SELF-CULTIVATION IN THE WAYS TO GOOD LIFE

Tran Tuan Phong

Institute of Philosophy, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

In this paper I would like show how through self-cultivation man can find the way

to realize his or her human nature and strive for the concept of good life, which is

expressed in a harmonious life of man with him/her self, with other people, with

the world and the Cosmos as the whole. The concept of good life serves as the

goal of human striving and the meaning of man life. But only through the

concrete process of self-cultivation of human beings the concept of good life can

be actualized.

If philosophy, as T. Sheehan put it, “begins with a sense of the ultimate and

perfect (how else would it know anything imperfect?) and the works down from

the ideal to the real, from the fully achieved to what is still on-the-way, from the

whole to what participate in it”1 then the concept ‘good life’ , as a starting point for

philosophical inquiry, can be understood as the ultimate goal that humanity is

striving for. As the ideal, ‘Good Life’ should not be understood as an abstract

universal existing above and away from the life of human beings. On the

contrary, it should be seen as a concrete universal that manifests dynamically

and as the whole and exists immanently the life of human beings. Seen this light,

different conceptions of good life expressed in different cultures can be

understood as the concrete manifestations (interpretations) of the concept of

Good Life in the whole of the life of humanity.

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1.The concept of Good Life

The concept of Good Life can be tracked back to Aristotle. Within his teleological

account of human nature Aristotle presupposes that human beings have a certain

and determinate nature and a good life can be seen as the realization of that

nature in a human political community in the form of polis. He explained clearly

that human life is to be understood not only as the simple response to survival

needs and continuation of a specific biological species but also as the

actualization of human nature. While a biological life, which is also known as a

private life in the family, is the life for the sake of living, a political life, which is the

public life in a polis, is the life for the sake of living well. In Aristotle account we

can see that only the polis provides the framework within which human

eudaimonia may flourish, human nature may be fully realized. Or in other words,

the ‘end’ of the polis is good life. So good life, as the end of the polis, is the

ultimate value and the purpose of life itself. The ultimate value or the highest

good (the telos), As F. Beiser explained, “has two fundamental components:

finality and completeness. The highest good is final in the sense that it is always

and end and never a means; and it is complete in the sense that it cannot be

made by the addition of any other good”2. Good life is therefore is the ultimate

reason why man is at all and it is what man is striving to achieve. As the telos

and unlike Platonic idea, it is immanent in man as a kind of the force driving man

to his self-fulfillment.

However, as the ideal, ‘Good Life’ should not be understood as an abstract

universal existing above and away from the life of human beings. On the

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contrary, it should be seen as a concrete universal that manifests dynamically

and as the whole and exists immanently the life of human beings. Seen this light,

different conceptions of good life expressed in different cultures can be

understood as the concrete manifestations (interpretations) of the concept of

Good Life in the whole of the life of humanity.

2. Good life and cultural tradition

The concrete (and historical) manifestations of the concept of Good life can be

seen in specific interpretations on what is to be a human being, an object and

society in different cultural traditions understood as ‘forms of life’. Thus in a

specific cultural tradition this kind of interpretation contributes significantly to

shaping the identity of every community, nation as well as the character of

people living in it. It is not only the goal but also the normative ‘lens’ determining

the way of living, acting and behaving of all members of a given culture through a

set of values, social skills, customs and habits. In other words, it provides the

ontological framework for everything that can show up within the world.

Thus different cultures contain different “interpretations of what to be a person,

an object and society fit together. They are all aspects of what Heidegger calls an

understanding of being.’3It is pre-theoretical or pre-ontological understanding,

which is not always explicit or systematically articulated but implicitly present in

our everyday activities. As H. Dreyfus says ‘we have ontology without knowing

it’4. It is primarily a kind of ‘knowing how’ rather than ‘knowing-what’. It is a

specific human way of being that “we always conduct our activities in an

understanding of Being”5.

