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OPTIMAL STATES AND SELF-DEFEATING PLANS:

THE PROBLEM OF INTENTIONALITY IN EARLY CHINESE SELF-CULTIVATION1

ROMAIN GRAZIANI

UNIVERSITÉ PARIS-DIDEROT & ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE

INTRODUCTION

When the young and ardent Yan Hui in the Analects (Lunyu 論語) inquires about

the details of submission to ritual, his Master Confucius replies with a series of drastic

strictures that give little room, if any at all, for personal improvisation. He admonishes

Yan Hui: “To look at nothing in defiance of ritual, to listen to nothing in defiance of

ritual, to speak of nothing in defiance of ritual, never to stir hand or foot in defiance of

ritual.” 2 Only such discipline and self-control (ke ji fu li wei ren克己復禮為仁) can lead

to benevolence (ren 仁) by eliminating all possible actions and perceptions that are

contrary to ritual (fei li非禮). We have here a typical case of “precommitment”, or a

“self-binding strategy”, as Elster calls it, that prevents one from being led astray under

the lure of outward things or the weakness of the will13. Precommiting or binding oneself

can be an efficient strategy for achieving an end that is fraught with obstacles. It allows

us to achieve an end that otherwise would not be attainable. It may be a good and sound

idea to choose a set of constraints that may prevent failure in my actions. As Mark

Csikszentmihalyi notes: “That ritual performance is central to the cultivation of the three

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virtues of ritual propriety, benevolence and righteousness is stressed in both primary and

secondary sources. Yet these sources differ or, more often, remain silent about the

mechanisms whereby practice results in the cultivation of morality.” 4 Explaining moral

self-cultivation through the efficacy of ritual as a self-binding strategy involves two

aspects:

-Constant training and daily practice are required in order to form a “habitus”. Ritual is a

physical inculcation of values that define the kind of self I intend to be, even when I face

weakness of the will. The result is a constant enactment of moral standards through

conduct and speech, a constant embodiment of norms through forms.

-Second, ritual as a causal mechanism for the management of the moral self is all the

more efficient as one acts upon the very internal dispositions that take form in behavior

and speech.

Hence, the constant cultivation of inner attention, reverence and the Confucian injunction

not to look at or listen to anything that is not li 禮, not ritually appropriate.

The problem comes when we focus on a more positive approach to morality, one

that is not merely defined by prohibitions and self-imposed restraints. Can genuine good

behavior be the result of a set of consciously imposed constraints? The proper ritual

attitudes for the participant in many early texts, including the Analects, are those of grief

(ai 哀), awe (wei 畏), and reverence (jing 敬). But can one really choose to be sad or

reverent? What is the efficacy of ritual in producing these ethical dispositions I cannot

freely decide to induce? One can weep and moan during a funeral, but one cannot choose

to be sad. One can be polite, but can one cannot decide to feel reverence. One can decide

to submit but not to be humble at will. One can say nice words to someone, but one

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cannot voluntarily coerce the other into a feeling of sympathy. As we shall see below one

can nonetheless undergo training in ritual, which is designed to inculcate such states in

the appropriate situations.

STATES THAT RESIST THE STRATEGY OF SELF-COERCION

Indeed, this binding-strategy does not work when it comes to those highly

desirable states that stand at the core of Taoist discourse. Very early in the history of

early Taoist thought we find the intuition that the decisive actions and behaviors that can

transform someone may only take place if they are not done consciously, that is, if they

are not mentally represented as the voluntary purpose of the action. They are essentially

indirect results of actions undertaken for other ends.

Many self-cultivation texts tackle this issue of states that cannot be willed.

Consider how notions like the Way (Dao 道), Power or Virtue (de 德) and Spirit (shen 神)

are discussed in most pre-imperial Taoist-oriented or Huang-Lao texts. The four Taoist

‘Xinshu’ chapters (« 內業 »， « 心術上 »， « 心術下 »， « 白心 ») collected in the

Guanzi 管子provide the first consistent program of self-cultivation and a powerful model

for many subsequent texts linking the personal body to the art of rulership. These

chapters claim that the optimal states of mind or the highest form of inner capacity are

never within direct reach of the will. The anonymous authors put a strong emphasis on

the limitations of instrumental reason and voluntary intentions. They describe quite

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explicitly a conception of highly desirable states that are precluded by the exertion of the

will, and that vanish as soon as we try to get hold of them.

All men desire knowledge

But no one seeks to know what makes one know.

Knowledge, Knowledge!

Hurl it away, far beyond the seas! Don’t let it abduct your self!

Rather than search for it, better empty oneself of it.

Upright men do not search for it,

And thus are able to remain empty and vacuous.5

Spiritual energy takes place of its own accord.

Now it comes, now it leaves,

It is beyond the reach of our thinking.6

The divine efficacy of Spirits is present in the mind,

Now arriving, now departing. 7

If self-cultivation teaches us how to keep ourselves prepared to receive the Power

(de 德), the Spirit (shen 神), or the Principle (dao 道), we are not capable of provoking

this encounter with our own will. The images used in the chapter “Inner Workings” (“Nei

ye ” 內業) to describe the visitation of the Spirit all illustrate the unpredictable and

almost whimsical nature of this force, which does not directly depend on good will, on

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physical resources nor on personal schemes or recipes, but nonetheless requires a

constant personal discipline to keep the inner lodging pure and unencumbered. The

“Inner Workings” emphasizes the limited capacity of humans to attain this divine

condition. The sage can only enjoy intermittently that optimal state that daemons and

spirits (gui 鬼 and shen 神) enjoy permanently. Spiritual energy emerges from within, but

the independence and unpredictability of its manifestation, and the intermittent state of

mind it sets into motion, suggest that it might be understood as if it were an external

force. This is perhaps the most adequate means of communicating the experience as it is

undergone in the first person.8

Even if the Art of the Mind provides the means to preserve and renew this fortunate

state as often as possible, all we know is that it comes and goes and we will never know

when or why at this or that moment in particular. We can only provide a few conditions

that should prepare its return, and describe the effects of this power within us.

We should nonetheless keep in mind that self-cultivation texts like the chapters of

the Art of the Mind, the Huainanzi 淮南子 or the Springs and Autumns of Sir Lü (Lüshi

chunqiu 呂氏春秋) delineate an ever-ascending path towards the attainment of perfect

spontaneity, inner power, natural authority, in quite a non-controversial, non-dialectical

way. The Spirit (shen 神), the Way (dao 道) or the Power (de 德) will arrive of

themselves if we stay quiet and concentrated, if we do not plan them, if we do not try to

induce them intentionally. Though they express the utmost refinement of my vital breath,

though they surge forth from my own physiological depths, they are still conceived as

external deities that can at will come and depart, whimsical and unpredictable. In this

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respect, shen echoes the state of inspiration in our Western literary culture. Though we do

not think any longer it is a god or a goddess that inspires us, nonetheless, because it is

unpredictable, because we can never deliberately cause it at will, nor intelligently make it

come, because sometimes we may wait for it for days without a sign, because finally we

can only prepare ourselves in the best way for it to arrive, inspiration is a typical case of a

state that cannot be intentionally brought about.

The Zhuangzi may be the only text from the corpus of pre-imperial philosophical

literature that consistently problematizes the possibility of producing these optimal states

that are precluded by the very intensity of the desire to attain them. Many are the

episodes in which various protagonists endure a moral crisis, a psychological pressure,

and sometimes even end up thwarted, dejected, depressed, at grips with a state they

cannot reach in spite of pain-staking efforts9. Such descriptions of moral hardship offer a

salient contrast with the optimism of many self-cultivation texts that prove fully confident

in the possibility of attaining an improved or even divine condition through a certain

course of actions or a set of exercises, sometimes even leading to self-divinization. In

evident contrast with the Zhuangzi, we find in most self-cultivation texts no rupture, no

negative stage, no process of moral crisis, no tragic sense of defeat, no individual at wit’s

end. They provide a straightforward account of self-transformation and seem confident in

the possibility of reaching a superhuman clear-sightedness. On the contrary, the Zhuangzi

closely examines the personal difficulties we may experience in the search for these

desirable states. We may call such optimal states, after Jon Elster, ‘essential by-product

states’.

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WHAT IS A BY-PRODUCT STATE ?

Jon Elster claims that there are states that are essentially by-products, that is, roughly

defined, states that can never be produced as the intended and deliberate effect of the

action. Some mental states, or some moral attitudes, can only appear as a secondary

effect, as a side effect of actions that were carried out for other ends. They can only occur

as indirect results. By-product states thus are states that cannot be reached by the will;

some of them cannot even be reached because of the intention to reach them. The effort

by which you try to make them happen results in the impossibility of their happening.

They are “states that can never be brought about intelligently or intentionally, because the

very attempt to do so precludes the state one is trying to bring about.” (Sour Grapes, 43).

Simple examples are “Be spontaneous” or “Forget it”. When such states are pursued, they

automatically recede. They are only attainable by the subject who can stop seeking them.

Elster calls this phenomenon ‘willing that cannot be willed’.

