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A Philosophical Analysis of World in terms of All-under-heaven Zhao, Tingyang Zhao, Tingyang
The global has not yet become a world for its long lasting Hobbesian situation, something of the chaos before organized to be the kosmos, for there is nothing of a real coherent world society under a universally accepted world-institution. To organize the global into a world, a world institution seems necessary. The world that we have now is one of its geographical oneness rather than its political oneness, so that it is not yet our world and it means essentially different when we talk politically of nation and world. We have the political attachment to the nations while only the geographical to the world. Politically abandoned, the world has been nothing more than the life-space only for uncontrolled competition. A world institution supported by a new philosophy for the world is apparently needed. The construction of the world seems to have two possible and available patterns as a world-empire and a union of all nations. But both of these two patterns, unfortunately, have suffered a lot of untamed difficulties that make the "world" to remain just as an empty word rather than a fact. It is of no doubt that the historical accidents and limitations could be accounted guilty for all their failures. But historical interpretations are not enough to reveal our poor philosophical preparation for the political concept of the world, which must be recognized as the deep reason for the failure of the world. We had better to be aware of the truth that our problem is the failed world rather than some so-called failed states in the world. And none of countries could always be successful if the world is made a failed one. A provoking question, quite relevant to the issue wherein I am discussing, had been put forward by Martin Wight as "why is there no international theory?" in 1966[1]. In his very interesting paper, Wight argued that we had not prepared the qualified international theories but instead only the so called "political theories" that were actually merely about the domestic politics of states and some poor parerga about the problems of international "balance of powers" or something like that. He implied that people did not really know what internationality was. I am afraid that Wight would have had changed his criticism if he had had learnt the Chinese theory of world politics in terms of all-under-heaven, which focuses on the world-ness rather than internationality though it is included at any rate. And I will argue later that internationality is not a best horizon to understand the world politics. Perhaps Wight´s question could be improved as "why is there no world theory?" now that we have a new background termed globalization as well as new empire. It is not surprising that the problem of empire has become a hot focus today, considering the fact that "empire is materializing before our very eyes" as Hardt and Negri said in the first line of their noted book Empire[2]. Hardt and Negri impressively argue that the emerging new empire is a sort of global empire inheriting but rehashing, by means of the globalization, the ancient empire that accepts no limited boundaries, such as a Roma empire in a new pose. But we should further realize the complicated composition of new empire inheriting not simply the ancient ideal of empire but also both the modern imperialism based on the nation/states with the ideology of nationalism and Christian empire with the ideology of cultural universalism as well as the Leo Straussian neo-conservatism of a militarism and religious fundamentalism. In short, American empire is trying to reshape the concept of empire in advantage of all dangerous possibilities. It has made the concept of empire a paradox of launching wars in name of peace and destroying liberty and democracy in name of liberty and democracy[3]. Another most important but still vague thing is the European revival, called "the rebirth of Europe", that has been strongly claimed and urged recently. What a united Europe would become is still a question. It would be hopeful for it to become a strong but peaceful union as an example of a grand community rather than another superpower[4]. Globalization is leading to a new age but it has prepared no new concepts or ideas for it, remaining in rather than out of the game of nation/states, enhancing international or intercultural conflicts rather than the universal interests and benefits, so that we are still not able to develop a universal concept of peoples of the world. Just as there is the global rather than the world, there are only peoples of nations rather than the peoples of the world. In fact, the world today has been misled by some American made discriminating illusions such as the "clash of civilizations", the "rogue states" and "failed states", which are illegally legitimating the American empire´s wrong leadership and unjust rule of the world so that making the world into a failed world that is much worse than a failed state. A failed state could be saved by the world, but a failed world could ruin all in the world. We must seriously face the problem of a failed world before too late to have the last chance. Philosophically speaking, the failed world is due to our ignorance of the world qua a world and peoples as peoples. The modernized western empire is the dominance in a world system, as Wallerstein had analyzed in his The Modern World System[5], in which one or a group of powerful nation/states has its political, economical and cultural dominance over the less powerful nation/states. It could be said that, essentially, all kinds of western empires are the empires in terms of dominance. But we must recognize that the capacity and potentiality of the concept of empire has not yet been exhausted. For instance, the western empire would be considered an unacceptable one in Chinese philosophy, for the Chinese concept of empire defines the empire in terms of order(治). Now it indicates a new resource for remaking the concept of empire, which would be a contribution of both theoretical importance and practical advantages to the future of the world. But it is quite a pity that the Chinese theory of empire has been almost totally neglected and remained unknown to the world because of the western dominance in discourse and knowledge, though many people have leant there had existed a huge Chinese empire lasting for several thousands years. A world must be in order otherwise all things in the world will get out of their proper positions and into conflicts. Chinese philosophy seems to have a born skepticism to the theory of winner for it sees the truth that a winner would lose all things when he had made nothing of the others. The possibilities of creating the order of world have been considered theoretically, though not yet proved, either a form of world-empire or of a union of all nations under a sort of world government. It seems no other better choice. In the centuries gone, some ambitious western superpowers had tried in vain to set up world order by means of imperialism or a kind of supremacy called "leadership". And in the last decades the United Nations, a pretended world agency, has also tried in vain to get the world out of disorder. Because of the rapid globalization speeding up all kinds of crisis, the world order has become a more and more urgent problem. And it is worth notice that the order of the world is now distorted into the dominance over the world in terms of America´s interests and ideology. It is sure that a lot of accidental causes and historical conditions should be responsible for all the failures in creating a world order since history is always a story gone wrong and defeating our good will, but the failures must be fundamentally considered due to the lack of a philosophy of the world for sake of the world its own, that is, a philosophy of the world in the view of the world standard instead of a domestic view. Surprisingly, not to mention a well-prepared philosophy for the world society, it seems that peoples have even no such an intention, neither consciously nor unconsciously, to consider the world for its own sake. Instead, the usual understanding of the world has always been confined in national interests. As known, the most available ideologies of the world today are still either the universalism, essentially the aggressive nationalism, as the dominant strategy for the national interests of the most developed countries, or the pluralism, essentially the resistive nationalism, as the realistic strategy for the local interests of the less developed nations. And such a strategy profile of universalism versus pluralism leads to a Nash´s equilibrium preventing us from any Pareto´s improvement in world peace, common benefits and reciprocal development. It indicates that there are only the philosophies of the world for national interests rather than the philosophy for the world on behalf of the universal interests. The failure of world politics is finally the failure of philosophy. It is necessary to highlight the subtle but crucial difference between the philosophy for and that of the world for it has the very relevance to the legitimacy of a world-view (weltanschauung). Logically speaking, everyone could have a philosophy of the world in his own horizon, and in the same way, a nation could have a philosophy of the world, seeing the world in the horizon of the national interests. But we have to realize the philosophies of the world are still the ignorance of the world qua the world. We do not enjoy a world because of our refusal of a world-view representing the world its own. It is here wherein good for entering our discussion about Chinese philosophy for the world in terms of a theory of empire. It will be argued that Chinese political philosophy could offer a way of finding a solution to the chaotic situation of the world today, further more, providing us an alternative framework of philosophical analysis of political problems, which has remained unfamiliar to the western.
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