J of Chinese Philosophy - March 1976 - TONG - THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHICAL SILENCE SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF LANGUAGE PDF

LIK KUEN TONG
T H E M E A N I N G O F PHILOSOPHICAL SILENCE:
SOME R E F L E C T I O N S O N
T H E USE O F L A N G U A G E I N C H I N E S E T H O U G H T
What is silence? This question has perhaps never been raised before -
certainly not as a serious philosophical question and not in the Western
tradition. In so far as traditional Western philosophy is concerned, this
question cannot have arisen because silence has rarely been practised, if
at all, by Western philosophers. Without an authentic experience of
silence, it is difficult for them to see its true meaning, let alone its neces-
sity. This inability to appreciate the positive signxcance of silence is
closely connected with their failure to grasp the real import of nothing
or nothingness. For thein silence is simply the absence of speech, just as
nothing is the mere negation of being. It was not until recently that
Western philosophers have come to acquire a dim awareness of the real
meaning of both silence and nothing. The credit of the initiating influence
is to be attributed respectively to the works of Wittgenstein and Heideg-
ger. To Wittgenstein silence has definitely a positive meaning: it is an
integral part of philosophizing. Silence is no longer conceived as the mere
absence of speech, but rather as its transcendence; while the necessity of
the transcendence is due exclusively to the limitation of language. There
are things, says Wittgenstein, which cannot be put into words: they are
what is mystical. And “what we cannot speak about we must pass over
in silence”.’
To students of Eastern thought, the conception of silence as the tran-
scendence of speech (and not merely as its absence) sounds all too famil-
iar. If no formal attempt has been made by Eastern thinkers to attack the
nature of silence, that is not due to any lack of authentic experience on
their part, but rather to the fact that such experience is too immediate
- hence too much taken for granted. Silence- positive silence - has always
been the underlying concern of Eastern philosophy. Indeed, one might go
so far as to say that that is what all Eastern philosophies are all about.
For the locus of truth in Eastern thought does not reside in the speech
or saying of the philosopher, but primarily in the way he lives his silence.
Here truth is not so much a quality of a statement or proposition as the
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170 LIK KUEN TONG
reality of an existential state of affairs consummated in silence - whether

it be the perfect sincerity of the Confucian Sage, the pure spontaneity of
the Taoist Real Man,or the satori of the Zen Master. This does not mean,
of course, that speech has no function to play, but its function is secondary
and even negative. In Eastern philosophy the importance - and indeed
the meaning - of what a philosopher has to say and has said must be
judged in the light of his silence - his transcendence of speech.
What then is the meaning of philosophical silence - the silence that is
lived by the philosopher? Before we attempt to answer this question in
the context of Chinese philosophy, let us be reminded that speech and
silence are correlative concepts. There is no speech without silence, and
there is no silence without at least the possibility of speech. For just as
being comes from non-being (the character of Being itself) and returns
into non-being, so speech breaks out from silence and subsides into
silence. Silence, far from being the mere absence of speech, is in truth the
very condition of its possibility and the embodiment of its actualization.
We may say, in the metaphysical terminology of the I Ching, that speech
is the yang of silence, and silence the yin of speech. But ‘one-yin-one-yang
is called Tao’.The alternation of speech and silence is thus an instantia-
tion of the cosmic law of I,’ the primordial process of Creativity which
is the ultimate reality of the universe.
Thus even in its general ontological meaning, silence is positive, not
negative. But the silence of the philosopher is positive in still another
sense. For philosophical silence is an intentional-conscious and deliber-
ate-silence. And the intentionality of philosophical silence is analyzable
into a ‘What’, a ‘Why’, and a ‘How’. The intentional ‘What’ is what the
philosopher is silent about. The intentional ‘Why’ is what he is silent for
- the reason for his silence. And the intentional ‘How’ is what he is silent
-
in the way his silence is lived or consummated. Thus in the case of
Wittgenstein, the intentional What would be the so-called ‘things mysti-
cal‘. The intentional Why is to be found in the limitation of discourse
which is inherent in the nature of language. As to the intentional How,
we cannot be sure :presumably it consists in the silent appreciation of the
mystical which, though ineffable, can be shown or exhibited by such non-
philosophical activities as poetry, art and religion.
What is the intentional meaning of philosophical silence in Chinese
thought? This is, needless to say, a big and complicated question capable
THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHICAL SILENCE 171
of a many-sided answer. In this paper, I wish to concentrate on the lin-

