Symbiosis in Chinese Philosophy

Beginning with the description of biological existence and evolution, the term "symbiosis" was born in the natural world and reveals a profound pattern of interaction between things in natural ecology. From the smallest fungus and cell to the largest human and nature, symbiosis is everywhere, constantly shaping the underlying logic of our understanding of the world.

This is an abridged version of the second part of the report.

For the full report, please copy the links below and paste onto a browser:

English: 

https://www.berggruen.org/activity/a-future-of-symbiosis-and-coexistence-what-is-symbiosis-and-why-should-we-want-it/

Chinese: 

https://berggruen.org.cn/activity/54

Imagining Chinese philosophy and a symbiotic world: the gap of Wen and the edge of chaos

Professor Tsuyoshi Ishii from the University of Tokyo first brought up the debate between Chinese and Western ideals of symbiosis using Chinese philosophy as a basis. Professor Ishii believes that symbiosis is not just a value and goal that humanity should strive for, but a precondition for our survival.

Rather than describe the reality of symbiosis between things as a harmonious relationship, Professor Ishii believes it is better to describe it as a combative relationship full of conflicts and contradictions. The famed architect Kurokawa Kisho, who popularized the concept of symbiosis in Japan, formulated his idea of “the symbiosis of life and death” in precisely this context. This reality shows that there will be a deadly tension between our ideals of symbiosis and our pursuit of symbiosis in practice. Humanity, when seeking out symbiotic forms of governance and social order, will often instead end up with a rigid structure marked by oppression and exclusion. The ideal of symbiosis is thus degraded into a governance mechanism that suppresses the outside world, and which is isolationist and xenophobic. Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction and Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer (“sacred man”) are two reflective theories on the logic of rule in modern politics that explicate the characteristics of this type of mechanism.

The question is, then, how should we imagine a symbiotic mechanism different from this? Here Professor Ishii introduces the concept of core unity of wen (language) and li (pattern) present in the theories of Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and the Neo-Confucianists, which describe a kind of pattern in the world. In this view, we study, emulate, and train in technology to achieve a kind of trained spontaneity, thereby breaking the pattern, changing and creating the world. As Michael Puett once said, “We are always creating ourselves, always creating the world; we, and the world we live in, are already products of artifice.” The “gaps of wen ,” meanwhile, are the gaps that inevitably exist between the real, natural world and the natural world we describe with language. These gaps, these barriers, are like the hundun (the central chaos that dominated the world before it was split into two) spoken of by Zhuangzi. As we rationalize the natural world and impose order upon it, we threaten to destroy chaos.

As Stuart Kauffman once said, “I suspect that the fate of all complex adapting systems in the biosphere—from single cells to economies—is to evolve to a natural state between order and chaos, a grand compromise between structure and surprise. We will find a place in the sun, poised on the edge of chaos, sustained for a time in that sun’s radiance”. This “edge of chaos” implies that as we change the natural world, we must maintain a level of caution and subjective agency, allowing the entire world to protect its self-existing order rather than moving further and further away from nature.

For example, on the material level of carbon dioxide, humans already coexist with our own kind, and we live symbiotically with other species as well. Furthermore, we are already capable of living symbiotically with humanity as a whole and other species that are yet to come. This is not a mysterious “truth,” but a common fact. Our internality, however, prevents us from catching up to this reality. Perhaps we must overcome the allure of internality, and even reject the allure of philosophy. Perhaps we must strive to realize the existence of this type of humanity.

The key to elevating the reality of symbiosis to its ideal is still people. In Professor Ishii’s view, ancient Chinese philosophy provides a great contemplative resource for us in this regard, supplying a possible theoretical direction for the practical exploration of achieving the goal of symbiosis.

Confucianism: the “interconnected benevolence” of Neo-Confucianism and the ideal of symbiosis

From a Confucian philosophy standpoint, Professor Wu Genyou of the Wuhan University School of Philosophy uses the Neo-Confucian idea of “interconnected benevolence” to explain Confucian symbiosis.