It is in the Analects that we find the first accurate account of the experience of the

self-defeating pursuit of these states labeled by Elster as “by-products”. Let us hear once

more Confucius’ most treasured disciple describe his puzzling pursuit of the Way :

Yan Hui said with a deep sigh: “The more I strain my gaze up towards it, the higher

it soars. The deeper I bore down into it, the harder it becomes. I see it in front, but

suddenly it is behind. … Just when I feel I have exhausted every resource, something

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seems to rise up, standing up sharp and clear. Yet though I long to pursue it, I can

find no way of getting to it at all.” 10

Significantly, it is Yan Hui and no other disciple that Zhuangzi will cast as a key

character in the most enlightening dialogues regarding the issue of these states of minds

that can only occur in an indirect and non-deliberate way. Many of these states are highly

desirable, though they point to a limit on the autonomy of the moral agent. In a sense, all

good things in life can be seen as by-product states: having sweet dreams, falling in love,

being natural, having charm, feeling sympathy for all beings. We find in the Zhuangzi a

particularly rich and poetic repertoire of ad hoc expressions to refer to these states that

can never be part of a typical structure of actions defined by will, means and goals. Such

are the “veiled clarity” (bao ming 葆明) in chapter 2 “Putting All Things on a Par”

(“Qiwulun” 齊物論), “the melting of snow and the thawing of ice ” (冰解凍釋者) in

chapter 23 “Geng Sangchu” 庚桑楚, the “pristine dawn” (chao che 朝徹) in chapter 6,

“The Great and Venerable Teacher (“Da zong shi” 大宗師) or, still in the same chapter,

the “calm within the turmoil”（ying ning 攖寧). Since such states are seen as critical for

personal happiness, it is often tempting to try to reach them, to devise plans to bring them

about. Yet, we are inevitably, so it seems, doomed to failure in any such attempt.

Now, if such states define the heart of Taoist wisdom, we may wonder if Taoism

is not fraught with a fundamental contradiction. We meet indeed in Taoist texts

innumerable examples of imperatives to pursue states that one cannot intend to reach: be

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spontaneous, revert to the condition of a neonate, cast away knowledge, forget the world,

forget your own self.

These paradoxical statements are just like daily spoken ritual formulas that

represent a mix of wish and order : “enjoy your meal”, “don’t be upset”, “have a nice

day”, “don’t worry, be happy”, “sleep tight”, etc. These formulas require us to provoke a

state or a disposition that can only take place when we stop focusing on it (I can never

relax as long as I stay focused on the necessity of relaxing. I only realize I am relaxed

after I’ve forgotten to remember I must relax). All are expressions of by-product states

and therefore cannot be given as orders. You cannot follow these orders for the same

reason that you cannot just decide to be spontaneous, for the intention underlying the

desire to be spontaneous makes one’s behavior already artificial. This intention is not

compatible with the absence of intentional behavior that defines spontaneity. In a way, as

Elster argues, one should be spontaneously spontaneous. Of course, one could object that

it is possible to work toward it in an indirect way. But we should here proceed step by

step and first clear a few logical hurdles.

The solution to the problem posed by by-product states is all in all very intuitive if

we take it logically: in spite of the fact that we do the exact opposite in daily life, the

problem comes from the apparent lumping together of two logical propositions: 1) “To

want non-A” (for instance non-thought or non-action), and 2) “Not to want A” (such as

not to want thought or intentional action). The first proposition is an internal negation

while the second is an external negation. We owe this distinction to the Russian logician

and novelist Alexander Zinoviev, one of the main sources of Elster’s inspiration. The

question is to know how one may pass from a state of internal negation to a state of

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external negation. At any rate, one cannot use a state of internal negation in order to

produce a state of external negation.

TWO FALLACIES

Our daily beliefs and behaviors are irrational insofar as we keep trying to produce

a state or a disposition which, for intrinsic reasons, cannot be the result of a decision or

the effect of a planned action. But most of the time we do not distinguish between the two

kinds of negations, and are thus led to two kinds of fallacies, which Elster calls the moral

fallacy and the intellectual fallacy.

The moral fallacy takes place when we deliberately try to bring about a state that

is essentially a by-product. A good example may be the case of someone who tries to

sleep when he has insomnia or someone who urges himself to forget something

frightening. The moral fallacy here lies in the fact that the person keeps desiring

something (the absence of insomnia) which precludes their actual target: a state where

there is no more desire or will for anything.

When we obtain a by-product state that we previously had the desire to bring

about, and for which we did accordingly our best to make it happen, we tend to tell

ourselves that it took place because we caused it. We have here a case of intellectual

fallacy, regarding our active role as a causal agent.

Though in my view, and as I shall discuss below, these two kinds of fallacies do

not provide an adequate description of the mental states in question, let us simply say

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provisionally that many characters cast in the Zhuangzi are victims of a moral fallacy.

They are defined by self-defeating pursuits of states that contradict the strategy set up to

make them happen. They endlessly strive to become natural, to enjoy a supreme state of

liberation, to become indifferent to the world, or to morally transform the others, without

any possibility of success. Such self-defeating attempts even prove detrimental to the

others as is well illustrated in several stories of the chapter “Let it be, Leave it alone”

(“Zai you” 在宥).

This is the most difficult stage in the practice of self-cultivation. You can desire

knowledge, but apparently you cannot desire the forgetting of knowledge. Nor can you

make plans in order not to make plans any longer. We face here the problem of the

instrumentalization of a state of non-instrumentalization. In other words, the states of

emptiness, of oblivion or of spontaneity, are privative states. If I want to get rid of an

artificial behavior, I will constantly think about it. If I desire the absence of something, I

will maintain the existence of that thing constantly in my mind. We must therefore make

a leap from the state of inner negation to that of external negation, a leap that is not

describable, that has no method, since the absence of the consciousness of something

cannot be provoked by a conscious act.

Willing a state of non-will is one of the key issues in meditative exercises that

many Taoist and Buddhist thinkers have tackled. To my knowledge, apart from the

Zhuangzi, the earliest thinker to have underscored this paradox, or this contradiction, is

Han Fei 韓非, in his subtle exegetical appropriation of the Laozi. Han Fei brilliantly

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enunciates the paradox of the will of non-action and non-thought. He formulates what

inevitably appears as the direct consequence of the nature of by-product states.

One of the reasons that we value non-action and non-thought as states of emptiness,

is that the will is not governed by anything. Those who lack a proper technique

imagine that non-action and non-thought are merely a state of emptiness. Therefore,

those who hold that non-action and non-thought as a state of emptiness, constantly

focus their mind on this state of emptiness without being able to forget it, and that is

how they are still governed by the desire to make themselves empty. Emptiness can

only mean that the will is not governed by anything. Now, being governed by the

intention to become empty means not to be empty. Non-action that defines proper

emptiness means, on the contrary, that one does not take non-action as a constant

rule. It is only if you do not take non-action as a constant rule that you can have real

emptiness. This emptiness is the perfection of inner power, and the perfect inner

power is called supreme power (shang de 上德). Hence is said in the Laozi: Supreme

power does not do anything intentionally and yet there is nothing that is not done11.

We find in early Taoist texts a recurring injunction to discard intentionality, to engage in

a non-intentional activity that can benefit the self and prove superior in matters of

government12. This problem of moral psychology is implied in many sections of the

Laozi and partly resolved in the Zhuangzi. In the latter text, by-product states and

subsequent moral fallacies can be traced in many aspects of human life, all involving the

intuition of the Way, but prominently:

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- In the cultivation of the vital principle as discussed in the chapter 15 “Constrained

in Will” (“Ke yi” 刻意) in which the author debunks all the assertive forms of

self-cultivation.

- In the issue of political authority and the government of the empire, chiefly

explored in chapters “Let it be, Leave it Alone” (“Zai you” 在宥), “Webbed toes”

(“Pian mu” 駢拇) and “Giving Away a Throne” ( “Rang wang” 讓王).

- In moral education (among the most significant stories are the encounter of a

dejected Confucius who confesses to Lao Dan 老耽 (i.e. Laozi) his failures in his

attempt to transform people through textual education; see also Yan Hui’s self-

defeating strategies to bring back to reason the swashbuckling ruler of Wei in

chapter 4 “In the World of Men” (“Ren jian shi” 人間世).

Let us briefly examine some of the aforementioned topics in order to probe the

relevance and unifying function of the concept of by-product states. Then, we may

conceive of several ways of criticizing our initial position and draw a more general

argument concerning the dilemma explored in contemporary theories of action.

Moral influence: From wishful thinking to effective success

The Zhuangzi devotes many passages to the possibility of reaching someone’s

innermost mind, to change someone’s desire and values. It reveals through a great variety

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of situations the self-defeating strategies of the Confucians and suggests other indirect

devices in order to bypass the impediments of voluntary intention.

Chapter IV, “In the World of Men” relates a dramatic dialogue between Confucius and

his favorite disciple Yan Hui. The latter sets himself the mission to bring back to the right

path of virtue the young ruler of Wei whose state is plagued by violence and death. He

intends to put into practice Confucius’ teachings to bring relief to the wasteland of Wei.