guistic dimension of this problem - namely, in so far as philosophical
silence is related to the nature and function of language.2 What, from the
Chinese philosophical standpoint, is the essence of speech in general and
of philosophical speech in particular? This is the leading question in the
following discussion.
The speech act, to begin with, is a kind of being - a happening or event
in the universe. As such, it presupposes a state of the world which consti-
tutes the source of its eventuation. This antecedent state is a state of
silence, that is, relative to the speech act which breaks out from it. What
constitutes this antecedent state of silence? For one thing, it is a state of
language, which is in essence a field of meaning. For another, it is a state
of reality, which is intrinsically a field of importance. Every speaking
(and writing may be regarded as speaking on paper or spatialized speak-
ing) is a function of reality and language. The speech act is really an
operation on Tao, that is, Being as the composite field of meaning and
importan?. Thus conceived, the essence of speech lies in the act of ‘say-
ing’. Saying, as Heidegger has already observed, is basically a kind of
showing. In speaking, reality is shown by means of language, its im-
portance being embodied in meaning. Every speaking then is a saying of
Being. In Chinese, the word rao means originally the way - hence, Being,
the way things are or ought to be. But it also has the meaning of saying
or to say. Speech then (at least in its authentic form) is a fuo-fuob business,
that is, a saying of Being which gives Being to saying. Philosophical
speech is speech of the most serious kind. Philosophical saying is a saying
of Being in the truth of its integrity and in the integrity of its truth. This
is the proper meaning of Tao-saying. As such, it cannot be conceived
apart from the hsin C - the mind or understanding heart - of the philoso-
pher. Indeed, philosophy as a tao-tao business is a hin-affair. Yen wei
hsin shenga - speech is the voice of mind. This idiomatic expression in
ordinary Chinese expresses also a truism in the Chinese philosophy of
language. For all major schools of Chinese thought the fundamental
nature of speech and discourse is to be found not in the nature of language
but in the nature of the relationship between mind and language. The
speech act is essentially an act of mind in and through the instrumentality
of language. Speech is an expression of the mind, whose saying-message
reaches out into the mind of another person.
172 LIK KUEN TONG
This existential conception of speech, as we may call it, bears decisively

on the attitude of Chinese philosophers towards language and the use of
language. They regard language as primarily a medium of expression and
communication. Accordingly, they stress the pragmatic rather than the
logical nature of language. Now the logical nature of language pertains
to its formal structure - that is, its syntax; whereas its pragmatic nature
has to do with its use and function, which is above all a matter of seman-
tics. It is therefore no accident that grammar - syntax but not morphology
- should constitute the weakest part in the Chinesereflmtions on language.
It is a well-known fact that neither formal logic (which grew out of the
syntactical dimension of language) nor grammar as two allied scientifk
disciplines have developed in China. On the other hand, semantical prob-
lems have engaged the serious attention of Chinese thinkers and scholars
as early as or even before Confucius. The Confucian doctrine of cheng
ming * or the ‘rectification of names’, for example, is basically an ethical-
semantical doctrine, whereas the sophistical arguments of the so-called
Logicians (mhg chiu)’ are primarily semantic rather than syntactic in
character.
This preeminence of semantics over grammar and syntax in the Chinese
philosophy of language stems partIy from the very nature of the Chinese
language. As compared with most European languages, Chinese is, syn-
tactically speaking, a paradigm of simplicity. Chinese has done away
with almost all inilections and conjugations, and there are few rigid rules
governing the function of words in a sentence. The same word with abso-
lutely no change of form may function now as noun, now as verb, now
as adjective, now as adverb, and so on - depending entirely on context.
Context, indeed, rather than rules constitute here the most important
factor in determining the function of language. But the contextuality of
a word decides not only syntactically its figure of speech but also seman-
tically its signification. Semantics is simply the study of the contextualism
of meaning. If language is primarily a medium of expression and commu-
nication, then the Chinese emphasis on semantics rather than grammar is
certainly justifiable - or at least understandable. A beginner in a foreign
language often manages to make himself understood by the native speaker
with but little knowledge of its grammar, although if he wishes to convey
himself adequately, he must know correctly the meaning of words and
the way they function under different circumstances. In short, the em-
phasis of semantics over grammar and of context over rules seems to be

