Stratagem Rationality of Traditional China

Abstract

For a long time, leading European thinkers have denied systematic, theoretical and rational nature of Chinese traditional thinking, unpretentiously reading it as banal moralizing (“moral philosophy,” at best – “moral metaphysics,” etc.), not supported by any proper philosophical discourse. However, the habitual socioethical label conceals a much deeper problematic of strategic thinking. At its center, there is the question of choosing all sorts of strategies: from everyday life to special technical ones, from personal existential choice to fateful state decisions. The concept of a winning strategy is emblematized by the dramatic plot of a deadly risk (“stepping on a tiger’s tail”) but under certain conditions with guaranteed happy end. The strategy of harmony (he 和), which is miraculous in its effectiveness, is proposed as a exemplary strategy. It allows you to “step on the tiger’s tail” with impunity (lü hu wei履 虎尾). From the point of view of strategic thinking, the criterion of cognitive value of reasoning is its effectiveness (in the context of a particular game), and the most effective is unmistakable prediction, i.e. the ability to predict the outcome of future developments with the help of reasoning. In the ideal case (under certain conditions), prognostic reasoning becomes not just plausible but 100% reliable that is an apodictic true inference. Therefore, the highest cognitive status in the Chinese intellectual tradition is endowed with guaranteed error-free prognostic reasoning. This type of reasoning, where the reliability of foresight is guaranteed by the implementation of a certain winning strategy, can be called the prognostic form of deduction. As a result, the dynamism of Chinese logic, which relies on a deliberate staging of the future (sometimes with the help of stratagems of varying degrees of cunning), is strikingly different from the static nature of the classical image of logic (both traditional and modern), where logic is no more than a static guardian of correctness of reasoning. On the contrary, the Chinese concept of logic focuses on deriving consequences from strategic considerations regarding the future, actively and purposefully shaped by the subject who at the same time constructing both himself and the world around him.