Ghosts in classical Chinese philosophy
IAN JAMES KIDD examines the differing ways in which Chinese philosophers approached the subject of ghosts and spirits
Ancient China recognised various kinds of spirits or ghosts ( An early philosopher, Mozi, grouped them into “the ghosts of Heaven, the ghosts of the mountains and rivers, and the ghosts of men who have died”. Some were friendly to humans, others hostile. Some took the form of humans or animals. Others were formless. Such beliefs run through Chinese history, religion, and literature. Think of such classic collections of stories of the supernatural as Soushen Ji ( Anecdotes about Spirits and Immortals, c. 350) and Pu Songling’s Liaozhai Zhiyi ( Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio) of 1740. These stories of spirits and immortals are didactic, used to condemn feudalism, corruption, and the exploitation of the poor – a strategy of concealing critique in the fantastical used, centuries later, by Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone.
The moral significance of spirits and ghosts ensured that they were discussed by philosophers. The main schools of classical Chinese philosophy all emerged during the violence and instability of the Period of the Warring States, 430221 BC. Common to all the schools was an effort to diagnose and respond to that unfolding moral chaos, even if the specifics varied enormously. We find most of the interest coming from Confucius and his followers and the shorterlived, lesser-known school of Mozi. They differ about all sorts of issues, including ghosts and spirits. The big questions are whether Confucius and Mozi believed in ghosts, and, if they did, what they thought our attitudes to them ought to be.
Confucius famously declared that his goal was to preserve the traditions of the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC). This included belief in Shàngdì, ‘the Lord of Heaven’, most powerful of all the ancestor spirits, elevated during the Zhou into a supreme moral force, source of the Mandate Tiānmìng) of Heaven ( which conferred authority on the ruler. Zhou practices included offering sacrifices to ancestor spirits who might, at times, intercede on behalf of their descendants. It was vital to maintain good relations with those spirits, mainly through offering sacrifices that were conducted in the correct ways. Confucius inherited all of this – his ethics focuses on an ideal of ‘ritual correctness’ and
It’s tough to work out Confucius’s own views on ghosts and spirits
his disciples are warned not to make sacrifices without the right attitudes of reverence, awe, and respectfulness.
Similar warnings were offered to disciples who asked about serving ghosts and spirits. Asked by one disciple how best to serve ghosts and spirits, Confucius bluntly replied that, unable to serve people, how could he ever hope to serve ghosts and spirits and understand death? Western commentators interpret this as a sign of Confucian ‘humanism’, the moral injunction to focus on the everyday world of human life, not distract oneself by speculating about the supernatural and the afterlife. Other readings, though, suggest that care of spirits and ghosts is more difficult, thus reserved for only the most able. Confucius elsewhere advises “respecting the ghosts and spirits while keeping them at a distance,” and not entangling their affairs with our own. A minister, for instance, is criticised for trying to curry favour with spirits with acts of extravagance.
It’s tough to work out Confucius’s own views on spirits and ghosts. A snag is that we’re told he did not discuss, among other things, ‘prodigies’ and the supernatural. This principled silence is explained in terms of their being irrelevant to the fundamental task of human life – ethical self-cultivation. But that’s clearly wrong. Our attitudes to spirits and ghosts can be assessed as respectful or presumptuous, appropriate or extravagant. Moreover, Confucius did discuss ghosts and spirits! A blunt solution was offered by a later Confucian thinker, Xunzi. It is to embrace a form of naturalism – roughly, denial of the supernatural and seeking only natural explanations of the world. Divination, for instance, does not provide knowledge of future events, but serves certain social and emotional functions, even though “the common people look upon it as connecting with spirits”.
No such ambivalence and reductive naturalism is visible in the philosophy of Mozi, an intriguing figure – a warrior, engineer, philosopher, and the author of an essay entitled “On Ghosts”. This contains the famous story of King Xuan, who killed his minister, Du Bo, who swore revenge before expiring. A few years