a necessary consequence of the existential-pragmatic conception of lan-
guage.
This conception of language, which prevails in all schools of Chinese
thought, is in sharp contrast to the position of the early Wittgenstein,
who finds the meaning of language in its logical nature and referential
function. To the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus,the world (reality) is the
totality of facts, and language the totality of propositions. The referential
function expresses the logical connection between language and reality.
A proposition is a picture of fact - an elementary proposition a picture
of atomic fact. It is possible for a picture to depict a fact because the
picture and the pictured are symbolically isomorphic - that is, they are
logically identical in form. From the Chinese philosophical standpoint,
neither Wittgenstein’s static conception of Being (reality and language)
nor his picture theory of reference is acceptable. The world is not the
totality of facts, but the becoming of Tao. Nor is language the totality
of propositions. A language is a dynamically changing field of meaning,
just as reality is a dynamically changing field of importance. The Chinese
would agree with Whitehead, for whom language and thought are inter-
dependent: they create each other.3 In reality a speech act is not so much
an act of reference as it is an act of saying - that is, an act of showing
which Wittgenstein allows only for the self-showing of the mystical.
What Wittgenstein fails to see is that showing is of the essence of speech,
in which the importance of reality comes to be embodied in the meaning
of language.4 In saying mind and language are united; for every saying
is at once a ‘languaging of mind’ and a ‘minding of language’. This unity
is ultimately grounded in the nature of the human soul as essentially a
concerning existent. Hence, saying is ultimately an act of soul - that is,
an act of concern, whose regard of itself and of the world is the basis of
the many-sidedness of human undertakings.
To both Whitehead and Chinese philosophers, the speech act is an
instance of creativity. The later Wittgenstein certainly came much closer
to this conception. To the Wittgenstein of the Investigations, the referen-
tial function of language is only one of its functions. Language - more
-
exactly, the use of language is now conceived as a ‘game’ - a form of life.
And there are many language-games,just as there are many forms of life.
Whereas the early Wittgenstein concentrates exclusively on the logic and
174 LIK KUEN TONG
form of language, the later Wittgenstein emphasizes its actual functioning