Assimilating the foundations of Taoist, Mohist, and Buddhist thought, Neo-Confucianism pioneered a new idea of ren , or benevolence, that integrated humans with the natural world. This concept of benevolence expanded upon the Confucian understanding of benevolence centered on filial piety for one’s blood relations, enlarging the scope of benevolence to include the entire world, thereby creating a new universal order incorporating solicitude for one’s family, fellow humans, and other creatures. This concept might be seen as a kind of Confucian symbiosis for traditional Chinese societies. The viewpoints of Neo- Confucian scholars Zhang Zai, the brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, and Wang Yangming are representative of this concept.

Zhang Zai’s idea of the shared essence of all things can be viewed as a type of ethical symbiosis, the theory of which is based on the philosophical (not to be confused with a scientific, material) theory of qi. This qi theory also forms the basis for Zhang Zai’s theory of natural law. Even though there are antagonistic activities—such as carnivorous predators hunting herbivores—in a symbiotic world based on qi, it is still a world of symbiosis abiding by the natural order. Such a symbiotic world entails certain ethical requirements, which Zhang Zai expressed as the idea that since all things come from the same source, one cannot sensibly speak of personal gain. Since nothing is wholly independent, there is a natural balance whereby energy fluctuations in one place affect energy in another. Thus, whenever we contemplate taking some action, we must consider a symbiotic point of view that is grand, holistic, and communal, and not just act in our own self-interest. Zhang Zai also stated that our gustatory desires are expressions of the aggressive instinct of qi; thus, we must curb such material desires lest they adversely affect our moral integrity.

In addition to their contributions to ethics, the Cheng brothers, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, explained the crucial breakthrough effect that interconnected benevolence had on the “Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind” doctrine from an epistemological viewpoint. They believed that ren (benevolence, humaneness) could no longer be considered as the pre-Qin Confucian ren based on loving one’s fellow humans, but rather a new concept marked by suffused oneness with all things. This new concept of ren encourages us to recognize the vitality in all living creatures, viewing them not as mere objects that we possess, control, and utilize, but as integral existents inextricably linked with our own survival. It can be compared to the Taoist philosophical essence of yi , or change, and the sheng sheng concept of flourishing growth. 

The Cheng brothers agreed with Zhang Zai that nothing in the world exists independently from everything else. They further pointed out that from a cosmic point of view, humans, as beings in the world interacting with other creatures, cannot be distinguished from those creatures they share the world with. In other words, there isn’t much that is unique about humans. And yet humans are also described as the “heart” of the world, and thus we bear responsibility for the intrinsic order of the biosphere; we are admonished to treat other creatures as they are, and not hold them to our own standards. In other words, we must show care and compassion for lowly creatures, but also—taking the natural world as our model—esteem ourselves and strive for self-perfection, thus symbiotically coexisting with all living creatures with both prudence and modesty.

According to the thought of Wang Yangming, a renowned scholar of the Neo-Confucian school, the symbiotic idea of universal oneness can be explained on three different levels. The first level describes that the natural relationship between humans and other creatures is one of interconnectedness. This interconnectedness relies primarily on the exchange of qi to realize a state of symbiosis. The second level is the symbiotic relationship of the ethical form of Neo-Confucianism, namely that all people should have interconnected feelings. People of learning are especially obligated to possess moral empathy and love others. The third level explains that, as individual moral agents with consciousness and self-awareness, and precisely because we possess the consciousness and self-awareness of conscientious individual moral agents, “universal oneness” is what allows for a flourishing civilization. Intrinsic oneness—that is to say, a state of symbiosis—without the light of human morality, can only ever breed a dark and uncivilized society.

Without an ecosystem that can support human life, there can be no human civilization to speak of. This is where symbiosis comes into play. We must adjust and correct our philosophy of life, and adapt it to the needs of human symbiosis, especially regarding recent industrialization and forms of existence dominated by Western capitalist ideologies. Professor Wu believes that explicating the symbiosis of classical Confucianism through the moral and metaphysical lens of the “interconnected benevolence” of Neo-Confucianism can provide intellectual experience and precedent for symbiosis in an era of globalization.

