Early China/ancient Greece : thinking through comparisons / edited by Steven Shankman and Stephen W. Durrant.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Shankman, Steven, 1947-

Durrant, Stephen W., 1944-

Series:

SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rites and ceremonies--China.

Rites and ceremonies.

China--Civilization--To 221 B.C.

China.

Greece--Civilization--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (316 pages)

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts?

Contents:

""Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons""; ""Contents""; ""Introduction""; ""1. What Has Athens to Do with Alexandria? or Why Sinoloists Can't Get Along with(out) Philosophers""; ""2. No Time Like the Present: The Category of Contemporaneity in Chinese Studies""; ""3. Humans and Gods: The Theme of Self-Divinization in Early China and Early Greece""; ""4. These Three Come Forth Together,But are Differently Named: Laozi, Zhuangzi, Plato""; ""5. Thinking through Comparisons: Analytical and Narrative Methods for Cultural Understanding""

""6. Alluding to the Text, or the Context""""7. Epistemology in Cultural Context: Disguise and Deception in Early China and Early Greece""; ""8. The Logic of Signs in Early Chinese Rhetoric""; ""9. Means and Means: A Comparative Reading of Aristotle�s Ethics and the Zhongyong""; ""10. Fatalism, Fate, and Stratagem in China and Greece""; ""11. Cratylus and Xunzi on Names""; ""12. Golden Spindles and Axes: Elite Women in the Achaemenid and Han Empires""; ""13. Creating Tradition: Sima Qian Agonistes?""; ""Contributors""; ""Index""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""J""

""K""""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""Q""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""V""; ""W""; ""X""; ""Y""; ""Z""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780791488942

0791488942

OCLC:

811403796