人物志

Rénwù zhì 人物志

Treatise on Personalities (Classified Characters and Human Abilities)

by 劉卲 (Liú Shào, zì Kǒngcái 孔才; first half of the 3rd century, fl. c. 224; CáoWèi official); annotated by 劉昞 (Liú Bǐng, zì Yánmíng 延明; d. c. 440; Northern Liáng / Northern Wèi scholar)

About the work

A short CáoWèi treatise in three juan and twelve piān on the analytical classification of human personalities and abilities — the most systematic surviving Chinese essay on character-typology and personnel-evaluation, and the conceptual foundation of the WèiJìn “qīngtán 清談 / character-appraisal” (pǐnzǎo rénwù 品藻人物) tradition. The work proceeds outward from the cosmological grounding of human nature in the Five Phases (the famous Jiǔ zhēng 九徵 chapter — nine somatic and behavioural signs by which the inward dispositions are externally manifested) through the typology of capacities (Tǐ bié 體別; Liú yè 流業 — twelve “currents” of profession and talent) to practical questions of judgement, of self-knowledge and others-knowledge, of the cái 材 (talent) / xìng 性 (nature) distinction, and finally of the perennial difficulties of recognition and selection (Qī miù 七繆, Xiào nán 效難). It is the principal Chinese textual ancestor of what later scholarship calls cáixìng zhī xué 才性之學 (the “study of talent and nature”), the core problematic of early-medieval Chinese philosophy. Catalogued in the Sìkù under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 (the Suí zhì and earlier catalogues had placed it under the Logicians, Míngjiā 名家).

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Rénwù zhì in three juan was composed by Liú Shào 劉邵 of Wèi. Shào, zì Kǒngcái 孔才, was a man of Hándān 邯鄲. In the Huángchū 黃初 period [220–226] he held the office of sǎnqí chángshì 散騎常侍; in the Zhèngshǐ 正始 period [240–249] he was enfeoffed as a guānnèihóu 關內侯. His deeds are recorded in his biography in the Sānguó zhì. Other recensions write his name Liú Shào with 劭, others with 邵; this book at its end carries a postface (bá) by Sòng Xiáng 宋庠 saying: “according to the present official copy of the Wèi zhì it is written 邵, with 力 [as classifier]; other recensions sometimes write 邑 — but the second character 邑 in Jìnyì 晉邑 is a place-name, [and] besides these two glosses the dictionaries record no others; neither, however, accords with the meaning of his style-name Kǒngcái. The Shuōwén gives 邵 with the same pronunciation, but the 召 element on the right has the 邑 classifier, glossed as ‘high’ (gāo); the Lǐzhōu qièyùn 李舟切韻 glosses it as ‘beautiful’ (měi); and ‘high-and-beautiful’ agrees with the Kǒngcái sense. Yáng [Xióng]‘s Fǎyán 法言 says ‘the talent of Zhōugōng — the shào of him’ 周公之才之邵 — this is the analysis.” Sòng Xiáng’s distinction is precise; we follow it [and write 邵].

The annotation is by Liú Bǐng 劉昞, zì Yánmíng 延明, a man of Dūnhuáng 燉煌. The transmitted edition’s running header gives his title as “Liáng Confucian-Academy Libationer” 涼儒林祭酒 — this is because Lǐ Gǎo 李暠 had once invested him with this office. But the Shíliùguó chūnqiū 十六國春秋 records that, when Jǔqú Méngxùn 沮渠蒙遜 pacified Jiǔquán 酒泉, he gave Bǐng the post of Imperial Library Gentleman 祕書郎 with sole charge of the records; and in the time of [Northern Wèi] Emperor Tàiwǔ he was again given the post of Lèpíng cóngshì zhōngláng 樂平從事中郎. Bǐng thus served three sovereigns in succession, and to title him only by his Liáng office is mistaken.