Taoism: How the “heaven and earth” view of prosperity of the Taipingjing supports symbiosis

Professor Chen Xia of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Philosophy systematically introduced the “heaven and earth” view of prosperity, biodiversity, and symbolism of Taoism.

Professor Chen explained that Taoism does not stigmatize the natural human desire for wealth, but rather offers to assist us in accumulating it, encouraging and supporting the reasonable, lawful, sensible pursuit and creation of wealth. But when we blindly pursue personal material gain, we often end up neglecting Zhuangzi’s “heaven and earth” view of prosperity—that “wealth lies in diversity.” This view regards the diversity of creatures on heaven and earth (in the world) as riches, and thus what true wealth is.

The Han-era Taoist scripture Taipingjing notes that true wealth lies in diversity, the myriad forms of living and nonliving things in their totality. The diminishment or destruction of life, especially the significant loss of species, is thus seen as a form of poverty. The extirpation of a species is the annihilation of the Heavenly Principle; the extinction of any species harms the natural system and tarnishes the natural order. Thus, grievances enacted toward living creatures block the flow of qi throughout the world, impacting every living thing, including humankind and our societies and nations.

Unfortunately, modern science has verified that the Earth is undergoing a constant reduction of species. Biologists estimate that there are currently around 5 to 10 million species on Earth, compared to a historic peak during the planet’s most prosperous age of 100 to 250 million species. During the Mesozoic era, species went extinct at a rate of one per 1,000 years. From the 16th to 19th century, this rate increased to one species extinction every four years. For a species to exist requires thousands of years of survival adaptation; thus, the extinction of a species represents the termination of thousands of years of history. And the loss of one species endangers the survival of 20 to 30 other species. This makes the 2,000-year-old Taoist assertion that the loss of a single creature leads to widespread annihilation startlingly perspicacious. The Taoist view of prosperity determines the level of wealth in the world by the number of living creatures, and magnifies the loss of one species to a grievous harm done to the Heavenly Principle and the natural order, describing this state of affairs as “the poverty of heaven and earth.”

Humans are directly responsible for the poverty of the world. Taoism reminds us that humans control the fates of all living creatures. Humans are more capable than all other creatures in the biosphere, and thus our actions greatly impact the natural world. Professor Chen offered such characterizations of humankind as the “commander of all life on earth,” “the ruler of life,” and the “overseer of fate,” elevating humankind to a deific status responsible for all life. By doing so, he hopes to urge humankind to take on the sacred mission of protecting other species, to use our powers of reason and morality, to expand the scope of our moral concern, to limit actions which violate natural order, to uphold the ecological equilibrium of the natural world, and to live in harmonious symbiosis with other creatures.

Buddhism: from symbiosis to self-reliance

Lastly, Gong Jun, professor of philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University, gave a detailed talk on relating the dependent origination and symbiosis concepts of Buddhism with modern thought. Professor Gong believes that the Buddhist concept of dependent origination is, in the existing world (the phenomenal world), symbiosis. This includes all aspects of the natural world and human social activity, and implies that all forms of being are only possible because they are mutually conditional. All dharma of the phenomenal world, including the five aggregates (human form, sensation, perception, formation, and discernment), the twelve ayatanas (the six inner ayatanas: eyes, ears, noses, tongues, bodies, and minds; and the six outer ayatanas: visible objects, sounds, odors, tastes, touch, and mental objects), and the eighteen components of perception (the twelve ayatanas plus six sense consciousnesses) are interdependent and constantly changing. At the same time, mind and consciousness (the Buddhist notions that all things are created by the mind alone, and that all phenomena are nothing but manifestations in consciousness) play a dominant role in all types of symbiotic relationship structures among humans and nature. This concept permeates Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism.