This dialogue is a minute reflection on the condition of possibility of moral efficacy and

the transformation of another person, as Jean-François Billeter has convincingly shown13.

How should we encourage [or instruct?] people to change them if moral sermons are

barren at best, fatal at worse? Is it possible to bring someone back to the right path when

this person cannot be forced to do so? Does it merely depend on the nature of the persons

involved or is it intrinsically impossible because we deal here with states that can never

come into being as long as we take them as the purpose of our actions? Is it at least

sometimes possible to influence someone with a right technique? How then do you

actually break through the shield of bad will? The issue of the moral transformation of

the ill-willed ruler lies at the core of the moral reflection developed over the course of the

Warring States period.

Confucius senses Yan Hui’s mission is doomed to failure and it can only result in

the death of his beloved disciple. Why is this? First, because Yan Hui sets out on his

journey to Wei with a firm intention to obtain something through the well-defined means

of moral behavior and exemplary words. The attitude of the Ru 儒 Masters, exemplified

in the Mencius 孟子, is disparaged as useless for the common good and fatal for

individuals.

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Confucius, an intriguing spokesman for Taoist wisdom against the moralizing

views of the Ru, explains to Yan Hui that whatever he undertakes with the intention to

gain himself credit or reputation, or whatever he does with a strategic mind, will

ultimately prove a self-defeating attitude. Should Yan Hui force himself to be upright and

modest in his behavior (duan er xu 端而虛), and strive to be of one-mind (mian er yi 勉

而一), he would also be doomed to fail, because he would still be trying to obtain what is

necessarily precluded by the interference of a voluntary intention.

It is not by these means that you can achieve your ends (fei suo yi jin xing 非所以

盡行). More essentially, the show of personal virtue and sincerity, adds Confucius, are of

no use when it comes down to transforming someone. The faintest manifestation of

personal virtue will be received as an offense and will lead to a situation opposite from

what was intended.

The ruler of Wei, in a position of power from which he could not be forced, is a

perfect example of the resistance one encounters in moral communication. He is the kind

of person that cannot be reformed in even the smallest ways. How could he ever become

virtuous? He will never let himself be changed by others, but will cling to what he is and

not reform (jiang zhi er bu hua 將執而不化 ).

Yan Hui then presents his Master with other possible means to influence the ruler of Wei,

but Confucius dismisses them all for the same reason. At best, Yan Hui might escape

death, but never will he succeed in his mission of moral persuasion. By trying to make an

impression as an exemplary moral person, by forcefully making sermons about

benevolence and justice as if it could be measured by rope and ink (qiang renyi shengmo

zhi yan 強仁義繩墨之言), Yan Hui would only insult the ruler and provoke a disaster14.

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On the other hand, by failing to display morality, he can at best survive in his entourage

for a while, but will eventually end up imitating the cruel ruler and compromising on

everything. Lastly, if he decides to be frank and direct, he is likewise bound to die.

Confucius’ intuition of the self-defeating nature of intentional action in the field

of morality accounts for the lengthy discussion between the two men regarding the kind

of ‘self-management’ that should be adopted. Confucius knows that the moral

transformation of the ruler of Wei is to be taken as what we called earlier a “by-product”,

something that cannot happen as long as it is the direct target. How can you access the

ruler’s inner dispositions, how can you find a path to his heart? We should here look

closely at what Confucius has to say to Yan Hui in order to warn him.

夫道不欲雜，雜 則多，多則擾，擾則憂，憂而不救。

The proper way of acting excludes the desire to mix [ideas and plans], which once

mixed entails a state of plurality. Plurality leads to confusion and confusion to

troubles, for which there is no remedy !

All the strategies devised by Yan Hui are doomed to failure as long as he takes his

mind as his guide (shi xin zhe 師心者), as long as he remains prisoner of his intentional

mind, the mind which sets up devices, strategies, plans (mou 謀, fa 法) in order to obtain

what he wants. One should not arm oneself, but should disarm onself of strategic

equipment; one should come plain, empty, without any plan in mind.

A similar intuition of the counterproductive nature of calculated actions runs

through many chapters of the Zhuangzi. A well-governed empire is recurrently described

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as a kind of by-product state. Whenever a ruler tries to learn how to govern the empire,

he is doomed to failure as illustrated in the overture to the chapter “Kengsang chu” 庚桑

楚 and in the chapter “Responding to Emperors and Kings” (“Ying Diwang” 應帝王)15.

The Zhuangzi analyses in rulers the recurring fallacy of trying to obtain deliberately what

can only be achieved by renouncing assertive rulership. It examines the self-defeating

policy that takes as its main aim what can only be a side-effect, and what can only occur

when the ruler does not seek it. A ruler can only achieve a well-ordered state if he

pursues something else, a further goal.

DEVISING REMEDIES: FASTING OF THE MIND AND OBLIVION

The advice offered by Confucius in the dialogue with Yan Hui may partly provide

an answer to Elster’s paradox of by-product states. Confucius presses him not to listen to

what his mind tells him about the different possible strategies to succeed. The proper way

of acting can only come about in a state of emptiness (wei dao ji xu 唯道集虛), when the

will has deprived itself of any objective external content. Yan Hui should only focus on

his initial ambition to change the ruler and not delve deeper into speculation. He should

empty himself of thoughts dealing with ways and means and remain of one will (ruo yi

zhi 若一志). Yan Hui’s strategies are doomed to fail precisely because they are strategies,

not because they are good or bad. Anything that predetermines our action ruins the

possibility of reaching certain states. Yan Hui can succeed in his moral mission only if he

manages to listen to an inner voice that will guide him without the interference of his

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instrumental reason. Zhuangzi under the guise of Confucius calls this inner capacity :

listening with the qi (ting zhi yi qi 聽之以氣).

When you listen with your qi, namely your vital energy, the sensory apparatus

becomes free from its “daily office” outside. The one who listens and that by which one

listens form a unity, coinciding in a single act. Individual subjectivity disappears in pure

vital activity. You are not an agent, you are the spectator of the energy that runs within

and that has no object to grasp but itself. But you must first be able to stop projecting

yourself in the world of action. You must put a halt to the constantly scheming activity of

the mind. Only then can you get what you are looking for, or, rather, what you stop

looking for. If you can provoke a drastic change in someone, you must empty yourself of

everything that gives you an individual identity. Efficacious action can only take place

when individual conscience is abolished, as if “Yan Hui had not begun yet to exist .” (wei

shi you Hui ye 未始有回也).

Confucius, portrayed here as a fervent advocate of selflessness, provides an

enchanting description of the mystical appraisal of the resources one can draw from the

fasting of the mind. Clarity stems from the space within, from this “inner empty

chamber”, a pure and luminous space of vacancy (xu shi sheng bai 虛室生白) where the

mind is at peace and ease, not hurried toward the world by any plan. By inverting the

normal direction of our perception towards the outside, by focusing our sensory

perception towards the very source of our power to see and hear, we may obtain what we

cannot reach when our intention and attention revert within (fu xun er mu nei tong er wai

yu xin zhi, guishen jiang lai zhi 夫徇耳目內通而外於心知，鬼神將來之.) 16

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This psychological process associated with the loss of individual consciousness,

hardly describable in analytical language (which accounts for the abundance of

metaphors in Confucius’ description), produces a divine state enabling one to transform

anything (shi wanwu zhi hua ye 是萬物之化也).

In the chapter “Let it be, leave it alone” (“Zai You” 在宥), we witness an edifying

encounter between the Yellow Emperor and a sage called Guang Chengzi 廣成子, or

Master Vast Achievement, who dwells on the Mount of Merging Vacuity (kong tong 空

同). The story takes as a starting point the state of moral fallacy of the ruler engaged in a

self-defeating pursuit of cosmic rulership, and as a solution, once more, the fasting of the

mind17.

The Yellow Emperor prays to Vast Achievement that he might impart on him the

art of rulership, and blatantly shows his hubris, well-marked in the dialogue by his desire

to seize the essences of the universe, and manipulate the cosmic principles of yin and

yang (yu guan yin yang 欲官陰陽 ). Master Vast Achievement knows this is a lost cause

that will not only ruin the world but also harm the people. Once the Yellow Emperor

realizes how wrong he is, and takes leave of the world to dwell in a poor hut, he does

nothing for three months before venturing to see the master again. Because of this

internal work of purification, because he abandons his original plans, he is able to address

to him a better question : how can I govern my body (zhi shen 治身) to live long ? Master

Vast Achievement immediately sees that the Yellow Emperor has adopted the right

disposition for which the primary object of care and concern is the self. The good order

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of the world will then follow, as an indirect result, precisely because the Emperor does

not primarily seek it. Vast Achievement admonishes the Emperor to keep his mind quiet,

with no ambition, no projects, and no plans. As long as he preserves his forces inside, he

may enter in contact with the numinous forces that form the universe. That is the only

proper way to be an emperor.

