The Priority of Perspective Over Judgment in Early Chinese Philosophy
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Abstract
Judgments about what is true or false and what is good or bad are central to philosophy, but Chinese philosophers realized quite early that judgments depend on perspective. Put simply, if our perception of the world is biased, then our judgments will be biased as well. This article focuses primarily on the Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Huainanzi, examining both how perspectives were seen to vary and how those variations were seen to impact judgments and decisions. The last second section considers the consequences of giving priority to perspective over judgment for philosophy in early China, particularly as it relates to skepticism, epistemic virtues, and the difficulty of separating epistemic concerns from ethical and political ones. One key point is that the relative deemphasis on judgments among early Chinese philosophers was based on epistemic concerns, not just a tendency to focus on practice.
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