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To be human being means to relate meaningfully to the environment, the world

where an individual was born and grown up. Human beings are not self-sufficient

entities with certain ‘properties’ and ‘essences’ but their very ‘essence’ can be

understood through the way they relate understandingly and meaningfully to their

world and other entities in it. Human beings, therefore, are essentially relational.

That is why Heidegger calls human being Dasein and their specific way of being

is being-in-the-world. Being-in means being involved, being engaged with. There

cannot be Dasein without the world and there will not be the world without

Dasein. To be Dasein always means to be in the world, to be engage with the

world. The duality between human beings as independent subjects and the world

as separate object is excluded here

“Being-in is not a ‘property’ which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does

not have, and without which it could be just as well as it could with it. It is not the

case that man ‘is’ then has…a relationships-of-Being toward the ‘world’ – a world

with which he provides himself occasionally. Dasein is never ‘proximally’ an entity

which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination

to take up a ‘relationship’ toward the world. Taking up relationships toward the

world is possible only because Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is”6

It seems that an understanding of Being has a quasi-transcendental status for

individuals: there are always values, customs and habits which are already laid

down and norms already articulated in every culture. But these values, customs

and norms are not permanently fixed, they can be changed and renewed through

practical activities of the very individuals living in a given culture or form of life.

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This is clearly stated in Heidegger’s thesis that ‘disclosedness is essentially

factical’7. It is the dialectical relation between cultural tradition as a normative

system (structure) of values, customs and norms…and cultural tradition as a

living social practice. Thus system determines the formation of man: in order to

become a member of a given cultural community, an individual has to undergo a

process of learning and training (cultivation and self-cultivation) to obtain

necessary social skills and faculties. But only through the course of the social

practice of these very members the system can exist and renewed or changed.

As C. Taylor writes “Social tradition can continue to exert an influence through

individuals only to the extent that it is continually renewed by them – like all

structures, it continues to exist by virtue of practice.”8 That practice, as C. Taylor

rightly points out, “relies on a never exhausted background which can

simultaneously be the source of innovative statements and articulations”9.

Thus in order to maintain and develop further cultural tradition human beings

must be properly cultivated and developed through the process of learning and

training, through the practical engagement in real life. The real knowledge or

standards of truth based on which one can strive to cultivate and improve oneself

can only be given, accepted and transmitted by cultural tradition in which one

lives. And from this perspective, we can understand why so much attention of

great thinkers both in the East as well as in the West has been given to the

cultivation and development of man.

3. Self-cultivation in the ways to good life

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As good life or the life of fulfillment is served as the goal for human striving, its

realization can be seen in the active way of self-cultivation. The formation of man

as a social being is a process of socialization, in which human individuals engage

with the world and participate in the living social practice. It is a continuous

process of transformation of the self both ethically and ontologically, the very

process in which self-openness (self-discovery) and the disclosure of the things

and the world around are taken place simultaneously.

M. Foucault notices that for both the Greeks and the Romans

“In order to behave properly, in order to practice freedom properly, it was

necessary to care for self, both in order to know one’s self…and to improve one’s

self, to surpass one’s self, to master the appetites that risk engulfing you’10.

According to H. Gadamer Bildung is the “properly human way of developing

one’s natural talents and capacities”11 and “the rise of the word ‘Bildung’ evokes

the ancient mystical tradition according to which man carries in his soul the

image of God, after whom he fashioned, and which man cultivate in himself” 12

Gadamer also agrees with Hegel that “the being of Geist (spirit) has an essential

connection with the idea of Bildung’, through which man ‘acquiring a “capacity”, a

skill’ and therefore, ‘gains the sense of himself’ because ‘it is the universal

nature of human Bildung to constitute itself as a universal intellectual being’13 .

Thus through the process of human Bildung man overcomes his own particularity

and rise to the universal. It is the process of gaining both the sense of himself

and the sense of the world around him.

In Confucianism self-cultivation is very crucial because

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“when our selves are cultivated, our families will be in order. When our families

are in order, our states will be in peace. When our states are in peace, the world

will be in harmony and happiness”14.

