareness describes the private nature of knowing. “Sense awareness is a person’s immediate subjective experience, and this immediate experience is private, incommunicable” (Yu 2012, pp. 151–52). The greatest difficulty in using intuitive experience as an important source of knowledge is that intuition is often considered to be subjective and private, contingent, and unable to provide universal knowledge. Therefore, Whitehead further suggests that our perception of the objective nature has three factors: fact, element, and actual entities (Yu 2012, pp. 151–52). The holistic nature that we immediately intuit in sense-awareness is facts, the latter comprising the destination of elements of sensory perception, which is the succession of Events mentioned above. The fact that is distinguished is the element; the element is the destination of sensory perceptions that through distinctions become components that constitute the fact, and the components of the fact are relations between facts. We perceive a characteristic of a thing—for example, the yellowness of a pineapple—but at the same time, we also perceive the pineapple’s shape, its smell, its location in a certain place and at a certain time, and the element existing in the form of relations. According to Whitehead, the connections between things are stable and many intuitions about nature are regular and orderly. Therefore, the grasp of the meaning of a thing is also the grasp of its basic connections, and this grasp is the uniformity of nature (Yu 2012, p. 107). “By grasping the universal spatio-temporal relationship between events, we grasp the ‘the uniform significance’ of things” (Yu 2012, p. 108). Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy adds to the connotation of relationships on a macro level. At the micro level, the connection is the relationship between the elements of things; at the macro level, the relationship is expressed as “regular repetition” and the Way accomplishes this unchanging relationship. One must grasp relationships through intuition. Based on the private and holistic nature of cognition, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy further answers the questions of what the inner connection is and how one needs to comprehend this private connection.

As we know, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy holds that all things in the universe are intrinsically connected; the connection is reflected in the oneness of mind and matter, and all are in regular repetition. “The Way generates the One. The One generates the two. The two generates the three. The three generates the ten thousand entities” (道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物) (Chapter 42) (Chen 2017, p. 233). Laozi believes that the Way is the origin of all things in the cosmos, that all things are born from the Way, and that all things contain the Way. The connection is also expressed in the fact that the Dao makes everything run naturally with the same laws. “[Their] reverting to [their] roots means stillness. Stillness means return to life endowment. Return to life endowment means the Eternal. Having knowledge of [this] Eternal means being enlightened” (归根曰静，静曰复命。复命曰常，知常曰明) (Chapter 16) (Chen 2017, p. 134). The regularity of repetition is the norm of the world, and is also the inherent connection of all things in the world: my past is your present, and my present is your future. This self-acting operation is similar to what Anuraguchi calls “natural causation” (自然因果): “natural causation means that something does not need to receive external action to complete the cycle of life” (Ames and Ouyang 2022).

Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy also advocates the viewpoint of connection; grasping the connection is to grasp the essence of things. In Zhuangzi, there is a story of how Cook Ding cuts up an ox (paodingjieniu 庖丁解牛). Cook Ding is skilled and cuts fast, and the sound of his fast knife is full of rhythm. Cook Ding “move(s) the knife with the greatest subtlety, until—flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground” (动刀甚微，謋然已解，牛不知死也，如土委地) (养生主) (Chen 2016, p. 103). Lord Wenhui is amazed by the skill and asks Cook Ding about his method. The cook answers: “After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now—now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop, and spirit moves where it wants”. (三年之后未尝见全牛也。方今之时，臣以神遇而不以目视，官知止而神欲行) (养生主) (Chen 2016, p. 103). In this allegory, there is no more ox in Cook Ding’s eyes. His knowledge of the ox is not limited to its appearance but grasps the components of the ox as a whole, its color, its shape, its smell, and the structure of the whole connection; it is the knowledge of the essence of the thing. After reaching the pinnacle of this understanding, the form of the ox disappears in front of Cook Ding, who does not rely on his eyes to see and ears to hear, relying only on the action of spiritual intuition. This is the peak of the ox-cutting technique but also the peak of the knowledge of things.

To grasp this inner connectedness requires private intuitive comprehension. Intuition is reticent, and the reticence of the sage transcends the spontaneity of the cosmos. In “In the World of Men” (人世间), Yan Hui asks Zhongni (Confucius) how to persuade the reckless ruler of the state of Wei, and Zhongni replies, “Don’t listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don’t listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit… Emptiness is the fasting of the mind” (无听之以耳而听之以心，无听之以心而听之以气！……虚者，心斋也) (人世间) (Chen 2016, p. 124). Here, Zhongni seems to be answering the wrong question, because pre-Qin Daoism is agnostic about the specific knowledge of the world, and experience is not given through experience itself, but through the method of intuitive comprehension (tiwu 体悟). By intuitively comprehending the Way with the method of intuitive comprehension, one can realize the laws of everything, that is, the Way, and grasp the world fundamentally and thus solve problems. The method of the intuitive comprehension of the Way is highly private, and “the fasting of the mind” (xinzhai 心斋) is sufficient to summarize it.