This Buddhist concept of “dependent origination” symbiosis has much to say about animals (vegetarianism) and plants that has tremendous value to modern environmentalism. The question of whether or not plants are sentient and should thus be respected and protected as other sentient beings, for example, has been answered affirmatively in traditional Indian Buddhism. Professor Gong pointed out the interesting fact that even though Chinese Tiantai Buddhism asserts that non-sentient things—plants, for example—possess Buddha nature, this notion has been widely ignored in China. He suspects this has something to do with the humanistic focus of Confucianism, the prevailing thought system of Chinese culture.

Professor Gong believes that the transcendence of the symbiotic world in Buddhism is its most remarkable viewpoint, because according to the Buddha, the emergence of symbiosis is itself a depraved process. Dependent origination includes the existence of all phenomena of humans and the external world, but the Buddha proved in an ontological sense the existence of problems and vexations in the symbiotic world. This essentially means that, everything in the world only exists as a result of symbiosis, and nothing has an unchanging substantial existence; and yet despite this, humans pine for immutability, which causes suffering. All dharma of the five aggregates are impermanent and interdependent; this is the anatta (non-self, unsubstanceness), pain, and emptiness of dharma.

At the same time, the Buddha did not specially discuss the principles of symbiosis from the level of nature or human technology. He believed that the mind and consciousness were the origins of symbiosis, and sought to relieve the problems caused by symbiosis from these dimensions. The goal of Buddhism is liberation, which means extricating oneself from the cycle of symbiosis. This entails reaching a state of self-reliance, and avoiding and overcoming the cycle by training one’s awareness, thereby attaining a state that Buddhism describes as relying on no one but oneself. We might see this as a transcendence of the dharma of symbiosis. Mahayana, the primary Buddhist tradition of East Asia, on the other hand, advocates that we strive for self-reliance not by avoiding the world of symbiosis but while remaining in it; resolving the problems of the world from within the world, a transcendent path that resolves the problems of humanity from the relations of coexistence. Professor Gong offers this as Buddhism’s contribution to modern thinking on symbiosis.

The philosophy and theory of the symbiosis of yin and yang: family-based social groups and the science-tech best-suited to human-and-earth life

We can find extremely insightful and perspicacious musings on symbiosis in Chinese philosophy. Zhang Xianglong, professor of philosophy at Peking University, constructed a philosophic theory of symbiosis by comparing Chinese and Western views. In his talk, he proposed that the survival unit of human symbiosis is not the individual, and not the collective, but the families and familial social groups in between. The apposite technology for this theory of symbiosis and family-based structure is not the advanced technology we have now, but a science-tech best-suited to human-and-earth life that promotes human longevity and survival.

In Professor Zhang’s view, the Western philosophical tradition, from Parmenides to Hegel, does not offer a theory of symbiosis. Instead, it has tried to identify singularized “forms” (Plato), “essences” (Aristotle), or “cogitos” (Descartes). Expressed as “atoms” (Democritus) and “impressions” (Hume), it sought to construct the world or knowledge from these fundamental existents. Yet these are all just incidental combinations and concatenations that have nothing to do with symbiosis. This is not the case with contemporary Western philosophy, however. Philosophy of life, phenomenology, pragmatism, Wittgenstein’s later thought, and process philosophy all strive to allow the original method of interaction between humans and the world to break free of the linear modality of the subject-object dichotomy and enter a pre-reflective generated structure that fuses both parties.

Professor Zhang believes that only Heidegger’s ontology was able to breach the chasm between humans and the world, placing humans in the world from the outset, obtaining an interconnected state of “Being-with” (Mitsein) with the world (including all living creatures and other people). But this concept of symbiosis did not delve deeply into the relationship between humans and other living species; it did not get pushed to its most important philosophical conclusion.