So in Confucian traditions we can see that the good life is the life when our

families are in order, the state is in peace and the world is in harmony and

happiness. Here upon a proper process of self-cultivation a man will know how to

manage his family, bring order to the state and pacify the world. Thus self-

cultivation should be understood both ethically and ontologically. Properly

understanding one’s world does not consist in mere information and notions

about something’. Rather, as Heidegger says ‘he who truly knows what is knows

what he wills to do in the midst of what is”15. True knowledge of what is means

the ‘knowledge’ of the Tao, the Way or the Order which regulates the life of every

thing in the world. In Confucian tradition living according to the Tao means living

harmoniously. Here Harmony is the Way for all creatures to be followed. It is

written clearly in the Doctrine of Means that “Centrality is the great foundation

under Heaven and Harmony is the great Way under the Heaven. In achieving

Centrality and Harmony, Heaven and Earth maintain their appropriate positions

and the myriads thing flourish”16. Here harmony is not a static state but rather a

dynamic process. And talking about a dynamic process means talking about its

relational aspect: the relationship and interconnection between different

elements. Harmony or solidarity is the process in which human beings strive for a

dynamic balance.

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Thus we can see through the self-cultivation man can learn to know how to relate

meaningfully and properly to other human beings and things to the world around

him. It is the cultural tradition that serves the foundation for individuals to cultivate

themselves and engage in the world but only through the active engagement of

human individuals that cultural tradition is transformed and renewed constantly. It

is the very process when social solidarity of human beings are established and

maintained. Or in other words, the goal of good life could be realized. As J.

Grondin rightly says,

“What distinguishes our humanity, is not a rational capacity that would catapult

us into a divine world of pure ideas. Rather it is the ability to go beyond our

particularity by taking account the heritage that can help us grow above and

beyond our limited selves”17

Good life as the goal of human life that serves as the guiding principle for human

development understood as a kind of growing about and beyond one’s limited

selves. This is a kind of self-transcendence can be archived through an active

activity of self-cultivation understood both in moral and ontological senses. We

can say that as the goal, good life determines the formation of human beings but

only through the active self-cultivation of human beings that the concept of good

life can be realized. As it is said in Confucian classic of Analects: "A person can

make the Way great, but the Way cannot make a person great."18

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1
T. Sheehan, “Dasein,” in A Companion to Heidegger, edited by Hubert Dreyfus and Mark Wrathall (Malden: Bla
ckwell, 2004), p.203
2
F. Beiser. Hegel. (New York, Routledge, 2005) p. 36
3
H. Dreyfus. Ibid. p. 18
4
H. Dreyfus. Being-in-the-World. (MIT Press, 1991), p. 18
5
M. Heidegger. Being and Time. (Translated by J. Macquarrie và E. Robinson. Happer and Row Publisher, New
York. 1962, p. 25)
6
M. Heidegger. Ibid. p. 84
7
M. Heidegger. Ibid. p. 264
8
C. Taylor. Language and Society, in Communicative Action. Edited by Axel Honneth and Hans Joas. (MIT
Press, Cambridge, 1991), p. 25
9
C. Taylor. Ibid. p. 25
10
J. Bernauer and D. Rasmussen, eds. The Final Foucault. (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994), p. 5
11
H. Gadamer. Truth and Method. Second Revised Edition(Translated by J.Weinsheimer and D.G.Marshall,
Continuum , New York. 2003) p. 10
12
H. Gadamer. Ibid. p. 11
13
H. Gadamer. Ibid, p. 12, 13
14
Confucius. Great Leaning . (Translated by Doan Trung Con Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 2006, p.9 (in
Vietnamese))
15
M. Heidegger. Poetry, Language, Thought (Translated by A. Hofstadter, Happer and Row Publisher, New York.
1971, p. 67)
16
Confucius. The Doctrine of Means. (Translated by Doan Trung Con Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 2006, p.43
(in Vietnamese))
17
J. Grondin. Sources of Hermeneutics. (State University of New York Press, New York, 1995)
18
Confucius. Analects. 15:28 (Translated by Doan Trung Con Thuan Hoa Publishing House, 2006, (in
Vietnamese))