We have here a typical example of a technique or exercise (as opposed to a

strategy) carried out in order to attain something that the voluntary mind cannot induce

directly by itself. Only the extinction of the conscious mind can achieve what it keeps

seeking in a self-defeating manner. Note that the Yellow Emperor has spent three months

doing nothing, secluded, idle, in poverty. The crucial moment in the story of the Yellow

Emperor’s transformation is when he accepts the idea that he should live in the exact

opposite way from that conventionally associated with an emperor: he dwells in a squalid

shack, passive and alone. Only then can he understand that one must change oneself

before claiming the authority to change the others. By reverting to a state of

concentration on his inner activity he can place himself in the adequate mental position

from which good and efficient actions can project a beneficial influence onto the world at

large. It is a striking psychological lesson to many of us who tend to seek a device to

obtain something through intelligence, cunning, astuteness or artifice. Only time and

consented passivity enable us to experience transformation. For that, we must stop

speaking, scheming, reflecting, we must instead put the mind to a halt. Only then

something may happen, that will lead us to the place we aspire to reach.

21

As one could expect, Elster takes the state of oblivion as a privileged example of

by-products. Indeed, I cannot decide to forget something. As long as I want to forget

something unpleasant, it will be present to my mind. The more I want to forget it, the

more intensely it will mentally exist. We should here briefly look at one passage situated

at the end of Zhuangzi’s chapter 6, which once more features Yan Hui and his master

Confucius. This brief discussion could be read as a sequel to the episode concerning the

fasting of the mind between the two protagonists. Yan Hui would then be discussing the

progress he has made before setting out to Wei.18

In this second dialogue, Yan Hui tells Confucius about the spiritual progress he

has achieved, and claims as evidence for this that he has forgotten ritual and music. His

gradual progress in oblivion leads him in the next phase: to forget the cardinal virtues of

benevolence and justice (renyi 仁義) -- quite a humorous passage in this respect,

Confucius’s most inquisitive and ardent disciple confessing to his Master how he

succeeds in erasing from his mind the fundamental instructions he received. When Yan

Hui comes to his master for the third time, he has become able to “sit in oblivion” (zuo

wang 坐忘). Confucius is baffled by Yan Hui’s progress, and seems to understand well

the state the young man has reached, though he has never gone so far as to experience it

himself. Therefore the Master eventually begs Yan Hui to take him as a disciple.

Leaving aside the irony of this dialogue in its ironic interplay with the Analects19,

we should first wonder why Yan Hui decides to enter in a process of oblivion, a process

that begins by forgetting certain things to finally culminate in a radical oblivion, not

attached to any object in particular, a form of intransitive oblivion. A contextual answer

to this question may be provided by linking this dialogue with the former one in the

22

“Renjian shi” about moral transformation. Yan Hui seems to realize this is the only way

to revert to spontaneity and get rid of rules, etiquette, self-conscious cultivation of the

virtues that prove detrimental to the effect of authentic virtue. Oblivion is a state through

which one may attain a form of vital activity that is not impeded by voluntary intention.

Should we then assume that Yan Hui manages to forget in some moments of

trance, or that he does forget permanently? Since Yan Hui says he can ‘sit’ (zuo 坐) in

oblivion, it is quite obvious he is referring to a meditative session in which everything is

forgotten, including both the intention to forget and the very individual who forgets (in

such moments, “there is no more Yan Hui”). After that, Yan Hui comes back to a normal

state of consciousness and can talk about his spiritual experience with his Master. His

intention to enter further into oblivion does not appear at all as an impediment20.

Still, the problem is that oblivion, when taken as an end, cannot just happen at

will. Or can one really take the decision to forget something ? We are here brought back

to our initial problem: if you can bring about moral transformation only by profoundly

altering your normal way of organizing your subjectivity, only by emptying yourself and

withdrawing your perception from the outside world, only by discarding conscious

knowledge, then how do you proceed to produce this state of oblivion? It seems that in

order to produce a by-product state such as moral transformation in someone (as in the

ruler of Wei), you need to bring about in yourself another kind of indirect involuntary

state (the state of oblivion). How do you actually obtain this state of emptiness? What

23

appeared as a means (oblivion) becomes an end it itself now. Thus the very necessity to

bring about this state of emptiness always seems to preclude the possibility of obtaining it.

But here things do not work as Elster would have it when he points out the

paradox of voluntary oblivion. Oblivion is not decided as a causal action, it takes the

form of a long exercise, a patient training for Yan Hui, and nothing is said about the way

he manages to forget nor the time it requires, nor the kind of effort involved. Temporality

may well be the key to the aporetic nature of what Elster calls by-product states. He

seems to consider that what I can obtain directly by the will must necessarily be

immediate, must be an instantaneous causation. More detrimentally, he equates the

general intention to obtain a certain mental state with the rigid focus on obtaining it,

entailing a negative state of ‘hyper-awareness’.

In addition to the element of time, the essential moments of Yan Hui’s training

are outside the dialogue; we only hear him before and after his exercises, when reporting

to Confucius. In the meantime, we have no way of knowing what exactly takes place. We

do know at least that Yan Hui has no master to guide him. Confucius describes in the end

the kind of oblivion his disciple has reached: a stage where it is not a question of

forgetting something (ritual, music, justice, benevolence), but a radical oblivion in which

the agent does not exist any longer as an individual. We know that such accomplishment

requires time, personal effort and a passage through different regimen of thought21. When

tackling the issue of mental states, one cannot overlook the question of the transition

between one regime of thought to another one, which provides the key to transformations

that otherwise (i.e., when we view the self at the same level) becomes impossible to

explain. Yan Hui’s success is due to an askesis, an exercise on oneself, a gongfu, not a

24

strategy. Yan Hui does not tell himself upon leaving his master: “this is next what I am

going to forget.” He meditates, and ends up realizing he has overcome, or forgotten,

something, after experiencing a profound modification of ordinary consciousness.

In chapter 6 “The Great and Venerable Teacher” (“Da zong shi”), Nü Yu’s 女偊

purported disciple Buliang yi 卜梁倚 is said to have been able to put outside him first the

outer world (wai tian xia 外天下), then all beings (wai wu 外物) and finally life itself

(wai sheng 外生 ). This spiritual achievement took altogether nineteen days of

concentration and care (3+7+9 days) . The Yellow Emperor, after nineteen years of

rulership22, remained calm, alone and inactive in his hut for three months. Confucius also

stays home for three months before experiencing a drastic change and venturing to see

Lao-tseu once more (chapter 14 “Shan mu”). In chapter 27 “Yu yan” 寓言, a character

named Yancheng Ziyou 顏成子游 evokes his spiritual transformation to his master (who

may well be the same Nanbo Zikui 南伯子葵) mentioned heretofore. He explains how

he was naturally driven back to the “vast mystery” (da miao 大妙) through a gradual

process of transformation that took him nine years altogether. His descriptions contain no

voluntary actions, only events that took place within him without his interfering (“After

two years, I only followed without any resistance…the fifth year, everything came to me,

the sixth year the spirits entered in me, the seventh year, natural action was perfecting

itself.”)

States that appeared as by-products can deliberately be induced when the whole

self is conditioned instead of simply relying on a intellectual strategy for immediate

25

results. These desirable states can occur even though we have them in mind, when we

learn to rely on unknown forces in ourselves, when we cultivate free-floating intentions,

when we rely on the silent transformations induced by time, when we stop considering

ourselves as causal agents but on the contrary when we envision ourselves as the “site” of

events and states that may surge forth. When Confucius comments on the ultimate state --

or stage -- of oblivion that Yan Hui has managed to reach, he is not evoking a sequence

of deliberate actions but merely what happens in him without any interference of the will.

EMPTY INTENTION AND FULL INTENTION

We must therefore address the question of what we mean by “strategy”. Is it a

relevant term to qualify the kind of exercises practiced by the Yellow Emperor or by Yan

Hui? We should first distinguish a primary intention (attaining the Way, educating

people, gaining inner potency, reaching oblivion) from the objective form of this

intention when we think of a plan of action or conceive of the best means to obtain that

end. Therefore we could pose the distinction between a free-floating or empty intention

and an objective or full intention, embodied in plans and projects. As long as I keep my

ambition, my aspiration (zhi 志) without any connection to my actions, as long as I

refrain from doing anything to put into action my intention, I can be certain my intention

will not harm the process of production of the desired state. This is not just a distinction

on paper, everyone can experience these two distinct modalities of intention : when I go

to bed, I have the general intention to sleep, but if I do not concentrate on the necessity to

26

sleep, if I just let my body and my thoughts follow their own way without asking me how

much time it will take to fall asleep, then I can fall asleep rapidly not so much in spite of

my intention of sleeping --as Elster would have it--, as in conformity with it. If I let my

intention float, nature follows its course and sleep simply comes because I feel tired. The

body can be as simple as that. The paradox of the insomniac who will never fall asleep as

long as he tries to sleep is an extreme case of nervous illness that does not disqualify the

natural process of falling asleep with the intention to sleep. If I fall asleep when I go to

bed, it is not primarily because I have managed to erase any thought of falling asleep

from my mind, it is solely because I am tired and I do not plan to accelerate the process

of falling asleep. My free-floating intention to fall asleep is then rapidly overwhelmed

with free-running images which make me sink into a slumber without any active

contribution of my intentional mind. This can happen because I am not in a regime of

hyper-consciousness, intensely focused on the importance of sleep. What prevents me

from falling asleep is the fact that my aspiration to be sleeping soon becomes a source of

concern and worry; insomnia begins when I feel upset at the idea of being unable to

obtain it immediately by the will. It is not due to the presence of an intentional mind in

itself.

