Reading «The Great Learning» Again as The Process Definition of Bottom-Up Reasoning

Confucianism in pre-modern (or maybe even modern) East Asia has been the language of oppressive structure that kept conformity, obedience, and serfdom of the mass. The Great Learning (大學), one of the most important texts of Neo-Confucianism that arose in Song Empire after the ancient text was emphasised by Zhu Xi, is often interpreted as a top-down imperative for that structure too. And this stub is a shower thought interpretation from me that can reclaim the meaning of it.

As an East Asian myself, even before I learnt about the text, the phrases like “大學之道, 在明明德, 在親民, 在止於至善” (‘新民’ is a later fabrication of Zhu Xi for his ideological alignment), or “修身, 齊家, 治國, 平天下” were very familiar to me, and I think it’s the same for any other East Asians. And both phrases are often interpreted as something like a procedural definition in maintaining the top-down system on moral imperative.

However, in my opinion, if we interpret it literally with contemporary scientific lens, the meaning gets reclaimed in revolutionary way.

Is it really about elitist enlightenment?

The first sentence of the text, “大學之道, 在明明德, 在親民, 在止於至善”, is often translated as “What the Great Learning teaches, is to illustrate illustrious virtue; to make the people intimate with it; and to rest in the highest excellence.” And it’s been thought as an elitist enlightenment of the virtue, especially with Zhu Xi’s fabrication of ‘親民’ (to make the people intimate with it) to ‘新民’ (to renovate the people).

But if we stick to the literal meaning of it along with modern scientific lens, it becomes evident that “明明德” means pattern recognition from the base facts and events, “親民” means propagation of the findings to more people, and “止於至善” means updating the path to point the final destination. To put it in another way, it’s talking about the Bayesian process of collecting more and more evidences that can revise the estimation, collaborating with other pattern-seekers to synergetically update the estimation even further, and adding the estimations to find the final path like how Feynman’s path integral interprets the principle of least action.

It’s about bottom-up reasoning procedure for greater good

The next part that says

古之欲明明德於天下者, 先治其國; 欲治其國者, 先齊其家; 欲齊其家者, 先修其身; 欲修其身者, 先正其心; 欲正其心者, 先誠其意; 欲誠其意者, 先致其知, 致知在格物.

Usually translates to:

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

And we often remember it in upside-down form of “格物, 致知, 誠意, 正心; 修身, 齊家, 治國, 平天下”. This enlightens (pun intended) the fact that it’s about bottom-up reasoning procedure; It literally says “Recognising the patterns in base facts → Confirming the pattern is reproducible → Verifying the pattern is aligned internally → Establishing the structural findings” and doing it in “Personal → Familial → Societal → Global” level in the propagation of emergent meanings. In other words, 格物致知 is actually an ancient Oriental way of describing the Markov chain.

And that’s my shower thought. Just saying.