Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism

Mind and Body in Early China is the product of Edward Slingerland’s work over the last two decades on early Chinese philosophy and religion, comparative ethics, and cognitive linguistics. In this monograph, Slingerland performs a meticulous critique of Neo-Orientalism, which is the tendency to “systematically exaggerate the exoticism, as well as the internal uniformity, of Chinese thought” (6). Mind and Body in Early China refutes the claims that Chinese philosophy is holistic and lacks any form of mind-body dualism. The book also advocates for the incorporation of cognitive science in the humanities and demonstrates the value of using quantitative methods and digital humanities techniques, such as distant reading, topic modeling, and hierarchical clustering, to supplement qualitative textual

analysis. The unifying purpose of the book is to critique claims that downplay the existence of mind-body dualism. Slingerland argues that the pushback against colonialism in Western academia has produced a new type of Orientalism, which takes the form of cultural essentialism that promotes the notion of Chinese uniqueness. According to this notion, people in premodern China perceived the world in a completely different way than “Westerners.” Current cognitive scientific studies challenge such claims, however, as they suggest that mind-body dualism is innate to all human beings. Formed through the course of evolution, this form

of “folk” or “weak” dualism is the tendency of our cognitive systems to see minds and bodies as qualitatively distinct things (7–8). Slingerland concludes that this growing body of empirical evidence proves that humans are embodied beings who “enter the world endowed with rich structures of prelinguistic and precultural cognition” (7). All humans share this innate mind-body dualism, a fact that problematizes sweeping cultural claims about its absence in early China. Slingerland dedicates the first chapter of his book to what he calls “the myth of holism,” which refers to essentialist Orientalist claims about the absence of Journal of the American Academy of Religion, XX 2019, Vol. XX, No. XX, pp. 1–4

Journal of the American Academy of Religion2 mind-body dualism in China. He argues that the past few decades have witnessed the dominance of extreme linguistic and social constructivism in the humanities. Whereas this trend began as an effort to criticize the universalist claims of Western colonial ideologies, it has ultimately achieved the opposite goal. In Chinese Studies, this has led to the emergence of what Slingerland refers to as “Neo-Orientalism,” which treats Chinese culture as a holistic, and normatively superior, “Other” to the West (29). This “myth of holism” has been advocated by leading philosophers and sinologists, thereby achieving the status of an axiomatic claim that is rarely questioned. Slingerland adds that even psychologists, anthropologists, and cognitive linguists have used this so-called holistic worldview as evidence in their efforts to argue against mind-body dualism as a cognitive universal (44). Slingerland dedicates the majority of his book to debunking this myth of holism. The first section uses a qualitative approach to outline the internal evidence against the alleged

lack of mind-body dualism in early China. Chapter 2 draws on archeological data from tombs and other burial sites, as well as textual analysis of philosophical and religious sources, to show that “soul-body dualism is not only clearly discernible . . . but is informed by a qualitative dualism between this world and the next” (65). Although there is no uniform theory regarding a specific term akin to the Western notion of a “soul” (88), the existing records seem to reflect an implicit mind-body-soul tripartite division in which a person’s identity in life is not associated with the body but located in the extra-somatic mind. After death, this identity continues to exist in the form of a soul, which is portrayed as an incorporeal consciousness that can continue to interact and exert

influence on the world. Chapter 3 advances this argument by showing that this notion of the soul was based on a fundamental qualitative disjunction between the body as a material vessel and the mind (xin) as an immaterial essence that inhabits it (101). The mind is also the locus of reflection, free will, and moral responsibility. Slingerland concludes that this close correspondence to the immaterial energies typically associated with the Western notion of “mind” does not imply the existence of a strong Cartesian mind-body dualism but rather a weaker form of “folk dualism” that appears to be a cognitive human universal (139). Slingerland is acutely aware of the potential criticism that can be directed against his internal evidence, namely, that he is guilty of cherry-picking

unrepresentative examples. The second part of the book therefore offers a quantitative approach based on methodologies and techniques drawn from the field of digital humanities. Slingerland begins with an overview of coding methods such as team-based qualitative coding designed to discern textual patterns that might not be visible through the use of traditional textual analysis (146). Slingerland then turns his attention to more advanced methods of machine-assisted “distant reading,” which includes collocation analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and topic modeling. Slingerland claims that such methods of distant reading can minimize subjective interpretive bias in favor of data-based objectivity (162).

