From Philosophy to Philology : Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China / Benjamin A. Elman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elman, Benjamin A., author.

Series:

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 110.

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 110

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Learning and scholarship--China--History.

Learning and scholarship.

China--Intellectual life--1644-1912.

China.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Distribution:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 1984.

Other Title:

Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China

Place of Publication:

Boston : Harvard University Asia Center, 1984.

Summary:

From Philosophy to Philology is an indispensable work on the intellectual life of China's literati in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While there was not a scientific revolution in China, there was an intellectual one. The shock of the Manchu conquest and the collapse of the Ming dynasty in 1644 led to a rejection of the moral self-cultivation that dominated intellectual life under the Ming. China's scholars, particularly in the Yangzi River Basin, sought to restore China's greatness by recapturing the wisdom of the ancients from the Warring States period (403-221 B.C.) and the Former Han dynasty (202 B.C.-9 A.D.), much as Renaissance Europe rediscovered the Greeks and Romans. But in China scholars faced the daunting task of determining which of many editions of the Classics were the true originals and which were forged additions of later centuries. The ensuing search for authentic texts led to the founding of academies and libraries, the compiling of bibliographies, the rise of printing of editions of the Classics and Histories and commentaries on their components, the study of ancient inscriptions, and a two-hundred-year effort to discover and discard forged texts. In the process rigorous standards of scholarly training were adopted, and scholarship became a full-time profession distinct from gentry farmers or imperial officials.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

A Revolution in Discourse in Late Imperial China

K'ao-Cheng Scholarship and the Formation of a Shared Epistemological Perspective

The Professionalization of Lower Yangtze Academics

Scholarship, Libraries, and Book Production

Channels of Scholarly Communication in Kiangnan

Denouement

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

Notes

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68417-244-6

OCLC:

1001341987

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684172443 DOI