1. Who am I, and how should I act in the world?
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1.1 Introduction to Confucius' Notions of the Self
MICHAEL PUETT: Now we also believe there are things called habits.
And habits we tend to think of as kind of surface things.
So based on who I am, I want to find habits that best work with me.
So to stick with myself as an example, I'm someone who loves to read books.
It's part of who I am in this terminology.
These led to habits, some of which aren't perhaps so good.
I buy books-- a lot of books, way too many books.
And so a typical way I might think is--
OK, my true self is that I love to read.
I have a habit of buying too many books.
I should learn to either buy fewer books or purchase a Kindle so that I
can download more electronic books so I won't be killing as many forests
and filling up as many bookshelves in my apartment.
So I have a true self.
I rationally decide if my habits coming out of that true self are good or not.
And I rationally change my habits so that again my true self
can be fulfilled but not in a way that would be harmful
to, in this case, the forests of the world, et cetera.
So I have a true self.
I with my free will decide what's best for it.
And habits are the surface things
I just want to be sure are good habits that allow me to be true to myself
and not harmful.
This is pretty typical of the way we think.
It's pretty typical of the way we give advice.
Certainly, when we're talking to children, as they grow up,
this is the wording we will often use.
So what if we're wrong?
What if we not only wrong, what if these assumptions
about the self and the type of a lifestyle they
lead to are dangerously wrong?
What if they even lead us to live our lives
in ways that are refining, limited, restrictive, that prevent us
from living up to the our potentials,
in fact, restrict what we could possibly be as a human being
and dramatically restrict our ability to interact with those around us.
This is exactly what Confucius, our first early philosopher
in the tradition-- in fact, the figure who really open up the sets of debates
that will launch the Chinese philosophical tradition
would say if he heard all that I just mentioned.
He would say not simply that they're wrong, but they're dangerous.
What we will turn to next is Confucius's vision of the self,
very counter-intuitive.
His vision of what we should, therefore, do with our lives,
how we should rethink things like habits, rethink the self,
rethink indeed our entire life trajectory.
These ideas, as we will see, will be very counter-intuitive,
extremely challenging.
And what I ask you at this stage is take them seriously.
You don't have to agree with them immediately.
I doubt you will agree with them immediately, but take them seriously
in the sense of: assume that maybe they're onto something.
And if they are, work through the implications.
And then together, we will talk about what
it would mean to follow the kind of a vision
that Confucius is leading, as opposed to ones we take for granted.
Great, thank you.
- Friday 17 December 21