In Professor Zhang’s view, the most pertinent and most thorough theory for understanding symbiosis is the yin and yang theory of Taoism. The symbiosis of yin and yang is complete and unreserved; it is continuously generated; it creates life-time through the process of flourishing growth. As a philosophic theory, yin and yang are the contrasting and complementary (inter-necessary) source of life. It does not have an independent existence, but gives rise to the world through its random fluctuations and intersections. Yin and yang are not two objects or even two fundamental elements. They are a pair. They are one. They cannot be cleft in two. They are a pair, but through their differences they overcome any discriminatory type of speciesism, racism, or hierarchicalism. Such a deep-level theory of symbiosis guarantees a robust ecological theory and brings us closer to a state of existence in which humanity and nature are one.

Professor Zhang notes that the heterogeneous nature of yin and yang is expressed by the fact that they are at once oppositional and mutually necessary. This type of relationship is always creating a new state that produces yuan qi (original qi ), but which is not yet deterministic or objectifiable. The symbiosis and constant generation of yin and yang give it an advantage in dealing with the uncertain future.

Applied to human life, this theory is first of all reflected in the family and in familial relations. According to Confucianism, we must first realize symbiosis between people if we are to achieve symbiosis between people and the world. The original form of this interpersonal symbiosis is the Confucian qinqin concept, the lifelong instinct to be devoted to one’s family members. Parents represent the past. As such, they belong to yin . Children represent the future, and thus yang . The past and future of their lives are woven together to create the flourishing time structure of a family’s life, which gives survival its original significance. We might say that humans are members of a family rather than individuals; symbiotes, then, are families and not collectives. The fundamental lifetime of a family not only creates symbiosis by making family members love one another; it also allows family-based social groups and nature to coexist symbiotically by supporting one another. Cooperation needs living time. Altruism needs evolution among groups. And this all originates from the time generated by yin and yang and the groups that arise from this. In our world, its primary manifestation is the family.

Advanced technology will not help us realize symbiotic technology, because advanced technology, which only seeks greater power, always leads to human isolation and through various ways damages our Earth, which is naturally symbiotic. Professor Zhang believes we should choose the science-tech best-suited to human-and-earth life, as only this can create positive symbiosis among people, and between people and nature. This type of technology is a diverse, open technology that consistently applies three principles (green, pro-family, and abundance), and includes sublations and modifications of traditional technology, as well as detoxified, green advanced technologies. Livable technology also has its own optimum structure which consists of limiting myriad technologies to achieve a state of positive symbiosis, thus creating potential for enduring, free, happy human life.

Image Credit: Creation of the Gods I

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Participants(in alphabetic order)

Chen Xia

Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Gong Jun

Professor, Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University

Ishii Tsuyoshi

Professor of Chinese Philosophy, University of Tokyo, Komaba

Lu Qiaoying

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Peking University

Lu Zhi

Professor and Deputy Director, Centre for Nature and Society, Peking University

Ren Xiao

Professor, Director of the Center for Chinese Foreign Policy, Fudan University

Song Bing

Vice President, Berggruen Institute

Professor, School of Philosophy, Wuhan University

Xiao Xianjing

Professor, Institute for Science, Technology and Society, South China Normal University

Yang Shijian

Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Xiamen University

Lecturer, School of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University

Zhang Xianglong

Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies,Peking University

Zhao Liping

Professor and Eveleigh-Fenton Chair of Applied Microbiology, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey

Report composed by: Li Zhilin

Project team: Song Bing, Zhan Yiwen, Tian Xinyuan

Translator: Thomas Garbarini

This is an abridged version of the second part of the report.

For the full report, please copy the links below and paste onto a browser:

English: 

https://www.berggruen.org/activity/a-future-of-symbiosis-and-coexistence-what-is-symbiosis-and-why-should-we-want-it/

Chinese: 

https://berggruen.org.cn/activity/54

我们生活在一个充满伟大变革的时代。通过搭建全球对话平台、推动跨文化交流、促进学术与思想创新、打造新型治理政策，博古睿研究院致力于增进人类对这个变革时代的深度理解，培养和发展新的思想和理念，助力全球各机构、政策制定者以及公众应对影响人类的深刻变化。