THE REIFICATION OF FATE IN EARLY CHINA

Abstract

Abstract Early Chinese texts make us witnesses to debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans had over the course of events, the outcomes of their actions, and their own lives. In the midst of these discourses on the limits of the efficacy of human agency, the notion of ming 命 took a central position. In this article, I present a common pattern of thinking about the relationship between the person and the world in early China. I call it the reifying pattern because it consisted in thinking about ming as a hypostasized entity with object-like features. Although external and independent, ming was not endowed with human qualities such as the capacities for empathy, responsivity, and intersubjectivity. The reification of fate implied an understanding of ming as an external, amoral, and determining force that limited humans without accepting intercommunication with them, thereby causing feelings of alienation, powerlessness, and existential incompetence. I first show that the different meanings of ming hold a sense of prevailing external reality, and hence can be connected to the overarching meaning of fate. Then, I offer an account of the process of reification of fate in early China and its consequences, theoretical and practical, through cases study of received (Mengzi 孟子) and found (Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道) texts. I end with some reflections on the implications of ming as a nonpersonal and nonsubjective type of actor for both early Chinese and twenty-first-century accounts of agency. 提要 早期中國文本裡有很多關於人類是否對事件的進程、其行動的結果以及他們自己的生活具有影響力的争論。在關於人類能動性功效的爭論中，命的概念佔據了中心位置。在這篇文章中，我提出了一個早期中國關於人類與世界關係的思維範式。我稱其為物化模式，因為它將命視為具類似物體特徵的實體。雖然命是外在和獨立的，但它並不被賦予人性的品質，例如同理心、反應能力和主體間性。命的物化暗示了把命理解为一種外在的、非德的、決定性的力量。這種力量限制了人類而不接受與人類的互動交流，從而導致異化、無力和存在無能的感覺。我首先表明，命的不同含義皆有佔優勢的外在現實感，因此可以與命運（fate）總體意義建立關聯。然後，我通過《孟子》與《唐虞之道》文本的案例研究，提供了早期中國命運的物化過程及其理論與實踐的後果。最後，我提供一些反思，闡明命作為一個非個人和非主體性的能動者對早期中國和廿一世紀的能動性理論有何種影響。