in ordinary usage. The picture theory is now abandoned, being replaced
by the theory of meaning as use. The philosophical problem of language
-
has turned into a semantic problem and context has become the catch-
word. It is important to note, however, that in spite of this new emphasis
on the contextuality of language, grammar remains the focal point in the
thought of the later Wittgenstein. The identhation of meaning as use and
the conception of language games have led Wittgenstein to rely in his
anti-metaphysical arguments heavily on the rule-concept. Metaphysical
problems, Wittgenstein now believed, had arisen out of a violation or
misconception of the rules of ordinary language.
From the Chinese philosophical standpoint, the use of language is
indeed a form of life; but it is not so much a form ofgame-playing as it is
a form of fulfillment - all forms of life are forms of fulfillment. While the
gamecharacter definable in terms of a specific set of rules constitutes an
essential part of every form of fulfillment, fulfillment is intrinsically a
process of creativity in which tactics is ultimately the decisive factor.
Life is a tactical business, not a mechanical business - what formal logic,
mathematics, and machines have in common. A ‘mechanical’ business is
merely and strictly rule-abiding. Life is not a mechanical affair because it is
not governed by hard and fast rules. The fulfillment of any form of life is
an act of creativity requiring tactical maneuver. And ‘tactics’, generally
speaking, is simply any skillful way of accomplishing an end which is not
just a matter of acting according to rules. Thus conceived, tactics is
always context-bound and never context-free. Furthermore, tactical con-
-
siderations are not necessarily - and indeed seldom capable of a unique
solution. For any given situation there may be two or more equally good
tactical alternatives.
Much of the difference between Western and Chinese thought and
culture is interpretable in terms of this distinction between the mechanical
and the tactical. The Western mind is dominated by the rule-concept:
the quest for truth in traditional Western philosophy has really been (in
large part at least) a quest for lawfulness or mechanical necessity. The
Chinese mind, on the other hand, is bound by the contextuality of Being:
traditional Chinese philosophy is mainly concerned with Tao in its
tactical eficacy. The later Wittgenstein, one must admit, is in a sense
Chinese in spirit. The basic approach of the Investigations is tactical
rather than mechanical - in spite of the rule-concept which still figures so

