Beyond the troubled water of Shifei : from disputation to walking-two-roads in the Zhuangzi / Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ma, Lin, 1970- author.

Brakel, J. van (Jaap), author.

Series:

SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Zhuangzi.

Methodology.

Philosophy, Comparative.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 283 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019]

Summary:

In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi?s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and fei can be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi?s idea of ?walking-two-roads? as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi?s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life.

Contents:

Necessary Preconditions of Interpretation p. 1

Against the Ideal Language Assumption p. 3

Underdetermination of Meaning and Interpretation p. 8

Would "On Its Own Terms" Be Possible? p. 9

Part I The Troubled Water of Shifei

2 Projection of Truth onto Classical Chinese Language p. 15

The Harbsmeier-Hansen Dispute p. 15

Looking for the "Is True" Predicate in Classical Chinese p. 18

Conceptual Embedment of Shi and Its Congeners p. 19

Transcendental Pretense in Projecting "Theories of Truth" p. 21

The Later Mohist Canons p. 25

3 Competing Translations of Shifei p. 31

4 Variations of the Meaning of Shi p. 39

Shi as a Demonstrative p. 39

Shi as Meaning both "This" and "Right" p. 41

Modifiers of Shi p. 43

5 Dissolution of Dichotomies of Fact/Value and Reason/Emotion p. 49

Are There Dichotomies in Classical Chinese? p. 49

Fact/Value Dichotomy in Western Philosophy p. 54

6 Rightness and Fitting p. 57

Nelson Goodman on Rightness and Fitting p. 57

Setting up the Quasi-universal of Yi and Fitting p. 62

7 Shi and Its Opposites and Modifiers in the Qiwulun p. 67

Non-English Translations of Shifei p. 67

Bi/Ci and Shi/Fei p. 74

Shibushi, Ranburan Kebuke p. 78

Qing and Shifei p. 82

Modifiers of Shi in the Qiwulun p. 85

Graham's Contrasting between Yinshi and Weishi p. 89

Translations of Yinbi, Weishi, and Yinshi p. 95

Part II From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi

8 Is Zhuangzi a Relativist or a Skeptic? p. 109

Zhuangzi and Relativism p. 109

Relativities versus Relativism p. 114

Hansen and Graham's Relativistic Interpretations of the Zhuangzi p. 118

Zhi and Skepticism p. 121

9 Zhuangzi's Stance p. 129

Stance Instead of Perspective or Set of Beliefs p. 129

No Fixed Meanings (Weiding) p. 135

Walking-Two-Roads (Liangxing) p. 141

Doubt and Rhetorical Questions p. 149

Buqi Erqi: Achieving Equality by Leaving Things Uneven p. 155

Do the Ruists and Mohists Really Disagree? p. 161

Is Zhuangzi's Stance Amoral? p. 170.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9781438474830

1438474830

OCLC:

1057238415