Am I the cause of sleep when I fall asleep in ‘normal’ conditions? Or is this

assumption a case of the moral fallacy discussed above? Against Elster, I think our

voluntary intention to sleep is at least part of the process.

The distinction we have drawn between two modalities of intention enable us to

take a different retrospective look at the story of the Yellow Emperor secluded in his hut.

27

The Yellow Emperor still has ambitions to be a ruler, but understands it is better to forget

the ways to attain almighty rulership. He renounces an active plan to become the ruler he

wants to be (controlling Yin and Yang). We could argue that the Emperor secretly keeps

in mind his intention to become powerful through an indirect technique, and so therefore

he cannot succeed. But what is noteworthy here is that the Yellow Emperor cannot

clearly predict the silent transformation he undergoes during his seclusion. His desires

change, and if the care for his person was not taken as an end in itself, but was just a pure

means to attain almighty rulership, it could not work, probably for the same reasons that

someone who undergoes insomnia cannot fall asleep even after getting up and reading a

book if the book is read at all times with the intention to become sleepy, without interest

in the content of the book. Each time I anticipate the causal mechanism, and have in mind

the expected result, my conscience alters this very mechanism and distorts it. The

observer modifies the situation he observes, but keeps on acting as if the situation were

indifferent to his strategic observation. Here is a recurring source of frustration in daily

life, due to the hyperconsciousness of things we do while doing them. Some techniques to

overcome insomnia may only work if they are prescribed by a doctor to his patient

without letting the latter know it is a technique to fall asleep (the therapist can describe

them as a preliminary exercise of observation). As soon as the insomniac patient becomes

aware that sleep is the expected outcome of the exercise he is given (i.e. “write down how

you feel every five minutes”), sleep may well fly away and be out of reach all night long.

In sum, the problem of bringing about states that cannot be willed may be partly

solved by rethinking what we mean by the intentional mind. Our daily experience shows

28

us clearly enough that we must distinguish between a free-floating or empty intention,

and a full or objective intention. Usually when aspiring to get something, we try to make

it happen, and we devise a strategy, we instrumentalize what is likely to bring us closer to

what we want. The results are often successful. Sometimes, though, and strangely enough

when it comes to the most desirable states, this way of proceeding automatically fails. We

have heretofore tried to account for this failure by the fact that certain states are

hampered by the very mental disposition we adopt to make them happen. If the Zhuangzi

shows with insistence and accuracy in many domains the failures we inevitably encounter

when it comes to such mental or social states (political authority, in moral education, in

self-flourishing and search of happiness), it does not confine its stories to the negative

exhibition of this difficulty in moral psychology. It points out the necessity of cutting the

bonds between our primary intention and our will to « enact » it, our tendency to put

ourselves at the service of our intentions. It is essential to situate ourselves in a place

where we can gradually stop focusing on something without having to renounce it. Then

a form of oblivion inevitably takes place.

We are all familiar I believe with these two different kinds of intention. If I cannot

presently remember a name, it can prove impossible to have it in mind as long as I will

make an active and painful effort to recall it. Then I decide to forget it, leave it aside, but

I do not give up my desire to remember it. I stick to my primary intention, but I leave it

freely floating instead of pursuing the means to “fill” it. And suddenly, in the middle of a

conversation on something else, when I am miles away from the former situation, the

name spontaneously comes to my mind, surges forth from my mouth. Some unknown

29

forces within me were still working, and they were liberated when I stopped trying to

remember. Here is a mechanism that the Zhuangzi seems to have in mind when it

preaches the virtue of oblivion and the eclipse of the self. They are the conditions of

natural, necessary and efficient action.

PUTTING BY-PRODUCT STATES INTO QUESTION

We must nonetheless raise the question of the possibility of bringing about these

highly desirable states by an indirect technique. I can think of many actions that will

induce these states: for instance, I may not sleep if I want to but I can take a sleeping pill,

or a few glasses of scotch with a valium, or read a treatise on logic in Medieval Latin. It

is very likely, knowing myself, that I will then fall asleep, and it may work most of the

time for most people. Regarding the state of someone who “forgets the world”, there are

drugs, or video-games. In all these cases, it is perfectly sound to assume that the state of

oblivion induced is the cause of my intentional and voluntary action. What can we infer

from this objection? I see three points of discussion.

1) If such states can be deliberately provoked, then it just proves that they are not

essentially by-product states. We must conclude that each time I can think of a

successful technique to provoke indirectly a mental state I desire, then this state is

not stricto sensu a by-product. The objection we raised with the “sleeping-pill

argment” hence misses the point, it only bypasses the problem of by-products and

30

their resistance to voluntary action. It only provides a negative criterion to define

the essence of by-product states.

2) Even if many highly desirable states can be provoked through indirect techniques,

even if there are « technologies for self-management », for getting what we

cannot directly get, these techniques remain very costly. “Even assuming the

technical feasibility of bringing about these states in question by indirect means,

there may be a cost-benefit problem that stops us from doing so. Not everything

that is technically possible is also economically rational”23. Needless to say, this is

a true statement, but once again irrelevant to our case, since we are dealing with

states that are impossible to be brought about deliberatelyfor conceptual reasons

(considering their intrinsic nature) and not for empirical ones (the current state of

science or technique, for instance) .

3) States that we cannot produce intelligently and intentionally by any indirect

strategy, can at least be reached through a mental and physical training, but only

on certain conditions. They must remain free from the intentional structure of

action, free from any consideration of means and ends, plans and schemes. One

must accept to let nature follow its course, in Chinese terms remain in “non-

action” or wuwei 無為. But it is not certain that all the states we have defined as

by-products can be realized by an indirect strategy. The state of perfect

spontaneity and innocence, if not logically unattainable, at least seems quite an

extreme case among the kinds of mental states we have so far examined.

31

GONGFU AS A RESPONSE TO THE LOGICAL PARADOX OF BY-PRODUCT STATES

All the silent and meditative exercises plainly evoked or subtly suggested in the

Zhuangzi rely on the action of time and the capacity to refrain from acting according to

an instrumental logic (I do A in order to obtain B as an immediate and predictable

consequence). Such exercises or gongfu show a great confidence in our capacity to make

most desirable state come into being provided we disarm ourselves, we “give time to

time”, and experience the sense of a certain disinterest and distance toward our

aspiration. In other words, a certain form of oblivion, which is not so much a lapse of

memory as a dimension of any well-integrated action (I forget how one is supposed to

swim when I actually swim, I just go along with the water; on the contrary when I

concentrate too hard on my movements, my body becomes stiff and ungraceful). In this

frame of mind, intention is not what precludes the realization of a state, nor is it a

strategic move, it is merely an élan, a driving force that finds its own ways by eventually

letting nature follow its course. We must accept the influence on our lives of powers we

cannot pretend to explain. Problems and failures arise when the concentration on the

intention itself interferes with the state one is trying to bring about, which requires the

suppression of a self-conscious attitude. Zhuangzi’s peculiar, personal and non-technical

forms of self-cultivation seem to be intensely aware of this mechanism. This intra-

psychic mechanism may explain the failures of meditation classes provided by companies

to boost the productivity of their staff, or the failures of books that teach how to become a

32

creative author or invent a character in fiction. The building of the personality of an

author is essentially a by-product, it is the outcome of activities that are carried for

reasons other than those of becoming an author with personality. Just as a fine work of art

is a by-product, in that it cannot be reduced to the direct effect of the intention to create a

good work of art. Zhuangzi’s story of the construction of a divine bell-rack by carpenter

Qing 慶 in Chapter 19 powerfully shows the degree of oblivion and selflessness one

needs experience in the process of creation.

Previous arguments enable us to propose a more general thesis concerning the

opposition in the domain of action between strategy and gongfu 功夫 . If strategy is the

prevailing paradigm in classical theories of action, gongfu may then well be the response

of Taoist-rooted wisdom to the instrumental rationality that prevails in Western

philosophy. One of the main virtues of the concept of by-product states is that it enables

us to examine the “points of friction” between these two diverging conceptions of action.

A strategy requires a clear mental representation of what is supposed to take place,

step by step. It ideally envisions the whole chain of actions and events that will take me

from here to where I want to get. The strategic mentality envisions the self as a causal

agent, and considers that this agent is essentially unaltered by the process he sets up in

order to reach his goal. Therefore he mostly reasons and speculates as if he should have

in the projected future essentially the same values, beliefs and desires, and hardly takes

into account the unpredictable way in which one is led to change through time and events.