Now, we can see clearly how Zhongni actually answered Yan Hui’s question fundamentally. See Zhuangzi’s well-known story of the Death of Spontaneity (混沌之死), from which we can derive the same idea. Spontaneity (hundun 混沌) is the central god, rich in wisdom that governs the workings of the universe. Chiseling the seven orifices (qiqiao 七窍) of Spontaneity and imposing “order, experience and empirical knowledge” (Ames et al. 2003) on him led to the death of the central god. According to Guying Chen 陈鼓应, Spontaneity “takes on the appearance of wholeness” (Chen 2016, p. 236). From this perspective, it is clear that wisdom resides in the innate whole and cannot be taught through empirical knowledge. Intuition is silent, and the silence of the sage transcends the spontaneity of the universe.

The story of Zhuang Zhou dreaming of butterflies 庄周梦蝶 well expresses the private nature of intuitive comprehension and the intrinsic connection between men and things.

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up, and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he were Zhuang Zhou who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly, there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

(Chen 2016, p. 97)

昔者庄周梦为蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也。自喻适志与！不知周也。俄然觉，则蘧蘧然周也。不知周之梦为蝴蝶与？蝴蝶之梦为周与？周与蝴蝶，则必有分矣。此之谓物化。

(齐物论)

In On Making All Things Equal 齐物论, the story of Zhuang Zhou expresses well the private nature of comprehension and the intrinsic connection between human beings and things. Life, death, dreams, and awakening, as well as all the differences between things, are derived from the differentiation of objective appearances of the Way, so they are fundamentally the same, which is the most fundamental connection of the cosmos. This undifferentiated essence also makes Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly form an indivisible whole in form and consciousness; there is no need to investigate, because this law of interconnection and return is the embodiment of the inherent connectedness of the world, and only through internal wisdom and intuition can we comprehend this essence, connection, and law. As Ames, Tao, and Wang point out, once one reaches this state, it can be described as “the important, productive and normative role that the perfect figures of early Daoist cosmology had.” (Ames et al. 2014). This is the realm that the pre-Qin Daoist philosophers reached with their private, intuitive methods of knowing based on the monism of mind and matter.

4. Conclusions

Constructive postmodernist philosophers focus on solving the problem of the unknowable. Whether this relates to the world of objects constituted by the mobile actual occasion or to intuition-dominant cognition, both aim to dissolve the contradiction between experience and cognition by intuition, so that the unknowable becomes knowable. In fact, Chinese pre-Qin Daoist philosophy has long been addressing the mind–matter problem in a similar yet more specific way. Laozi and Zhuangzi believed that the ultimate reality of the cosmos is the Way. Due to the generative function and regular mobilization of the Way, time and space are one. Both people and things are the Way, and therefore meta-information itself, so sensual perception is not necessary to obtain complete information. The thought of mind–matter unity dissolves the contradiction between experience and cognition by intuition and also dissolves the uncertainty of intuitive knowledge. More importantly, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy also provides a corresponding way to improve cognition.

It is true that constructive postmodernism is only a wave in the history of Western philosophy, but its concern about the mind–matter relationship is a difficult point in the development of contemporary science and technology. Organic philosophy and the pan-empiricism proposed by constructive postmodernism are bold attempts to guide the development of science and technology with monism. Therefore, the inspiring thoughts of Chinese pre-Qin Daoist philosophy with respect to constructive postmodernism can also be said to constitute its inspiring contributions to the development of contemporary science and technology. Pre-Qin Daoist philosophy is the key to Chinese philosophy, and its discourse on the Way can enhance the confidence of contemporary philosophy in advancing the study of the Unity of mind and matter.

As Griffin says, the mechanistic mind–matter dualistic view of nature “is based on imagination rather than empirical evidence” (Griffin 1993, pp. 3–14), i.e., modern science under mechanistic guidance is in itself full of unexplained metaphysical presuppositions. Thus, scientific research is not free of metaphysical presuppositions but chooses to hide them. Research is needed to induce scientific research methodology to reveal its metaphysical presuppositions and then to compare them with traditional philosophy. Traditional philosophies are world philosophies, including the pre-Qin Daoist philosophy discussed in this paper. The discourse of pre-Qin Daoist philosophy on the Way can be used as a thought-provoking resource for the development of mind–matter monism. Placing these issues in a contemporary philosophical context and language for discussion can reground the ancient wisdom and provide a new attempt to consider the development of science and technology. Admittedly, this article cannot solve all the problems of the current philosophy of constructive postmodernism, or the philosophy of monism in the development of science, but it is a potential intellectual resource for the future development of science and technology.