Shào’s book is in twelve piān, with beginning and end fully extant. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì gives sixteen piān — apparently a copyist’s slip. The book centres on the analysis of human talent (biànréncái 辯人才): from external sign (wàijiàn zhī fú 外見之符) it tests the inward vessel (nèicáng zhī qì 內藏之器); it distinguishes ranks and currents (fēnbié liúpǐn 分別流品), and analyses dubious cases (yánxī yísì 研析疑似). For this reason every catalogue from the Suí zhì downwards entered it under Míngjiā 名家 (the Logicians). And yet what it says probes the conditions of things and is rigorously close to reality — quite unlike Yǐn Wén’s 尹文 mixed exposition of HuángLǎo and ShēnHán, or Gōngsūn Lóng’s 公孫龍 sole concern with hard-and-white and same-and-different. Although his learning is close to the Logicians, his principles are not at variance with the Confucians.

Bǐng’s annotation does not enter into glossing detail; rather it explains the general drift, and its style is concise and antique — preserving still the manner of the WèiJìn period. The HànWèi cóngshū 漢魏叢書 reprint preserves only the sixteen-character chapter-headings of each piān; moreover it falsely ascribes Ruǎn Yì’s 阮逸 Sòng-period preface to a Jìn-dynasty hand — a careless misascription. The present recension is the Wànlì jiǎshēn 甲申 [1584] edition cut by Liú Yònglín 劉用霖 of Héjiān 河間, based on the [previous] Lóngqìng rénshēn 壬申 [1572] blocks of Zhèng Mín 鄭旻 and revised — still in the form of an old recension.

Abstract

Liú Shào (劉卲, also written 劉邵 and 劉劭; zì Kǒngcái 孔才; first half of the 3rd century — CBDB id 32851 gives floruit indicators consistent with active service through 220–245), a native of Hándān 邯鄲, served the CáoWèi state in a series of court secretarial offices: sǎnqí chángshì 散騎常侍 in the Huángchū period (220–226) and guānnèihóu 關內侯 in the Zhèngshǐ period (240–249); his biography is in Sānguó zhì 21. His other writings — including a Lǐlùn lüè 律略, a Xīnlǜ 新律 (collaboration with Wáng Lǎng 王朗 et al. on the CáoWèi legal code), the Dū guān kǎo kè 都官考課 (a treatise on official evaluation, presented to Emperor Míng), and a Zhào dū fù 趙都賦 — are all lost; the Rénwù zhì alone survives as a fully transmitted whole. The composition is generally placed in the middle CáoWèi reign, between c. 220 and c. 245 CE; the bracket adopted here reflects this consensus.

The book sets out a systematic analysis of human dispositions in twelve piān: cosmological grounding (Jiǔ zhēng — nine outward signs of inner nature, organized through the Five Phases); typology of personalities and constitutional types (Tǐ bié); twelve professional currents of talent (Liú yè); the principles for testing and distinguishing material (Cái lǐ); the recognition of worth in others (Cái néng, Lì xiào); the criticism of self-deception (Jiē rǎo, Qī miù); and the limits of judgement (Xiào nán, Shì zhī yīn). The conceptual centre is the cái 材 / xìng 性 distinction — natural endowment versus cultivated nature — which became the principal philosophical question of the WèiJìn metaphysical schools (the cáixìng sì běn 才性四本 debate of Zhōng Huì 鍾會 and his contemporaries derives directly from Liú Shào’s framework).

The transmitted text carries the brief commentary of Liú Bǐng 劉昞 (zì Yánmíng 延明; d. c. 440), the Dūnhuáng scholar who served successively the Western Liáng of Lǐ Gǎo 李暠 (as Confucian-Academy Libationer 儒林祭酒), the Northern Liáng of Jǔqú Méngxùn 沮渠蒙遜 (as Imperial Library Gentleman 祕書郎), and the Northern Wèi after the conquest (as cóngshì zhōngláng 從事中郎); his other surviving work is a brief Lüèjì 略記 abridging the three early Standard Histories. The Sìkù tiyao notes (with Wilkinson §49.6.1) that he must therefore be designated as a Northern Wèi scholar, although the running header of the printed editions clings to his Liáng title.