prominently in it.
The Chinese philosophical conception of language and speech may now
be characterized as tactical as well as existential and pragmatic. The
pragmatic attitude is clearly indicated in the Analects of Confucius. “In
speech”, says Confucius, “all that matters is that it conveys themeaning”.5
That Confucius seemed to enjoin and in fact personally observed a kind
of Occam’s Razor in the use of language is well attested by the economy
of expression in the recorded sayings of the Master. For Confucius speech
is important because it is, apart from being a social necessity, an indis-
pensable vehicle of moral and spiritual fuWlment.6 From the Confucian
standpoint speech is not so much a right or privilege as it is a duty or
obligation. Both the Confucian doctrines of shen yeno - ‘caution in
speech’ - and cheng ming - the ‘rectiiication of names’ - can only be
properly understood from this moral-spiritual perspective. The injunction
of Cautious Speech defines the tactical in terms of the ethical, whereas the
Rectification of Names embodies the ethical in the semantic. Both
doctrines are, in the final analysis, rooted in the notion of Ch’engh - the
humancosmic process of ‘Sincerity ’wherein the Tao of Heaven and the
Tao of man are united.
Cautious speech is tactical speech by virtue of ch’eng which, rendered
here as ‘sincerity’, has no real equivalent in English. As a key term in
Confucian philosophy, ch’eng (the counterpart of aletheiu - ‘unhidden-
ness’ - in Greek thought) implies at once the reality of Tao, the authen-
ticity of human existence, the truthfulness or sincerity of will, the purity
of thought, the conscientiousness or single-heartedness of action - and,
especially, the genuineness of speech. In short, Ch’eng is the meaning of
Truth and the supreme principle of integrity in Confucianism: it is what
constitutes the essence of Tao and the human-cosmic process of moral
creativity. The word means originally, as one may gather from the forma-
tion of the ideograph, the consummation of the word or speech (ch’eng
yen)‘. What is being consummated is at once the word of human language
and the Word of Heaven and Earth. And this, the process of Ch’eng, is a
tactical affair. The tactics of sincere speech is the tactics of using the right
words, at the right time, with the right person, about the right subject-
matter - and above all, from the right motive.? Ch’eng then is none other
than the principle of O ~ ~ M M procuring
S speech from silence or, what is
176 LIK KUEN TONG
but the other side of the same thing,the principIe of limitation separating
silence from speech. Now in Confucian philosophy the distinction be-
tween speech and silence and that between speech and action are insep-
arably connected. Indeed, the two distinctions are almost identical. For
the embodiment of siience is action. Speech stems from the silence of
action and retuns to the silence of action. In Confucianism philosophy is
definitely not just an intellectual business, still less a merely linguistic
matter. Tao-thinking and Tao-saying are not enough: they are but inte-
gral aspects of Tao-living, in which the Truth of Tao is not just to be
thought and said, but, above all, to be done and enacted.
It is in the context of Tao-living as such that one must determine the
meaning of philosophical silence in Confucianism. According to the
Analects, Confucius was silent about two sets of matters: he rarely dis-
cussed things metaphysical such as human nature and the Tao of Heaven;
and he never addressed himself to “strange phenomena, physical exploits,
disorders of nature, or spirits”.* With respect to the latter set of matters,
one can safely say that the Master’s silence was primarily due to the fact
that such matters had for him no intrinsic relevance to the moral life.
But the reason of his silence about things metaphysical cannot be easily
determined. The nature of man and the Tao of Heaven are certainly
relevant to the moral life. Indeed, in view of the fact that in Confucianism
the moral and the metaphysical are in the final analysis identical, they
are of the utmost importance. What then is the reason for the Master’s
silence?
Whatever be the answer to this question, it is unlikely that the reason
for philosophical silence here is primarily a linguistic one, as in the case
of the early Wittgenstein. We believe that what lies behind the metaphysical
silence of Confucius is his profound sense of humility and respect for
truth, which in the West have been recognized as the essence of Socratic
wisdom. Behind the Confucian silence and the Socratic confession of
ignorance is the spirit of what in the Chung Ymgj (Doctrine of the Mean)
is called chi ch’engk or ‘absolute sincerity’, which demands of the sage or
philosophcr to teach on& what he tm& knows.9 In so far as Confucianism
is concerned, the realization of absolute sincerity in the life and wisdom
of the sage is in the truest sense a ‘doing’ of metaphysics. For Absolute
Sincerity is none other than the Tao of Heaven, the realization of which
through personal examplification- that is, by living a life that is absolutely
sincere - is the Tao of man. This Tao, the Tao of Heaven which man can
realize in practical living, is what man can truly know. Needless to say,
truth of this kind (which is at once moral and spiritual, existential and
metaphysical) is not to be attained by mere discussion: for such truth
has to be practised and lived in order to be truly known.1OThus Confucius’
reluctance to discuss things metaphysical appears now to be perfectly
understandable. For the cultivation of the moral life, metaphysical
speculations are at best instrumental and at worse misleading or con-
founding. Confucius’ care for Tao was such that he preferred to teach its
truth by example. And his teaching by example was actually a kind of
‘Tao-saying’ - namely, a ‘saying’ of Tao not through the medium of
words but in the tactical silence of action. In this sense, the life of Con-
fucius may indeed be regarded as one eloquent ‘discourse’ on metaphysics.
Now if Confucianism is describable as the creed of Sincerity, Taoism
is identifiable as the creed of Spontaneity. Here the tactics of speech as a
form of life and creativity is the spontaneous tactics of Nature. The
Taoist Real Man is at one with Tao, the Supreme Artist and Tactician,
who accomplishes all things with Absolute Spontaneity. But speech which
is absolutely spontaneous has already the character of silence - not silence
in the sense of the absence of utterance, but silence in a most profound
sense, namely, of what Chuang Tzu called wang yen1 or the forgetfulness
of words. In the state of wang yen, speech and silence are transcendentally
united. What the speaker speaks is no longer the words of human language,
but the Word of Tao itself. And when two ‘real men’ are engaged in
absolutely spontaneous discourse, they listen not to the voice of finite
speech, but to the infinite silence which is the voice of Tao, the sound of
‘heavenly music’ (t’ien Zai)m.
To the Taoist, the universe is a natural, not a moral, order: here the
metaphysical transcends the moral. Tao is neither good nor evil - but
innocent. As the ultimate reality, Tao can only be called ‘Nature’ or
Tzu-jann, which means in Chinese simply the self-so. This naturalness
or ‘self-soness’ of Tao is its absolute spontaneity, the essence of which
cannot be expressed and conveyed in conventional discourse. The Tao
which can be spoken of - that is, in the conventional language - is not the
true Tao. This is so because conventional language is a thing-languageand
a language of contrivance. Such language cannot express adequately the
essence of Tao, which, being the all-encompassing ground of existence, is
178 LIK ICUEN TONG
not itself a definitesomething. The Being of Tao is the Being of a non-being.

