Embodied Mind and Embodied Knowing – Xin 心 and Zhi 知 in the Book of Mencius

Abstract

The heart-mind (xin 心) in Mencius is not merely a rational faculty but a complex that contains such physical, psychological, physiological and spiritual concretes as reason, sentiment, feeling, experience and belief knowing, the study of which in the contemporary world would involve a number of modern disciplines including epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, ethics and education. In the context of Mencius, the mind is already embodied at birth and continues to function as the integration of intellectual and practical, physical and spiritual, and cognitive and behavioural qualities and activities. “Knowing” (zhi 知) in Mencius is an activity of the mind but it is not merely a cognitive process, and must not be confined to the epistemological field. It is enabled through preserving and nourishing the original mind by which a person comes to comprehend human nature and Heaven, and by which he or she becomes fully human. Therefore, the mind in Mencius is not a purely rational entity and the knowing is not merely an epistemic process. They can be understood only in terms of the embodied mind and the embodied knowing.