Book Review 3 In the final section, Slingerland addresses broader methodological issues. He claims that the rise of social constructivism in the twentieth century has resulted in a hermeneutic vacuum that hinders effective comparative efforts (219), and, to move forward, it is necessary to identify these constraints. Chapter 5 therefore draws on recent theories from various branches of cognitive science to argue that “weak” or “folk” mind-body dualism is an inherent tendency shared by all human beings and can thus serve as a hermeneutical starting point (220). An acceptance of the basic premise of embodied cognition is more useful to comparative scholars than the ongoing attempt to navigate under the presumption that different people in different times and cultures view the world in radically different ways (247). Although it is true that the universal claims of early twentieth-century scholars were motivated by notions of Western superiority and racial biases, Slingerland argues that the current universal model of embodied cognition is nonetheless empirically responsible and offers the

best way forward in advancing comparative projects in the humanities (265). Chapter 6 provides an overview of the interpretive missteps that led to the emergence of the myth of Chinese holism, or “Sinologism.” Slingerland points out that claims about the quintessential otherness of the Chinese rose from reasonable observations that were grounded in evidence, but such claims were later transformed into exaggerated caricatures due to ideological concerns rooted in social constructivism. The resulting missteps include a tendency to see culture as a timeless uniform monolith (273), the misidentification of rhetoric as an essential claim (284), and the purposeful exoticization and mistranslation of Chinese terms to emphasize their uniqueness (288). “Cultural essentialism,” states

Slingerland, “is like tainted groundwater . . . ultimately poisoning or undermining otherwise well-meant efforts to learn from non-Western philosophical or religious traditions” (305). This does not mean that comparative efforts are bound to fail, however. Rather, it is important to adopt a hermeneutical framework that will allow us to learn from other cultures without misinterpreting and misrepresenting them. Mind and Body in Early China addresses a wide range of topics and will be of interest to scholars in both Chinese Studies and Religious Studies. Slingerland’s eloquent style and clarity of argument render even the more

technical passages dealing with dating and authorship readable. Chapter 4 serves as a practical guidebook for utilizing digital techniques and methodologies in the study of the humanities. In addition to introducing valuable research tools, this chapter also provides an excellent example of how digital humanities can offer new modes of scholarly dissemination, such as open-access, user-generated websites like the Database of Religious History (https://religiondatabase.org/). This database, established by Slingerland himself, offers entries by experts in the field, which can then be affirmed or challenged by users, thereby confirming general trends or identifying areas of disagreement for further discussion. The final section of the book, which outlines Slingerland’s critique of social constructivism, is

Journal of the American Academy of Religion4 accompanied by an appeal for the enduring validity of empirically based comparative efforts that seek to offer insights into the role of religion in human life. Mind and Body in Early China is a challenging book. Slingerland does not shy away from tackling difficult issues, such as the racial and religious biases that have continuously influenced the humanities in general and the discipline of Religious Studies in

particular. Although Slingerland offers a constructive paradigm for the incorporation of quantitative methods into the Humanities, the majority of the book is critical in nature. Slingerland directly challenges the work of contemporary sinologists, some of whom have accused him of unfair criticism. Slingerland holds himself to the same high standards and, on multiple occasions, revises his own past inaccuracies (103, 160, 206). Despite the critical tone of the book, its overall message is positive. Slingerland concludes with a defense of the value and importance of comparative studies, warning us against “throwing the

comparative baby out with the colonialist bathwater” (324). Over the last two decades, Slingerland has established himself as one of the leading voices calling for a greater integration between the sciences and the humanities, and Mind and Body in Early China is an excellent example of an effective implementation of this aspiration.