As such, it cannot be spoken of in the language which caters to beings.
But Tao is not absolutely ineffable. For although it cannot be said in
the language of conventional discourse, it may still be expressed in a
language which is unconventional - namely, the poetic language. In the
speech of poetry, things are still spoken of as in ordinary language, but
their identity has been entirely transformed. For the things conjured up
by the poet are not things in the literal sense: they are symbols. The poet
sees things not as things but as vehicles of Tao which manifests itself
through the transcendence of thinghood. Poetry thus speaks of Tao, as
Wittgenstein would say, by showing or exhibiting it. It shows Tao by
exhibiting the not-thingness of things.
The highly metaphorical and hyperbolic language of Chuang Tzu is
essentially the language of poetry. He was unquestionably a supreme
master in the tactical-poetic use of language for the expression of phi-
losophical ideas. Indeed, it might not be an exaggeration to say that in so
far as the Chinese tradition is concerned, Chuang Tzu is philosophical
poetry, and philosophical poetry Chuang Tzu. For it was Chuang Tzu
who determined the basic meaning of Chinese philosophical poetry, the
essence of which lies in the art and process of ‘unlearning’ and ‘forget-
fulness’. In order to obtain an authentic experience of Tao, the philoso-
phical poet must practise the unlearning of conventional learning and
attain to the forgetfulness of words in their thingness and ordinary
meaning. Just as the fishnet is forgotten when the fish is caught, so words
are forgotten when the true meaning of Tao is realized. This metaphor
of Chuang Tzu reminds us immediately of the famous metaphor of the
ladder in the Tracrarus.11 There is, however, this subtle difference. In
Chuang-tzu’s metaphor, the fishnet is simply forgotten, whereas in the
Wittgensteinianmetaphor, the ladder has to be thrown away or discarded.
From the Taoist standpoint, the Tracrurus state of silence (when one has
climbed up the ladder) cannot be regarded as an authenticstate of philoso-
phical silence; for it is a silence still mindfd of the antecedent speech (the
necessity to throw away the ladder). To the Taoist, authenticsilencemeans
indeed the transcendence of speech, but it is not transcendence in the
Sense of the Tractatus,that is, by carrying philosophical discourse to the
logical limits of language. Authentic silence is spontaneous silence, that
is, the silence that is at one with Tao, which can only be reaIized by ex-
THE M E A N I N G O F P H I L O S O P H I C A L SILENCE 179
hibiting the primordial truth of language. And just as the primordial

trutb of being lies in non-being, in which the fullness of Being is contained,
so the primordial truth of language lies in Silence, the perfectly spontane-
ous self-saying of Tao, which is really the most speechful speech. This
most speechful speech is the aim of philosophical discourse. And the
philosopher can only utter the Word of Tao when the ordinary words
are - not discarded - but simply forgotten.
The above discussion may be summed up by saying that in so far as
the main tradition of Chinese thought is concerned, the philosophical
use of language is generally describable as an existential-practical and
tactical-contextual affair. This general characterization is applicable not
only to the two major schools of Confucianism and Taoism in the
Classical (Pre-Han) period, but also to their subsequent developments
after the introduction of Buddhism in Chinese philosophy - including,
especially, Neo-Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. In all
these subsequent developments as in their classical prototypes, the use of
language is indeed a form of life, being an integral part of human fulfill-
ment. There is no question here that the existential role of language is
primarily practical. Language is the medium of expression and communi-
cation - and not of the logical representation of reality (as the early
Wittgenstein sees it). What is expressed and communicated in the existen-
tial discourse of Chinese thinkers or seekers of enlightenment is, however,
not so much a theory or opinion as an authentic experience - the living
truth of Tao, whether it be the Confucian Tao of Sincerity, the Taoist Tao
of Spontaneity, or the Buddhist Tao of Nirvana. These three major types
of authentic experience defining respectively the three main traditions of
Chinese thought are, to be sure, different from each other in many ways.
But they a11 agree on this fundamental point, namely, that the k i n or
mind is the locus of truth. And the truth of the hi n is the Tau-hino or
‘Tao-mind‘ which is at once the mind of Tao and the Tao of mind. Here
in all three traditions philosophy has the meaning of ‘existential justifica-
tion’, which consists in the realization of authentic existence in and
through the Tao-mind. In an existential justification, thought, discourse
and action are not really separable; for they are but different aspects of
one organic whole of experience. Hence the meaning of expression and
communication must be conceived accordingly, that is, in terms of the
existential-practical unity of thought, discourse and action. In the h a 1
180 LIK KUEN TONG
analysis, it is the Tao-mind that is being expressed, and it is the Tao-mind