In the order of voluntary decision and strategic action, the self is instrumentalized.

All the possible resources of time, energy, effort, must serve the ambition to reach one’s

33

goal in a predictable way, be it at the expense of one’s ease or well-being. Last, the

strategic mind is always focused on the costs vs. benefits of what it undertakes. A plan of

action is deemed rational when its price is not superior to the benefits one expects from

its undertaking. For instance, I can bypass the problem of certain by-product states by

deciding to go to bed every night with a sleeping pill, or enter a state of oblivion by

taking heroin. Eventually, this kind of strategy may prove too costly, and does not solve

the problem of obtaining in a rational way what I am trying to reach in the absence of will.

In a meditative practice, or in gongfu, as is well exemplified by the stories of the

Zhuangzi discussed above, one does not use the self as a vehicle to reach a desirable state

at the expense of one’s vital principle. Selflessness prevails over self-centeredness. One

does not exhaust oneself to attain an end in which the body is solely implemented as a

tool24. Care of the self is an end per se and the source (or condition of possibility in more

theoretical terms) of all by-product states. Chinese self-cultivation works on inner

dispositions, on the self as an atmospheric totality (acting on one’s qi, on moods, on inner

climate, on one’s inner Stimmung) as opposed to the attitude that solely focuses on

outward goals. If self-cultivation just like the strategic mind takes into account the

question of costs and benefits with a great emphasis on the value of the personal body

superseding any other moral considerations, gongfu relies on the qualitative passage of

time and does not try to obtain things in a straightforward and predictable way. It

integrates the virtue of passivity, and does not try to foresee what, when and how the

required transformation will occur. It relies on the unforeseen, on the invisible occasion

that will provoke a drastic change, without trying to be the direct cause of it. Self-

cultivation hinges on an ontology in which transformation of the agent prevails over the

34

identity of the moral subject. This ontology based on transformation, an oft-claimed

distinctive feature of ‘Chinese thought’, is actually, beyond cultural contrastive

approaches that hardly lead anywhere, the very condition of solving the problem posed in

moral psychology by these states that are essentially “by-products”.

CONCLUSION

If many failures in a rational context can be explained by an inadequate choice of

means to a given end, the problem of the excess of the will pinpoints another kind of

mistake. This mistake lies in the belief that the desired state can be brought about within

the rational structure of means and ends.

The authors of the Zhuangzi make palpable the irrationality of many self-cultivation

projects, since these self-defeating plans and ploys all try to bring about directly certain

desirable states (mental or political) that are essentially by-products (moral

transformation through barren ratiocination or through the study of canonical texts for

instance). There are some kinds of actions which, when performed in an overly conscious

way, ruin their efficacy and preclude the result they try to bring about. We all know how

the necessity of being or appearing natural for instance, is certainly a puzzle, a challenge

and a paradox for any actor. The more an actor is anxious to appear natural, the more his

desire to look good will impede the release of a natural performance. Diderot’s famous

“paradoxe du comédien” can be explained in reference of by-products, with a limit

nonetheless, for acting is merely the art of ‘seeming’, and does not require the art of

becoming genuinely natural. Still, many actors are trained with techniques very close to

35

the spirit of the gongfu that can be hinted at in the Zhuangzi: they are invited to focus on

a topic apparently completely unrelated to the way of acting, and progressively learn how

to forget or ignore the context of the audience or camera. That is the only way to decrease

the intensity of the intentional mind. But here we should be more subtle and cautious than

we were in the initial stage of our reflection: it is not the fact that we have the intention to

reach such a state that makes this state impossible to reach. It is the intensity of the

intentional mind as a special regime of thought, which is best exemplified in the strategic

mentality. Strategy only envisions change in a superficial way. The danger for gongfu is

to be instrumentalized and turned into a strategy, a ready-made recipe that ignores the

dialectical process of time with its negative phase, and pretends to obtain rapid and

guaranteed results. By-product states provide a unified explanation to the difficulties

raised by the conversion of original gongfu into collective techniques, by the compression

of time that pretends to bypass the negative and passive stages of transformation.

If some forms of self-cultivation provide an answer to the difficulties posed by certain

mental states within a strategic context, we should pose the question: are there, in the end,

by-product states? I think not, if by-product states are only defined by the logical

impossibility for them to be reached in an intelligible and voluntary way. I do think the

impossibility always lies in the particular nature and dispositions of the individual who

commits himself to a form of practice, be it ritual, religious, ethical or artistic. After all,

some people can decide to sleep and doze off in a few minutes without any difficulty. For

such persons, sleep will never be a by-product state. I guess we could say the same for

36

oblivion, naturalness, spontaneity, indifference or inspiration. When a charismatic master

invites you to relax, it is often sufficient to initiate by itself a process of relaxation.

Defining a by-product state also clearly depends on precise historical conditions.

When sleeping pills or sedative plants were unknown, the decision to sleep at will indeed

was a by-product state for almost anyone. It is not any longer, though we may want to

introduce here a more complex approach between participative action and results of

external elements relative to the sole role of the will.

Finally, one should be aware of the fact that it is above all the very way a logical

proposition describes a state of action that makes it appear impossible to reach. Let us

take a famous example drawn from Pascal’s Pensées: what must I do if I want to believe

in God, if I want to have faith? For Elster, we are here in the presence of a typical by-

product state: I cannot decide to believe in God, for the state of belief cannot be obtained

on command. Even if I abide by Pascal’s wager and decide to act as if I believed in God,

I have no way of erasing the initial decision by which I decide, in an “impure manner”,

considering my selfish interest, to be a good Christian. In fact, this is a most abrupt way

of relegating Pascal’s statement to the realm of logical inconsistencies. Elster treats the

problem from a logical point of view, not from a phenomenological one, and therefore

does not reflect on the fact that the “I” who decides to believe and the “I” who ends up

believing are not the same person. Elster does not mention when evoking Pascal’s wager

what lies at the core of self-cultivation as an exercise : the “embarking effect” (“vous

estes embarqué” writes Pascal), the impression of being dragged away from the old self

by virtue of repeated ritual actions such as prayers, kneeling, etc. Act as if you had faith,

and it will come, says Pascal, just like Aristotle contended that one becomes more

37

virtuous by the sole fact of acting as if one were virtuous. The physical and psychological

effects of theses attitudes, very close to that developed in self-cultivation milieus, can

account for the capacity to reach mental states which, from Elster’s perspective, will

always be impossible to teach or obtain.25

In the end, the cursory look we have taken at certain self-cultivation stories seems to

confirm that the optimal mental states cannot really be defined as by-product states. They

are just states that need more effort and time to come into being. Self-cultivation tends to

condition the self in order to create an intermediary state (through a constant cultivation

of the qi) that is a necessary step to attain the final goal in a non-predictable way. We can

always answer with Elster that it is not because an effect could be foreseen and desired

that it was actually obtained through the will. Still, the decision to transform oneself, no

matter how, commits the will at the outset to a process in which it learns how to

disappear progressively.

Aware of the problems posed by his concept of by-product states, Elster provides at

one stage in his essay a more accurate definition of a by-product: it is a state that cannot

be obtained through the will and by a deliberate strategy. That new definition means that

a by-product state could be obtained in a deliberate and predictable way if I know that the

effect will be brought about as a consequence of my actions. Though we must admit there

is always a part of uncertainty; no one can secure the revelation of faith or the state of

inspiration through one’s efforts and personal cultivation. If those states can be defined as

by-product states, we should say with Elster that the concept of by-product states only

applies to those states that cannot happen at will.

38

Still, Elster does not convincingly envisage a possible solution to the problem of

by-product states (aside from a few allusions to Buddhism) because he does not link the

quest of wisdom to a set of practices (gongfu) as in the Chinese tradition of self-

cultivation. He remains a philosopher for whom philosophy is an exercise of thought and

not a therapy of the self, body and soul. Naturally, Elster mentions these practices in the

Eastern world but he never departs from the logical representation of an action. He

overlooks what a phenomenology of moral conscience should examine in all its

complexity: namely, the unknown underlying forces that drive us in the real world and

cannot be reduced to a logical causal chain, the unpredictable impulses, the silent inner

changes, the invisible maturation that altogether modifies the self while acting. Elster’s

descriptions teem with brilliant remarks and stimulating conundrums on the paradoxical

nature of our choices, but they neglect the concrete richness of a self endowed with inner

resources that stands outside of the range of ordinary conscience.

