Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China

Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China PDF Author: Zhenbin Sun
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3642548652
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
This book investigates Chinese comprehension and treatment of the relationship between language and reality. The work examines ancient Chinese philosophy through the pair of concepts known as ming-shi. By analyzing the pre-Qin thinkers’ discourse on ming and shi, the work explores how Chinese philosophers dealt with issues not only in language but also in ontology, epistemology, ethics, axiology, and logic. Through this discourse analysis, readers are invited to rethink the relationship of language to thought and behavior. The author criticizes and corrects vital misunderstandings of Chinese culture and highlights the anti-dualism and pragmatic character of Chinese thoughts. The rich meaning of the ming-shi pair is displayed by revealing its connection to other philosophical issues. The chapters show how discourse on language and reality shapes a central characteristic of Chinese culture, the practical zhi. They illuminate the interplay of Chinese theories of language and Dao as Chinese wisdom and worldview. Readers who are familiar with pragmatics and postmodernism will recognize the common points in ancient Chinese philosophy and contemporary Western philosophy, as they emerge through these chapters. The work will particularly appeal to scholars of philosophy, philosophy of language, communication studies and linguistics.

Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China

Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China PDF Author: Zhenbin Sun
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3642548652
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Get Book

Book Description
This book investigates Chinese comprehension and treatment of the relationship between language and reality. The work examines ancient Chinese philosophy through the pair of concepts known as ming-shi. By analyzing the pre-Qin thinkers’ discourse on ming and shi, the work explores how Chinese philosophers dealt with issues not only in language but also in ontology, epistemology, ethics, axiology, and logic. Through this discourse analysis, readers are invited to rethink the relationship of language to thought and behavior. The author criticizes and corrects vital misunderstandings of Chinese culture and highlights the anti-dualism and pragmatic character of Chinese thoughts. The rich meaning of the ming-shi pair is displayed by revealing its connection to other philosophical issues. The chapters show how discourse on language and reality shapes a central characteristic of Chinese culture, the practical zhi. They illuminate the interplay of Chinese theories of language and Dao as Chinese wisdom and worldview. Readers who are familiar with pragmatics and postmodernism will recognize the common points in ancient Chinese philosophy and contemporary Western philosophy, as they emerge through these chapters. The work will particularly appeal to scholars of philosophy, philosophy of language, communication studies and linguistics.

Language and Logic in Ancient China

Language and Logic in Ancient China PDF Author: Chad Hansen
Publisher: Advanced Reasoning Forum
ISBN: 1938421558
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Guided by 20th century theories of language, Hansen's novel approach to interpretive theory launched the modern analytical study of Ancient Chinese philosophy. This 1983 publication challenged authority-based traditional "religious" accounts stemming from 18th and 19th century missionary dictionaries and reliance on interpretive authority. "Hansen shows that one tiny grammatical question... has profound implications for the understanding of Chinese philosophy. ...This is surely a decisive breakthrough ... a great success. His observations about Chinese thought in general are always stimulating and illuminating. A book which excites one to rethink things from the foundations." A. C. Graham "An ambitious and provocative book concerning the relationship between language and thought in ancient China. ... a novel and powerful theory about the nature of classical Chinese language ... a better understanding of many issues in classical Chinese philosophy." P. J. Ivanhoe "[The] importance of this book lies ... in its engaging style, novel ideas, and rigorous argumentation, which can serve as a model for future work in Chinese philosophy. Hansen takes Chinese philosophy seriously as philosophy. For anyone tired of the superficial summaries or scholastic commentaries that so often characterize this field, Hansen's book will be a memorable and welcome change." Michael Martin

Theories of Truth in Chinese Philosophy

Theories of Truth in Chinese Philosophy PDF Author: Alexus McLeod
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783483466
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book examines different views on the concept of truth in early Chinese philosophy, and considers a variety of theories of truth in Chinese and comparative thought.

The Luminous Way to the East

The Luminous Way to the East PDF Author: Matteo Nicolini-Zani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197609643
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
"The Missionary Dynamism of the Church of the East It would be an attractive undertaking for the historian to be able to follow in the footsteps of those heralds of the Gospel, who went forth from Antioch with firmness and tenacity in those early days making their way to the East . . . building new centers of Christian irradiation, creating communities and spreading the doctrine of Jesus everywhere. The interest would certainly grow if we were familiar with the challenges faced by these first evangelizers on their way to the Far East. Gaining that knowledge, however, is no easy task. Christ's teaching had to cover immense distances on its road from Antioch towards the East. . . . The details of this diffusion, however, remain obscure. There are no Acts of the Apostles, no Letters of Saint Paul, no contemporary or near-contemporary documents that might tell us how and when Christianity from the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris crossed over the mountainous regions of the Orient, how through Media and Parthia it went south to Herat and Segestan, and how it penetrated eastward, crossing the Margiana (Merv), into the region of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and finally how it entered today's Russian province of Semireč'e, then Turfan, and then further south into the heart of China"--

The Mingjia & Related Texts

The Mingjia & Related Texts PDF Author:
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
ISBN: 9629967774
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 1184

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Book Description
ESSENTIALS IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-QIN PHILOSOPHY. The Mingjia (School of Names) is a notional grouping of philosophers first recorded as such in the Shiji. Their identifying feature was a concern with linguistic issues particularly involving the correct use of names. The origin of this concern is taken to be Lunyu XIII.3. The group, as listed in the Han Shu, comprised seven men living between the sixth and third centuries BC. Only four of these men have extant writings attributed to them (Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi and Gongsun Long) and in three of these there are issues of authenticity. Nevertheless, it is an important group for an understanding of the development of pre-Qin philosophy as the men themselves and the concepts they explored feature prominently in the writings of the other schools. The present work contains four sections: (i) the extant writings of the four men; (ii) all significant references to them in other works up the fourth century AD; (iii) other significant writing on the topics up to that time; and (iv) four appendices on specific issues concerning the school.

Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century B.C.E

Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century B.C.E PDF Author: Xing Lu
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643362909
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Xing Lu examines language, art, persuasion, and argumentation in ancient China and offers a detailed and authentic account of ancient Chinese rhetorical theories and practices within the society's philosophical, political, cultural, and linguistic contexts. She focuses on the works of five schools of thought and ten well-known Chinese thinkers from Confucius to Han Feizi to the the Later Mohists. Lu identifies seven key Chinese terms pertaining to speech, language, persuasion, and argumentation as they appeared in these original texts, selecting ming bian as the linchpin for the Chinese conceptual term of rhetorical studies. Lu compares Chinese rhetorical perspectives with those of the ancient Greeks, illustrating that the Greeks and the Chinese shared a view of rhetoric as an ethical enterprise and of speech as a rational and psychological activity. The two traditions differed, however, in their rhetorical education, sense of rationality, perceptions of the role of language, approach to the treatment and study of rhetoric, and expression of emotions. Lu also links ancient Chinese rhetorical perspectives with contemporary Chinese interpersonal and political communication behavior and offers suggestions for a multicultural rhetoric that recognizes both culturally specific and transcultural elements of human communication.

Language as Bodily Practice in Early China

Language as Bodily Practice in Early China PDF Author: Jane Geaney
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438468628
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Challenges the idea held by many prominent twentieth-century Sinologists that early China experienced a “language crisis.” Jane Geaney argues that early Chinese conceptions of speech and naming cannot be properly understood if viewed through the dominant Western philosophical tradition in which language is framed through dualisms that are based on hierarchies of speech and writing, such as reality/appearance and one/many. Instead, early Chinese texts repeatedly create pairings of sounds and various visible things. This aural/visual polarity suggests that texts from early China treat speech as a bodily practice that is not detachable from its use in everyday experience. Firmly grounded in ideas about bodies from the early texts themselves, Geaney’s interpretation offers new insights into three key themes in these texts: the notion of speakers’ intentions (yi), the physical process of emulating exemplary people, and Confucius’s proposal to rectify names (zhengming). Jane Geaney is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond and the author of On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought.

Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China

Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China PDF Author: Haun Saussy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
"China" and "the West," "us" and "them," the "subject" and the "non-subject"--these and other dualisms furnish China watchers, both inside and outside China, with a pervasive, ready-made set of definitions immune to empirical disproof. But what does this language of essential difference accomplish? The essays in this book are an attempt to cut short the recitation of differences and to answer this question. In six interpretive studies of China, the author examines the ways in which the networks of assumption and consensus that make communication possible within a discipline affect collective thinking about the object of study. Among other subjects, these essays offer a historical and historiographical introduction to the problem of comparison and deal with translation, religious proselytization, semiotics, linguistics, cultural bilingualism, writing systems, the career of postmodernism in China, and the role of China as an imaginary model for postmodernity in the West. Against the reigning simplifications, these essays seek to restore the interpretation of China to the complexity and impurity of the historical situations in which it is always caught. The chief goal of the essays in this book is not to expose errors in interpreting China but to use these misunderstandings as a basis for devising better methodologies for comparative studies.

Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China

Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China PDF Author: Linda Tsung
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268118
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Significant socio-political changes in China have had great impact on Chinese discourse. Changes to the discourse have become an increasing focus of scholarship. This book examines contemporary Chinese discourse and social practice in China with a focus on the role that language plays in the on-going transformation of Chinese society. With a view to producing new insights into the interdependence between discourse and social practice, this volume explores how discourse has been changing in a context-dependent way; how social practice can lead to shifts in the use of discourse; and how identities and attitudes are constructed through language use. Largely based on empirical studies, this book indicates that Chinese discourse has not only been an integral part of social change, but also Chinese discourse itself is changing, reflecting ideologies, values, attitudes, identities and social practice. The book is a great resource for scholars in diverse disciplinary studies including linguistics, communication, education, media and political studies concerning contemporary China.

Worrying about China

Worrying about China PDF Author: Gloria Davies
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674026216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
What can we do about China? This question, couched in pessimism, is often raised in the West but it is nothing new to the Chinese, who have long worried about themselves. In the last two decades since the “opening” of China, Chinese intellectuals have been carrying on in their own ancient tradition of “patriotic worrying.”As an intellectual mandate, “worrying about China” carries with it the moral obligation of identifying and solving perceived “Chinese problems”—social, political, cultural, historical, or economic—in order to achieve national perfection. In Worrying about China, Gloria Davies pursues this inquiry through a wide range of contemporary topics, including the changing fortunes of radicalism, the peculiarities of Chinese postmodernism, shifts within official discourse, attempts to revive Confucianism for present-day China, and the historically problematic engagement of Chinese intellectuals with Western ideas.Davies explores the way perfectionism permeates and ultimately propels Chinese intellectual talk to the point that the drive for perfection has created a moralism that condemns those who do not contribute to improving China. Inside the heart of the New China persists ancient moralistic attitudes that remain decidedly nonmodern. And inside the postmodernism of thousands of Chinese scholars and intellectuals dwells a decidedly anti-postmodern quest for absolute certainty.