that is being communicated. Indeed, it is in the realization and transmis-
sion of the Tao-mind in authentic experience that lies the intentional
meaning of philosophical speech and silence in Chinese thought.
And here as in most other things, the Chinese way is neither logical as
the typical Western way, nor supra-logical as the characteristic way of the
Indian - but tactical, which implies necessarily the importance of context.
Tacticism and contextualism are indeed the hallmarks of Chinese thought
and culture. And nowhere in the Chinese tradition is the tactical use of
language with its pertinence of context more conspicuous than in the
pungent dialogue (wen-tap or m o d - ) of the Zen Buddhists, though it is
really no less fundamentalin the elegant and graceful ‘pure conversations’
(ch’ing t’m)Qof the Neo-Taoists and in the seriously engaged plain dis-
course of the Neo-Confucians. Zen Buddhism combines in a profound and
interestingway the spirit of the Chinese and the Indian. Being originalIy a
product of the Indian mind, Buddhism as a creed is supra-logical both
in outlook and in method. The Buddhistic outlook is ‘supra-logical’
because it a i m s at the transcendence of the logical; and its method is
‘supra-logical’ in the sense that it makes use of and relies on logic for the
overcoming of logic, that is, by exhibiting the limitations of logic and by
exhausting its possibility. That is why formal logic holds such an honor-
able place in the Buddhist cannon, in spite of the fact that Buddhism in
general upholds p’o yen’ or the ‘destruction of words’ as the ultimate aim
of authentic discourse. Zen Buddhism certainly shares with Indian
Buddhism its supra-logical outlook and existential commitment, but its
method, being a tactical one, remains basically Chinese. Like all other
schools of Buddhism, Zen aims at the transcendence of the logical; but
unlike them, it accomplishes its task not by the self-destruction of the
logical, but by tactically by-passing the 10gical.l~This tactics of ‘by-pass’
has, of course, its origin in classical Taoist philosophy - being the favorite
tactics of Tao, the Supreme Tactician, who is as flexible and powerful as
water. But the Zen tactics of by-pass is really the most effective kind of
confrontation; for by by-passing the logical, the Zen practitioner con-
fronts immediately and directly what is indeed supra-logical- that is, the
‘original face’ or ‘original mind’ which is our Buddha-nature. This,
properly understood, must be the real meaning of the Zen motto chih chih
pan hsins or “pointing directly to the original mind“.
Both Taoism and Zen Buddhism have been compared to the philosophy
of Wittgenstein.13 In view ot the tacticism and contextualism of the later
Wittgenstein, such comparisons can be very meaningful, provided the
uniquely Chinese character of Taoism and Zen Buddhism is properly
grasped. From the methodical standpoint, the difference between the
early and the later Wittgenstein is indeed radical. For while the Tractatus
is logical and mechanical, yet attempting to reach the supralogical, the
Investigations is tactical and contextualistic, trying to by-pass the logical.
In either case, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is, methodically speaking at
least, moving out of the main stream of Western(Eur0pean and American)
civilization, as he himself has acknowledged.14 What he has not explicitly
admitted or failed to realize is that he is actually moving into the main
streams of Eastern culture. In the Tractatus the still Western Wittgenstein
was approaching the Indian position; in the Investigations the already-
not-so-Westem Wittgenstein had decidedly entered the sphere of the
Chinese. From the Meeting-of-East-and-West perspective, this must be
regarded as an extraordinary phenomena. We believe it has a meaning, an
important meaning; but the limited scope of this paper does not permit us
to go any further.
Fairfield University
NOTES
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractorus Logico-philosophicus, trans. by D. F. Pears and

