Chapter One: Introduction — What Is "Obscuration"$5 A Fundamental Question of Cognition

Section 1: The Archaic Etymology and Original Meaning of "Bi" (Obscuration)

To understand deeply what Master Xun means by "bi" (obscuration), one must first trace the word to its origins. The character "bi" (蔽) takes the grass radical with the phonetic element "bi" (敝). Although the Shuowen Jiezi is a later work, the character forms it records are mostly rooted in pre-Qin script. The original meaning of "bi" is that of dense vegetation covering and concealing. When grasses and trees grow thick, one's line of sight cannot reach far; when branches and leaves interweave overhead, the light of sun and moon cannot penetrate below — this is the primal image of "bi."

Yet why did Master Xun choose precisely this word to describe the human cognitive predicament$6 This is a question that demands careful attention.

Imagine the living conditions of the ancients in high antiquity. Across vast wilderness, grasses and trees grew in profusion. People walking through them were constantly obscured — unable to see the path ahead. Fierce beasts crouched hidden in the undergrowth, unseen by the traveler; abysses lay concealed beneath trailing vines, undetected by the wayfarer. Thus the harm of "bi" lies first of all in depriving a person of complete knowledge of the true state of their surroundings. A single leaf blocking the eye prevents one from seeing Mount Tai; a single tuft of grass concealing the foot prevents one from knowing the deep gully — this is not merely sensory obstruction, but hints at the structural limitations of cognition itself.

In pre-Qin texts, the character "bi" appears repeatedly, its meanings growing ever deeper. The Book of Songs ("Bai Zhou" from the Airs of Bei) says: "O sun and moon, why do you wane by turns$7" (Ri ju yue zhu, hu die er wei$8) Sun and moon are inherently radiant, yet once obscured by dark clouds, their light can no longer illuminate the earth. The word "wei" (dim) here carries the meaning of obscuration. Another poem (Zheng Yue from the Lesser Odes) says: "The people now are in peril; they look at heaven in a daze" (Min jin fang dai, shi tian meng meng). Heaven is inherently clear, yet people gaze upon it and see only dimness — the fault lies not with heaven, but with eyes obscured by external things.

Again, the hexagram statement of Ming Yi (Brightness Wounded) in the Book of Changes (Yijing) reads: "Ming Yi: it is advantageous to be steadfast in difficulty" (Ming Yi, li jian zhen). "Ming Yi" means brightness entering beneath the earth. When light descends below ground, the earth grows dark. The image of this hexagram corresponds precisely with what Master Xun calls "bi": the light of wisdom is inherently present, yet some force obscures it, preventing it from illuminating all things. The Tuan Commentary explains: "Brightness entering beneath the earth — this is Ming Yi. Inwardly civilized and outwardly compliant, thus enduring great tribulation: King Wen embodied this." This says that King Wen's brilliant virtue was intact, yet outwardly obscured by the tyranny of King Zhou of Shang, compelling him to conceal his brilliance. The obscuration that Master Xun attributes to the various thinkers, however, is of a different kind — it arises from within, not from external suppression of their brilliance, but from the narrowness of their own understanding covering over their own wisdom.

This raises a profoundly important question: why do people obscure themselves$9 Why, possessing the latent capacity to cognize the Dao in its entirety, do they insist on clinging to one end without realizing it$10

Returning to the physical image of "bi," we may find a preliminary answer. When vegetation obscures a person, it is not the vegetation's intention — it is because the person walks among the vegetation, situated within it and unable to rise above it. Likewise, when the mind obscures itself, it is not the mind's intention — it is because the mind is immersed in cognition of a particular aspect, situated within it and unable to rise above it. Just as someone deep in a forest sees only the few trees nearby and not the panorama of the whole forest: Master Mo was immersed in the cognition of "utility" (yong), seeing only the tree of "utility" while blind to the tree of "cultural refinement" (wen); Master Zhuang was immersed in the cognition of "heaven" (tian), seeing only the tree of "heaven" while blind to the tree of "the human" (ren). This is what is meant by "people of partial knowledge observe but one corner of the Dao, and fail to recognize it for what it is."

Another layer of the word "bi" is connected to its cognate "bi" (敝), meaning worn-out, decayed. The Zuo Commentary (Duke Xi, Year 23) records: "One whose words are humble but whose gifts are lavish must have something to ask for." Chong'er wandered in exile, his clothing worn (bi) but his spirit unbroken. The character "bi" (敝) carries connotations of damage and deterioration. Thus "bi" (蔽, obscuration) implies not merely concealment but also impairment and corruption — once the mind is obscured, its cognitive function is damaged, its power of judgment injured. This is what Master Xun calls "the calamity of obscuration and blockage" — obscuration ultimately gives rise to calamity, disaster, a comprehensive corruption of the individual, society, and political order.

Did the ancients of high antiquity already sense this danger of "obscuration"$11 The answer is yes. From the perspective of mythology, many narratives concerning "ignorance" and "enlightenment" appear in the earliest traditions. It is said that the Yellow Emperor commanded Cang Jie to create writing, whereupon "heaven rained grain and the ghosts wailed in the night" — the invention of writing shattered the state of primordial darkness, gave each thing its proper name, and moved human cognition from obscuration toward clarity. It is also said that Fuxi drew the Eight Trigrams, "looking upward to observe the images of heaven, and downward to observe the patterns of the earth" (Xi Ci Xia, the Book of Changes), thereby "penetrating the virtue of the spirits and classifying the natures of the myriad things." The words "penetrate" (tong) and "classify" (lei) here are precisely the methodology for breaking through obscuration: "penetrating" means connecting things without being confined to one end; "classifying" means extending understanding by analogy to all things, without fixating on a single corner.

From this we can see that the problem of "obscuration" was not a topic original to Master Xun but a core concern running consistently through the Chinese intellectual tradition from high antiquity onward. Master Xun, however, with his extraordinary analytical capacity and systematic theoretical construction, raised this problem to an unprecedented philosophical level.

Section 2: The Intellectual Background of Master Xun's Discussion of "Obscuration"

To understand the argument of Master Xun's "Jiebi" chapter in depth, one cannot neglect the background from which his thought emerged. Master Xun lived in the late Warring States period, by which time the contention of the Hundred Schools had been underway for several centuries. Since the Master founded the Confucian tradition in the late Spring and Autumn period, various schools and factions had risen one after another, each advancing its own doctrine in competition with the rest. By Master Xun's era, the doctrines of the Hundred Schools were like rivers in flood — vast, surging, impossible to stem.

Confronted with this intellectual landscape of "a hundred schools diverging in method and differing in intent," Master Xun felt deep concern. Why concern$12 Because in his view, the doctrines of the various schools were not wholly erroneous — each had grasped some one aspect of the Dao, each had illuminated some one facet of truth. Yet precisely because each had grasped only one aspect, each believed it had grasped the whole, and from this partial view attacked all the others, creating serious intellectual confusion and cognitive disaster.

This concern is amply expressed in his other chapters as well. In "Against the Twelve Masters" (Fei Shi'er Zi), Master Xun systematically criticized twelve thinkers of his day. Though "Against the Twelve Masters" and "Jiebi" differ in their angles of critique — the former emphasizing political and social impact, the latter focusing on epistemological roots — both share the same core concern: how, in an age of contending schools, to establish a comprehensive, impartial intellectual stance.

Master Xun's ability to formulate the theory of "obscuration" was inseparable from his profound insight into the cognitive structure of the human mind. In other passages of the "Jiebi" chapter, he analyzed in detail the cognitive mechanism of the mind, stating:

"How does a person come to know the Dao$13 Through the mind. How does the mind come to know$14 Through emptiness, unity, and stillness" (Ren he yi zhi dao$15 Yue: xin. Xin he yi zhi$16 Yue: xu yi er jing).

This passage is of the highest importance. Master Xun held that the human mind inherently possesses the capacity to cognize the Dao in its entirety, and that the method for doing so lies in "emptiness, unity, and stillness" (xu yi er jing). "Emptiness" (xu) means not allowing existing knowledge to obscure new cognition; "unity" (yi) means focused concentration without distraction; "stillness" (jing) means tranquility without agitation. Why, then, could the Hundred Schools not achieve "emptiness, unity, and stillness"$17 Precisely because each had accumulated deep learning and insight in some particular area, and this very learning and insight became the obstacle obscuring them from further cognition. This is the reverse of "not being obscured by accumulated achievement" — they were precisely obscured by their own "accumulated achievement."

