Does the Junzi Love to Speak? Cheng and Silence in the Xunzi

Abstract The Xunzi requires the junzi 君子 to "argue" ( bi bian 必辯) and to love speaking ( hao yan 好言), and in the "Bugou" chapter it praises a perfect virtue that "is understood without speaking" ( mo ran er yu 嘿然而喻). This paper resolves the conflict through cheng 誠. What the junzi substantively loves is ren 仁, and his love of speaking, his "delight in speaking of it" ( le yan zhi 樂言之) in "Feixiang", is the outward expression of that love as it issues naturally from cheng . The "sincere scholar" ( cheng shi 誠士) who must love speaking has the cheng of "Bugou", which runs from cheng through manifestation ( xing 形) to transformation ( hua 化) and calls what has manifested shen 神, a working "unseen in its work, seen in its effect" by Xunzi's own definition. Since everyone loves to speak of what he holds good, the sincere person, who holds ren , cannot fail to love speaking of it, and not loving to shows that cheng is absent. The necessity belongs to disposition, not to action: it is ease and delight ( an 安, le 樂), while when and how to speak is judged by fitness ( dang 當). Speech is thus the result of cheng and the instrument of transformation, but it cannot secure trust by itself, since speech without cheng does not win following and forced following is doubted. One principle accounts for protestations of sincerity, for the "rotten Ru" who will not speak, and for the wisdom of apt silence.