The Suí shū · Jīngjí zhì and the Jiù- / XīnTángshū jīngjí zhì all enter the work in three juan under the Logicians (Míngjiā 名家). The Sòng shǐ · Yìwén zhì preserves it in the same form. The Sìkù editors moved it to Záxué of Zájiā, on the grounds that — though formally close to Logician concerns — its substance is Confucian and ethical (qí xué suī jìn hū míngjiā, qí lǐ zé fú guāi yú rúzhě yě). The text has been transmitted essentially intact: Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì notice of “sixteen piān” is universally regarded as a copyist’s slip for twelve.

Translations and research

The Rénwù zhì is one of the few medieval Chinese philosophical works to have received attention in English from a relatively early date.

• John Knight Shryock, The Study of Human Abilities: The Jen Wu Chih of Liu Shao (American Oriental Series, vol. 11; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1937; reprinted Kraus 1966). The pioneering complete English translation, with introductory study; long the standard Western reference.
• Liáng Mǎncān 梁滿倉, ed., Rénwù zhì 人物志 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, Zhōnghuá jīngdiǎn míngzhù quánběn quánzhù quányì cóngshū series, 2014). Bilingual modern Chinese / English edition (with English translation of the main text), now widely cited.
• Mathias Richter, Guan ren: Texte der altchinesischen Literatur zur Charakterkunde und Beamtenrekrutierung (Peter Lang, 2005). Major German study covering the Rénwù zhì alongside related early-medieval texts on character-judgement and official selection.
• Institute of Chinese Studies Concordance to the Renwu zhi 人物志逐字索引 (ICS Ancient Chinese Texts Concordance Series; The Chinese University of Hong Kong / Commercial Press).
• Kailing Goh, “Renwu zhi 人物志,” in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (ed. Cynthia L. Chennault et al., Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2015), 271–276. Standard handbook entry.
• Tāng Yòngtóng 湯用彤, “Dú Rénwù zhì” 讀人物志, in Wèi-Jìn xuánxué lùngǎo 魏晉玄學論稿 (1957; rep. various editions). The classic modern Chinese philosophical reading.

Other points of interest

The Rénwù zhì is the principal Chinese textual antecedent for the cáixìng sì běn 才性四本 debate that occupied the CáoWèi / Western-Jìn metaphysical schools (Fù Jiǎ 傅嘏 holding that cái and xìng are the same; Lǐ Fēng 李豐 that they differ; Zhōng Huì 鍾會 that they coincide; Wáng Guǎng 王廣 that they diverge — see Shìshuō xīnyǔ 世說新語, Wénxué 文學 5). Through its concrete typology of twelve professional “currents” of talent (liú yè 流業), it also stands at the head of the medieval Chinese tradition of pǐnzǎo 品藻 character-judgement that produced the Nine-Rank classification system (九品中正) and, in literary form, the Shìshuō xīnyǔ 世說新語. Its psychological framework drew sustained twentieth-century interest from Chinese intellectual historians (Tāng Yòngtóng, Yú Yīngshí 余英時) and from Western scholars seeking a Chinese counterpart to Theophrastus and the Characters tradition.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Rénwù zhì entry (via Kyoto Zinbun digital index, page 0246001).
• Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (6th ed.), §49.6.1 (Liú Bǐng) and entry on the Rénwù zhì under WèiJìn miscellaneous works.
• Wikipedia: Renwu zhi; Liu Shao (Three Kingdoms).
• Wikidata: Q11098110 (Renwu zhi).
• Note: the local Kanripo holding for KR3j0011 lacks the SKQS _NNN.txt sequence (only _data/imglist and image files are present); the tiyao is supplied here from the Kyoto Zinbun digital index of the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào.