Focusing on One Single Purpose: Single-Mindedness in Classical Chinese Texts

Abstract This paper deals with the origins and early history of the concept of single-mindedness ( yi 壹〔一〕) in classical Chinese literature. It argues that this concept was coined by so-called specialists in standards and procedures ( fashu zhi shi 法術之士) and is based on an idea of exclusive onehood, which consists in separating one specific element from a comprehensive group of elements and elevating it, at the expense of all others, to an absolute of universal value. Interestingly, the constitution of the notion of onehood through separation of one discrete element from an infinitely large group of elements in this case in fact involves the separation of two discrete elements from that group, namely, agriculture and warfare, which are called the “one single opening” ( yi kong 壹空) of benefit. Even more interestingly, Confucian philosophers of the third century BCE, who may have become acquainted with the doctrines of specialists in standards and procedures at the academy of Jixia 稷下 in the state of Qi 齊, borrowed this concept of single-mindedness to devise their own ideas of monarchical order and of securing the allegiance of the subjects to the monarch.