B. F. McGuinness, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961, p. 151.
The problem of philosophical speech and silence is certainly not just a linguistic
problem. Like all other philosophical problems, it involes the fundamental relationship
between Soul and Being or, in the Chinese philosophical terminology, Hsin and Tao.
Hence it is as much existential-ontological as it is linguistic.
a Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Z71oicght, Capricorn Books, New York, 1958,
p. 57.
4 We may note here that ‘semantics’ c o m a from the Greek semuntikos meaning
significance, which is in turn derived from semuinein meaning to show. The act of
‘making sense’ (that is, the speech act) is thus an act of showing.
Analects, 15:40.
For Confucius correct speech or the proper use of language is an integral part of
moral excellence (Cf. Analecrs, 14: 5 ) - hence the necessity of cheng ming or the rectifi-
cation of names.
All this may be regarded as part of the meaning of lit or ‘propriety’ which is basically
a tactical concept.
Analects, 7:20; 9:l.
182 LIK KUEN TONG
* Cf. Ana&cts, 2:17. (“To profess that you know when you do know and to profess
that you do not know when you do not know - that is [indeed] knowledge.”)
10 This is indeed a basic ditrauKx between Confucius and soasltes: the former does
not recognize the i m p o v c e of ‘dialectics’, the method of seeking truth and knowledge
through question and answer so typical of the latter.
l1 Tractatrrs Logim-philosophicus, p. 151. For the Mmet metaphor, see The Complete
Works of Chuung Tzu, trans. by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, New
York, 1968,p. 302
l2 For the nature of Zen language and its logical character, see Cheng Chung Yhg’s
illuminatingand highly original essay ‘OnZen (Ch’an) Language and Zen Paradoxes’,
J o w d of Chinese Philosophy 1 (1973). n-102.
15 K. T. F ~ M for
, example, compared the Tractatus to the Tao Te Ching, and the
Investigations to Zen Buddhism. See his Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy, Uni-
versity of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971, p. 3, n. 1; p. 110. His
remarks are, however, too cursory to be helpful. For a closer analysis of the relation-
ship between Wittgemtein and Zen Buddhism with respect to the function of language,
see Henry Rosanont, Jr., ‘The Mcaning is the Use: K h and MondB as Linguistic
Tools of the Zen Masters’, Philosophy Earl and West 20 (1970), 109-1 19.Also for a
critical view of the over-all comparability between Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism,
see H. Hudson, ‘Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism’, Philosophy East and West 23 (1973),
47141.
I4 Cf. Wittgensteh’s Foreword to his Phihopfiche Bemerkungen.
183
T H E M E A N I N G OF P H I L O S O P H I C A L S I L E N C E
GLOSSARY
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LIK KUEN TONG

Journal of Chinese Philosophy 3 (1976)16P-183. All Rfghts Reserved.

reality of an existential state of affairs consummated in silence - whether

of a many-sided answer. In this paper, I wish to concentrate on the lin-

This existential conception of speech, as we may call it, bears decisively

phasis of semantics over grammar and of context over rules seems to be

form of language, the later Wittgenstein emphasizes its actual functioning

rather than mechanical - in spite of the rule-concept which still figures so

not itself a definitesomething. The Being of Tao is the Being of a non-being.

hibiting the primordial truth of language. And just as the primordial

analysis, it is the Tao-mind that is being expressed, and it is the Tao-mind

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractorus Logico-philosophicus, trans. by D. F. Pears and

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