Chinese Philosophy

Chinese philosophy is generally characterised by the word ‘harmony’ (hé 和). This idea is
epitomised in the familiar reconciliation of yin and yáng, negative and positive, dark and
light, female and male. The two are united at the Grand Pole (taìjí) around which our world
revolves, alternating night and day in a seemingly endless cycle. It is graphically symbolised
by the ‘twin fish’ diagram of black and white swirls inside a circle. This encapsulates the philosophy of the ‘unity of opposites’, a dialectic in which contraries mutually transform
which lies at the heart of Lâozî’s Dào, that is the ‘Way’ of the universe.

Use of force (lì) is anathema to the Way. Kings were to rule by the power of ‘virtue’ (dé 德)
which in Chinese is akin to ‘getting’ (dé 得), that is getting the Way of Heaven, bestowing its blessings on his subjects, and so getting the allegiance of ‘men’ (rén 人) and consequently
practising benevolence, that is being ‘humane’ (rén 仁), another homophone. Thus ‘getting’
in the higher sense is ‘virtue’, just as ‘manhood’ in the higher sense is the cardinal virtue
‘humanity’.

Yet virtue needed to express itself in the physical world of politics, economics and warfare.
While eschewing naked force or outright aggression, virtue needed to generate power, a
‘dynamic’ (shì 勢) of position and timing. Instilling a sense of awe. This dynamic has a latent energy triggered when required. It borrows external forces, such as gravity or the five
elements of nature (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) to achieve its objectives. It is the
secret behind what Sun Zî’s Art of War “winning without fighting.”

In 2013, Marnix published the first-ever English translation of the early Chinese classic
‘Pheasant Cap Master’, Héguanzî (鶡冠子), dateable to the late third century BC. It is
concerned with solutions to the problem of unification from a politico-religious perspective. It displays a cosmic vision of a messianic figure, the last in a succession of nine divine ‘Augustan’ emperors (Jiû-Huáng 九皇) to rule the world. Yet this was not mere speculation. It was the product of desperate times, towards the end of the Warring States period, facing the imminent threat of Qín whose totalitarian conquest was consummated in 221 BC, laying the foundation for the following two thousand years of a mostly centralised China.

In 2022, Marnix published a revised and expanded bi-lingual, inter-linear edition

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