Powerful arguments : standards of validity in late Imperial China / edited by Martin Hofmann, Joachim Kurtz, Ari Daniel Levine.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Hofmann, Martin, 1974- editor.

Kurtz, Joachim, editor.

Levine, Ari Daniel, editor.

Series:

Sinica Leidensia ; Volume 146.

Sinica Leidensia ; Volume 146

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Logic--China--History.

Logic.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020]

Summary:

The essays in Powerful Arguments reconstruct the standards of validity underlying argumentative practices in a wide array of late imperial Chinese discourses, from the Song through the Qing dynasties. The fourteen case studies analyze concrete arguments defended or contested in areas ranging from historiography, philosophy, law, and religion to natural studies, literature, and the civil examination system. By examining uses of evidence, habits of inference, and the criteria by which some arguments were judged to be more persuasive than others, the contributions recreate distinct cultures of reasoning. Together, they lay the foundations for a history of argumentative practice in one of the richest scholarly traditions outside of Europe and add a chapter to the as yet elusive global history of rationality.

Contents:

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Toward a History of Argumentative Practice in Late Imperial China

Martin Hofmann, Joachim Kurtz, and Ari Daniel Levine

Part 1: Comparison, Collation, Validation

1 Historical and Political Arguments: Debates on the Veritable Records in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

Peter Ditmanson

2 A Performance of Transparency: Discourses of Veracity and Practices of Verification in Li Tao’s Long Draft

Ari Daniel Levine

3 Learning with Metal and Stone: On the Discursive Formation of Song Epigraphy

Jeffrey Moser

Part 2: Visualization, Demonstration, Calculation

4 The Persuasive Power of Tu : A Case Study on Commentaries to the Book of Documents

Martin Hofmann

5 Inductive Arguments in the Midst of Smoke: “Proving” Rhetorically and Visually That Algorithms Work

Andrea Bréard

6 Keeping Your Ear to the Cosmos: Coherence as the Standard of Good Music in the Northern Song

Ya Zuo

7 The Textual Nature of Nature: Astronomical Debates in Eighteenth-Century China

Ori Sela

Part 3: Verification, Evaluation, Authentication

8 Identity Verification as a Standard of Validity in Late Imperial Civil Service Examinations

John Williams

9 Standards of Validity and Essay Grading in Early Qing Civil Service Examinations

Li Yu 虞莉

10 Some Problems with Corpses: Standards of Validity in Qing Homicide Cases

Matthew H. Sommer

11 Value and Validity: Seeing through Silver in Late Imperial China

Bruce Rusk

Part 4: Corroboration, Refutation, Presentation

12 Philological Arguments as Religious Suasion: Liu Ning and His Study of Chinese Characters

Pingyi Chu

13 A Moral Verdict of Reasonable Doubts: Ouyi Zhixu’s Argumentative Strategies in the Collection of Refutations against Vicious Doctrines

Manuel Sassmann

14 Reasoning in Style: The Formation of “Logical Writing” in Late Qing China

Joachim Kurtz

Index

.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-42362-1

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004423626 DOI