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“Self-Cultivation as the Root of All” 71

ruler has to be exemplary when governing the state, showing respect for the elderly
and care for orphans, so ordinary people too will treat their parents with filial
respect, show esteem for their elders, and sympathy for the weak.
The Great Learning lays out the connections between the “eight essential
principles” in both a progressive and a recursive order, thereby showing the full
process for reaching the state of “expounding illustrious virtue throughout the
state.” This rhetorical method of listing each element as dependent on the one
before it clearly demonstrates the close connection between each neighboring two
and among them all. Without grasping the complete process of Confucian moral
rectification, it is not possible to fully understand how to progressively “attain
illustrious virtue, renew the nature of people, and climb all the way up to the
highest excellence.” Conversely, without understanding the “eight essential
principles” in a recursive manner, it is not possible to fully grasp the original basis
of “climbing all the way up to the highest excellence.”
However, it should be pointed out that the progressive and recursive re-
lationships among these “eight principles” listed in The Great Learning are not
airtight arguments but rather merely an expression of their connections. Some
things are clearly missing. First, the progressive relationships are roughly
described rather than logically reasoned or deduced; so they express emotional
similarities to daily life rather than strict logical moral connections. Second, the
recursive order is a “back to basics” form of reasoning, not one of cause and effect
or structural logic; so it depends on the similarities between the linked elements,
rather than the basic initial point of departure. As a result, the starting proposition
of studying things needs further elaboration, while the ultimate aim of ensuring
peace to all under heaven needs to be substantiated. The first weakness is caused
by the lack of a definition as to what should be studied, making it difficult to verify,
as Leibnitz did in his theory of monads. This results in a kind of circular thinking.
The second weakness is caused by no clear mechanism for ensuring peace to all
under heaven, so the political systems that could do so are undetermined. How-
ever, in spite of these shortcomings, the “eight essential principles,” expressed in
both progressive and recursive order, form a fairly complete pathway for moral
cultivation. They should be discussed carefully because focusing on only one or a
few is not enough to explain the overall Confucian concept of morality.

3 Individual Recursion in a Collective Context

At the heart of the “eight essential principles” is self-cultivation, as expressed in
“The Son of Heaven and all common people must consider self-cultivation as the
root of everything.” As such, “self-cultivation” is the interconnecting thread that