In a striking contrast with Elster’s approach, many early Chinese texts are explicit

about the development of the optimal virtues being a result of the accumulation of certain

kinds of vital breaths or qi 氣 in the body, such as the Five Phases (Wuxing pian 五行篇),

the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸 ) or the Scriptures on Great Peace

(Taipingjing 太平經) among many other sources. They argue that you cannot directly

plan to obtain oblivion, spontaneity or supreme sincerity (zhi cheng至誠), but that there

are ways to create an intermediary physiological and perceptual state that eventually

leads to a state precluded by the assertive will to obtain it. In Material Virtue26, Mark

Csikzentmihàlyi discusses “the process of affecting others through the influence of one’s

essence and qi.” He also remarks in his article “Ethics and Self-cultivation practice in

39

Early China”27 this was an important aspect of the early model of sagely rulership in a set

of early sources, and examines in Confucian texts such as the Doctrine of the Mean but

also in later Taoist texts such as the Scriptures of the Great Peace 28 the capacity to

transform others (neng hua 能化) through sincerity (cheng 誠). In the latter text, we find

a dialogue between a Celestial Master (tianshi 天師 ) and six authentic men (zhenren 真

人) dealing with the transmission of texts. “In it, the protection or enmity of the shenling

神靈 ‘spirit numina’ are a function of the moral ethical behavior of individuals. Reaching

sincerity, and echoing together with the spirits uses physiological models to explain how

correct spiritual attitudes connect with certain practices and lead to certain physical

signs ”. In these texts from the Warring States period through the early Six Dynasties

period, spiritual practices result in an attitude that brings about divine benefits for the

practitioner, and these benefits fit well the description of states that cannot be directly

provoked or induced.

Csikszentmihàlyi also mentions the “cosmological” answer to the creation of

these psychological and moral states that are the goal of self-cultivation. For instance, in

the chapter “Record on Music” (“Yue ji” 樂記) of the Classic of Rites (Liji 禮記), the

observance of seasonal cycles, the adaptation of one’s behavior to the changes induced by

the four seasons and by Yin and Yang, is a way of preserving one’s qi and tranforming

one’s body appropriately. We are then situated at the heart of non-action (wu wei), which

consists in ignoring the direct causal process by which we may obtain what we desire.

Non-action is not pure passivity, it is a daily cultivated capacity to refrain from deciding

how we will get from here to there through a sequence of states controlled by intentional

conscience and caused by the will. It is a conversion of mental attention that takes the self

40

as a site of calm, rest and vacancy. Self-cultivation relies on physiological and mental

modifications that take place inside the agent; it does not try to anticipate or elucidate the

obscure inner episodes that stand between an aspiration to a certain state and the

realization of it. In Laozi 3, it is through the sage’s actionless activity that everything is

regulated (wei bu wei ze wu bu zhi 為不為則無不治) In that, the sage acts like the Way,

which never acts (Laozi 37) but by which, in virtue of this lack of intentionality, all tasks

are performed and things achieved. If people likewise emptied their minds (xu qi xin 虛

其心) and weakened the hold of intentionality, they would lead a quiet life and be at ease

and peace. They would not suffer from dissatisfaction and frustration. We may even

contend that the process of decadence evoked in Laozi 38, from Principle (dao 道) to

Power (de 德), from Power to benevolence (ren 仁), from benevolence to justice (yi 義)

and at the last stage from justice down to ritual (li 禮), expresses the growing importance

of intentional and voluntary action at the expense of a natural way of being good, a way

of doing good without knowing that there is something called good. The non-intentional

action is the very condition of the highest morality, while the actions that follow rules of

morality in order to correspond to what is defined as good can only generate trouble and

self-defeating plans. In Zhuangzi’s chapter 6, « Da zong shi » the author reminds us that

the genuine men of old did not make plans when acting ( bu mou shi 不謀事).

Instead of contriving and scheming, we must halt and listen mostly in passivity. If

modern Western philosophy envisions the self as a moral agent, these early self-

cultivation traditions rather invite us to see the self as an agent and a patient, since

41

passivity only (on the mode of non-thought, oblivion, indifference, disinterest) is the

natural agent of the states precluded by the logic of the will and the “voluntarist ethics of

the muscle” underlying most classical theories of action. With non-action, one learns to

rely less on the will as a capacity to initiate change, than on the silent and unknown

modifications entailed by mental and physical exercises. Our actions are then no longer

polluted by conscience, intentionality and reflexivity.

This is where Elster’s analysis finds its limits, at the border of an immense field

explored by self-cultivation practices. His exploration of by-product states, if it does not

lead to a positive solution, remains nonetheless immensely stimulating, and, more than

that, convincing and powerful, when it comes to denouncing the pretention of

instrumental reason and intentional conscience to produce at will what it aims at. When

gongfu become the object of a description, when they are already embedded in theories

and descriptions, when they become fully institutionalized as in Taoist rituals, in short

when they turn into techniques ready-to-use, they become no more and no less

worthwhile than any ordinary strategy. Zhuangzi’s insistence on the necessity to wander,

to go aimlessly, to take roads that twist and turn without an end reminds us of the danger

of turning the Way into a Method. Such an alteration may account for the fact that most

of what seems naturally here at our disposal becomes a “by-product state”. An echo of

this idea can be found in the chapter “Geng sang chu” : Yu dang ze yuan yu bu de yi 欲當

則緣於不得已 “When you desire to be adequate, then you turn towards what cannot be

obtained.” But the clearest answer perhaps to the paradox of states hampered by the will

to attain them is to be found in the Zhuangzi’s last inner chapter, “Responding to

Emperors and Kings” (“Ying di wang” 應帝王) :

42

Stop acting as a manager of names, do not be a storehouse for schemes, do not play

the one in charge, do not play the master of wisdom29.

43

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billeter Jean-François, L’art chinois de l’écriture, Paris: Skira-le Seuil, rept 2005.

Billeter Jean-François, Leçons sur Tchouang-tseu, Paris: Allia, 2002.

Billeter Jean-François, Etudes sur Tchouang-tseu, Paris: Allia, 2003.

Brennan Geoffrey, “Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality”,

Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.19, n°1 (March 1981), p.99-100.

Chan Joseph and Miller David: “Elster in Self-Realization: A Critical Note”, Ethics,

Vol.102, N°1 (Oct. 1991), pp. 96-102.

Csikzentmihàlyi Mark, Material Virtue. Ethics and the Body in Early China, Leiden and

Boston : Brill, 2004.

Elster Jon, Sour Grapes. Studies in the Subversion of Ratonality, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 1983.

Elster Jon, Ulysses and the Sirens. Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1979.

44

Elster Jon, “Why Things don’t happen as planned”, in N.Åkerman, ed., The Necessity of

Friction, Heidelberg: Physica Verlag, pp.248-256.

Elster Jon, Psychologie politique (Veyne, Zinoviev, Tocqueville), Paris: éditions de

Minuit, 1990.

Graziani Romain, Fictions philosophiques du Tchouang-tseu, Paris: Gallimard, 2006.

Guanzi jiaoshi 管子校釋, compiled by Yan Changyao 顏昌嶢 (1868-1944), Changsha :

Yuelu shushe, 1996.

Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解 compiled by Wang Xianshen 王先慎 (19th cent.), Beijing :

Zhonghua shuju, 1998.

Hubin Donald C. , “Of Bindings and By-Products: Elster on Rationality”, Philosophy and

Public Affairs, Vol.15, n°1 (Winter 1986), pp.82-95.

Katz Jack, “Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions”, The American

Journal of Sociology, Vol. 106, N°1 (Jul.2000), pp.259-262.

Laozi zhuyi ji pingjia 老子注譯及評介, ed. Chen Guying, Beijing, Zhonghua shuju,

1983 pour la 1ère éd. ; rééd. de 2003.

45

Larmore Charles, “Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality” (review), The

American Political Science Review, Vol.80, N°2 (June 1986), pp.645-647.

Lunyu yizhu 論語譯注, ed. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, Pékin Zhonghua shuju, rpt. 1998.

Analects, transl. The Analects of Confucius, Arthur Waley, New York: Everyman’s

Library, rpt. 2000.

MacIntyre Alasdair, “Political Psychology” (review) Ethics, Vol.105, N°1 (Oct.1994),

pp.183-185.

Wu Zhixue 伍至學, Pao ding jie niu zuo wei yi zhong yin yu 庖丁解牛作為一種隱喻

(“Cook Ding chopping up an ox as a metaphor”) in 2006 daojia wenhua xueshu

yantaohui lunwenji, 道家文化國際學術研討會論文集，Gaoxiong shifan daxue jingxue

yanjiu suo, 高雄師範大學經學研究所.

Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋, ed. Guo Qingfan 郭慶蕃, (1844-1896) Beijing : Zhonghua

shuju 中華書局.

46

1 Mark Csikszentmihalyi has been of an invaluable help in the incipient as well as in the final phase of this

article. Without his insights of Ru self-cultivation, and on a formal plane his patient revisions of my

manuscript fraught with embarrassing mistakes, this paper would have been left in a state of chaos far from

the beneficial one avocated in the Zhuangzi. My gratitude also goes to Robert Ford Campany, whose

stylistic corrections and penetrating suggestions enabled me to wage a victorious war against my own

foibles. Needless to say I bear full responsibility of all remnant and untracked errors.

