Self, Mind and Body, Agency

Abstract

Chapter 1 lays out the dominant views of self, agency, and moral responsibility in early Chinese philosophy. The reason for this is that these views inform the ways early Chinese thinkers approach mental illness, as well as the role they see it playing in self-cultivation as a whole (whether they view it as problematic or beneficial, for example). This chapter offers a view of a number of dominant conceptions of mind, body, and agency in early Chinese thought, through a number of philosophical and medical texts. It covers the Confucian view of personhood as role-based and communal, and the Zhuangist deconstructive view of the self. Finally, the chapter includes an argument that early Chinese thinkers recognized a distinction between mind and body, and that mind was dealt with as a separate category, thus making the topic of “mental illness” possible.