This raises a still deeper question: why does knowledge itself become an obstacle$18 Is the pursuit of knowledge actually harmful$19

To this, Master Xun's answer is subtle and dialectical. Knowledge itself is not harmful; what is harmful is "taking it to be sufficient and embellishing it" — believing that the knowledge one has obtained has exhausted the whole of the Dao, and deliberately beautifying and decorating this bias to make it look like complete truth. The "Jiebi" chapter says plainly: "People of partial knowledge observe but one corner of the Dao, and fail to recognize it for what it is. Therefore they take it to be sufficient and embellish it." The word "embellish" (shi) is perfectly chosen. To embellish is to adorn, to decorate. A piece of jade that is chipped and incomplete, if left unadorned, is easily seen to be incomplete; but once skillfully decorated, its defects may be concealed, and it may even be mistaken for perfect. The theoretical systems erected by each of the Hundred Schools are precisely this kind of "embellishment" — they use elaborate arguments and elegant rhetoric to dress up a one-corner view as the whole of the Dao.

This insight of Master Xun's holds pioneering significance in the history of pre-Qin thought. Previous thinkers had attacked their opponents' conclusions as wrong (as Master Meng criticized Yang Zhu and Mo Di), or pointed out faults in their opponents' methods (as Master Mo criticized the Confucians' elaborate rituals), but rarely had anyone, from the level of epistemology, systematically analyzed why each school made the errors it did. The "Jiebi" chapter is precisely this kind of epistemological reflection.

More notably, Master Xun did not criticize the various thinkers from a wholly external vantage. As a Confucian scholar himself, he maintained a clear-eyed reflexive awareness toward his own tradition. At the very beginning of the "Jiebi" chapter, he cites "the obscuration of Bin Meng in ancient times was the ruin of his household" as an opening, a concrete historical lesson demonstrating that the problem of obscuration belongs to no single school but is a universal predicament of human cognition. Even the greatness of the Master whom he reveres owes nothing to any esoteric exclusive learning but to the fact that "the Master was benevolent and wise and moreover unobscured" — the Master's surpassing quality lay precisely in his not being obscured by any single viewpoint, in his capacity to embrace diverse perspectives and draw inferences from one case to many.

This gives Master Xun's critique a universality transcending partisan rivalries. He is not saying "we Confucians are right and all of you are wrong," but rather "each of you has seen one aspect of the Dao, but each has mistaken that one aspect for the whole — therein lies your fundamental error." This mode of critique itself embodies the unobscured scholarly magnanimity of Master Xun.

Section 3: The Approach and Method of This Study

This article takes the classic passage from the "Jiebi" chapter as its core, undertaking a multi-layered, multi-perspectival in-depth study. Specifically, the research approach includes the following dimensions:

First, close reading of the text. Every key word and every sentence of Master Xun's original text is analyzed character by character, seeking to grasp the original meaning with precision. This forms the foundation of the study.

Second, cross-referencing with pre-Qin classics. Extensive citation of canonical texts from pre-Qin Confucianism (especially the Lunyu Analects, the Mencius, the Liji, and the Book of Changes) and Daoism (especially the Laozi and the Zhuangzi), creating resonances and contrasts with Master Xun's arguments. These citations serve not to compare similarities and differences but to understand Master Xun's thesis within a broader intellectual lineage.

Third, the perspective of archaic myth and folk tradition. From ancient myths and pre-Qin folk traditions, we seek archetypal images and symbolic motifs related to "obscuration," providing deeper cultural roots for understanding Master Xun's philosophical argument.

Fourth, persistent questioning. Throughout the study, questions are continually raised, pressing after the deeper reasons behind each proposition, striving to reach a depth of understanding that grasps not only "what is so" but "why it is so."

A special note is in order: this study is strictly confined to the intellectual horizon of the pre-Qin and high antiquity periods and does not draw on any information from the Han dynasty onward. This restriction is deliberate: only by returning to the pre-Qin intellectual context can we truly grasp the original meaning of Master Xun's "Jiebi" chapter, without being obscured by later interpretive traditions — this itself constitutes a scholarly practice of "dispelling obscuration."