2 The Analects of Confucius, XII.1 transl. A.Waley, ed. Everyman’s Library, (rept.), 2000, p.153.

3 Jon Elster was born in 1940 in Oslo. He taught Sociology, History and Philosophy first in Oslo, then in

Paris (Université Paris 8) and Chicago (University of Chicago), before being appointed Robert K. Merton

Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. He is now Professor at the Collège de France in Paris,

holding the chair in “Rationality and Human Sciences”. For reference to the part of his work I am

discussing in the present article, see the bibliography.

4 Paper presented at the conference “Rituals, Pantheons and Techniques: A History of Chinese Religion

before the Tang”, Paris, December 2006.

5 “Art of the Mind, I”, Guanzi jiaoshi 管子校釋 (from now on, abbreviated as GZJS) XIII.36.324.

6 “Inward Training” 內業 GZJS XVI.49.402.

7 “Inward Training” 內業 GZJS XVI.49.408.

8 When in today’s world, a painter declares that he was inspired after a long period of apathy, or

lightheartedly confesses that he was visited by the muses overnight, he does not claim an attachment to the

ancient belief of divine beings which enter the body, possess it and express themselves through his artistic

medium. Yet, when we replace outdated terms like “muse” or “daimon” with those of “inspiration” or

“grace”, we continue to speak of this momentary transformation of perceptive powers, of this experience of

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intensification of the presence of things, as a state caused by something external, as if it came from the

outside, as an event. There are many psychophysical states more common than this sort of pictorial

inspiration (but which is, in one sense, the best expression of the Power described in “The Art of the Mind”,

i.e., the power to gather and coordinate vital breaths, the acuity of the gaze and the genesis of forms) —,

many states independent of our consciousness, when one for instance feels in shape, or even in any given

sport, when one suddenly experiences an outstanding concentration and efficiency until the moment when

this state of favor is abruptly disrupted. These experiences reveal to us, to a lesser degree, the fluctuating

nature of a state which we can feel only provisionally, which we cannot provoke at will and which can

disappear at any moment. The writers of the Art of the Mind were extremely clear on this unsustainable

state of grace and explained on many occasions the necessary and irremediable loss of this “favor” (fu 福).

9 See for instance, the dialogue between Confusion and General of Clouds in chapter 11 “Zai you”, in

which the former confesses his unability to get away from the people though he strives to revel alone in

nature and wander at ease ; chapter 13 “Tian dao”, in which Shi Chengqi 士成綺 approaches Lao-tseu to

learn how to nourish life but ends up rebuked and dismissed ; in chapter 14, the three encounters between

Confucius and Lao-tseu show the Master desperately striving to attain the Way, to no avail, until he finally

renounces his ambition to transform the people; in chapter 17, “Qiu shui”, Gongsun Long’s 公孫龍

analytical mind is unable to grasp Zhuangzi’s teachings; after receiving a merciless homily that leaves him

trounced and speechless, the brilliant sophist finally runs away in humiliation; in chapter 20 “Shan mu”,

the worried ruler of the state of Lu does his best to carry on the achievements of his ancestors, yet only

encounters disasters. Yi-Liao 宜僚 from the South market urges him to discard his state, deemed to be the

very source of his troubles; further in the same chapter, Confucius laments the catastrophic outcomes of

everything he undertakes, and Master Sang-hu 桑雽 speaks him into reverting to nature; in chapter 23,

Nan-Rong Zhu 南榮趎 exemplifies a typical self-defeating attitude, since his constant worry bordering

obsession about the art of nurturing life prevents him from being properly instructed.

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10 Lunyu IX.11; transl. A. Waley, The Analects of Confucius, p132.

11 Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解, Chap. 20, “Jie Lao” 解老 (ed. zhonghua shuju), 131.

12 Cf. for instance Laozi 2 (MWD : Mawangdui) :

是以聖人處 (MWD A/ 居) 無為之事，行不言之教。

… 為而弗恃 (MWD A/ 志 )

成功而弗 居。

夫唯 弗 居是以不去。

Therefore the sage relies on actionless activity

He manages to instruct without resorting to words

When he acts he does not depend on any intention

He succeeds in what he undertakes because he does not depend on it

And because he does not depend on things, they never depart from him.

13 Cf. Etudes sur Tchouang-tseu (Paris : Allia, 2003) chapter « La mission de Yan Houei », p. 98.

14 It is very likely that Zhuangzi in this dialogue has Mencius as his main adversary. Mencius’ moral

catechism to the king Hui of Liang or to the Duke Xuan of Wei proves boring, pedant and inefficient. No

ruler in the Warring States has ever been convinced by the necessity to cultivate de 德 and disregard

personal interest for a greater benefit. One needs to find other linguistic strategies in presence of an ill-

tempered ruler. See, for instance, Zhuangzi’s use of imagination as a moral therapy of desire in his

description of the three kinds of swords to the perverted king Wen of Zhao, in the chapter “Discourse on

Swords” (“Shuo jian” 說劍).

49

15 It is here perhaps worth mentioning that the main inspiration for Jon Elster’s book was French historian

Paul Veyne’s Le Pain et le Cirque (Paris: Seuil, 1976), a study of the practice of gifts in ancient Rome,

where the author convincingly shows that each time Roman emperors deliberately tried to make a good

impression on the mob with large gifts, each time their generosity was calculated, they did not succeed. On

the contrary, when an emperor did not care in the faintest way about the impression he could make on his

subjects, he obtained a solid reputation of bounty. The indifference to the effect he could produce bestowed

him a reputation of divinity.

16 Zhuangzi jishi, 7.150.

17 For a translation and comment of this story (in Ge Hong’s briefer version) from the hagiographic

perspective of transcendents, see Robert Ford Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth : A

Translation and Study of Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents (Berkeley : University of

California Press, 2002), p.159-161.

18 Or maybe Yan Hui just committed himself to this spiritual training urged by his master, and never went

to Wei (as I would tend to think), finding it more interesting to work on himself than the distant purpose for

which such work, or gongfu 功夫 was initiated.

19 Far from satirizing the Analects, in spite of the ultimate reversal of fixed roles between the master and the

disciple, the Zhuangzi portrays these radical consequences as arising from certain stock characteristics

associated with Confucius’ disciple. Yan Hui is the only one who really approached the condition of a sage

(Lunyu, VI.7) or perfection (XI.19). Confucius goes so far as to suggest that his disciple’s ethics were

superior to his (V.9), and that he was the only one amidst his retinue to be able to listen (9.20) Last, Yan

Hui’s poverty and obscure social position seem to predispose him to the philosophical abdication of the

outside world.

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20 Elster also raises the difficulty of the situation in which someone makes a plan to become spontaneous :

should one set up such a plan, the risk would be to reach a stage where one has already become too

spontaneous to go on with this plan, but not spontaneous enough to conclude that the plan has worked. To

my view, this is no more than armchair logical puzzle building. And the same thing could be said about

oblivion : Yan Hui did not need to forget that he had forgotten ritual and music. His spiritual progress is not

disqualified by the fact that he keeps in mind he is making progress in oblivion.

21 The notion of regimen of thought was proposed and developed by J.-F. Billeter in his studies on the

Zhuangzi. Cf. for instance Leçons sur Tchouang-tseu (Paris : Allia, 2002), passim.

22 The symbolic value of the number 19 is well evidenced in the Zhuangzi, and probably refers to the

passage to a particular cycle of time. In the Shang calendrical system still in use in Zhuangzi’s State of

Song 宋, 7 intercalary months (run yue 閏月) were added on a period of 19 years, beginning with the third

year which had two months of September). Note that in addition to the 19 days of Buliang Yi’s meditation,

Cook Ding’s knife is said to have sliced and chopped for 19 years without ever becoming blunt ; the

crippled Shen Tujia 申徒嘉 reminds his arrogant schoolmate Prime Minister Zi Chan 子產he has been

instructed for nineteen years by their Master Dark Count No-Man (Bohun Wuren 伯昏無人).

23 J.Elster, Sour Grapes, p.56.

24 The three kinds of knife discussed in the famous story of Cook Ding 庖丁 (Zhuangzi, chapter 3),

illustrate the different possible uses of the personal body as Wu Zhixue 伍至學 has well evidenced (see

bibliography).

25 When we do away with the substantialist view of the self, we can get rid of logical difficulties

underscored by Elster such as the “self-eraser” problem : in certain cases, an indirect technique will not be

efficient if it does not contain a sub-technique in order to erase from the memory the traces it might leave,

51

as Elster esplains. The decision to believe in God for example will be of no effect if the believer cannot

forget that his belief results from a decision to believe. One should then synchronize the self-eraser process

lest the faith be marred by the memory of one’s decision. Such a problem remains in my view purely

theoretical, I have never encountered anyone who entered the world of faith this way.

26 Material Virtue. Ethics and the Body in Early China, p.188.

27 Paper presented at the conference “Rituals, Pantheons and Techniques: A History of Chinese Religion

before the Tang”, Paris, December 2006.

28 Taipingjing 太平經 section 153 Renru xiang tiandi zhi cheng yu shen xiangying dajie 忍辱象天地至誠

與神相應大戒 ( “Great Admonition on bearing disgrace, modelling on Heaven and Earth”).

29 Zhuangzi jishi 7.307.