Abstract
The philosophy of free will or subjectivity in interpretativist sociology conceals the phenomena of “differential profundity.” In order to reveal and study these missing phenomena, this chapter first summarizes two branches of interpretativist sociology, Schütz’s phenomenological sociology and Blumer’s symbolic interactionism. Following this, the phenomena of differential profundity are illustrated by two examples of the table game, Go, so as to show the blind spot in Schütz’s and Blumer’s sociological projects. Finally, Mencius’s conception of Confucian self-transformation is introduced and an alternative sociology informed by his conception is recommended to study human conduct as lived persons’ performance with differential profundity.
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Notes
- 1.
For the basic rules of Go, please see the website of the British Go Association: http://www.britgo.org/intro/intro2
- 2.
This can be called the problem of “intellectualism” in terms of Merleau-Ponty (1981) or the problem of “mentalism” in terms of Rubinstein (1986). Schütz’s “We-relationship” points to an area prior to and beyond the realm of intellectualism or mentalism, but he did not develop this concept very much. Similarly, Mead’s concepts of “organism in relation to its environment” in general and “human organisms in relation to social activity” in particular also point to the area prior to and beyond the realm of intellectualism or mentalism. However, Mead did not investigate it. Blumer’s symbolic interactionism even turns back to strong intellectualism or mentalism.
- 3.
Unlike Schütz or Blumer (together with Mead), who expressed ideas as systematic and coherent theory, Mencius expressed his thoughts as collected conversations without a systematic or coherent line of reasoning penetrating all of them. Thus, I cannot summarize his thoughts as I have summarized Schütz’s and Blumer’s. The alternative way I introduce Mencius’s teachings of self-transformation (修身) is to reveal three connotations in the following conversation.
- 4.
- 5.
It is very difficult to translate the term “qi” into English without serious distortion. Although some Sinologists, according to Tu (1985: 36–37), tried to render it as “matter-energy,” “vital force,” or “vital power,” I do not think these translations are helpful. Nevertheless, I do think “traffic” as a metaphor may help readers better catch the idea of qi. If we see cities as the nodes of a global traffic network, then the historical processes of cities, their rise and fall, incarnate the convergence and divergence of the traffic flows of people, goods, money, energy, information, and so on. From this viewpoint, no individual city is isolated or independent.
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Lu, WH. (2018). Confucian Self-Transformation as an Alternative Sociology: Meaningful Action vs. Performance with Differential Profundity. In: Giri, A. (eds) Beyond Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6641-2_8
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